11 January, 2018
Today, I witnessed something incredible. Something life-changing, I think. During one of our sessions, we watched a silent simulation. It was of a made-up country called Albatross. We were instructed to watch and observe silently. A brief description of this play:
A man was sitting in a chair, doing nothing. Next to him was a table with food and water. A woman standing beside the table brought the man food, bowed on the ground, and proceeded to feed him. When he gestured he was finished, she repeated the actions with water. The man never lifted a finger.Â
I was so infuriated watching this and had to continuously remind myself to remain calm, observe, and not pass judgment on this different culture. After the simulation, we were told to reflect and share what we had observed with the room. I was completely taken off guard by other's observations. I had been feeling so defensive and pissed that I had just watched a woman bow and feed a man that I didn't actually think about the fact that I had no clue as to what the backstory of this situation was. Maybe this had nothing to do with gender roles. The man could have been royalty, he could have been a monk, or perhaps just a very special guest. I realized that my initial judgments came from my background, culture; my personal life-lense. The resentment I felt towards this scenario came from me feeling, observing, and being told (mostly indirectly) throughout my life that women are lesser than men. They are the nurturers, the neck to the head, the weaker of the sexes. Always feel as if a woman's opinions should be taken lighter than a man's or that we should have to ask their opinion or permission before doing something. I have always known I had a very negative feeling towards that cultural norm. Still, I have never felt it more strongly than I did in that moment of watching a woman feed, water, and bow to a man- even though I really had no idea what was happening. I came to find out that in this culture, the ground and food are considered holy. Being closer to Mother Earth, women are privileged to touch the ground and food, while men are not. Men cannot feed themselves because they are not holy enough. Even though this culture is fictional, this simulation was so powerful to me. It made me realize how capable I am of making snap judgments about things I do not understand just because of my personal point of reference. This scenario caused me to check myself, my values, my morals, and how open-minded I actually am to experience the world around me. I sincerely hope that throughout the rest of my time in Thailand (and life), I can take a step back when feeling frustrated or angry at something or someone and try to recognize where that's coming from inside of me. I hope I can consider whether I truly know the whole story or understand what's happening. I hope you can, too.