Guest writer..
The Promised Land, of opportunities,credit history, sex, controversy and jealousy, where you make your own destiny and reshape your fate, is nothing really but a chunk of land isolated from the rest of the world in the comforts of its own continent, geographically and ideologically. The United States of America is no more a country in the typical sense of the word. Like it or not, it is a super-nation containing denizens from all walks of life, race and nationality. A giant mash up of cultural ideas inspired and propagated by the never seen before in history phenomenon called globalization. In New York City alone, at any point in time, there are at least a 110 different languages being spoken on the streets. Off course, good ol' English is always there to bridge that communication gap when you need to ask for directions to the subway. Underneath all its apparent organization and efficiency, for a foreigner like myself, and for many others I'm sure, there is a lot of confusion and tension hidden underneath all the opportunity and money that the States has to offer.
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Foreigner. I would have never imagined referring to myself as one. Especially 4 years ago while sitting in a small cake shop called Snowmans, hidden snugly from the busy hustle of New Road in a small inconspicuous alleyway known as Freak Street. There I used to sit down to have my cup of lemon tea and chocolate brownie and observe all the 'kuires' who visited the shop for their share of delicacies. On some occasions wonder at peculiar looking 'kuires' like the guy who had ear piercings the size of bangles. Or the 'gores' who were all about the harerama harekrishna buzz and dressed up in saffron robes. Or the 'gorini' with dreadlocks and tattoos etched all over her body. God forbid if a black man ever walked through those doors. There'd be no end to the stares that he'd get.
But that was then, and this is now. The roles have reversed, the tables turned. The hunter now becomes the hunted. I become the foreigner. 6000 miles away from home, no family, only friends who act like family, that keep me contained in my sanity. You get poked at, ridiculed of, pointed at, gasped at, looked down upon, stared at. You name it. Anything that could ever possibly bring your spirits down, or make you feel bad about yourself, you'll find it laughing in your face. Off course this sort of thing is always happening back home too but its different when a 'kuire' calls YOU a 'kuire'. It puts the whole experience of feeling bad in a different perspective, albeit, you're still left feeling like a beat up nickel. Then again, everything bad has a lesson in good.
"Wait! That's not what I heard about our folks in the US. They're doing good. They drive nice cars and have cool cellphones. They earn a lot of money, hang out with pretty girls/handsome guys, drink a lot of beer, get the Green Card. Life sounds easy!" you might say. Sadly, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Life is not easy anywhere! For me personally, life was MUCH MUCH MUCH easier when I was in Nepal and my 'daddy' had my back covered and bought me my bike, cellphone, paid for my tuition, and also my parties, and my cigarettes and booze (which was a secret from him off course) and even bought my plane tickets to the US. Thats when he went broke and said "Son! You're on your own now. The only other thing I'll help you pay for is your marriage party." And with that it was all over. I was a sheep amongst a pack of wolves, tossed head first into the deep end of the swimming pool. From here onwards I would break contact with the world I knew and start all fresh again. Life is full of journeys, but you hardly know your destination till you get there.
So why did I come to the US? Why does anyone come to the almighty US of A? To ride the subway? Maybe if it was for free. We come to the US in search for opportunity!! After all this is the land of [exhausted sigh] opportunity! At least that's the reason why I came here. But I guess fate had it planned a little differently for me. With all this hype about US colleges having excelling standards of educations and slutty college freshmen, its easy to get lured into this extricate web of money leeching techniques that will leave you broke(r) but wiser, hopefully without any bastard children along the way. And before you know it, you've landed in your port of entry, be that Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or any other metropolitan city here, and get your face slapped off by a big invisible hand "Welcome to America fool! Now go do the dishes!" And oblige you must. Because before you set foot on the continent you have already signed a contract with the devil, vowing to be a slave to the system and do its dirty wor
Most colleges require you to show adequate financial support for the full duration of your stay, which usually is 4 years, and which totals to a whopping $50,000 or more, depending on the college you go to. Off course the really smart ones among us aim for scholarships which decrease this total drastically, but for the remaining majority, we still have to come up with a way to make our bank accounts reflect this lump sum . Or rather our father's or uncle's bank account. Out comes the shady paperwork, borrowing money from here or there, from trustworthy contacts, just for a couple of days just so we can trick the American colleges into thinking we can pay for their lofty fees. It is an urban legend that financial stability increases your chances of getting THE VISA, so the more the better. But once you're enrolled in college and started off your semester, the devil comes to haunt you again. "Where's my money?" is what it says to you.
