Normal at 1:35 AM

For some time I've wanted to write this blog post.

When I was on my mission for the lds church in Australia, I came across a lot of things I had never seen before. Ridiculously large spiders, really large or colorful birds, wallabies, Koalas. It was the same with people. I met people from all over the world that I had never had any contact with before. It was really an enlightening experience in a lot of different ways. I remember specifically walking with my missionary companion one day and I saw an ibis bird for the first time. It looked a lot like the bird in the attached picture except it didn't have any color on the back of his head and the body was whiter than this one. Also the beak curved more sharply. Anyways, I saw this bird and it just blew me away.

I thought to myself, 'Wow, that bird is totally crazy looking."

I watched for a few minutes and was disappointed to see him doing the same things any other bird would do. I then said to my missionary companion, "Elder -- look at that bird. It's totally crazy and it has no idea that it's totally crazy. It's just walking around like it's a normal bird!"

At which point he said, "I've always wanted to grab one of those birds by the beak and shake it around." (Which he never actually did, so don't think he was a bad person...)

It was boring and fascinating all at the same time. After that point on my mission I looked at all the crazy animals in a different way. Ya, they were crazy, but for Australia, they were totally normal.

Fast Forward six years.

Sam is no longer in Australia (I'm Sam), he's finished his masters degree and moved to the Hunan Province in China. He walks down the street and people shout "HELLO" to him in broken English. Wherever he goes out he can hear people talking about him in Chinese and lots of people shamelessly stare at him. When he travels outside of his town people ask him if they can take pictures with him, and I mean, like several pictures within a single day for days in a row anytime he's on vacation. In random cities he visits people ask him to help judge competitions, and people try to get him to hold their children.

After about 4 months of living in China it dawned on me. I was the ibis. Those same words that had sounded in my head at seeing such an exotic bird now echoed in the minds of all the Chinese people I came in contact with. I could almost hear it. 'Look at that foreigner. He's walking around just like a normal person. It's like he doesn't even know he's totally crazy different!!!!'

All I have to do is say 'Ni Hao' to people and some of them bust up laughing. I'm not sure whether this realization was a blessing or a curse. I love China. I have to say this first. This place has become dear to me. I plan on coming back and I hope to become much more proficient in the language. A lot of people have done really nice things for me here and there are days where I feel like I have a family in this country... But, I'm am going to be SOOO HAPPY to go back to America and not have people shamelessly staring at me or talking about me where ever I go. Sometimes it's like being famous for something you did that was REALLY really bad.

So, this brings us to Lessons Learned. (I always like stories with morals)
1. Be nice to the ibis. He really is just a normal bird, or at least he thinks so. There's no good reason to give him a hard time about it.

2. Any attention is not necessarily good attention. There are some people who dream about being famous. I think they're crazy. I've signed enough books and been in enough pictures at this point to know. I would rather spend 15 minutes with someone who cares about me and understands me than 10 or even 1000 days with people flashing their cameras and staring at me slack jawed. Those 15 minutes would do more for me than any other type of attention would. I think the distinction between types of attention is a problem with a lot of people in America, especially younger women and teenage girls. Some of them want attention so bad that they're willing to settle for the wrong kind of attention. I personally think it's better not to do this.

3. Be nice to people who may bet the Ibis. This isn't a huge problem in America. If we see someone who is different, we usually wait till afterward to talk about it, or we at least pretend like we're not talking about it. However, the last thing we want to do is alienate people. Life is hard enough as it is without feeling like an outcast.

4.  This story hits at the core of a problem I've seen everywhere. It's really easy to make assumptions about people based on how we were raised or our culture. One time I was on a sleeper train and I was sitting on the top bunk with my feet out. I heard someone say something in Chinese and by the time I knew something was wrong, some one was walking by and giving me the bird. It turns out that showing Chinese people the bottom of your feet is really disrespectful. I had no idea, but the guy thought I was intentionally trying to offend him. It wasn't until I chased him down afterwards that he realized I didn't know squat about his culture and he explained it to me. At that point he was no longer offended because he knew it wasn't intentional at all. It's just so easy to judge people based off of our own standards that don't account for cultural differences.
Even within American culture we do this, but it's more like, "Well in my family we communicate like this, and this is the right way." One of the things I've been working on is not reacting instantly when someone does something offensive, because I often find out, especially in China, that they didn't mean anything by it at all. And for their culture, it's no big deal. I'm not saying it's ok to treat people poorly, I am saying that we have a much greater ability to give someone the benefit of the doubt than we realize. I also think it's ok to ask why people do or did things. Not accusatory, but for the sake of understanding. If they did it to be rude, you'll know pretty quickly, but if there is a cultural reason behind it, I think there is a lot to be learned, and understanding will come. Ultimately I think we need to make sure we communicate our expectations clearly and that we need to focus more on what people mean and intend then what they actually do. It's been said often that 'Anyone who takes offense when none is intended is a fool.' To which I've qualified a lot in my life.

5. This point is totally unrelated. I just wanted to rejoice in the fact that I can switch from 1st to 3rd to 1st person in a single blog entry and violate all other sorts of literary rules at will since it's my blog.