Passport Magazine Spring 2017

LEARNING

ON THE MOVE CULTURE SHOCK

IN REVERSE REFLECTIONS

WOOD, HUMAN NATURE

MOROCCO

STREET FOOD Volume 25 Spring 2017

EDITOR’S NOTE editor-in-chief

Welcome to yet another issue of Passport International Magazine!

With the publishing of this issue, I, along with many other members of Passport, including Jenny Shang, Marisa Witayananun, Deeksha Malhotra, to name a few, will be entering our final year at Duke. I remember when Duke used to be just the name on an acceptance letter, yet now it is something we have lived through and shared.

Duke has become our passport. With that in mind, this issue features, among other brilliant writings, two articles on the understanding of passport by Dr. Ingrid Byler and Dr. Mbaye Lo, respectively.

We have incorporated a wide range of topics in this issue aimed at juxtaposing the beautiful minds of the people behind the writings—faculty and students alike. We have mixed lighthearted pieces with opinion-savvy works to take you on a fulfilling journey you will not regret.

As usual, we would like to acknowledge and thank all those who have contributed to this issue, including Dr. Ingrid Byerly, Dr. Mbaye Lo, and Dr. Giovanni Zanalda, as well as our wonderful publisher, Moli Jones. Thank you.

It will be hard to say goodbye; but hey, we do not have to just yet.

L i a n e Ya n g l i a n

chief marketing executive chief graphics editor executive team

editors

graphics editors

writers

Liane Yanglian Marisa Witayananun Jingyan Jenny Shang Deeksha Malhotra Zhengtao Qu Amanda Sear Maegan Stanley

CONTENTS Introduction to Global Center

by Giovanni Zanalda, Ph.D. Rememberances

by Altamash Rafiq

Amanda Sear Maegan Stanley Elle Winfield Marisa Witayananun Liane Yanglian Heather Zhou

Humans and Passports

by Mbaye Lo, Ph.D. The Most Valueable Passport of All by Ingrid Byerly, Ph.D.

Sherry Huang Jingyan Jenny Shang Marisa Witayananun Micaela Unda Liane Yanglian Lin Zuo

Magic In the Air

by Manish Nair Tee Shirt

by Deeksha Malhotra Reverse Culture Shock

by Micaela Unda

Ingrid Byerly, Ph.D. Mbaye Lo, Ph.D. Giovanni Zanalda, Ph.D. Aamir Azhar Sophia Jamal Deeksha Malhotra Margaryta Malyukova Manish Nair Altamash Rafiq Leah Rothfeld Micaela Unda Liane Yanglian

The Power of Organizing

by Aamir Azhar Why Feminism is Bad

by Liane Yanglian Translation of Ukrainian Poems

by Margaryta Malyukova A Mother's Love

by Sophia Jamal I Want Please the Big Cup

by Leah Rothfeld What do you not like about America?

Staff Corner

3 5 8 11 14 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Passport is a member publication authorized by the Undergraduate Publications Board and sponsored by the International House. The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not reflect the opinions of the magazine.

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passport

spring 2017

cover photo by Ryosuke Yagi via flickr back photo by mrhayata via flickr

current page photo by Tetsuji Sakakibara via flickr

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Duke

Durham and beyond

L

ocated in the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, the Duke University Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS) supports the globalization efforts of Duke university.

DUCIGS is home to various international area studies centers, councils and initiatives including the Africa Initiative (AI), the Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), the Duke Brazil Initiative (DBI), the Council for European Studies (CES), the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Council for North American Studies (CNAS), the Concilium on Southern Africa (COSA), the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies (CSEEES), the Slavic and Eurasian Languages Resource Center (SEELRC), the Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC), the Duke University Middle East Studies Center (DUMESC), and the Global Asia Initiative (GAI).

The recently appointed Director of DUCIGS, Prof. Giovanni Zanalda, describes the new DUCIGS as a

programmatic and administrative hub that a) Support, engage, and connect researchers, students, departments, and schools to work on international issues; b) Promote interdisciplinary research and education to understand and engage with challenging global issues; c) Support and coordinate the activities of the area studies centers, councils, and initiatives.

DUCIGS sponsors a wide range of global thematic activities including enjoying seminars, workshops, research programs, conferences, film series, art exhibitions, readings, performances, and hosting scholars, policy makers, journalists and authors from around the world. It also supports undergraduate and graduate students interested in global and international research and activities with travel grants, language training, working groups, and job opportunities in the various units. DUCIGS also hosts a Diplomat in Residence from the US Department of State to advise students seeking careers in foreign service.

In recognition of its commitment to

international studies, DUCIGS (including its affiliated units) is a recipient of numerous grants from federal agencies and private foundations. Through its affiliated units, DUCIGS supports instruction in less commonly taught languages. Since the early 2000s, DUCIGS has administered the Fulbright Visiting Scholars Program, which draws to campus scholars from over 100 countries around the world and manages the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship to fund individual doctoral students to conduct research in other countries in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of six to twelve months. DUCIGS supports the production of videos that reflect the international and interdisciplinary breadth of its activities, which are available on YouTube. More information on all activities including grants and opportunities for students can be found on the DUCIGS and its affiliated units websites – all links through the main DUCIGS website (https://igs.duke.edu).

Editing and graphics by Liane Yanglian.

Duke University Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS) by

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background photo by Paul Stewart via flicker, small photo by UNBPA via flicker

Dr. Giovanni Zanalda

duke university center for international and global studies

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Opinion

International

Remembrances

by Altamash Rafiq

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ast summer was still at the peak of its strength, pulling every ounce of scent from the garden flowers, which now danced upon the breeze. As I made my way towards Naseer Uncle, sitting close enough to the Plumeria tree to bask in its cool shade, I could not help but let the aroma consume me and carry my worries far far away.

“So what brings you to this neck of the woods?” I said. He rarely ever left the house in his free time; he always liked being surrounded by family and few of us were likely to wander off into the garden.

He looked up at me with eyes so clear I felt I could see through them, right down to his core.

“Just talking to Dado. Catching up on old times.”

My heart gave way with the weight of what could only be guilt and with a burning face and eyes beginning to water up, I finally noticed the empty garden chair facing my uncle that didn’t feel empty at all.

“Yes, I talk to her sometimes too.” I lied, or so I thought at the time.

Two families call my house their own, mine and that of Naseer Uncle, the husband of my mother’s sister and a man who I have always looked up to as my second father. It is only natural then that Dado, Naseer Uncle’s mother, was the grandmother figure of our household. Back when she had some energy to spare, it was not unusual to find her in the kitchen, crouched down on a short stool, cooking her special Alu Paratha, a potato stuffed fried flat bread that could make your taste buds dance and which had an aroma strong enough to make even the noses of the neighbors tingle.

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“Altamash, my son, I’ve made this just for you!”

“Thanks, Dado, much appreciated.” Yes, I would say that and little more. Why couldn’t I put in just a bit more effort into my responses?

I replay scenes like this one in my mind all the time in which, instead of leaving the kitchen with a simple thanks, I reach down to give her a hug and whisper in her ears that I adore her.

Such little occurrences defined my relationship with Dado and that was the kind of person she was; someone who always nodded when I hurled insults as we watched cricket together, who would pat my head every time she saw me and uttered a prayer because she thought everyone could do with some help from God and who always thought I could use a gift or two on Eid despite the fact that I was a little no more.

One thing that was so quintessentially Dado was her presence in our garden. She always loved that garden, stepping out every evening, as far as her weak legs could take her, into the green where she would seat herself in her usual garden chair, take in the orange sunshine and try to enjoy the world around her simply by observing it. She listened for the sound of children playing in the streets, the merchants shouting out their products and the distant honking of a million cars and, picking up on them, she would know that old age hadn’t kept her from being a part of the city.

Always wearing white and never leaving her head exposed, in deference to her religious beliefs, I had this image set in my mind of her white-clad figure being in a magical harmony with the white Plumeria petals above and this was exactly how she was on one particular day many years ago. Getting back home from school I tossed off my backpack, closed my spring 2017

eyes and let the cool breeze just bathe my face.

When I opened them, I saw Dado looking at me. She smiled and I smiled back and we both knew that this was a moment only shared by those who call each other family. As I carried out the routine courtesy of sitting down next to her to exchange a few words, I realized I wanted to do something for her. Something.

Anything. This was the first, and, dare I say, only time such a feeling took hold of me and in the struggle to find the right words to say, I promised. I promised her that I would learn Arabic, that I wanted to use it to become more in touch with our religion, that I would help her understand the Quran better.

She was delighted.

I’ve never learnt Arabic.

Is it the ultimate sin to kill someone? Is it any different if your actions lead to someone’s death? What about not shedding a tear when everyone around you is heartbroken?

