Manhattan/Urbana/Sag Harbor/Belgrade
Two weeks. Two weeks until school is done. Two weeks until the trial of junior year is done. Two weeks until we fly over the white city turned gray by years and bombs, and land in Belgrade. Two weeks until I sit in the old, red, air-condition lacking Škoda my uncle drives and cross the bridge into the city, with the view of a sort of grandiose, socialist-era corner building. My escape into the city. Two weeks until Serbia, the only consistent place I’ve gone every summer, my own Sag Harbor.
Like Benji, summer has thus become a sort of periodic experience of cultural shifting, as he navigated the weird shift from being in a white community to a black community. He has to catch up with a bunch of people he sees only once a year, and while being a part of their community he constantly feels like he has to catch up on things. And he’s always in an odd place of in between both cultures.
That’s what it’s always like for me over the summer, going back to Serbia. My American-ess becomes both a thing my cousins think is very cool while also relentlessly making fun of my accent. But it's true, I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes with my constant smiling. And I’m always surprised and realize how friendly/fake/censored everyone in American constantly is compared to there. There are new things that are discussed, new things that are acceptable, and so I navigate this weird in between of being two nationalities, part of two cultures. But still there’s even a perception that because I don’t live in Serbia there’s certain things I don't know, even if I do. Although sometimes I just know the wrong things, since the Serbian culture at home that I’m immersed in is really more an odd artifact of Yugoslavian culture. Maybe Benji feels the same; maybe he’s not in black culture at large, but rather his parent’s own specific version of it. So he comes in, thinking he knows something, only to realize that it’s all old people who remember him and young people who ridicule him.
Traveling back to a place like that over the summer is always an odd experience also because it is periodic, and older relatives always expect you to be The Old You. And sometimes that’s annoying - like no, I’m not still into xyz - but on the other hand, it can be a relief. People know you, and you return to somewhere where people accept you as part of their group no matter what. Blood, race, nationality, it has a way of tying people together. You can spend the whole year surrounded by people different than you, adapting to their ways and molding yourself to them. But returning to your home, to a culture that still truly is your own, it feels like returning to a part of yourself, even if you stick out. Benji states that he is into things from both cultures. Perhaps it’s exactly that Out of Place Feeling between cultures defines us, the only thing we take in this messy coming-of-age process.
Like Benji, summer has thus become a sort of periodic experience of cultural shifting, as he navigated the weird shift from being in a white community to a black community. He has to catch up with a bunch of people he sees only once a year, and while being a part of their community he constantly feels like he has to catch up on things. And he’s always in an odd place of in between both cultures.
That’s what it’s always like for me over the summer, going back to Serbia. My American-ess becomes both a thing my cousins think is very cool while also relentlessly making fun of my accent. But it's true, I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes with my constant smiling. And I’m always surprised and realize how friendly/fake/censored everyone in American constantly is compared to there. There are new things that are discussed, new things that are acceptable, and so I navigate this weird in between of being two nationalities, part of two cultures. But still there’s even a perception that because I don’t live in Serbia there’s certain things I don't know, even if I do. Although sometimes I just know the wrong things, since the Serbian culture at home that I’m immersed in is really more an odd artifact of Yugoslavian culture. Maybe Benji feels the same; maybe he’s not in black culture at large, but rather his parent’s own specific version of it. So he comes in, thinking he knows something, only to realize that it’s all old people who remember him and young people who ridicule him.
Traveling back to a place like that over the summer is always an odd experience also because it is periodic, and older relatives always expect you to be The Old You. And sometimes that’s annoying - like no, I’m not still into xyz - but on the other hand, it can be a relief. People know you, and you return to somewhere where people accept you as part of their group no matter what. Blood, race, nationality, it has a way of tying people together. You can spend the whole year surrounded by people different than you, adapting to their ways and molding yourself to them. But returning to your home, to a culture that still truly is your own, it feels like returning to a part of yourself, even if you stick out. Benji states that he is into things from both cultures. Perhaps it’s exactly that Out of Place Feeling between cultures defines us, the only thing we take in this messy coming-of-age process.
This is a really interesting post! I have always spent the summer in Champaign-Urbana so I've never really experienced a home away from home during the summer. It seems that Benji never really feels like he fits in during the school year because he attends an all white prep school and people find it odd that his family is affluent (the man on the street asked him if he and Reggie were the sons of a diplomat). Yet, when he returns to Sag Harbor it seems that Benji still has to make an adjustment to fit in because even though he goes there every summer there are new things he needs to pick up on that have become part of the summer culture.
ReplyDeleteI really felt this, since my family used to go back to Korea every summer, though we do less and less nowadays. I also feel that I never really felt the rift between me and my relatives in Korea (other than language), or I felt it and just ignored it until recently, when I became very self-conscious of having to grapple with being American and Korean, which sometimes just feels like an oxymoron. It's interesting to see how age and awareness shapes your behaviors, how being aware of your different-ness will greatly affect how you put yourself out in either culture, which is what I feel Benji and the rest of his boys are doing.
ReplyDeleteYou point out a really interesting and relatable feeling for me as well. Whenever I go back to China, a foreign country to me thousands of miles from home, I somehow still feel at home with all my relatives who I feel like I've known my entire life. I feel the same conflicting awkwardness of being an outsider as an American, but the inclusion into the culture at the same time.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool post! I love how you compared this "home away from home" idea. I don't leave the country to visit family, but I always have a family reunion at Idaho in the summer for a week, and we're the only ones from the midwest there, as well as one of the only families that's not religious, so I can feel at home sometimes while also being an outsider. It's probably not as major of an adjustment as your or Benji's experiences, but I do find myself trying to go into "Idaho mode" when I'm there, where I'm more open to opposing views, more polite, and a bit less over-the-top with humor.
ReplyDeleteI can relate. When I was younger my mom, sister and I would go to hong kong for over two months every summer. It was fun and different, despite being super hot. I also find that people there are a lot less censored than americans, which is sometimes funny and sometimes hurtful. I feel like now with a different perspective and passing time hong kong kind of sucks in the same way that benji reminisces for his childhood perception of a happy family.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really insightful post! I like your ideas about the transitions between places and cultures. Similar to your trips to Serbia, I spend a couple weeks in Colorado each summer with my grandparents and extended family. Those trips always seemed so constant because Durango never changed as much as I had from year to year. But this last summer everything was different because of the wildfires. Huge chunks of my favorite place had been burned, and I realized that my happy place in Colorado wasn't really as permanent as I'd always thought.
ReplyDeleteI thought your post was interesting, especially since I spend most of my summers in Champaign Urbana so don't have the same perspective that you do. Instead, some family from California usually come over every summer to visit my family. When they visit, it's weird for me since they've technically known me since I was a baby but they only visit during the summer so it sometimes feels like they only know a certain facet of my personality.
ReplyDelete