Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves
traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single
father who lost his wife Demi to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been
his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met
hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the
world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office
have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter
groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come
across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own
life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that
has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his
own mistakes in the past.
Episode #29. Jake, the fake local?!
When I first met this stuck-up looking guy named Jake
Park at the community social, I could tell right away that he was trying hard not
to look like a naïve person from another country. His speech was colored by his
way of thick foreign accents, but Jake kept saying that he felt more convenient
communicating in English rather than in his mother tongue. People in this neighborhood
were smiling at Jake, but in a somewhat scornful way. Jake was the only one who
did not realize that he was belittled by those folks that he thought he could
belong to in any time soon. To this tight knit community full of Caucasians, Jake’s
big talk about how he had been successful as an immigrant was never viewed as good
steeze, but rather jibber-jabber and gallimaufry of his own proud
episodes full of bravado.
Jake came to the States as a graduate student and the boundary
of academics had always made him feel quite safe and valuable. Shiny grades and
active participations in class seemed to have promised him a rosy, peachy, and
glorious future after the life on campus. Even before he could smell the pizzazz
of a smart Asian student’s rewarding life fizzling out, Jake was hitting
against the wall of harsh reality. He had been in between jobs for almost two
years, doing every possible part-time job to make ends meet as a non-US citizen
without a green card. Each time he experienced maltreatment, being an alien in
someone else’s land, Jake thought it was because he was a rookie just off the
campus. It took him five to six years to obtain the permanent citizenship, and
throughout the years, he’d had moments when he was regarded off-kilter by
locals. Gradually, Jake came to know that he had never been fully welcomed in
this society. In order to survive and be accepted by people as their friend in
this nation, Jake must have decided to take more pride in himself and look
confident on the outside. At some point, Jake started to see this country not
as the one composed of people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds, but
rather a homogeneous nation, peculiarly dominated by Caucasians. I could not say
to myself that Jake was totally wrong or delusional. It was sad though to see
him changing the way he acts, which looked as if he deserted his own origin or
culture to become a true part of this society. Jake was such a hard-working guy,
who always walked the line and desired to be embraced by others here,
but being a modest soul or a braggart didn’t make any difference to change
people’s thoughts. He was just feeling like a secondary citizen.
As a psychiatrist, I have been working on the mysteries
of human mind and the paths to reach their heart. Jake’s feelings of being
excluded in our community should not represent or generalize American society,
but had at least forced me to see my own nation from objective angles. I would
like to nudge Jake and say “Just be yourself, dude. You are making another
great, unique part of American society.”
Expressions
1. steeze: unique
style
2. gallimaufry:
hodge
podge/ confused medley/ jumble
3. bravado:
a
pretentious, swaggering display of courage.
4. pizzazz:
energy/
vitality/ vigor
5. to
fizzle out: to fail ignominiously after a good start
6. off-kilter:
unusual/
eccentric/ unconventional
7.
to walk the line: to
behave; to abide by the the law and/or to abide by moral standards