Even Dado, who hardly knew Baray Abu, my maternal grandfather, was sad when he passed away three years ago. That’s what family is supposed to do, isn’t it: bemoan the loss of someone so close in relation? Extremely old and suffering from an incurable head injury, Baray Abu’s demise, we knew, was nigh and yet we never saw it coming; somehow we all felt as if he was just sleeping. He’d wake up soon enough.

Baray Abu had the kind of laugh with power enough to show you the full blaze of his life’s color in a mere instant. In one burst of laughter you could see a cowering young boy telling his brother that it would all be ok and that the brave Pakistani soldiers would be there any moment to take them across the border to their parents. You would come face to face with a young man beaming with confidence and determination as he treaded

the hallowed grounds of Government College with dreams of one day saving lives.

In the distance you would see a man smiling in a way that you could only envy, failing to push back his tears as he held his daughter for the first time. Somewhere in there you would walk into the study of a balding man who sat perusing his diary, counting the number of times he had said ‘I love you’ to his family and worrying that he had not said it enough. You would find this very man now seated in a clinic, eyes fastened on the wall, fighting with the question of how best to tell the people outside that his patient had passed on. Finally, you would step into a dimly lit room where a rather obese old man laughed his characteristic laugh while his grandson circled him, helping him fasten his belt, wondering if his trip around his grandfather was how it felt to circle the globe.

My only memory of Baray Abu’s funeral is hugging a gigantic relative who tried passing consoling comments onto an uncaring heart.

How cruel could I be? Yes I was never too close to Baray Abu, he did not live with us after all, but we had history and the fact that his blood flowed through my veins and that his laugh ringed in my ear meant that I was obliged to be heartbroken. Why then couldn’t I shed a single tear? I must not be human.

Family. Why does it mean so much? Why does it mean so little? Looking back, I never spared a moment to think about my family, not when all of us were together, never when we were apart and especially not when BaraAbu passed away. Family certainly meant the world to Naseer Uncle. After all, he was the one who asked my parents, his college friends and now relatives, to join him and live in one house.

“We share a bond with our relatives more powerful than even that we share with our friends.”, he often told me. He knew better background photo by Gwenole Camus via Flickr

than anyone in the world that this statement wasn’t perfect but he said it anyway. I know now that this was his way of trying to make me appreciate family more but, back then, I cared little for this statement and others like it. As far as I was concerned, this made no sense; how could you care so much about a bond with a person you hardly meet when your friends are people you see and share your life with every single day? To be honest, I still don’t fully comprehend it but, after Dado’s death, I think I understand where he was coming from just a bit better.

Naseer Uncle probably loved Dado more than all of us combined and I’m sure if he had to scale the pyramids for her, he’d toss off his coat without a second of thought. I remember wandering into his office late last summer and finding, amidst the pinnacles of modern artwork, a small worn out frame in which a much younger Dado looked up at me, holding on to a group of children who I could only assume to be my uncle and his siblings. “This must be about forty years old”, I thought. “Must have been a time when she still had much to smile about.” Indeed, in the long span of her life, she had only started smiling again relatively recently when she joined our family several years ago, leaving the house she had lived in since her marriage that now did not feel like a home at all. While Naseer Uncle had left for the big city to try to make a living for himself, his older brother had grown up to become the head of that household and had soon stopped thinking of his mother as anything more than a nuisance.

“I hate you”, he would often tell her. “All you do is leach off of my money! And how dare you complain about my wife? She doesn’t need to take care of you; you’ve always been able to take care of yourself so what’s the problem now?”

God bless Dado, she stuck with that man with the patience of a thousand mothers, trying to change herself, trying so hard even as a woman who already needed a cane to walk.

“She believed in the bond of family”, Naseer Uncle told me once. “She thought it would eventually change my brother if she kept living with him. But there are limits to what any human being should be allowed to bear.

My brother was horrible.”

“Yes, horrible.”, I replied, feeling a little triumphant about seeing him deviate from his usual rhetoric.

Naseer Uncle basically had to drop down to his hands and knees to get Dado to join us and I remember him remarking that it was all worth it.

We often found ourselves cursing this wretched son of hers. How could he treat his own mother of all people like that?

Why then for the past few years couldn’t we see hints of this son staring back at us whenever we admired ourselves in our mirrors?

It’s amazing how much our attitudes change towards the aging in our community; the second the old become a bit moody, we begin pushing them away just so we can keep smiling. In her old age, Dado wanted to meet and talk to as many people as she could, almost obsessively so. This, given her newly adopted habit of making a big deal out of small concerns was problematic; as an immensely conservative lady living with an overly liberal younger generation, she easily found fault in much of what we did: if my sisters wore shorts, it was unforgivable, if I criticized the nature of religious education in Pakistan, I was definitely the one at fault and she would make sure that everybody rememberances

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Poetry having her judge our decisions and so Dado never knew what the rest of us were up to. It was like she wasn’t even there. I wonder if she ever suspected anything? We were as different from her as can be and yet our history together could never let us think of living separately from her. Also, such a thought would break Naseer Uncle’s heart. And so the rest of us had our little conspiracy going against her: We wanted to hold back the threatening smell of old people so we got her her own room. She found Pakistani drama serials to be mesmerizing so a personal television was promptly provided to keep her at bay. Any amenity that she could think of would be laid at her feet, no questions asked, as long as we got the rest of the house to ourselves. We thought all this would keep her happy and were glad to see that we were right. Or did we just make ourselves believe that we were right?

Last summer, I had just finished my first year at Duke and found myself back in Pakistan working more jobs than any human should be allowed to work. Each day I would come back exhausted at 10pm and would head straight to bed, not meeting Dado, not meeting anybody.

A month flashed by in this fashion until Eid finally rolled around. “Eid. Five holidays. That’s enough for me to crank in three anime!” And so as I set about powering through my shows, I made sure to close the door to Dado’s room which always let out more televised recitations of the Quran than I would like in my life. We always kept her door ajar in case she needed anything but, given that she never did, I, as usual, thought this unnecessary, put on my headphones and began my excursion into the anime world. It was 1 am when I first heard it: some fellow in my neighbor’s house calling out for something; I couldn’t make out what exactly. Why wasn’t anybody answering him? His family should really be more caring.

death, for I had been the one to close her door and truly separated her from the rest of the house.

“Her death?”, I asked myself. “No, no, I must be wrong.” But then why did I feel as if death himself had stepped foot into our house; our house that we had built to keep out all the unwanted? What was this presence that hid in the shadows, always stood behind me but was never there when I looked and ceaselessly crushed what little remained of my heart? My skin tingled. I felt it with every fiber of my being.

“Can’t the others feel it too?” I asked myself.

“Why aren’t they saying a word? Why is no one calling a doctor? Why can’t I do it myself?

We just need to massage her, they say? Yes, yes, surely that should do it. There isn’t anything wrong; it’s just a small fall. We just need to massage her. We just need to massage her. “ Then, more than ever, I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as Dado. I blamed myself for all that was happening and my heart felt heavier with every wail that reached my ears.

I thought I would puke. I thought my head would explode. Everything had gone from so right to so so wrong.

It took the others two hours to decide to call in a doctor. Seeing him race to Dado’s side, the monster on my back, who I had just grown accustomed to calling guilt, doubled in size.

“Even a stranger cares more about my Dado than I do. What kind of a person am I if I leave her in pain just because I can’t bear to see her like that?” I commanded myself to move and finally found myself beside her, barely

passport

Cultural

Humans and Passports

I have felt since that night that perhaps it was not the injury but the loss of her dignity, something she prized more than anything else, that actually killed her. Perhaps that was why, on the day of her funeral, I wept not just for her but for Baray Abu too. I think then, for the first time in ages, I thought of them as being as human as me. Throughout my conscious life I do not think that my mind has ever been consumed by sheer emotions. However, on the day of the funeral, not far off from where the Plumeria flowers lay strewn in the garden, I lost control of myself for the first time as emotion took over me, leaving me helpless.

I could think nothing; I could only cry and when I had no more tears to spare, I felt more human than I had for a long long time.

Editing by Liane Yanglian, graphics by Marisa Witayananun

by Dr. Mbaye Lo

A

mazing is the nature of humans; they are creatures of magnificence, creativity, and contradictions. This complexity regarding the characteristics of human beings have been central in humans’ attempt to understand their own nature.

Let’s look through a few examples of human reflections on their natural characteristics.

In the Renaissance literature, humans are generally stigmatized as “selfish,” “rational,” “maximalists,” “driven by desire.” The implication of this depiction of human nature was disparaging: Humans must be forcefully confined to the constrains of the law if their selfishness is to be tamed.

In the words of James Madison, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” and “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

First five shouts, then ten, then twenty and then it hit me: if Dado were to shout, the calls that I would hear wouldn’t be too far off from what I was hearing now. My heart beginning to race, I thrust open Dado’s room to find her fallen off her bed and in agony. I have never felt fear like I felt at that moment.

