pandastan

Nothing new to add, other than I've recorded a new song. I finished writing this one about a month ago, but didn't record it until last week. Here's the link to it: http://www.ziddu.com/viewfile/9644588/RaymondThomson-2010-EmptyVessels.mp3.html

It follows a theme about how I've been frustrated in the way Malawians tend to view me as a white person. There are a number of assumptions about white people: they have oodles of money, they can't do manual labor, they can't handle heat and sun, they can't handle discomfort in general, etc etc. In general, one gets to feeling like people view you as a mythical beast who should always be catered to or asked for money. One gets the feeling that people try to show you respect or have you around, or treat you in any way they treat you at all, due to the chance that those things might result in you giving them money.

Some people don't go in for all of that, and I see them walking by me in my village giving me hateful looks. Those hateful looks inspired the first verse. The second verse is about relationships of course, and the whole thing is just about the way we assume things about people based on what we want to believe about the world and how our vision of who this other person is helps give hope to or justify that belief. It's also about how people end up adopting the very traits that have been ascribed to them. I've found myself from time to time slipping into the very character pattern of the rich, arrogant, oblivious white person, since that's how people expect me to be and how they treat me no matter what I do - so sometimes it's just easier to act that way so your interactions with people become less confusing. So people create an identify for me and impose it on me, and sometimes, I stop fighting and just let it become true. I think this is something that happens to everyone in life; I've just never been able to notice it happening to me so clearly before.