Dwelling in the Beingness of Inter-being 第二部分

Satan Ven

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2008-04-08 11:25 | 只看楼主

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The Beingness of Inter-being

Waking up from the American Dream: Life was Boring
Understanding American culture through the mass media in China differs from experiencing the real culture in the United States. The former excites you; the latter bores you.

Hillary, a graduate international student from China, shared her experience of the early days in the United States. “I was disappointed actually. … Life there was very boring. I feel isolated. The classes were just okay. You know, cultural shock… when I was in China, I accepted that the US should be pretty interesting and challenging. But when I went to [the United States], life was not that interesting, and was not that challenging. Actually, life was too quiet.”
I echo with that. The United States of America was supposed to be a place of endless opportunities and a place to fulfill my childhood ambitions. Yet, what I experienced was not the same as what I had expected. The reality seemed too surreal to be real. Yet, emotions do not lie. I was lost in the disillusion of the so-called American dream. I forgot who I am in the waking up of my American dream.
The mundaneness of everyday life further extinguished my burning desire of becoming a young scholar. Life lost its attraction to me and I lost my interest in life. Floating from one place to another, everyday felt long and every moment meant a tackling of a list of tasks at survival levels. I mean survival, not intellectual. I felt stupid many times. Listen to the voices of a few international students.

“Excuse me; I am sorry; I don’t know; I apologize,” they had become the most frequently used phrases in my daily vocabulary.

“Excuse me, could you please tell me where the library is? I am lost, for the one hundredth time.”

“Excuse me, I have never done this before. Could you show it to me again?”

“I am sorry. I did not get you. Could you slow down and repeat what you were saying?”

“I am sorry. Fork on the left and knife on the right. No more mistakes this time.”

“I am sorry. I have to always call my parents [in China] to ask for recipe. I never cooked at home [in China]. I ate lots of junk foods and gained lots of weight [since I came to the US].”
“I am sorry and excuse me,” such phrases, they bore you and lower your self-esteem. Life has become so caught up with tasks. Heidegger comments on what happens when life become merely driven by tasks. “n our everyday mood we are absorbed in the world, caught up in our tasks; we don’t reflect on who we are, we are ‘thrown’ (Geworfen). We are also peculiarly constructed so that we actually run away from facing up to aspects of our existence” (cited in Moran, 2000). Indeed, the mundaneness of life took away my excitement for life. Life lost its significance in my denial and running away. I had no time to reflect on life and state of beingness. Heidegger calls “this structural feature of running away ‘falling,’” which “means getting caught up in the public self, so that we no longer have proper access to our authentic sense of our lives” (p. 243). The authenticity is what international students are longing for. Yet, the superficiality and busyness ingrained in modern life further pushes away the inherent authenticity of human life.
Standing Out and Outstanding: Vanishing in the Collective Gaze
Standing out and outstanding, are the related? Linguistically, maybe yes; existentially, they are not. International students experience a higher level of self-consciousness. We are more concerned about the image that we project into other people’s eyes. As Hillary revealed, “I am very very self-conscious, and always try to do things exactly and correctly. I try to avoid mistakes as much as I can, try to have good relationships with my advisors and professors.”

Similarly, Elaine expressed that she feels “a kind of closeness” with Chinese people even though she does not know much about the people. This is because she could engage in deeper conversations as her “defense level has been lowered when [she] talk[s] to a Chinese person.” In contrast, when talking with American people, Elaine shared, “sometimes I don’t know how to start a conversation. And I was worried about if what I say would offend that person, or if what I am talking about is interesting enough to this person, or I would not be confident in my English.”
Our race, our face, our accent, and everything that set us apart from the mainstream culture stand us out. They make us conscious about ourselves, more than necessary. Standing out in this case, because of your race, is not equal to outstanding. In fact, it is the opposite, many times.
Eye contact is a common cultural practice in the United States. It communicates respect. However, maintaining eye-contact is not a cultural norm in China. Sometimes, it can be rude, especially, when you are talking with people older than you or in higher positions. Also, Chinese classroom does not encourage speaking up in class. Students are more passive compared to the students in the United States. Students in China rarely ask questions in class unless they are thought-provoking. Otherwise, the questions are considered challenging the authority of the teacher. Yet, in the Chinese context, this rather passive behavior communicates modesty and respect.
Unfortunately, these two cultural practices are socially inappropriate in American classrooms. The U.S. participative classroom culture and the social norm of maintaining eye-contact can make international students become extremely uncomfortable. The collective gaze in the classroom is forceful enough to penetrate and evaporate us.
Elaine shared her uncomfortable feelings with American classroom culture. “Class participation and class discussion, I was not very comfortable with it. I can still remember that I rarely spoke in class. … I was almost silent in class. I feel so bad. … One of my professors even talked to me after class. ‘Elaine, if you don’t speak, I will call you in class.’ And till now, I don’t think I overcome the situation at all.”