I tried to pick Dado up only to find myself too weak. “I’m good for nothing”. I roused everyone in my house and they raced to Dado’s aid while I found myself unable to move. What held my legs in place was not exhaustion but guilt. Guilt that I would be the cause of her 7

able to keep my eyes on her broken face. At that moment, as is only natural, some of her clothes were falling loose, leaving parts of her exposed. As a conservative woman who had always kept her body fully covered, this was the ultimate insult, especially in the presence of males. She cried at us to cover her but the medical procedure would have been difficult in such a state and no heed was paid to what she had to say. We had never given Dado much of what she truly wanted and this was no different. Her face then reflected, more so than agony, immense shame and complete loss of dignity. It was this face of utter humiliation that haunted me in the days to come.

Obviously, this did not run parallel with the early medieval and biblical belief that humans were created in the image of God spring 2017

photo by Dyn Photo via Flickr

in order to differentiate them from that of the beasts. This viewpoint has theological implications: human must be saved from the immorality of sin, and rendered anew as a godly creature. So man is no angel, but he has the potential through divine guidance to act like one.

descriptive catalog of human features such as “lust for power,” “impatience,” “weak,” “forgetfulness,” “belligerent.” It is no wonder that a continuous challenge for many Muslims today has been how to reconcile between these many Quranic derivations of Insaan.

Early Arab and Muslim theologians did not think any differently: humans are by inclination sinners, and therefore must be constrained through God’s Sharia law. The Arabic term for human being is Insaan. A central configuration of Quranic legislations about life often describes Insaan as canny with superior ability to do wrong or commit the impermissible. The word Insaan is mentioned about 65 times in the Muslim holy book. There is no particular description of Insaan in the Quran; but humans are creatures that constantly shift between good and evil. They can rise to the image of an angel in the same way as they have the potential of acting like a Shytan, or the Devil. The Quran also provides

Many African traditional philosophies characterize humans as woods of God. The woody nature of human beings reflects their fragility and tendency to reproduce their own self. Humans tend to reproduce their traits in their children, reflecting flaws in their behaviors as well as implanting their agencies in their creations. The fragility of humans is a long chain of images that shadow their trajectory on earth. Their children carry their own fragile images; their behaviors mirror their fragility and their march toward progress tends to divert backward to their original fragile point of departure. This is what the Wolof means in calling humans woods of God. The Senegalese

humans and passports

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writer and film maker Sembène Ousmane borrows this analogy in his famous novel Les bouts de bois de Dieu (God’s Bits of Wood). Ousmane’s wolof title of the book was Banti Mam Yallayi. The novel highlights the spirit and fragility of ordinary people as they reproduced their own crooked images in their struggle against French hegemony in the pre-independence era.

Let’s use the story of the passport, one of the most creative human efforts to readdress his self-inflicted calamities, as a case in point on how human’s march toward progress tends to divert backward to their point of departure.

The passport, rather than facilitating human “right to travel,” “facilitating his mobility and movement” for which it was created to resolve, rather ended up limiting the rights of movement among humans themselves.

The Israeli historian Yaron Jean is one of the most knowledgeable scholars of the history of modern passport system. His work has shown that the modern passport system is the product of the 20th century, which culminated in the United Nations’ amalgamation of the “right to travel” in its well-known Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Prior to the introduction of the passport system, people’s movement from one place to another collided with the monopoly of the sovereign. Imperial sovereigns in the East and the West adopted personal documentation systems as means of controlling subjects and aliens in their territories.

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There is a long and complicated history behind the modern passport that gives it its current public validity. This validation is the result of what Valentine Groebner have termed as the “logic of sameness,” which helps establish one’s true identity by comparing it to the identity of a collective. There was the adaptation of identification technologies. The French introduced scientific measurements for the identification of both citizens and aliens during the late nineteenth century. Among newly adopted techniques was portrait parlé (Photography) which soon was cherished as potential for state surveillance and for limiting the transferability of travel documents. The sameness among passport holders also emerge from the sameness among sovereign states (countries). States are equal in their legal personalities (this law goes back to Vattel’s Law of Nations).

Since humans are equal, a dwarf is as much a man as a giant; a small country like the Gambia is as much a state as a great empire like the US. In this formulation, a passport should carry the legal personality of its nation. Passport holders are equal humans with identical rights.

Professor Jean observes that in the midst of the turmoil of World War I, “not only international borders between hostile states were closed; borders to allies were also hermetically sealed, and the potential of passports as a means of wartime surveillance was rediscovered. Both freedom of movement and its restrictions were now considered by the belligerent countries as a part of the war effort.”

The Conference on Passports, Customs spring 2017

Formalities and Through Tickets organized by the League of Nations in Paris, from the 15th to the 21st in October 1920, is considered the official birth of the modern passport system.

The passport system was introduced in order to help tag “hundreds of thousands of civilians as undesired populations” and subsequently place them “beyond the pale of any law and protection.” Most of the displaced people in the interwar period were Jewish: “ Jews not only represented the greater proportion of many “national” stateless groups, such as the so called Russian refugees in France, but also embodied the very essence of statelessness as such. Jews were, after all, the minority par excellence in Europe,” Yaron Jean writes.

However, the “Logic of Sameness” in the passport was soon to be hindered by human himself. Visa system was introduced to limit the sameness of the passport by specifying eligibilit, of the passport holder to enter, leave, and work, or length of stay in the host-country country. Soon visa system requirement became a commodity that is exchangeable through a monetary transaction.

As the world become globalized, and money easily transferable between accounts and among passport holders, the passports system was further restricted through a ranked logic that actually enforces inequality in access and movement among humans. The Global Passport Power ranks national passports of the world by their total visa-free score.

Passport holders from wealthier nations only incur a small transaction cost when moving around the world. In most cases, they obtain their entry visas in exchange of a nominal fee upon landing at the host country. Passport holders from “lesser” countries are punished with staggering expenses in money and lost days of work due to long lines and wait times. There are hassles associated with visa requirements for this category of passport holders who wish to obtain the same service as their counterparts from the wealthier nations.

Let’s look at the price of the non-refundable application for a visa entry to the US. As often read around US embassies, “The application fee for the most common nonimmigrant visa types is $160,” and it is worth noting that $160 is more than an average salary of an employee in many parts of the world including Egypt, Tajikistan, Sudan, Pakistan, etc...

There is another dimension to the politics of visa requirements: oppressive regimes raise entry visa fees in order to discourage outsiders, journalists and NGOs from entering their territories.

This is the approach of “the less visitors we have, the less scrutiny we face from the international community.” Below is a selected list of countries in this category: Nigeria: $275; Congo Republic: $200; Algeria: $191; Azerbaijan: $180; Russia: $173; Afghanistan: $160; Bangladesh: $160; Belarus: $160; Bolivia: $160; Chile: $160; Kazakhstan: $160; Kuwait: $160; Paraguay: $160; Qatar: $160; Sierra Leone: $160; Uzbekistan: $160. left photo by storebukkebruse via flickr, right photo by herve.padilla via flickr

The passport has also become a challenge to human solidarity. I remember leading a group of university students to a study abroad program in a North African country. Although the undergraduate students were equals in their home campuses, they promptly appeared unequal humans in their visa requirements. They were swiftly divided into three categories of passport holders: those who would receive entry visas free of charges upon landing; those who would pay for the same entry visa upon landing; and those who would have to apply for the entry visa two months in advance. This third group had to also spend few hundred dollars in the process of securing the entry visa. The cause of these divergent paths was passport holders’ country of origin.

was created at first hand to enhance equality and mobility among humans, has now become the symbol of human’s inequality and an indictment against free movement and mobility.

Editing and graphics by Liane Yanglian

I have read in many biographical stories of transnational migrants trying to cross the Sahara Desert or the Mediterranean Sea into Western Europe that the first step before landing into a European host country is to get rid of the passport. The passport for transnational migrants is a maker of their country of origin; It, therefore, enables local authorities to track their origins and deport them back to where they "belong," and certainly not where they long to belong. The "civilized" world is kinder to humans with no passports (known as stateless people) than to those with passports.

It seems to me that the woody nature of humans rightfully captures the story of the human progress. Humans are resilient to change, even though they always claim to champion it. The passport system, which humans and passports

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Essay

Global

THE MOST VALUABLE PASSPORT OF ALL

by Dr. Ingrid Byerly

I

have an extraordinary job. or rather, the opportunities in my professional life have been extraordinary. I have always believed that the ultimate passport to the grandest of opportunities is through education, and the ultimate passage to the worthiest education is through travel. The first sharpens and deepens your intellect, and the second expands and broadens your mind.

When I was young, I had two dreams.