It taunts and teases you in every possible way. You see your American friends going out to eat once or twice every week whereas you only have enough to afford a six pack of cheap ramen noodles to last you the week. "Do the dishes" booms out that invisible voice again. Even if you've never washed your own plates in your life, all thanks to that illegal kid 'kamgarne' that you've employed at your house, you start thinking its not too bad as you pick up your first cheese stained trays and plates.
The first day of dish washing is the worst, where you think about what all you had, and what all you lost, and where you've ended up now. After one is past that initial stage of 'dish wash' fright its alright. The melted cheese stops bothering you as much, the greasy trays don't seem TOO greasy anymore, the hot water from the cleaning spray becomes more bearable as you zone out and start thinking about elsewhere.
In Nepal, I have found, myself no exception to this, that a lot of household members refrain from doing any of the 'dirty' chores of the house. Cleaning the toilet, washing dishes, LAUNDRY et AL. Here it's no sweat. You gotta do what you gotta do. No 'ifs' no 'buts', just do it, and do it right.
But the worst thing, that I find, being here in the US is the overwhelming shortage of financial stability. No matter how much you work, savings are always almost in the negative, meaning you're spending more than you're saving and that's making you take loans with outrageous APR s. "Spend less stupid" you might say. The ONE thing that stands out in the US above most other countries is its amazing purchasing power parity (as economists might aptly put it?). It is in your own hands to experience what your dollar can get for you. In Nepal your choices are limited. You might save for a house, or a car, or a motorbike, and even when you do buy one, its not always guaranteed to be in the best of conditions.
Say hello to concepts of insurance and customer satisfaction. In a land driven crazy hungry by consumerism, there is this need to satisfy that hunger/tendency to spend money and make it all worthwhile. Sky dive, ride a roller coaster, get that cool i Phone that's been creating waves of excitement all over the world, buy yourself a PS3 or a X360 or a Wii, go to the best strip joint (read Gentleman's club) in the neighborhood, try your luck at the casino, try new cosmetic products, from shaving creams, toothbrushes, hair mousse to fancy perfumes, rent out whoop ass cars that you would never dream of buying, fly out to different states to meet your friends, occasionally when you feel charitable donate a couple of bucks to a worthwhile institution. Your health is covered by insurance, if you have a car, that too. You live once, experience all that life has to offer by living in the present, not the past or the future, no matter how bad/good the present turns out to be.
Brooding over something only makes matters worse. Yes there are always bills to be paid, there will ALWAYS be, maybe not always adequate money to pay for those bills. Yes your parents will ALWAYS worry about how you are ALWAYS broke and they can't ALWAYS send dollar bills your way because they've run out of land to sell. They worry about your future, and in part about theirs. You are their investment in life! And the way things are in our Nepali 'samaj' (something that I personally have a lot of frustration against) 'they', or the 'samaj', try to decide for your parents by criticizing their decisions.
Which brings me to my absolutely main, but hidden, reason for writing this rant. They say that 58% of all statistics are made on the spot, but I hear that 80% of SLC graduates apply for colleges abroad. Now whether this might be correct statistics or not, I don't think we even need to look at numbers to verify this fact. Just ask yourself, "How many people that I know of, have sent their siblings to educational institutes in places other that Nepal itself?" If you're one of the very few people that answered "None" then
A) You're lying to yourself
B) You don't want to bother thinking hard enough to browse your massive genology tree to find out who went where.
C) You are utterly out of touch with your contacts.
