Living in America for three years made me look back at my native country Russia differently and made me realize all the narratives that shaped the society including me. Until I came to America and experienced a different culture and met different people it never occurred to me that something was wrong in the society that I lived. Now that I look back I realize that there was something wrong with people pushing each other at the bus stop in order to catch a bus in the early morning so that they won’t be late for work where you are afraid of your boss who can fire you for any little mistake and substitute “your little self” with hundreds of others recently graduated from college and desperately looking for a job. I realize that there was something wrong when you had to bribe a professor in order to pass an exam, to bribe a police officer who claims you were driving faster than a speed limit when in fact you weren’t. I realize that there was something wrong with the society where a teacher gets minimum wages and has to work at a grocery store in the evenings to make the ends meet, where a student who just graduated from the college can’t find a job unless he has “connections”. There is something wrong with the society where you are guilty until proven innocent, where "my" is substituted with "ours"...
I realize that the society you live in shapes your opinion about the world and makes you think in a certain way. It makes you play the games it chooses and if you refuse, you are out. Out of the tribe, out of the life. You don’t necessarily have to believe in the stories that the society offers, but you have to follow them, you have to accept the rules.
Only now I realize that the society and the narratives it offered in Russia made me distrust in the kindness of the stranger who lets you go first in a long waiting line, distrust in the kindness of the passing car whose driver offers you a ride. I never thought of that when I lived there, I think I just accepted reality as it was and thought that that’s the way it should be. I never knew a different way, a different standard of living, a different attitude of people. Only when you are removed from the place where you live you can look at the society you used to belong from a different angle and see all the drawbacks of it. And that’s what happened to me.
2 comments on The narratives of life.
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Very interesting angle on "insider/outsider" status. Well described.
Great post! I never could quite understand all the pushing and shoving to get onto buses or into a Metro wagon. While I certainly don't miss the Militsia, or GAI, I do think there are advantages to coming from such an environment.
Russians may be more aggresive, but American's can be very naive. I remember how much admiration I had for the Russian spirit when after there was a bombing in the metro in Moscow the next day everyone was still crowding into the station to get to work and school. The people wouldnt let fear stop them from doing what they had to do. Russians have been through alot, and are very strong. I think that with time things there will improve.
Either way its a very nice thing that you have found happiness here in Northern California.