rivka | Exotic.

My dear friend

trinker is fond of pointing out that "exotic" is a relative term. It doesn't refer to a particular culture, or to cultures that vary from a particular reference culture. She thinks molded lime jello salads are exotic. She thinks Methodist church suppers are exotic.

All of this is a lead-in to saying that last night I had the unusual (for me) experience of being exoticized.

I was at a dinner meeting for a research study I'm coordinating. We've trained lay counselors to do a phone intervention with women who are facing a scary medical procedure. Our six peer counselors were at this dinner, as well as the surgeon and nurse practitioner who comprise the medical half of the study. As we ate, the conversation flowed freely until it came around to the subject of funerals.

One of the peer counselors mentioned that she'd been talking to a co-worker "who happens to be a white lady," and that she had just been amazed at some of the differences between white people's funerals and black people's funerals. She went on to explain, in exactly the tones in which I might discuss something I'd read about coming-of-age rituals in Samoa. "So, at a white funeral, they... and apparently, they believe that... which I thought was interesting, because of course we would never..." Her tone wasn't derogatory or critical. Nor did she seem the least bit self-conscious about taking this anthropological tone in front of actual white people. The other peer counselors were very interested in hearing about and shaking their heads at exotic white customs. The surgeon (also black) interjected several comments trying to make sense of the described behaviors, or justify the differences: "Well, probably they feel that... maybe that comes from...."

There were two white peer counselors there, and me. As we addressed these "white customs" we found ourselves trying in vain to make the point that there are a lot of cultural differences between white people, depending on region and religion and ancestry and class. Our responses ranged from an outraged "Hey! That's not a white custom, that's just creepy!" (food served at a wake, in the same room as the open casket), to confusion ("Huh. No, I wouldn't think it was an insult to slip money into a sympathy card for the widow, I've just never heard of it being done. I wouldn't even think to give money at a funeral.") to clarifying explanation ("Well, of course you usually go back to the house afterward for a meal, but sometimes instead the church ladies will put together a lunch and serve it at the church, or...").

It was a fascinating conversation. More liike my last trip to a foreign country than anything else. Previously, I've had an intellectual understanding of what

trinker meant about definitions of "exotic" - but I'd never felt exotic before, not in my own country. Not in a country where lots of people like me live and work and have funerals, and are readily available for observation. It was a strange experience.

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Cultural differences are facinating. Especially examining the differences in a way that makes you question your own practices (if any). You find yourself thinking about why you do certain things a certain way for the first time. It can be a lot of fun. Of course, some subjects can be more fun than others.

I think I feel most comfortable living in an area where I'm in the minority.

When I told you that I found various things which are bog standard to you are things that I find exotic, did it mostly just make you think of me/my experience as exotic, rather than making you feel exotic for that moment?

I don't think it made me feel any way at all, actually. It made me think "Oh yeah, because it's a matter of vantage point." I understood what you meant, and I didn't perceive either one of us as weird or foreign. I'm trying to go back and recapture what the rest of my reaction has typically been... definitely sympathy and annoyance on your behalf, because we've had that kind of conversation in the context of discussing people being idiots to you about the whole "exotic" thing. And when you've identified specific cultural artifacts as exotic, it's usually made me laugh - in the way that true but incongruous things make me laugh, not in the way that ridiculous statements make me laugh.

Why was this situation emotionally different? I think because you and I have had so many meta-level conversations about cultural differences and perceptions of outgroup members. (Hrm, I'm having trouble expressing this.) When you and I talk about differences in our experiences, I don't have sense that either one of us is working from an underlying model that says "my way is normal, and you people are weird." So when you talk about things I'm familiar with looking strange or exotic to you, I don't feel lumped in with the strangeness - I just feel as though I'm getting a glimpse of something familiar from a different perspective, and that's something I enjoy.

At this dinner, I did feel as though the unspoken basic model was "our way is normal, and you people are weird." The statements of this woman's co-worker were being uncritically accepted as a complete account of what "white people" do and think, and the theme of the comments was essentially "look how different they are!"

I guess to me "exotic" has strong connotations of "inexplicably strange." You ask if I thought of you as exotic, and I never have - even when perceiving significant differences - because I've always thought of the differences between us as explainable and non-alienating. I guess I figured that you see our differences in the same way, and so I didn't feel as strongly "other" when you (for example) gave me your fascinated/horrified Iowa travelogue.

Does that make more sense? Obviously I didn't explain myself well enough in my original post. I'm sorry if it caused you pain.

Ah ha! Figured out what the issue is, I think. It's not so much that you felt exotic, as exoticized. I think of exotic as a sort of neutral, "this thing is not common here" concept, now, but to exoticize feels to me as if it's a "thrusting out of the circle".

I think this is what underlies my annoyance at the "natto is *sooooooo* disgusting!" meme. It pretends that one's own culture doesn't have foodstuffs that might be viewed with equal revulsion, and attaches additional layers of meaning ("...and those people are so *weird* and not like us *normal* people for liking it!").

(And no, it didn't cause me pain, it caused me puzzlement.)

Ah ha! Figured out what the issue is, I think. It's not so much that you felt exotic, as exoticized.

Didn't I say "exoticized"? ...I did. It's right up there in my very first characterization of the event. But I guess I also said exotic.

I think of exotic as a sort of neutral, "this thing is not common here" concept, now, but to exoticize feels to me as if it's a "thrusting out of the circle".

Right. I've had plenty of "whoa, this ain't my culture" experiences. Feeling like an anthropological specimen is different. Although, come to think of it, I have felt that way before - just not in a while. And never before because of my race.

So you did say...I plead wacked out sleep cycle.

And...interesting. I find it hard to separate culture and "race" in most of the cases where I've felt exoticized. (Unless it's about California/Southern California vs. the rest of the world... ;)

And...interesting. I find it hard to separate culture and "race" in most of the cases where I've felt exoticized. (Unless it's about California/Southern California vs. the rest of the world... ;)

I was thinking, for example, of the chick who turned to me at a crowded psychology department happy hour and asked brightly, "So, do bisexuals need to date a man and a woman at the same time?"

I wonder why I don't classify the times when I get asked similar questions as "feeling exoticized" ?

Yes, to what both you and Trinker said.

Especially the bit about variety: people who exoticize something (or someone) tend to assume at *all* X are alike, when X is too large and varied a group for that to even be likely, let alone true. (My own mostly-white ancestral culture is such that I still find the idea of an open-casket funeral somewhere between strange and disturbing, for example. But I'd map that on religion, not skin color.)

My own mostly-white ancestral culture is such that I still find the idea of an open-casket funeral somewhere between strange and disturbing, for example. But I'd map that on religion, not skin color.

In my family tradition, also. (Despite the fact that the two sides of my family are completely different religions - my father's side is Jewish, and my mother's side is Presbyterian.)

My grandfather's funeral was held in the Harvard lecture hall in which he'd taught a well-beloved introductory course for many years. There was no funeral director or minister. Besides my father and my step-grandmother, there were eulogies given by the historian Howard Zinn and by a Cambridge storyteller named Brother Blue. A group of Buddhist monks did some chanting. Dave Van Ronk sang and played the guitar. Then everyone came back to the house for a buffet dinner and looked at a display of photos of the deceased. ("Look, here's George with Fidel Castro. Here's George with Bianca Jagger. Here's George with the King of Sweden. Here's George being dragged off to jail by the Cambridge police.")

It amuses me greatly to think of someone attending this event and coming away with the impression that it was the standard funeral pattern for elderly upper-middle-class Jewish guys.

Exotic.

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