And I don't mean people only from Kathmandu. Due to socio-economical forces, people of Kathmandu tend to think they represent the entire country of Nepal, economically, maybe you do, but demographically? Get over it! Kathmandu is in Nepal, not the other way round. Just to clarify, I live in Kathmandu. And this 'supremist' feeling exists ONLY within the geographical boundaries of Kathmandu, by a FEW 'elitist' bastards who think they have self-proclaimed legacy to the country, through birthright. The Nepalis I've met here are totally different from the ones I met in Nepal when I went home last winter after only about three and a half years of stay here in the promised land.
First difference: Most of them are open minded. Topics ranging from sex, caste & creed, politics, music, religion, you name it. There is hardly any of the "Tyo bahun lai her na." or "Tyo jyaapu" or "bhote". It comes with the realization that there is MUCH more to life than just discussing and criticizing an obsolete, outdated and outright wrong way of characterizing and grouping human individuals. This doesn't mean that culture is lost. Tradition is always preserved, maybe not in its purest or pristine (read: rigid) form but the place you stay in and the people you meet eventually rub off on your moral values. After all thats what promotes exchange and diffusion of ideas.
The most auspicious days for us are NOT New Years or Christmas or Fourth of July (although these days tend to be good days to work as you get paid double on "National Holidays"). Its Dashain/Tihar and Baisak Ek Gatee (even tho we dont think of the date in terms of 'gatee' anymore). Like in my university, and many more I presume, we celebrate a 'Nepal Nite' every semester where we indulge in commemorating the heritage and tradition of our rich legacy that we proudly own and acknowledge. And yes, some of us do get drunk off our skulls on these occasions (and many more which I do not want to mention right now). I guess drinking is infused deeply in our genes. Just you tube for 'Nepal night' and you'll be greeted with videos from various institutions celebrating this pseudo-festival.
Most of the year is spent in college. Depending on your college you usually have two four month semesters, or four two month trimesters, with two 'long' breaks in between. Winter break, summer break. The hardest thing about college here, is not the studies, its obviously the fees, save the few super lucky ones who get full scholarship and also an annual ticket back home . There are a handful who apparently have extra special monetary management skills and cough up the entire semester fees on time AND also afford books for their classes (about $500 every semester). And then there's a vast majority (me included) who can never seem to pay their fees in time nor buy their much needed text books. The fees. well, they can wait for a couple of months, but for the books, its scrounging time. If there's another Nepali in your class, you split the cost of the book, or just mooch off him/her, because he/she is Nepali and understands and sympathizes with your financial situation. . If not, mooch off some nice American guy/girl whom you, in turn, help out with their algebra homework. Worse comes to bad, photocopy sections of the book that you need and get it binded and voila! you got yourself a bootleg copy that has the exact same information on it as its original counterpart. Books can be considered an investment too, but we'll discuss that sometime else.
When not in class, the typical Nepali student is usually hard at work on campus. Whether that be in the cafeteria (cooking, dish washing) or in the computer lab (help desk), or some other form of work like tutoring. Campus work is the easy part, albeit the catch is you can only work there twenty hours a week. Its the 'off-campus' job thats usually frustrating. Some do it, some don't It all depends on how bad you need money. If you don't then just chill with your twenty hours of campus employment, if you do, then, "GO DO THE DISHES"!
The reason why off campus jobs usually SUCK is because, news flash, you're not an American citizen, you're on F1 visa, so you have to settle for anything you get. Not everyone will be willing to employ you because that would be 'illegal' for them and they don't want to get fined $10,000 (depending on state) just by employing a dark haired foreigner with a musty accent who can't really clean dishes that well. Although a lot of us work in the kitchen, there are a good number who find employment with our trusty Indian bhaiyas. These Indian bhaiyas are, suprize suprize, rich, well off and 'kanjus'. And all of them own gas stations apparently. And they can pay us a bit lower than the bare minimum wage because they know we aren't allowed to work. So basically they try to squeeze us for each and every dollar they pay. Well there are some fringe benefits that come from working at gas stations but I'll leave that to your own dastardly imaginations.
