On an afternoon late last week…
“I’m here to get my son tested,” I told the man in the kiosk. He pecked at his keyboard.
“You have no appointment.” He said to his computer screen. His dark glasses did a poor job of hiding his disinterest. “Come back after you visit the doctor.”
“I’ve already talked to the doctor,” I said to the side of his face, “She sent me to you.” I could hear a movie playing from a small speaker inside the booth.
“Sister, I can’t do anything. You have to go back to the doctor.” As often happens to East Asian women in the Middle East, I was being dismissed. It’s all too common to be mistaken as my children’s nanny.
“I’m not going to do that. I have already booked my son’s test, and his temperature is 104.”
“Ma’am. There’s nothing I can do. Go back to the doctors. Then you try again.”
“The doctor’s the one who sent me here.” A former version of myself would have said okay and left, but I stood un-phased after ten years of this treatment. When one is East Asian in the Middle East, one has to be persistent.
He waved his hand dismissively, signaling he was tired of our exchange. I put the car in park.
“Sir. I’m not going to the hospital. I’m not going to drag my feverish son out of the car, wait in a room full of coughing people, just to have the doctor tell me to come back here to get tested. I’m already here.” There was a pregnant pause as he slowly turned his gaze in my direction for the first time during our conversation. Looking me up and down, I sensed he was calculating my resolve.
“Park over there and call this number. Wait 10 minutes and come back.”
Being An Asian American Expat Has Changed Me.
Every now and then, I come to a moment in my life when I need to exert force. Not because I am stubborn (I am) or because I can be self-righteous (I can) but because some moments brush up against that which makes me up at my core, and I must rise to the occasion. Not only was my son’s health being treated with cavalier disregard, but my humanity as an East Asian woman in the Middle East was also in question.
I wasn’t always the one who’d demand to be seen. Wallflower-dom was my Kingdom. Even as an Asian adoptee, I knew that was how I was expected to behave. But as I’ve wandered out into the world – from Vietnam to Seattle, Saudi Arabia to Australia – I’ve witnessed the impact of being unseen. To see value in others, as they learn how to do that for themselves, elevates all of humanity.
This is what core values do for a person. They’re not simply a compass helping to show us North. They remind us that we have a more significant role in life beyond our own well-being. We create that solid foundation so that we may move through the world with clarity and resolve, prepared to leave this place better than we found it.
Living as an expat for over a decade across over a dozen countries has taught me a great deal about geography, culture, food, and more. But more profound than any social studies lesson I’ve learned is the discovery that kindness is more powerful than any of us could possibly imagine. Like a pebble dropped into a pool of still water, the smallest act of kindness has a ripple effect that touches everything.
What It All Means.
I’m all over the map with this post. I touch on racism, core values, cultural stereotypes, and how all these aspects of my experience intersect as an expat, East Asian woman, and mom. Life can get complicated in my head, and my writing doesn’t always make those connections explicit, but if you take one thing from this post, I hope it’s not that I had to get a COVID test for my child or that Saudi men are all rude. The man in the kiosk was not a better or worse person than me. He was simply playing out a story he’d been taught. I just took it upon myself to edit it slightly.
We all have complicated stories that affect how we take in the world, but if we don’t challenge them, treat them with curiosity, and allow them to flex and adapt as we experience new things, we’re doomed to be suffocated by them.
I love being an expat. It has thrown into question every assumption and preconceived notion I’ve ever held, most of which I didn’t realize I had, and the more I experience, the more I recognize that we’re basically the same at our core. We all seek love, experience suffering, and desire to be seen. That is universal.
See the people around you – not for who you think they are, but for who they are at their core. People aren’t good or bad, smart or dumb, rich or poor. They are people. People like you and like me. Period.
Food For Thought is a bi-weekly newsletter that explores how we can make the most of our time by focusing on what matters most.
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