The one was to teach, and the other was to explore the planet. That combination seemed doomed to failure, as the two seemed so mutually exclusive. One imagines teaching as a rooted pursuit in a restrictive geographic setting, not only in terms of the country and city of one’s employment, but often in terms of even the allocation of a single classroom. One envisions a stultifying and restrictive environment where interesting things may happen in your mind, but seldom in the space you occupy. I have known school teachers who have had to repeat the same syllabus for 40 years in the same classroom until they retired, and while they honed their skills to excellence, I knew that I wanted, and needed, to be constantly challenged by vastly different environments in teaching.

I was convinced that exposure to constant cultural challenges could only enhance the way in which the world is observed and appreciated. As a result of this conviction, I have had the privilege

of discovering that it is entirely possible to have the world as your classroom – not only as a teacher, but also as a student.

As a South African, my options on graduating were particularly restricted.

White teachers had to teach in white schools during Apartheid, and if you held a government scholarship to fund your studies (as did I, and most of my friends), you were allocated a “Placement” in a particular school after your graduation, to pay off your scholarship in service. I did not want to have either of those restrictions placed on me. I realized there was an out: if you furthered your studies through a graduate degree, you could defer the placement, and possibly find an alternative way of forging your own path in your career to pay back your loan. This decision was one of the best I have ever made, not only because it led to my Honors, and then my Masters, and then my Ph.D., but more importantly, because every step of the way it led to unimaginable opportunities that were worlds away from the restrictive path and destination that would have been decided for me.

It became abundantly clear to me that the more you invest in your education, and the more determinedly you hone your craft through alternative methods of instruction, the more you are valued in places you never dreamt of working. On completing my Honors in literature in South Africa,

I was offered the unusual position of teaching in the first fully multiracial school in the country, just outside Soweto township. As compensation for accepting this challenging position (including serving as resident faculty on the premises) came an added perk: the full repayment of my student loan.

I loved every minute of it, as it exposed me to children I would never have had the privilege of teaching (or even meeting) in segregated South Africa.

Instead of only English and Afrikaans students, my classes were comprised of Zulus, Xhosas, Pedis, Sothos, Twanas, Shangaans…. every ethnic group that was represented in the county. The experience convinced me that diversity in classrooms made instruction not only richer and multi-faceted for the teacher, but it made learning infinitely more interesting and valuable for the student. Cross-cultural interactions lit intellectual fires that would not even have been a flicker in less diverse and challenging environments.

I began to wonder what it would be like to teach classes that were even more diverse: international groups outside the confines of a single country. That led to a postgraduate certification at International House in London, where the qualification was the ultimate teaching passport: the credential to teach at international language institutes globally. For the next few years I divided my years between two teaching positions. The first was during

the academic semesters back home in South Africa, where I facilitated cross-cultural communication courses in adult education and corporate environments throughout the country.

And the second one was during the summers, when I directed the Regent Summer School in Oxford for international students who came to England to improve their English and learn about the diverse cultures of their peers from across the world.

My interest in intercultural communication had become so acute that I decided to further my graduate studies in anthropology, and that led

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spring 2017

background photo by Faye Bullock via Flickr.

top left by Cameron Byerly, top right by Nicolas Clement

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me to Duke, where I completed my Ph.D. in cultural anthropology. I have remained at Duke to teach, and have been thrilled by how increasingly international the student body has become. I maintain my belief here, as I did in the classroom in South Africa, that intellectual and social magic

happens when there is diversity in a classroom. This is particularly the case in my courses entitled “Making Your Case: Public Speaking and Advocacy.”

During the semesters, these classes are filled with upperclassmen from every imaginable corner of the earth and disciple (whether the humanities, the physical or social sciences, the engineering program, or prospective doctors, lawyers, pharmacologists or veterinarians). And during the summers, the courses are filled with foreign diplomats, athletes-in-training, and international high school seniors; a combination which makes for a fascinating blend of ideas, approaches and presentations.

A few years ago, I was offered an exceptional teaching opportunity; to serve on the faculty of the Semester at Sea ship . It is the dream position for any teacher who loves to travel. Instead of learning about places from the confines of a single classroom, students sail to all those places, to study in them.

The world is your classroom, and you share the voyage and lectures with 600 students, 35 faculty, 15 residential staff, 45 adult “Lifelong Learners” and about 25 faculty children, who attend the ship school. The summer voyage took us from the Bahamas across the Atlantic to circumnavigate the entire Mediterranean Sea and into the Black Sea. Countries docked in included Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria and Morocco. All professors

focuse on their discipline or subject in lectures to inform and prepare students for the next country they will be docked in. My subjects being anthropology and ethnomusicology, my lectures focused on the culture and music of each country we were sailing to next. Following the Mediterranean voyage, I was thrilled to receive another appointment on the ship, this time on the faculty of the Round-the-World voyage. This voyage is a full semester long, and sails around the entire globe for five months. Setting out in San Diego and sailing west, destinations included Mexico, Hawaii, Japan, China, Singapore, Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), India, Mauritius, South Africa, Ghana, Morocco and England.

Besides the academic lectures on board, the arrival in each port calls for fieldtrips or volunteer opportunities; immersions that make the information in lectures come alive, and which result in assignments and projects. Examples of fieldtrips in various countries included student exchanges at Saigon’s Soul Music Academy in Vietnam, volunteering at Mother Theresa’s Mission of Charity orphanage in Cochin, India, ecological cleanup on the beaches of Hilo, Hawaii, collections of winter clothing to donate to orphanages and rest-homes in two townships in South Africa, and assisting with the noviciation ceremony of young monks in Myanmar. One of the added benefits of this incomparable job for any professor is that the faculty’s the most valuable passport of all

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Poetry

Cultural

children sail with them as dependents.

As a result, my own three children (at ages between 7 and 17) have travelled to more than 20 countries, even remote ones like Burma and Iceland. There is no education like it.

The opportunity to experience a lifealtering journey of this nature is unusual, but not impossible. And that is true for any opportunity where optimal learning is not only combined with, but dependent on travel. Increasingly, universities are creating programs that present (or even demand) exposure to global environments, to encourage global understandings, and create global citizenships. Duke has excellent initiatives of this nature through its focus on Global Education; the impressive initiative of almost fifty Study Abroad opportunities, the global partnerships established between institutions in other countries (like China, Japan, France, and Singapore) and of course the flagship DukeEngage program, requiring immersive service to research and help communities in need.

The fact is that being a teacher, or being a student, is no longer necessarily a stationary pursuit. Teaching or studying not only encourages, but often requires expanding one’s horizons, and indulging in that most inspiring combination of travel and learning. Duke offers an exceptional combination of opportunities to cultivate intercultural relationships, not only through the increasingly diverse student body on campus itself, but also through the increasingly wide options of study abroad programs.

Interestingly, what I take away from 13

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spring 2017

experiences that push me out of my comfort zone in all corners of the globe is seldom what I learn in preparing for the content of my ever-varied syllabuses, but mostly in the lessons I learn from the locals and visitors in all these varied places. In deciding to take “the road less travelled,” you get to perceive the unimaginable beauty of natural phenomena, as well as the unthinkable suffering of humanity across the globe.

You learn how to adapt to ways of living you never dreamt existed, and you acquire an understanding of others that challenges your every preconceived notion of how the world works. You are taught tolerance, and compassion, and you learn not to take yourself so seriously. And you are taught that the world would be a better place if people visited each other more and made the effort to be open to alternative opinions, different ways of living, and more critical thinking. If you listen carefully and consistently to the voices of others, especially those not of your own culture, you gather understandings and wisdoms that will serve you well, no matter what circumstance you find yourself in.

What I have learnt is that it is entirely possible to have the world as your classroom – not only as a teacher, but also as a student. Travel teaches us to observe and hear, and it ensures a sharper intellect and broader mind through the unmatched lessons of a global education: the most valuable passport of all.

Magic in the Air

by Manish Nair

T

he brightest of sunshines sometimes, and at other times a dark dullness but mostly, I live through overcast indifference.

A monotone of normal, punctuated by the ephemeral.

I breathed again, as I do without glamour or grace, reason or thought, but from mundane regularity, something changed.

There was magic in the air, and I breathed it in.

It started as an inkling of hope, but grew into a surge that permeated flesh and being.

Indifference was replaced by fullness and meaning; the rhythm of my life cantered to the summer in my heart.

It was not just in me, the magic was of me.

But as with any inhale, I had to exhale.

Something ripped from my viscera; I tried to hold it in.

But departure was inexorable, as was the pain.

I lost it all, had to lose it all; I breathed out the magic and was left as before, but not quite.

One taste of magic makes its absence conspicuous.

After wholeness, in ordinariness I felt smallness.

I searched again for the magic, but it is a whiff in the vastness of clouds.

I know I was lucky to feel it the first time; be it through design or desire I will not find it again.

There is a magic in the air, and it will inspire many, as it inspired me.

Fleeting was its touch, but lasting; and now I keep a magic in my heart; there it will everlast.