Thus, for international students, standing out as a participative student, instead of as our race, is challenging. I still remembered the first time that I lectured in front of American students. It was the first time that I taught, public speaking, an area that I knew little about. While being looked at by 24 pairs of lovely eyes, I was frozen at the time. I vanished along with being looked at. My mind went blank. My eyes were stuck in the frozen state of my body. Time stopped. I could hear nothing but the shaking of my voice and the beating of my heart, fast and terrifying. My carefully prepared ten-page teaching memo was of little help. Instead, a list of worries jumped into my mind: my accent, my little knowledge about American culture, my inability to make jokes, my awkward body gesture, my inability to maintain eye contact, and so on and so forth. At the moment, by my students. I did not remember how I managed the first class. A disaster, perhaps. Yet, till this day, I remembered well of students’ collective gaze. It penetrated me as a transparent person.
From Displacement to Disappearance: Invisibility of the Visible Being

Studying abroad in the United States was not so much a geographic transformation as an identity transformation. We exposed ourselves to the unknown; and the unknown revealed the mysterious parts inside us. The interplay between the known and the unknown transformed who we are, our identities.
The word identity can be traced back to 1570 and meant “sameness,” or “the same” (Online Etymology Dictionary). Identity, thus, indicates an aptitude to identify things in the external environment that resonates with the internal being. In other words, the external world has to offer things that are the manifestations of internal souls.
Unfortunately, for international students, nothing out there in the external environment could evoke the sameness of the Chinese side embodied in us, a warm feeling of homecoming. Further, the busyness of everyday life hardly allows for any opportunity to engage in soulful conversations that might activate the sameness inherent in humanity. The lack of sameness between the external being and the internal being displaces us. Yet, this sense of identity might be the very resonating force that transcends race, class, and gender and connect human beings at a soulful level.
Moreover, for international students, the displacement that we experience encompasses more. It communicates disappearance. Whereas displacement still suggests a place to be displaced, disappearance means invisible, yet with solid physical bodies. Displacement leads to disappearance, and disappearance reinforces displacement. This perpetuating circle consumes our identity. With nowhere to identify and with no experience to be identical, our identities disappear in the flow of invisibility. Many times our very effort to eliminate the uncomfortable feeling of displacement furthers our disappearance. We feel isolated in the invisibility of the visible being. Yet, how could visibility be invisible?
The Veil of Politeness: Dying for Authenticity
People in the United States are polite to each other. “How are you?” “Fine. How about you?” “Great!” “Sorry, I invaded your space.” In fact, people are too polite. It feels unreal. The very response of “great” in itself indicates a tone of finality. “Please leave me alone. I am running late. I am in a rush. I am too busy to care about your life.”
Sometimes, I wonder what is hidden behind this veil of politeness. Identity, indifference, life crises, or what? Encountering this type politeness creates a paradoxical feeling. On the one hand, the politeness feels so real because we hear the words and we see the smile; on the other hand, it feels so superficial because the being that interconnects the greeter and the greetee is missing.
Hillary shared her feeling of loneliness as a result of this politeness in the United States, “People are polite to each other. But I don’t feel people are close to each other enough. You always feel that you could not find a person to talk to deeply. … I don’t like the way people talk to each other. … People just say hi. I mean they did not care very much about you actually.”
The veil of politeness, is it because people are too busy to engage in real conversations? Or, is it because people are too messed up in their own lives to unknot the web of life? The veil of politeness, it is unreal in the presence of realness. Yet, how could real be unreal?
Heidegger offers insights on the authenticity and inauthenticity of everyday life. He believes that one person “relates to one’s existence either authentically or inauthentically, or either in some kind of undifferentiated state between the two (BT 12, 78; 53). Authentic moments are those in which we are most at home with ourselves, at one with ourselves” (cited in Moran, 2000, p. 240). Authentic moments make us feel at home with ourselves by grounding us in the beingness of our humanity.
However, in our fast-paced everyday life, people do not live their lives by dwelling in authentic moments through genuine care and love. The life that we are a part of, unfortunately, is superficial. The superficiality makes international students feel foreign, lonely, and distanced. Progressively, it deprives the authentic self, making it dying for intimate human relationships, and longing for a place resemble to home. Whereas material possessions may make human beings look prosperous from the outside, our internal well-being is barren. Heidegger explains well of the superficiality of human beings’ everyday life. As cited in Moran (2000),
Heidegger thinks we live in an inauthentic way most of the time. … Being authentic is a kind of potential-to-be-whole: humans have the urge to get their lives together, to collect themselves, to gather themselves into wholeness. When one tries to gather one’s life together, one wants to make it whole, to unify it. (p. 240)
Yet, for most people in this modern world, life has become a to-do list, fragmented, mediated, and unreal.