Other off campus jobs include looking after old American folks, their daily needs and cares, including feeding them and taking them to the restroom. This job usually pays well, but for a good reason which I might have already highlighted in my previous sentence. And then there are the manual labor jobs like factory, or construction. Construction pays really good, but at the end of the day leaves very little strength for homework. Factory jobs are not very pleasing either. Classes plus homework plus on campus job plus off campus job leaves very little time for sleep, forget recreation.
Weekends are the time off (usually) from work/studies/frustration. I hear the Nepali youth in the US can be somewhat grossly mis defined just by the 3 D's: Drink, Dance and 'Dangdung'. The 'Dangdung' doesn't happen very often where I stay, but drink and dance is synonymous with the weekend. After a hard week's work, its pretty refreshing to down that bottle of icy Corona. Not everyone gets the weekend off tho. There are still a good number who'll be doing extra jobs on the weekend just so they can pay for the month's rent.
Rent is a very variable thing. What I mean is its different from state to state so you can't really say how much its going to cost the typical Nepali student to live in an apartment. Also depends on the number of roommates you are willing to put up with. Usually in the freshmen year you have more roommates (I had 5 in a 2 bedroom apartment) and as you progress to your senior year, privacy is of utmost importance, hence you start looking for smaller crowds. Plus if you're living in the cities, then its going to be a bit more expensive.
Not everyone who comes to the US goto New York City or Los Angeles or Minneapolis or Denver. Id say most of the colleges are located in a somewhat rural setting. In other words 'gau' (village). Villages of the United States. OK Not villages, maybe small towns, but I like referring to them as 'gauns' because of the apparent backwardness when compared to the city life here. I feel sorry for some of us who land smack in the middle of hick country. These 'university towns' are scattered all over the US throughout different states but they all are basically the same. A college, couple of gas stations, walmart, housing complexes for the students, and a nearby suburban city area where you can goto if you're bored of staring at corn fields all semester.
When you're a financially unstable third world student in the US of A, you look towards breaks not as a time of leisure, but as an opportunity to earn more dollars, to pay for that wild spontaneous road trip to Las Vegas you took a couple of months ago. Summer break or winter break, its all the same. Its a break from college, but not a break from work. If anything summer's primary focus, at least theoretically, is to work to save up money to pay off for last semester's, or next semester's tuition fees. Sometimes that doesn't happen which leaves you groveling in the dirt to somehow come up with $4000 to pay the college. At other times, you'll be earning extra $$ that you can use to put towards other expenses or send home. Yes, send some dollars home! People do that, and its usually after summer if you earn more than enough, then you can possible spare a few thousand dollars to blow away on dear family. Just to clarify, from all the people I've met only about 5% earn enough money to send back home, 80% are ALWAYS broke, and 15% are sitting on the fence not knowing whether they'll fall towards the broke population, or prosper. A whole new article could be written about 'The Typical Nepali Student's Summer in USA" but I'm not going into a lot of details here as there are a LOT to be covered.
Lets just say for convenience's sake that the primary target for Nepali students in the summer is this small town on the east coast called Ocean City. I'm not saying everyone goes there for summer, but everyone knows someone who's there for the summer. Its the Promised Land inside the Promised Land. If you think about it, you really don't have to go there to work for summer, you could as well find a good job wherever you are at the moment. But the sheep mentality that we have inherited from our ancestors of yore work wonders when buying plane tickets for the summer. I've personally been there two summers worked like a slave for my Jewish masters before going back to college without any difference in my bank account, because of all the partying that happens when Nepalis meet by the scores. We are hard working people, but we also work hard at partying. Blame it on our genes.
Summarizing, the Typical Nepali Student come to the US with hopes of earning money, getting laid, and getting a degree, but somehow manages to screw things up (not literally) and ends up working nightmarish hours per week just to pay off those humongous bills and drive off those pesky credit agent vultures, eventually finding out that their VISA period has expired and they've still not graduated, so change their plans to marry a white girl and get the green card and live happily ever after.
Sadly this is the case for a lot of students. The amount we have in loans are outrageous, enough to give our fathers heart attacks. Its all about the money here. And still here we ride through the storm, broke as a joke, but with a will to do something in life no matter what obstacles we have to overcome. I guess in the end, its not all about the money. Its about the journey.
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