Graphics by Marisa Witayananun

Editing by Liane Yanglian, graphics by Lin Zuo background photo by Faye Bullock via Flickr, top and bottom photos by Nick Clement, middle photo

by Motin Yeung

background photo by Don McLean via Flickr

magic in the air

14

Poetry

Cultural

Tee Shirt

by Deeksha Malhotra

C

aress my sleeve between your fingers Can I stay?

Lay on me the dorsum of your hand and Seek in my folds the intimacy you have pursued Can I stay?

Pinch my shoulders and undo my every crease Gape at my décor This side, then that Then this one again

“Tee Shirt writes about travel from a lens that is anomalous for Passport. It seeks to describe the travels that individuals make into and out of our lives. This is achieved through an extended analogy to that one, most comfortable, most familiar of teeshirts we each own. As we do with our friends, we choose this tee-shirt with great care and caution. We ensure that both fit us snugly, that both are of the highest quality, and that both can be afforded by our means.

Once we are convinced of their prospects, we commit to them and relinquish further pursuit, but we do not promise permanency because that is not our promise to make.

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We are overwhelmed with the intimacy we find and did not know that such warmth and comfort was on our path. We experience many firsts with them, and they participate in our every joy and sorrow. There are moments of apparent monotony, and in those moments we veer towards other, more alluring clothing and social networks, but once we complete this exploration we return to our closest of friends and that softest of tee shirts for that is where our heart lies.

Eventually, however, this tee-shirt, much like those individuals dearest to us, experience the wear and tear that time bestows

spring 2017

upon all. They soften to a point of dissolution and they no longer have the capacity to cover us with the warmth they did. It is not an intrinsic flaw nor an intentional departure, but merely the burden of time. When this juncture arrives, they can no longer stay. They must go.

They can no longer stay, but others will replace them. A warmth and comfort of a new kind enters our journeys and this poem is read once again, now in their name.”

Editing by Amanda Sear, graphics by Lin Zuo

You did not know That I Could enfold you With such warmth And armor You did not know That communion And comfort Of this kind was on your Path So, please, Can I Stay?

Slide your hands into me and ensure That the fabric I present to you Aligns With the fabric of my soul

You seek And gape And ensure You verify And mold

Can I stay?

And you assure That I can

Before you answer Look to the back of my neck And verify That the tariff Of this intimacy Will not break your neck Now slip my being onto yours And let gravity pull my seams Down your waist Mold my décolletage until it hugs Yours You are relinquishing the pursuit

background picture by www.liveoncelivewild.com via Flickr.

Slip on, off On And off I am moist Under your arms In that first kiss I am stained A deep wine hue In that first sip I tear At the elbow Amid that first Of quarrels

I am lost In your chest As you fabricate Intimacy elsewhere I am revived When you find That That intimacy is fabricated I am softened With every rub Of your skin Against mine I have learned your curves You have learned mine You said That I could …

I am softened to dissolution Your curves attempt to conceal The holes in mine I am moist Stained Torn Lost You did not know That your path Has passed Communion And comfort Of this kind Of this kind Must I go?

tee shirt

16

Reflection

ESREVER CULTURE SHOCK

Global

by Micaela Unda

I

17

passport

always take the window seat.

Sunsets across countries, stars across states, mountain views, and ocean expanses – for why would one stare at the seatbelt light and snoring man when a view lies only a glance away? Yet as my plane landed and I set my eyes on Durham once again, I no longer felt like I had returned to a second home. Driving down Campus Drive, the view of the illuminated chapel did not incite awe, but rather anxiety. Transitions, adjustment, change – for I am bombarded with such words floating around me in an endless stream of discussion and advice.

After traveling four continents and six countries in a matter of months, my past year has been one of just this – transitions.

After researching in Ecuador, studying abroad in New Zealand, and traveling to Australia and southeast Asia, the term home

has become fluid, temporary. Sedentary has become a foreign concept. Familiarity has become uncomfortable. My world has shrunk from a radius of thousands of miles to a radius of one. It is as though I am trying on a lifestyle that no longer fits.

spring 2017

all photos by author

Yet when all one hears about is of culture shock, how do you battle the opposite? How does one change from running from city to city to dashing from meeting to meeting?

A bustling Bangkok fulfilled my desire for different, for foreign, for a culture so unlike my own that even grocery shopping incited excitement. Thailand was such an eclectic mix of culture and modernity. Skyscrapers and malls lined my sights to the left, while ancient temples, golden Buddhas, and Buddhist monks laid to my right. Sydney

I remind myself of what I wrote throughout my times as a foreign traveler –

abroad is not just a place, but a mindset. fulfilled my desire for the grand. As I both descended and climbed countless floors, modern, graphic, and interactive exhibits surrounded me. I wandered around Circular Quay and took in the architectural feats of the Harbour Bridge and the famed Sydney Opera House. New Zealand and Ecuador fulfilled my desire for solitude.

Towering mountains and powerful waterfalls that juted out of snow-capped mountains characterized the norm.

Hammock swinging amongst the tropical forest was not a break, but a bed. Having your breath taken away on a weekly basis can’t help but to inspire awe and wonder in daily life.

So as I curl up in my arm chair, illuminated by lights and photos of travels abound, I glance up at the chapel from my window.

Towering it stands, igniting a sense of

pride and comfort in most. Yet as my eyes glance down at students rushing around below, the pressure to busy and hustle, to move and produce comes knocking.

After nine months of meandering, I am now running. Reverse culture shock has taken over. Productivity over presence, and accomplishing over experiencing – for this is perhaps the hardest contrast of such a lifestyle change. Filling my time with road trips, ceramics classes, photography expeditions, tent movie nights, and arm chair reading, I am trying my best to slow my pace, to harness the sense of adventure that overcomes me and apply it to Durham.

I am enjoying my time and silencing any creeping notion of wasting it.

traveled 2,781 miles to call Duke University my school. The East Coast remains an unexplored land with new sights to be seen not only states away, but around the corner, within my mile radius. New restaurants and unexplored museums await. Forest hikes are calling. The chapel may not incite the exact feeling it once did and this culture may not be the perfect fit, but that doesn’t mean a window seat isn’t waiting.

Editing by Maegan Stanley, graphics by Jenny Shang.

I remind myself of what I wrote throughout my times as a foreign traveler – abroad is not just a place, but a mindset. I have

reverse culture shock

18

Opinion

The Power of Organizing International

by Aamir Azhar

I

don’t really like populism, at least in its current form. It can be inaccurate in its claims, inconsistent in its platforms, and dishonest in its exploitation of American insecurities. However, it’s been working. And I think that’s largely due to the disconnect between “bourgeoisie” politics and the average American (though Trump is a bourgeois as well, don’t forget).

Populism exploited this disconnect and “checked” the current state of our politics.

And though populism can often be unstable, not worth it, and/or dangerous, it can be a balancing reminder to how we approach politics.

And it is no secret that American liberals need that check. When progressiveness is often associated with being educated, and conservatives are labelled as “stupid”, you know we’ve kind of forgotten what we’re about. Not to mention, these claims are inaccurate and fail to see the real structures that influence conservative or populist vote.

See, being progressive, on an ideological level, should have nothing to do with being smart, well-read, or really anything “elite”, in my opinion. And being conservative shouldn’t have a monopoly on being proworking class, or anti-establishment. In fact, for me, leftist ideologies can be more anti-hierarchy and pro-proletariat (heh) than right-leaning ones are. But in America? Liberals are too smug for that. Being progressive is a cool kids club. It’s Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. And if you’re not in the club, well, you’re not a cool kid and we don’t want anything to do 19

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with you. There’s a great read called The smug style in American liberalism that covers this so well; I would definitely recommend reading it.

Smug-Style-Image This article, The smug style in American liberalism, is a great read for all. Would recommend.

Now, there is a reason liberals can be so ‘smug’. It is because being progressive has become more about “knowing” and less about “doing”. So all you have to do is believe everyone should be equal, believe that Muslims aren’t terrorists, and believe that white people are privileged, and congrats, you did your job. You’re in the club. You just gotta vote and you’re good (or maybe even voting isn’t necessary).

This makes liberalism in America pretentious, somewhat apathetic, and very vague.

In other words, it’s not organized. It isn’t action-oriented. And this goes for American liberalism as well as more leftist groups. Especially in online communities, everything is so ideologically driven, and many don’t recognize the necessity of current action, regardless of its exact associated political ideology.

See, the thing about action-oriented movements is that they are much more fluid.

Anyone can participate in a rally, an event, or initiative, and as such, it’s easier to ease into the movement. You can focus on the message itself, rather than the people assoSpring 2017

ciated with it. With ideology-based groups, association is so explicit, and it seems more closed off to outsiders.

This brings me to my point. The reason Trump won was less due to inherent conservative ideals, and more about organizing. It was about having demands, validating an identity, and making a voice heard.