That most people live our life in an inauthentic way might be what causes the rise of psychological or behavioral problems. The inauthentic moments in life are the spur for loneliness, homesickness, and homelessness. The mass media’s excessive portrayal of violence further desensitizes people and dehumanizes the environment that we live in. Yet, if human beings have an authentic nature embodied in us, it is meant to unfold in an authentic way and fulfill its authenticity by engaging in genuine conversations in everyday life. Unfortunately, the shallowness ingrained in modern life eradicates the richness of human soul while creating and furthering the distance between people, and between foreigners and natives. The resulting distance strengthens the inauthenticity of everyday life. International students feel foreign in this lonely planet.
An insincere asking of “How are you?” followed by a prompt reply of “Great!” illustrates the inauthenticity in people’s everyday life. What is missing is genuine care that a sincere asking of “how are you?” should be grounded in. Care might be the very magnet that attracts people across the globe. In Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, he comments that, “the aim of this analysis is to show up Dasein as having the fundamental structure of Being-in-the-world, being with things and with others in such a way that its whole existence is structured by care (Sorge). … [Thus,] the existential meaning of Dasein is care” (cited in Moran, 2000, p. 238). Neither language nor culture, genuine care is what connects people and makes people feel at home. Care cultivates love and love spurs care.
Elaine commented on her friendship cultivation with American people. “I enjoyed more of chatting with a few people than with a large group because in smaller groups, sometimes, they will be interested in knowing what your life is.” She further shared, engaging in real conversations rejoiced her with her innermost being. These conversations have become an effective outlet for her to remove loneliness and homesickness. As she said, “I think people like talking. If you can find some way to just express yourself, and share experiences and let others know your experience and your life. I think it is just a matter of having an outlet to just speak up no matter what the consequences would be. You just enjoy that moment.” Indeed, in real conversations, we are more grounded in here-and-now, the presence and joy of conversing with another person, rather than worrying about the consequences of the conversation. We dwell in the presence and this dwelling unites individual beings into a real Being, which rejoices people into the beingness of being in authentic moments. Real conversations manifest care and compassion, which in turn spur more of them. Through genuine care, hearts become open and people become caring and loving. Unconditional love shines upon human soul and warms lonely hearts.
In contrast, a genuine asking of “How are you?” manifests care and spawns care in return. It calls forth the being of a person into the surface of human presence (Cameron, 2002). Conversely, an insincere ask fails to engage the being residing in the person, and thus fails to bring the beingness forward “to cope, to become, and to fulfill his or her unique way of being in the world” (p. 24). Genuine greetings expose the authentic self and bring forward the humanity embodied in the authenticity. With the same words and the same smile, a genuine asking of “how are you?” makes you feel understood. It intertwines a fragmented human soul into a whole, while having the person experience the wholeness of the fragmented soul. The integration reveals the authenticity hidden behinds the veil of politeness.
A genuine asking also creates a shared lived space that eliminates “the tension of being somewhere between the manifest effects of an insincere ‘How are you?’ and the deep interior calling forth of a genuine ‘How are you?’” (Cameron, 2002, p. 24). The sincerity transcends the superficial being into an authentic being co-created by the shared space.
Abram (1996) pointed out the bodily nature of language. According to him,
We thus learn our native language not mentally but bodily. We appropriate new words and phrases first through their expressive tonality and texture, through the way they feel in the mouth or roll off the tongue, and it is this direct, felt significant—the taste of a word or phrase, the way it influences or modulates the body—that provides the fertile, polyvalent source for all the more refined and rarefied meanings which that term may to have for us. (p. 75)
“How are you?—Great!” are meaningless words. They are symbols that create a tantalizing feeling knowing that the main dish would never come. If language has a bodily dimension and if human beings have to feel the vibrations of a spoken word to truly understand its meaning, then the superficial vibrations of these words make that superficiality feels so real. It hides further the authentic human nature, and continues turning away genuine conversations between people.
Life is a lived experience. The presentness of life is an intimate bodily act between body and the non-body. Through this bodily engagement in life, we understand the meaning of life. Caring and loving are sensuous vibrations that a genuine asking of “how-are-you?” intends to evoke. As Abram (1996) states, “Only if words are felt, bodily presences, like echoes or waterfalls, can we understand the power of spoken language to influence, alter, and transform the perceptual world” (p. 89). Asking without expecting an answer and answering without furthering an inquiry, words can also destroy the sensation of spoken language. More than that, they create distance between people even when they are conversing face-to-face.
Heidegger differentiates Being from beings, “trying to think both the disclosing and the concealing nature of Being, to think this fundamental relation between the hidden and the manifest” (pp. 199-200). This “revealing/concealing nature of Being” reveals the tension between superficiality and authenticity. The Being of self should be grounded in authenticity rather than superficiality. Yet, many of the conversations that people engage in everyday life are floating at a superficial level. “How are you?” “Great. How about you?” “Not bad.” These are questions that touch little upon the authentic self. The shallowness of everyday talk pulls people further away from the authenticity that human beings should dwell on. The modernity in everyday life fastens the flow of time; yet, it deteriorates the humanity of human being. The presence of being and the absence of being, life seems to become a boat floating on a river, rootless and aimless. People rushing in conversations are not communicators manifesting genuine love and care.

