Individual Experience of Working at a Prestigious Bank - Essay Example

INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE As an Asian girl, coming to United Kingdom for the first time, it had been an experience of mixed emotions for me. Working at a prestigious bank had been highly gratifying and the company of two white British, two Asian girls and another black girl, all almost of the same age, had not been discouraging either. There was so much to see and so much to learn. Coming from a conventional background, I had been hesitant in embracing the new experience for a while; but the company of the other five encouraged me tremendously when I needed it. Individual experiences in a new land lends colour to the process of adjusting with a new culture. I had a partial English education, and could converse in English without difficulty. Although she had a thick African accent and a way of speaking, which is, at best called “cart before the horse,” the unabashed African made herself clearly understood. Other two Asians, coming from different parts of Asia, found it an uphill task to hold an ordinary conversation. But I could see that they were learning fast. People took some time to understand our accented and rather hurried way of speaking and this was, at times, a huge embarrassment. In frustration sometimes, we blamed it on the racism prevalent in UK, although we knew that we were being unfair. African had an aggressive ‘back home’ accent and was unexpectedly comfortable with it. We had initial problems to understand the original British English, and had always been nervous if someone spoke to us directly. Slowly we started understanding the British way of speaking and that problem was partially left behind. It is fantastic that we know a common language, even though at varying degrees of fluency. “For many theorists within mainstream linguistics, the term discourse signifies a turning away from sentences as exemplars of usage in the abstract, that is examples of the way that language is structured as a system, to a concern with language in use.” Brown and Yule (1983, taken from Mills, 1997, p. 9). DISCOURSE Discourse across race and regions has many colours and shades. Our discourse that has remained formal even to this day with the British also shows the delicate nature of our relationship. It took only a few days for the rest of us to be informal. With formal conversation, very often one hits a brick wall. “What I have said is not ‘what I think’ but often what I wonder whether it couldn’t be thought,” said Faucault (1979d. 58) (Taken from Mills, 1997, p. 14). Language and discourse are crucial in cross-cultural interactions and mostly becomes the sole reason of hindrance in furthering a friendship. GENDER When it comes to gender, it is difficult to feel much of racism in that arena. Gender is the social aspect of the differentiation of the sexes and here only two biological differences exist without the influence of race and region. It could be slightly complex, but the gender reigns supreme here, and a genuine attempt has been made by Sociologists to understand it in its own background. “Emphasis has shifted towards understanding the diversity of the social practices which constitute gender in different nations, classes and generations,” Mills (p. 40). SEXISM On the other hand sexism is considered to be closely linked with patriarchy, slightly an ancient concept that smells with ideas like men are superior to women and still remains “…a set of beliefs, practices and institutional structures which reinforces, and is reinforced by, patriarchy,” Mills (p. 41). From that point of view, Asian and African societies are still struggling to come out of this age-old concept, whereas Western societies have wriggled out of it successfully, though they had to fight for their suffrage rights and we received them automatically, thanks to our enlightened heavenly leaders! Reverting back to our own story, all of us are heterosexuals and the two British girls had their boyfriends visiting often. Their open attitude towards sex never failed to embarrass the rest of us, the hesitating products of conventional societies. African had many male friends and was happy in their company. Asians were more secretive about their friends and the highly traditional mindset is still weighing heavily on us. Asian societies are only now making an effort to wriggle out of these conventions and traditions, mainly after the globalisation and media exposure. Still, youngsters were not very forthcoming about their relationships and avoided taking revolutionary steps about sex. Religions had placed stringent rules over sex. Coming out of these shackles had not been very easy and we were no exception. “The sexual revolution was fought over freedoms to speak about sex, to create and to act our sexual fantasies, and to normalize sexualities which had up to that time been classified as deviant or pathological,” says Middleton, (1998, p.88). This form of revolution is still unattainable to us, even though we are in UK at present, upbringing had been too strong to let things go. It is an illusion to think that social diversities do not exist in Western society, because they do exist. Many times we have to deal with white power and control with strange outcomes and experiences. OPPRESSION: Oppression of a person with inhuman or degrading treatment of individuals or groups, causing hardship and injustice, does not need the excuse of race or ethnicity. It happens in every region, country and race. Why do they act this way? What happened to my rights? – They took them away. What I need is more power. Please let us stand together, Because I don’t want to fight you. (Chrissie Elms Bennett - from Dalrymple (1900, p. 7). We are glad to notice that it is not the same situation any more in United Kingdom, as Anti-oppressive laws are in place and things have really changed. Still, sometimes you cannot get rid of a feeling that you are laughed at, the moment your back is turned, because some of them, who continue to be racists at heart, continue to do so. In some of the shops, post offices, queues, buses, public places and libraries one cannot help hearing whispers; but then they were so light, that one could have even imagined them. Psychologically we are so tuned to racial oppression that we sometimes imagine it. In today’s society, racial discrimination is obviously on the decline. POWER As an educated, employed Asians and Africans I feel that we are empowered to make our own choices, lead lives the way we want and develop individuality. Harnessing the power too becomes necessary at times. Today’s