Say what you will about Trump’s campaign, but it gave us a loud and clear narrative of white identity in America, especially among the working class. Though I think Hillary was more than qualified for the job, and I think she was unfairly criticized and attacked, she just wasn’t able to organize people like Trump did. She was just that vague, safe, liberal candidate that we have so many of. To the average person, she didn’t seem to have specific demands besides “freedom for all” and such. We didn’t actually know much about her, or more specifically how we related to her. And although she didn’t really deserve it, this made it harder to rally people behind her, because no one really felt like their voice was being amplified by her. She was just more of the same.

Silent-Majority-Trump Trump gave people an identity, or a cause, to rally around. He made (*some*) Americans feel like he was amplifying their voices, and representing them.

Jamelle Bouie And so, as minorities, progressives, or whatever, it is essential for us to organize

ourselves to make our voice heard. And though protests, in my opinion, are justified, I think it’s important to have certain movements, demands, or identities to rally around. Something to say and convey, if you will.

I’ll give you an example. College can be a bubble, but it’s really taught me how organizing can work. See, when someone organizes a social movement, a protest, or even just support around a specific demand, the first priority is action. And so, if you are willing to commit to the idea, then you’re welcome. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter if you watched John Oliver’s latest sketch making fun of Trump.

Don’t really listen to NPR? Who cares. As long as you’re willing to put effort into the cause, educate yourself, work with others, and don’t get in the way, then great.

(Emphasis on that last point. Don’t get in the way. If it’s a movement around police brutality against black communities, and you’re white, you can be an ally, but don’t take the stage. Understanding where you stand in different social issues, what your lane is, and how to express solidarity is essential.)

Duke-Protest-Organizing This was a protest I was a part of last spring at Duke. I know this protest was slightly controversial, but it gave me insights into social organizing and pushing demands, and I think the cause was definitely justified. If you have any questions about this protest, feel free to Facebook message or tweet at me.

Dan Kane, News Observer Now, Trump did manage to organize people background photos via Flickr and Pexels

in what seemed like a more action-oriented way. But, the problem with his movement is it inherently thrived off exclusiveness and fear. Yes, Trump succeeding in rallying, unifying, and organizing people under a “movement”, but he did it under rhetoric that was clearly exclusionary, dangerously nationalistic and xenophobic, and exploitative of American insecurities.

Not all political or social organizing need be like that. It is possible to organize people over ideals that deconstruct power rather than reinforce it.. but it’s harder. It’s harder because it’s uncomfortable. It requires an unlearning of internalized discrimination, and a critical, yet open-minded approach to issues. And most of all, it requires a willingness to sacrifice personal power for the common good, which means stepping down when you should, amplifying others’ voices, and staying in your lane. If people don’t do this, hierarchies and power dynamics can be reestablished and the movement may lose its equality-oriented grassroot-ness.

This is not to mention the difficulty of being both an open movement that people can learn about, as well as a strong-willed one. I mentioned before that action-oriented movements can be better for outsiders to ease into. And I do believe that it’s important that people, when seeing movements and initiatives, are able to feel comfortable inquiring about the movement, have outlets to get educated on it, and be able to get involved themselves. However, organizing should also be firm, directed, and uncompromising on our identities and the freedoms we deserve. And it can hard to both be organized and strong, while still being accommodating and open.

Black-Lives-Matter I know BLM can be controversial (as many social movements are) because of a few instances of rioting done in its name and an accused lack of organization, but I really look up to it as a strong modern social movement. It may not have had clear demands, or centrality (arguably unnecessary), but it had a specific message, and people were able to present it in a strong and meaningful way. It got people talking, and led to us educating ourselves (and our friends) on police brutality and anti-black racism in the United States. Again, if you have any questions about BLM you want answered, feel free to Facebook message or tweet at me. But I’m just an ally, I don’t represent the movement.

Renee Jones Schneider, Star Tribune But, I know it sucks. It sucks that minorities have to do so much. We have to be strong and uncompromising on our equality, but also patient and willing to talk things out with people. We have to show our frustrations, but not scare anyone. And this is all while hurting, mourning, and healing from the oppression and discrimination we face on a daily basis. It sucks, and I’ll admit I still don’t know how to best express myself and my opinions.

I’m just a kid. I don’t have all the answers.

But, no matter what, we have to start organizing, and we need all the help we can get.

We have to take this into our own hands, make our voice heard, and make real progress. Because voting is not enough.

It has never been enough.

Editing by Elle Winfield, graphics by Marisa Witayananun the power of organizing

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Opinions

China

Why Feminism is BAD by

I

t is not.

However, it is a foolish word choice. You want to incorporate, not single out. For example, when you open up a new store, you do not want it to be a women’s store, or men’s store, because that singles out half of the human population. You want to call it everybody’s store. Feminism, which the male utopian socialist Charles Fourier coined in French as feminisme, first came into use in English in the 1890s. Similarly, this term repels many men merely because it sounds like a movement for exclusively women. Indeed, if both men and women’s interests are at stake, why would you name the movement feminism? You cannot blame men (except for Charles Fourier) when they think to themselves: what does a women’s theory have to do with me?

In fact, the majority of self-acclaimed feminists are women. Moreover, it is not that men do not support feminism. It is as though there were a sitgma about being feminist, for both men and women. Many men misunderstand feminism because it is called such an unsavory name that they do not even bother to comprehend it.

Sexism is rampant everywhere in the world, but it is even more marked in some countries. In China, whose male population exceeds female population by over 34 million because of sex-selective abortion (which is now banned), the 21

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society still places enormous pressure on men and women because of its sexist ideals.

It is very common for a parent to tell a son to stop crying because “a boy does not cry” and to tell a daughter to stop running around because “you should behave like a girl.” When I was a child, older members of my family would tell me to sit with my legs together even when I was wearing pants. As a tall woman in China, I also frequently received the comment as a child that I should stop growing taller because I would not be able to find a husband if I am taller than him. The Chinese society’s idea that a man should be preferably taller and older than his partner reflects the longstanding sexist notion that a man should be the leader of the relationship, both physically and intellectually. Because of this excessive emphasis on masculinity, a social invention in itself, homosexuality is strongly stigmatized, as in many other countries. Older generations regard it as a psychological disorder, while younger generations still largely consider it as an anormaly. I believe the best test for people’s tolerance of homosexuality is to ask them whether they would have problems with their children being gay. Sadly even many of those who claim to be supporters of gay rights give postive answers to the aforementioned question. Because homosexual men do not fit the society’s concept of what a man should be like, then a homosexual man must be an ill man. The

stigmatization is more or less the same for homosexual women. However, unlike men, since it is regarded as socially acceptable for women to lock arms and hold hands in public, lesbians bear less inconvenience than gays in their daily lives.

spring 2017

left photo by MuhammedElGmlDesigns via Flicker, right photo by angela1_ca via Flicker

But the sexism gets worse when you get older. Some Chinese parents possess sexist views of dating, although these views are prevalent in many other countries in the world too. If they have a son, they might encourage him to date and explore as much as he can. However, if they have a daughter, then they might restrict her on the grounds that men are trying to take advantage of her. When it comes to time of marriage, parents tend to intervene in their children’s relationships and at least attempt to influence their children’s choice of life partners. Usually, parents prefer a man with wealth for their daughter, as many still believe that men are the main source of income in a household. In extreme circumstances, parents might even try to force their daughter to break up with a boyfriend that she loves in order to marry into a rich family. In such marriages of wealth but not of love, what awaits women, besides sadness and loneliness, is almost always the expectation from the man’s family for her to give births to offspring, especially sons, to continue the bloodline of her husband’s family. It is sadly astonishing that this still happens, that the parents

are essentially selling their daughter in exchange of materialistic benefits for the entire family. Shockingly, many people still expect the man to drive the car more even if the woman knows how to drive. Sadly for them, they look down upon men who have their girlfriends drive them around because it is apparently unmanly (another socially constructed concept) of them. Meanwhile, they regard it as completely acceptable if a woman does not know how to drive at the age thirty and has her boyfriend drive her around. People also price women according to her age. If she is not married by the age thirty, then they regard her as a 剩女 (sheng nv), which literally means a leftover woman. Whereas since a man is expected to marry younger women, age will not be

Liane Yanglian

much of a problem for him at all. Upon hitting the twenty-five age mark, men and especially women start to get questions from relatives on if they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and when they plan to marry. In some cases, it seems as though the relatives and family friends would be disgraced if a woman does not marry by the age thirty.

Men and women around the world suffer everyday because of sexism. Feminism does not help. Humanism does. If men and women are regarded as truly equal humans, then men will not be forced by societies to be the breadwinners of the family. Men will not be stigmatized if they become househusbands or earn less than their wives. Men will not be ashamed to cry when

they are sad and to show other emotions in public and in private. All boys and girls can play with all toys, not just boys’ toys or girls’ toys. The key to the success of the pursuit of equal rights for human beings, is to realize that men’s interests and rights are just as much at stake and important as women’s.

