I'm going to write about something that I've almost never heard openly discussed, and hope that I manage to do so tastefully, non-offensively, and maybe even a bit jovially. Ready? Let's dive in.
Come on, admit it - at one time or another, you have found it difficult to distinguish between people you don't know well who are of the same race (and that race is different from your own). To put it indelicately, and more specifically, say you are, oh I don't know, a blonde American woman who moves to the UAE and meets a whole slew of Filipinos at church, all at once. This woman was me, and it was harder to learn all those Filipinos' names than it would have been for me to learn the names of a bunch of white-bread people in Provo, Utah (or wherever).
I experienced a lot of secret shame over this problem for a few months. I spent at least part of every Friday meeting scanning the faces in the congregation, trying to connect them with the names of people I knew I had already met. I studied the congregation's picture directory to try to get a better sense of each individual, so I could tell him/her apart from everybody else, and then learn his/her name. Are you feeling awkward and embarrassed just reading about this? Imagine how I felt when I was actually living it.
That awkwardness was almost immediately dispelled one Friday afternoon during church. I was in a meeting with some Filipina friends who were working with me in the children's group. One of them mentioned the name of an American man ("brother" was the word she used, since that's what we call fellow Mormons) in the congregation and another Filipina asked, "who's that?" And then, THEN, to my utter salvation, she continued, "I can't tell any of the American brothers apart. They all look the same to me!" The other three Filipinas laughed in agreement.
So I'm not the only one who has this problem, and neither are you, since I'm pretty sure you've experienced this to some extent in your own life. The good thing is that you can acclimate to a particular culture pretty fast. I've studied the Japanese language and culture for long enough that I no longer remember having a hard time telling Japanese people apart.
Again, I can't shake the feeling that we're not supposed to talk about this, but stay with me. What has been most fascinating about this phenomenon is being on the other end of it. In the Pre-K and Kindergarten classes at Miriam's school, there are exactly three white kids. All of them are girls with short blonde hair (Miriam is one of them; the other two are from South Africa and the UK). Over the past nine months of the school year, I couldn't tell you the number of times a classmate or parent of a classmate (but thankfully, not a teacher) has confused Miriam with one of the other girls. It happens all the time, everywhere. It's to the point where if someone calls Miriam "Isabelle" (the name of the girl in her class), she doesn't even bother to correct them (or have me correct them). She just laughs about it and carries on.
Of course, to me, Lily and Isabelle and Miriam look very different, even at a glance. But obviously that's not the case for everyone.
Meanwhile, my Filipina distinction skills are getting stronger as I get to know them and their children better, so that's nice.
And now, some discussion questions. What, exactly, is going on here? Is it simply a matter of me being used to relying on easy cues like variations in hair and eye color traits that are largely absent in some races? If so, then how do you account for the fact that I have never had this problem with Arabs? I know there are actual scientific reasons I could look up (...right?) but I'm more interested in hearing the theories of laymen such as yourselves.
Come on, admit it - at one time or another, you have found it difficult to distinguish between people you don't know well who are of the same race (and that race is different from your own). To put it indelicately, and more specifically, say you are, oh I don't know, a blonde American woman who moves to the UAE and meets a whole slew of Filipinos at church, all at once. This woman was me, and it was harder to learn all those Filipinos' names than it would have been for me to learn the names of a bunch of white-bread people in Provo, Utah (or wherever).
I experienced a lot of secret shame over this problem for a few months. I spent at least part of every Friday meeting scanning the faces in the congregation, trying to connect them with the names of people I knew I had already met. I studied the congregation's picture directory to try to get a better sense of each individual, so I could tell him/her apart from everybody else, and then learn his/her name. Are you feeling awkward and embarrassed just reading about this? Imagine how I felt when I was actually living it.
That awkwardness was almost immediately dispelled one Friday afternoon during church. I was in a meeting with some Filipina friends who were working with me in the children's group. One of them mentioned the name of an American man ("brother" was the word she used, since that's what we call fellow Mormons) in the congregation and another Filipina asked, "who's that?" And then, THEN, to my utter salvation, she continued, "I can't tell any of the American brothers apart. They all look the same to me!" The other three Filipinas laughed in agreement.
So I'm not the only one who has this problem, and neither are you, since I'm pretty sure you've experienced this to some extent in your own life. The good thing is that you can acclimate to a particular culture pretty fast. I've studied the Japanese language and culture for long enough that I no longer remember having a hard time telling Japanese people apart.
Again, I can't shake the feeling that we're not supposed to talk about this, but stay with me. What has been most fascinating about this phenomenon is being on the other end of it. In the Pre-K and Kindergarten classes at Miriam's school, there are exactly three white kids. All of them are girls with short blonde hair (Miriam is one of them; the other two are from South Africa and the UK). Over the past nine months of the school year, I couldn't tell you the number of times a classmate or parent of a classmate (but thankfully, not a teacher) has confused Miriam with one of the other girls. It happens all the time, everywhere. It's to the point where if someone calls Miriam "Isabelle" (the name of the girl in her class), she doesn't even bother to correct them (or have me correct them). She just laughs about it and carries on.
Of course, to me, Lily and Isabelle and Miriam look very different, even at a glance. But obviously that's not the case for everyone.
Meanwhile, my Filipina distinction skills are getting stronger as I get to know them and their children better, so that's nice.
And now, some discussion questions. What, exactly, is going on here? Is it simply a matter of me being used to relying on easy cues like variations in hair and eye color traits that are largely absent in some races? If so, then how do you account for the fact that I have never had this problem with Arabs? I know there are actual scientific reasons I could look up (...right?) but I'm more interested in hearing the theories of laymen such as yourselves.