Western society recognises this power and privilege and respects it. But language and discourse remain a difficult area even today. “For social psychologists and Critical Discourse analysts, discourse is used in a variety of ways, but all of them fuse meanings derived from linguistics and cultural theory,” Mills, (1997, p.8). It integrates power relationships according to the sexual and racial diversities. We had a certain power because we were heterosexuals, almost of the same age, and our British friends were not particularly happy with our easy relationship with their friends. “Heterosexuality is institutionalised as a particular form of practice and relationships, of family structure, and identity. It is constructed as a coherent, natural, fixed and stable category; as universal and monolithic,” Richardson (1996, p. 2). We faced the same difficulties in conversing with their friends even though we tried hard to be friendly and pleasant. It always reminded me the following passage: “I have been working to change the way I speak and write, to incorporate in the manner of telling a sense of place, of not just who I am in the present but where I am coming from, the multiple voices within me. I have confronted silence, inarticulateness. When I say, then, that these words emerge from suffering, I refer to that personal struggle to name that location from which I come to voice – that space of my theorizing,” Hooks, (1990, p.146). The British girls had no problem in sharing the sexual stories with each other, and for us they sounded indecent. In Asian societies very rarely such open attitude is encouraged. The stories, from Asian point of view, broke all barriers of ‘good behaviour.’ “They are simply the narratives of the intimate life, focused especially around the erotic, the gendered and the relational. They are part of the wider discourses and ideologies abroad in society, and they have much in common with all manner of other stories with differing foci – detective stories, travel stories, life stories, near-death stories,” Plummer, (1995, p. 6). It is always much more difficult to ‘feel at home’ in an alien country, where you are conscious of your race and colour. A situation that would have found us yelling our head off in our own countries is usually dealt with pathetic passivity and submissiveness. Many times, our behaviour had surprised ourselves and we have wondered how deeply we have changed. Actually, we had not changed at all, but we are conscious of being in another country. We are not residents of our own country with all flags of our rights flying high, but in another country, where it is better to keep a low profile. I wondered many times if Westerners feel the same when they visit other countries. I really doubt it. Perhaps the white power carries them through! Usually when we visit shops or malls, we were made to feel that we were speaking mandarin! The staff sometimes makes it a point to pretend as though they never understood a word of what we asked, or to be fair, perhaps they did not understand at all. Still, a sneaking suspicion remains if we pronounced that badly, or they never made an effort to understand us, or possibly because some of the sales girls are not that highly educated. Dealing with the customers has its own hazards. Most of them are really polite and encouraging. But there is a mean lot, who cannot come out of their imperialistic hangover and are particularly difficult to deal with. No doubt a country cannot be blamed for the bad behaviour of a handful; but the fact remains that for a person, who is trying to create a proper impact, it is heavily discouraging. Being able bodied heterosexuals does attract male attention and we have realised that white male can handle rejections more manfully, with great equanimity than an Asian or African male, who tends to become highly emotional resulting in a perpetual sulk. There is another heartening point. Being secretive and hence, highly intrigued by sex, Asian men, unfortunately, sometimes behave unbecomingly with women and teasing, goggling, passing obscene comments and gestures all become part of this ugly sexual aggression. We are yet to see a white male doing that. Perhaps the easy sexual relationships in the West does not make it necessary to do so. ETHNICITY AND RACISM In a multicultural society like UK, it is not surprising to find many ethnicities trying to make space for themselves and some of these ethnic minorities, if not all, contribute immensely to the multicoloured fabric of United Kingdom. But the word implies different and that difference can be seen in people like us. Racism is a much stronger word that implies an unpleasant action in reaction to the skin colour, diverse culture and it is a negative term. It breathes of dominance, power, and privilege of the white majority. CONCLUSION: On the whole, even though there are tough areas that need to be cracked, the experience had not been unsatisfactory for any of us. We are free to choose our boy friends, life partners, and we can even live with them, without raising many eyebrows. British girls are rather remote and aloof; but it does not mean that they are un-co-operative or unhelpful. We have learnt that they are rather unfriendly (initially we thought that they were paranoid!) because they were brought up that way and theirs is not an open, friendly, collective society like ours. We have learnt to respect their peculiarities, as slowly they are doing with ours. They have realised that we are not boyfriend-snatchers, and once this fact is established, atmosphere cleared up quite a lot. It had not been an absolutely uninspiring experience; instead there had been more good times than bad. We are continuously trying to shape our identities by combining the best of both the cultures. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Dalrymple, Jane and Burke, Beverley (1995), Anti-Oppressive Practice, Social Care and the Law, Open University Press, Buckingham. 2. Davis, Angela (1994), Women, Race & Class, The Women’s Press Limited, London. 3. Davis, Angela Y. (1984), Women, Culture, & Politics, The Women’s Press, London. 4. Hooks, Bell (1990), Yearning, Race, Gender, and cultural politics, South End Press, Boston. 5. Mills, Sara (2004), Discourse, Routledge, London. 6. Middleton, Sue (1998), Disciplining Sexuality, Colombia University, New York. 7. Plummer, Ken (1995), Telling Sexual Stories, Routledge, London. 8. Richardson, Diane (1998), ed. Theorising Heterosexuality, Telling it Straight, Open University Press, Buckingham. 9. Thompson, Neil (2001), Anti-Discriminatory Practice, 3rd Edn., Palgrave, Hampshire. Read More