Not So Foreign Countries

It’s quarter to 8pm in Singapore.

The very last tints of twilight blue are subsiding into darkness on the western horizon, which just happens to be to the left of my third story window. Directly north a large thunderhead is putting on a silent light show. Brief electric illuminations demark the borders of the wall cloud before it vanishes against the night sky again. I can see one star almost overhead. It seems as if the storm is coming closer, but it’s hard to tell. We’ve had one cloudburst already today, but it only increased the humidity of an already uncomfortably warm afternoon. Rain tonight might actually cool things down.

Traffic on the main road outside has not yet slowed, but traffic is always bad. A classmate told me today that his friend once spent $200 on gas in one day of driving because all of the driving is city driving in stop and go traffic. There are only five kinds of vehicles on the road: taxis, Japanese utility trucks, luxury cars, motorcycles and public buses. The quiet cars are out right now; it seems that all the muffler less vehicles wait until midnight to take to the streets.

Tonight, this is Singapore. It is not how I pictured it when I prepared to cross the Pacific but, then again, foreign countries never are. A big reason for this is that one of the foundational definitions we have for countries other than our own is “foreign”. The definition of foreign is “alien in nature, strange, unfamiliar”. But once you set foot in a place that has previously to you been only a “foreign” country, it is, in some sense, no longer foreign. Now it is something you have seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched. It is no longer “that place over there”, it is rather, the place right here, and that is not what you expected.

This is not to say that it is no longer alien in nature, strange and unfamiliar. There will always be things and moments that catch you off guard, no matter how long you stay. You still feel like a stranger, like you don’t quite belong, and that some things here will never make sense. But the country is no longer separate from you. Regardless of how long or short your time there, it is now part of you and thus, no longer foundationally defined as “foreign”.

When I communicate with people back stateside, they always want to know “How’s Singapore? What’s it like?”. I’m finding more and more that the most instinctual answer for me to give is “normal”. The sun rose this morning, and since I have to do chores on campus at 6:40am, I was an eyewitness to the event. It was hot and humid today. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. I went to class. I made plans with people to see a movie tomorrow night. The sun went down. I sat in my window and watched lightning on the horizon, thinking somewhat nostalgically of similar summer storms back home in Minnesota. And I procrastinated from my homework by writing a blog piece. Normal. Today’s normal just happened to be in Singapore, the not so foreign country were I currently live.