Stop the gender violence. Start Humanism.

Editing by Marisa Witayananun, graphics

by Liane Yanglian

why feminism is bad

22

Translation of Ukrainian Poems

Poetry

Cultural

by Margaryta Malyukova

Г

23

Є

тисячі доріг, мільйон вузьких стежинок…

ей, нові Колумби й Магеллани

Hey, new Columbuses, Magellans…

15.10.1962

Thousands of roads. Millions of pathways…

17.05.1963

Гей, нові Колумби й Магеллани, Напнемо вітрила наших мрій! Кличуть нас у мандри океани, Бухту спокою облизує прибій.

Hey, new Columbuses, Magellans, Let us dress our dreams in sails!

The oceans beckon us to travel, Breakers lick the quiet bay.

Є тисячі доріг, мільйон вузьких стежинок, Є тисячі ланів, але один лиш мій. І що мені робить, коли малий зажинок Судилося почать на ниві нерясній?

Thousands of roads, millions of pathways, Thousands of fields, and but one is mine.

So what am I to do, when the seed I sow, Fate has made to grow in infertile ground?

Хто сказав, що все уже відкрито? Нащо ж ми народжені тоді? Як нам помістити у корито Наші сподіваная молоді?

Who said that all has been discovered?

Why, then, are we ever born?

How are we to fit inside a bowl All the hopes of our young souls?

Чи викинути серп і йти байдикувати, Чи долю проклясти за лютий недорід І до сусід пристать наймитувати За пару постолів і шкварку на обід?

Throw away the scythe and go idle away, Or accuse misfortune for my bitter crop, And go get a job in my neighbors’ pay For a pair of sandals and a rind of pork?

Кораблі! Шикуйтесь до походу! Мрійництво! Жаго моя! Живи! В океані рідного народу Відкривай духовні острови!

You ships ! Line up for debarkation!

Dreams, my passion! Stay alive!

Seek inside the ocean of my nation Islands where the spirit lies!

Коли б я міг забуть убоге рідне поле, За шмат ції землі мені б усе дали... До того ж і стерня ніколи ніг не коле Тим, хто взува холуйські постоли.

Геть із мулу якорі іржаві — Нидіє на якорі душа!.. Б’ються груди об вітри тужаві, Каравела в мандри вируша.

Out of silt, you rusty anchors, An anchored soul grows bored!..

Winds pound our chests in anger, The carvel leaves the shore.

Та мушу я іти на рідне поле босим, І мучити себе й ледачого серпа, І падати з утоми на покоси, І спать, обнявши власного снопа.

If I could just forget my shabby little field A slice of this soil would buy me all I’d choose.

And, which is more, the stubble never pricks the feet Of those who wear lackey shoes.

Жоден вітер сонця не остудить, Півень землю всю не розгребе! Україно! Доки жити буду, Доти відкриватиму тебе.

No single breeze can cool the sun.

A rooster won’t all soils unrake!

Ukraine! I will until I die Keep discovering you each day.

Бо нива — ця моя! Тут я почну зажинок, Бо кращий урожай не жде мене ніде, Бо тисяча доріг, мільйон вузьких стежинок Мене на ниву батьківську веде...

Мріяти й шукати, доки жити, Шкварити байдужість на вогні!.. А якщо відкрию вже відкрите, Друзі! Ви підкажете мені...

To dream, to seek - as long’s we live To fry boredom like a smore!..

And if I find what is long found, My friends! Just let me know…

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Spring 2017

But I am forced to go to my field barefooted, Torturing myself and my idle scythe, And then fall, exhausted, upon the stalks uprooted And sleep with the sheaf by my side.

For this land is mine! Here I’ll start the sowing, For a better harvest nowhere can be found, For a thousand roads and a million pathways Lead me to my father’s ground…

Editing by Liane Yanglian, graphics by Marisa Witayananun translation of ukrainian poems

24

Memoir

Malaysia

“

A Mother’s Love

by Sophia jamal

My mum has, and will always be part of my dreams; my dream to learn things in life that can’t be taught in the best ranked universities in the world; how to love, how to make mistakes, how to have the humility to admit wrong, how to love one self, how to start a new day with a smile...

I

spent Thanksgiving break in warm, sunny and artsy New Orleans, intrigued by its unique architecture and lively soul.

One evening, stumbling upon a small quaint bookshop close to Lafayette Cemetery, I saw a new book by Jodi Picoult beckoning at me from a shelf. "Small Great Things" the title read. I read the summary of the book - it was on race relations in the United States. How timely, I thought given the tense political and racial climate here after the recent elections. Jodi Picoult was one of my favorite writers growing up. I loved how her books were always controversial - so much so that I'd find myself curled up in bed under my bed covers at 2 am trying hard to keep my eyes open despite having to rise up in 4 hours to shower and get ready for Malaysian public day school.

After toying with the book in my hand for a good five minutes, I decided to head over to the counter to make my purchase.

I half-laughed half-grimaced at my own hesitation. In high school, I wouldn't have thought twice. This time though, head cluttered with the woes of any senior about to graduate, I spoke to the more rational side of me: Sophie, if you get this book, your mind is going to wander into thoughts and notions that are not conducive to what you need now. You need to focus. Focus on your GRE prep, your job search, focus on your application essay to youth mentorship programs that is due Wednesday. But eventually the side of me that vouched to live in the present won over, thanks to possibly the 30-minute tour to the famous New Orleans cemetery, which makes me yearning for the simplicity of home after being away for so long. I got the book, 25

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walked to the nearest cafe, and started reading.

True to my prediction, I haven't been able to put the book aside since then. And my mind is traveling to areas that I haven't paid much attention to lately. The book centers on a black woman, Ruth, who is accused of killing a white baby while she performs her nursing duties. I haven't yet gotten into the meat of the book, but contrary to what you're thinking, I am not only thinking about the questions of race.

Ruth is a mother in the book. She has her own teenage son, and her day-to-day responsibilities constitute introducing new life into the world. It is evident through her writings that she cares for babies, for children, but her son, her son she loves with the deepest and strongest kind of intensity.

From page 1 to page 138, which is where I am at now, I could not stop thinking about my own mum. When I was dozing off in the plane on the way to Durham, I quickly dog-eared the page I was on, only to start thinking about how my mum would have given me a sharp look had she seen that.

Growing up, when I raced out of bookstores with a new book in hand, my mum would remind me to go home and wrap the book with sticky transparent wrapper. "Wrap it properly and stamp your name on it," she'd say. Being the child that I was, I would seldom do it. But I knew I didn't have to.

In the next few days, I'd find it stacked up neatly on my bookshelf, completely wrapped with my name stamped in blue on the side, next to all my other wrapped and stamped books.

spring 2017

”

I never understood her insistence on doing so...I never understood why she would be so mad at me when I had heaps of clothes spewing all over my bedroom floor either, how she would never fail to fold her clothes carefully after trying them on, how she placed every pillow cushion in the house in its exact orientation and order, or how she would spend hours in the garden trimming the flowers and plants outside so that we'd always come home to a beautiful, clean lawn. Looking back, I must have had stubborn ear plugs in my ears because though she had told me so many times, I was not actually listening. "When I was your age, I did not have much. So now that I have a house, my own space, my own room, I want to look after it, care for it, nurture it, keep it tidy..." She'd say that to me.I looked at the dog ear I had made on that page again, and ran my fingers on it, the whole time thinking that the way she had looked after her belongings with so much care was not unlike the way she has nurtured me.

I came to the realization that the main reason I was engrossed in this book was her. They say that you can't remember many things from your early childhood days, but if I were to give even the slightest allowance to my mind to return to my oldest memories, I can easily assume the 3-year-old self once more: She's sitting cross-legged on a bed in a tiny room somewhere in cold and dreary Leeds, England. She has many English-speaking friends from her kindergarten but really her best friend is the woman sitting opposite to her, congratulating her on her little reading award from school. Juggling her Masters in Orthodontics while caring for a 3-year-old,

This woman reads to and with her every day, helping her add to her toddler vocabulary bit by bit. In between burying her head in heaps and heaps of complicated medical terms, she made the time to cook my favorite dishes at my request (chicken kurma, grilled salmon and sambal mussels);In between scary dental exams, she'd find the time to buy a Spice Girls cassette and T-shirt for me, cheering me on as I wobbled around the living room, dancing to "Wannabe" with my hair tied up in a scruffy high pony tail. When she told me to reenact the scene in front of her friends and I refused, she wouldn't take no for an answer. She'd told me to not be shy in front of others, to be myself...

given me so much, and I am beginning to grasp what my privileged teenage self simply could not understand properly then Like most women who have lived out close to half a century of their lives, my mum has gone through her fair share of life's challenges. She has experienced pain , grief, and sadness. Yet, anyone who knows my mum also knows that she has a killer sense of humor, a courage that is stronger than a lioness, a laughter that is loud and unbounded that always fills up a room, a kindness that is so pure that it could break out of its fragile shell, and a strong-willed heart that will try its best to stay on the path that is moral, humble, and forgiving always.