Remembering Home Through Forgetting Home: Revelation Through Intimate Gestures

My first Mother’s Day in the United States was a revelation to me. On that day, I received a real hug, with genuine care and love, from my American friend Joyce, a 50-year-old lady. This intimate bodily act of hugging and being hugged exploded me and revealed my exhaustion of adapting to American culture. I cried heavily on that day. Yet, I felt great because I felt real, overflowing with an authentic feeling that I could remotely sense its existence. Hug-giver and hug-receiver, I was amazed by the bonding power of a simple hug. “The tangible touch pulls us out of ourselves” (Cameron, 2002). The genuine hug between Joyce and me pulled out the real humanity inside us and glued us together as authentic human beings. I learned on that day, I could create a fake smile and I could lie to myself, but I could never lie to my emotions. My tears betrayed the image of a strong and independent lady that I had been maintaining. Fake or real, I felt vulnerable in the United States.
From skin to skin, I felt the love without even speaking a single word. The hug and the touch, they made me feel understood. I realized what a superficial life I had been living. My authentic self was dying for intimacy. “How are you?” “Great. How about you?” “ Good.” That was most of the conversations that I engaged in. Or, maybe I should not even call them conversations but habitual acts of words exchange.
Li (2002) points out the vulnerable aspects of human nature and how engaging in good conversations through sharing personal stories can create a shared space for conversationalists and make the conversation becomes more meaningful. As Li says, “[W]hen I lose myself in the conversation then I am open to the other and I discover how vulnerable we all are in the lifeworld” (p. 94). Human beings are all vulnerable in certain aspects in life. Although I did not engage in a real conversation with Joyce, the nonverbal communication – a hug itself—was powerful and overwhelming enough to bring forward the vulnerable aspects within me that I was not aware of or that I had been subconsciously suppressing.
Heidegger also discusses the vulnerable aspect of human nature. He conceives of vulnerability as “a structural possibility of our existence which brings us face to face with the problematic nature of our lives and the meaning we attach to living” (cited in Moran, 2000, p. 241). Indeed, because everyday life tries so hard to hide the anxious or vulnerable aspects of human nature and the problematic aspects of human life, human beings are suffering from anxieties as a result of our very effort to be anxiety-free, to appear to be perfect, independent, strong, and layers of other masks on top of the vulnerable aspect of human nature.
Moreover, this intimate bodily experience of being hugged by Joyce reminded me of mom along with the precious memories of motherly love. At the time, the hug melted the boundary between time and space. I lost track of where I was and who I was. Joyce, mom, Beijing, Syracuse, I transcended all of them while achieving a higher level of space, a shared space created by me and a genuine hug given by Joyce. I felt connected and whole.
When van Manen (1990) discusses lived body, he comments that, “In our physical or bodily presence we both reveal something about ourselves and we always conceal something at the same time—not necessarily consciously or deliberately, but rather in spite of ourselves” (p. 103).
Being hugged by Joyce on a Mother’s Day was a transcendental bodily experience for me. It traversed me to a deeply-rooted, as well as an emotionally- and intimately-bodied experience, which I was not aware of its significance. The hug brought that deep emotion between mom and me forward to my consciousness. My hunger for motherly touches and intimate bodily actions was finally satisfied with some genuine love and care. This hug-receiving was a waking-up moment for me to embark on a journey of home-searching.
Until this very moment of exploding did I become conscious of how tired I was in the process of adapting to American culture. Joyce’s hug and touch brought back my beautiful memories of being hugged by mom. But, there I was with a completely different person and in a completely foreign place: I was being hugged by a person with whom I could not identify with at an intimate level. The presence of this experience along with the personal memory of being hugged by my biological mom made me feel twisted. My reentrance into the memory contradicted the present interpersonal relationship with Joyce, a new friend of mine met in a foreign place. I missed home and mom.
Li (2002) writes about the power of a good conversation in that it turns individual worlds into one world. As Li contends, “By sharing something (a certain thought, a landscape, a poem, or a story) we enter the shared world and we become this world. And, conversely, a good conversation not only create a shared world, but is also created by this shared world” (p. 93). My experience of receiving a bodily act as simple as a hug revealed that intimate gestures are as powerful as good conversations. The intimate bodily acts between Joyce and me created a shared space that brought out my authenticity as a human being, and this authenticity connects us as real humans, transcending race, ethnicity, and class.

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