Seeing the World Through American Eyes

By Keith M. Bell -- Tennessee Geographic Alliance Newsletter -- Fall 2002

I had just made the mistake I continually tell my students never to make. I made an assumption that was based purely on American thinking. I thought that life in another part of the world would somehow parallel our life experiences here in the States. I saw the world through American eyes and that’s a big mistake when trying to understand how people approach life in other parts of the world.

I was having a discussion with our Ukrainian exchange student, Marta Tyslyak. I asked what the future held for her when she returned home. She said she had been looking into universities around Ukraine but doubted that she could get in for a year or so. I asked if she would get a job in the meantime (making an American error in the process). She replied that there were no jobs for uneducated people in her country. She said unemployment is very high and one must have an education to get even the most mundane of jobs.

What a systematic misunderstanding I had had. I thought, like an American, that she would just get a job somewhere to make a little money before heading off to college. It’s nothing for our teens to get a summer or after-school job to pay for cars, dates, or college. How much for granted had I taken our way of life. I fell into that trap of assuming everything in the world works as it does here. How wrong I was, until I thought like a Ukrainian. It then made sense. Ukraine, like most of the former Soviet republics, is struggling in overcoming the economic shortcomings of its communist past. When the communists controlled the economic system there were plenty of jobs because the government could create them at its whimsy. Lots of countries that had centralized economies are finding out that it’s not that simple since globalization has kicked into high gear.

Marta told me that bribery was a common occurrence in her country and a way to get things done. She said that even some of the teachers were corrupt. She remarked that they would purposely give students bad grades, then request a parent-teacher conference where fitting grades could be purchased for the child. The parents, for the most part, would pay these "fees" to position their child for university appointment. I thought that was a dastardly way for teachers to perform their duties.

But then I recalled an October 3, 1998 article from Newsweek. The article stated that teachers in the southern Siberian town of Altai had not been paid in over seven months. The city government did not have the money to pay their salaries because the Russian economy had crashed. That’s when the city officials decided to pay the teachers in the only way that they could - by giving them a coffin and toilet paper in lieu of scarce rubles. Although the teachers held out for vodka (and its immense value on the black market), it’s no wonder they had to generate money through such immoral means as Marta described. It seems hard to comprehend this kind of corruption considering our American standard, but then our teachers don’t have to deal with not being paid for months.

I told Marta that our country has its own kind of corruption, but it’s not one that is so prevalent that everyone knows about it or accepts it. I’ve seen that kind of corruption during my travels to Mexico, China, and India. It’s not so bad for the Americans who travel there, but it is a truly burdensome weight for the locals who have to contend with corruption constantly. This is how it sometimes works in Latin America, South Africa, and many other places in the world, and our American mode of thinking must be revised for us to understand.

As I pondered deeply about the matter, other events concerning American’s misunderstanding of the world came to mind. While my wife and I traveled in China, we traveled by bus in the major cities where we saw first-hand the traffic jams of a developing country. It wasn’t anything like we had experienced before. Cars, bicycles, buses, and taxis all performed a hectic highway ballet that at best could be considered organized chaos. People turned against traffic, made their own driving lanes, and played endless games of chicken. However, they never drove excessive speeds while I was watching. I never witnessed ill tempers by drivers or pedestrians. Moreover, everyone seemed to get where they were going without delay.

However, the Americans that traveled with our tour group were astonished at the "blatant disregard for the law". My wife and I simply accepted that this was the way things were done in this part of the world. Besides, whose law was being broken anyway? The others dismissed these Chinese tendencies as backward and primitive. Another American miscalculation.

In another example, American disconnect was rampant just after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Everyone was asking how Arab/Muslims could do such a thing, but few knew anything about where the terrorists came from or what they espoused. In fact, it seemed that lots of people wanted to learn more about Islam because bookstores had a hard time keeping titles about the subject on the shelves. Maps of the Middle East were also in short supply because everyone wanted to learn about Islamic peoples and lands. I felt it was time we take advantage of a bad situation and teach. I invited a local imam (an Islamic holy man) to speak on our campus so that students and teachers alike could learn what made the Arab/Islamic world tick. But because of my invitation a firestorm of discussion ensued among the educators at our institution. "Should he be here?" "The timing’s not right." "Will the event be a safe one?" These were the questions and statements that floated about.

To my good fortune most people supported the event, and almost all came away with a positive image of Islam when it concluded. But others took time off from school so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the imam’s seemingly unsavory message (as if the problems of the world simply go away if one doesn’t acknowledge them). These people viewed the event not only with passive ignorance, but they were actively opposed to learning anything about other peoples’ ways of doing things. Knowledge is power and they refused it.

Like most Americans, I know that our country leads the world in most any category one wants to consider. However, I feel that we will do ourselves a great disservice if we do not consider the other 95 percent of people living on this planet. We may be the global leader in economic output, have the strongest military, and maintain the freest of democracies, but it will do us no good if we can’t connect with our international neighbors. How can we expect to lead the world into the 21st Century without knowing who we’re leading, where they’re located, and what direction they would like to go? In my time as a teacher I’ve learned to consider all these things before making assumptions about someone else’s world. Well, at least most of the time.