When the plane landed, I undid the dog ears, and vouched to get myself a bookmark.

In the last week, I encountered many people who were shocked to hear that postgraduation, I had plans to return home to Malaysia, instead of remaining in the supposed land of opportunity for good.

Growing up with so little in life, she has

They asked me why. I replied, "Family."

Like many of them, my mum also told me to stay in the United States if I wanted to.

"Don't come home because of me. I miss you but I will be okay, don't give up your dreams because of me." There she goes again, putting my desires above hers...

It's funny to me though; no one understands how when I scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and see photos of my Malaysian girlfriends with their mums, I feel a pang of envy. I want to be there with my mum too. I don't see going home to be close to her and my family as giving up on my dreams. My mum has, and will always be part of my dreams; my dream to learn things in life that can't be taught in the best ranked universities in the world; how to love, especially how to love oneself, how to make mistakes, how to have the humility to admit wrong, how to start a new day with a smile... Sometimes it takes six years to be away from home to realize how much you've taken your mum for granted, and how the best things in life don't have to be chased, only cherished.

Editing by Heather Zhou, graphics by Zijing Sherry Huang

background photo by Vania Raposo, other photos by author

a mother's love

26

Memoir

Morocco

I want please

the big cup: Rabat, Morocco

by Leah Rothfeld

T

hey say to be careful with street food. I was "careful" with street food in Morocco (only ate from the stands with the cutest cats near them), and ended up taking a hard hit of food poisoning from a trendy and fancy cafe on the water.

My classmates and I make it to this gorgeous spot by the ocean with a cute little cafe called Cafe Marina, or Cafe Marine, or Marine Bay Cafe, or something like this. It is around Week 5 of our Moroccan adventure, and I don’t know what I miss more - my mom or her fish tacos. I open up the menu, and suddenly I am dying for a salad. I know, who gets excited for a salad? After so much bread-bread-bread, couscous-couscous-couscous, I lock my eyes on the picture of this lettuce pile in the menu, and I know it is my fate. So, I order this particular bed of green stuff I see (by pointing to it and smiling at our waiter) because it is the only salad with a picture of it in the menu. I figure it must be the best. The waiter brings to all my hip and fun classmates their chocolate-y crepes but forgets my lettuce meal, so we remind him twice. After an hour of waiting, the other plates at the table are empty. I declare I’m so hungry that I’m actually not hungry anymore, and I convince my crepe-filled peers that I will cut my losses and leave the restaurant without it.

so good in the picture (and my friends determined to get another crepe), we come back later in the week. This time, my salad comes. And WOW, it was a total knock-off version of what I pointed to on the menu.

I don't know a ton about online dating but I think this is probably what happens when you invite one of eHarmony’s hot "From Brazil; Entrepreneur; Has A Cute Puppy” guy. He shows up for your date, and you realize Brazilian just means he has a Brazilian uncle by marriage; entrepreneur is code for trying to make money playing video games; and the puppy is his exgirlfriend's that he babysits when she's out of town because she’s still his "super good friend but not in a weird way haha!".

Determined to eat that salad that looks

The salad in the picture has strawberries; the salad in real life has squid (?) chunks.

The salad in the picture has crisp spinach; the salad in real life has brown and limp iceberg. The salad in the picture has balsamic vinaigrette; the salad in real life has corn. (The corn is important to the story, as I later realize corn is a recurring character in the bad stories of my life. For example, one time I got chased by a pack of children down the street and the alpha male threw a cob of corn at my head. And on one particularly lonely Valentine’s day, I was making myself pasta salad and sliced my finger on a can of corn so hard the bone was exposed. Yum! So, I should have stopped right there at the sight of the kernels and

27

spring 2017

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gone to McDonald’s, but at this point I had yet to put together the ominous corn theme in my life.)

I have waited so long for this salad I just eat it, which is the biggest mistake of my life to date, excluding my short-lived pursuit of an Economics major. I wake up in the middle of the night and my legs carry me to the nearest trash can before I even realize I'm awake. My host grandma wakes up from my masculine gagging and we make it downstairs to the bathroom sink together, stopping every few feet so I can toss another bit of the previous day’s lunch.

It’s food poisoning, and I suddenly am plagued by thoughts of what will happen to my cat when I go since I have not written a will - I just know I won’t be surviving this. I throw up in the sink for what feels like forever, until I think I'm done. I sit down on the couch to close my eyes and contemplate karma. Yes, if I did not feed my dog under the table so much this would not be happening. Every time in my life that a Publix cashier has asked, “Paper or plastic?” and I went with plastic has all added up to this. This is how I will go. Goodbye.

Suddenly a bit more squid is coming up my pipes so I run back to the sink to puke more. Toilets are usually my puke location of choice, but the toilet in my homestay is tucked away under the stairs and doubles as a shower room. It’s wet and damp and

“I said not to eat the street food!” dark; I decide that I’m dealing with too much right now, and I stick with the sink. I go back to the couch but now I know that I cannot trust myself to hold in the contents of my stomach, so I ask for a bucket so I don't have to keep running back and forth from couch to sink, couch to sink.

HG: Yes you ate the corn!!!!! *wags accusing finger at me* Me: I ate the salad. The salad in the cafe, in the street. I did not eat the corn of the street. No. HG: *says something in Arabic that can only be "You dirty little liar" *

I never thought I would need to learn the word "bucket" in Arabic, but boy do I need a bucket now. The closest phrase I can come up with to cry at my non-English speaking host grandma is:

I have since looked up the Arabic word for bucket. ‫ولد‬.

Editing by Amanda Sear, graphics by Micaela Unda

"I WANT PLEASE THE BIG CUP!" which I repeat over and over to her while doing a throw up motion. The woman does not understand my desperate request, and only shakes her head and tries to force feed me some pungent herbal tea she has made for my healing. I shake my head no and start crying, real Kim Kardashian tears that drip off my chin. She interprets this as me not knowing how to drink tea, so she demonstrates on the cup and now any chance of me trying her tea is completely shot because I'm living through my grossest moment, and now another human's saliva is on the lip of that cup.

I don't know how I make it through that night, but the morning is not much better.

Here is my morning conversation with my host grandma in my terribly broken Arabic, as she accuses me of disobeying her orders to avoid the street food, using the corn which she saw in my throw up as evidence: Host Grandma: I said do not eat the street food!

Me: I did not eat the food of the street.

HG: Yes! I see the corn.

Me: What?! Noooooo. No no. No. I did not eat the corn of the street.

photo by Raquel Carbonell via Google Images

i want please the big cup

28

Staff Corner

I do not like how I missed my international flight because the airport security person at RDU would not let me use the express lane quoting “we treat everyone equally.” They just did not care to even listen to your story. Back home in China, airport security personnel are very understanding. There is a special lane open just for late passengers in almost every single airport (and that means a lot of airports!). Other passengers are happy to let late passengers use the express lane because why not.

The one thing that I almost can’t survive is air conditioning. It is always too cold in the summer. I have to take a coat with me when I go to classes and libraries.

The healthcare system is badly in need of reform, as recent events have shown pretty clearly. There is obviously still disagreement over what access to healthcare means and I think that this is an issue that isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

I don’t like that foreign language learning isn’t emphasized in public schools during young, formative years.

My biggest complaint is food. Pizzas, sandwiches, hamburgers... They are repetitive and unhealthy.

Seeing a doctor here can make you broke.

What Do You Not The American diet involves excessive consumption of junk food and added sugars, paired with huge portion sizes! Yet while some people over-consume unhealthy food, others are constantly following fad diets or strictly eliminating certain foods. It is quite hard to maintain a mindful yet flexible diet that strikes a balance.

Like About America?

Its cultural focus on superficiality and materialism.

Panda Express and The bread in most French restaurants in the US.

I don’t like how people are so self-interested and how our politics and economy are all led by rich white men.

I don’t like how I have to explain my culture and background to people and how whiteness is normalized.

Although America is a wonderful country and I feel extremely lucky to be here, I sometimes note that America is a dangerous country to live in. In big cities, for example, there are areas that people are not supposed to wander into. Combine that with all the news about gun violence and crimes, I truly wish America can become a safer place.

I think that health care can be vastly improved in the United States. Compared to a large number of other high-income countries, the US spends the most on health care but produced poorer heath outcomes. This discrepancy must be diminished by increasing access to and affordability of health insurance for all members of society, with every individual playing their part in achieving this goal.

Graphics by Zijing Sherry Huang 29

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spring 2017

Image by Kirstie_J via Pixabay Quote boxes by Maialisa via Pixabay

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