viet in nigeria

this blog chronicles my internship in jos, nigeria. i will be working at faith alive, one of the few sites in nigeria that provides antiretroviral drugs to HIV positives. this free clinic was founded in 1996 by dr. chris isichei and his wife, mercy.

i am a uc berkeley graduate student in the school of public health, studying infectious diseases with an international health speciality area.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

on race.

i live about three blocks from the clinic. so i walk everyday. it's a nice walk. all the neighborhood kids shout at me every day, chanting oyibo! bye bye! (meaning: white person, in the yoruba language) over and over until i wave at them. some run up to me and tag my body, usually my hand or leg, just because they think they can have wealth by touching a "white person." all of the adults who do not know my name refer to me as oyibo, as well. i frequently get a, "oyibo, good morning!" from the neighbor who sells corn near my apartment. i also get called bature (meaning: european or white person, in hausa).

i am vietnamese. no surprise there. but if you are like most nigerians i have encountered, it is a surprise. the first week i arrived, i had the pleasure of meeting hillary and ryan who are a married couple just ending their stay in jos. they both worked on a some different projects at FA and had already been there for almost two months when i arrived. hillary happens to be asian, as well. to this day, i still get people talking to me as if i were hillary, despite the fact that i feel i look nothing like her. they would ask me where my husband, ryan, was. and they would assume i was a doctor. when i begin to not follow a conversation with someone, i have conditioned myself to start convincing that someone that i am not the same person as hillary. but i don't really mind.

i am frequently referred to as "white" by many people, including friends and colleagues at the clinic who very well know that i am vietnamese american. this all goes back to my first blog and my reaction to the inquiry of my complexion. i should have written fair only. i am very fair compared to nigerians here. should a foreigner decide to come to nigeria, words that s/he will hear as a "white person" will be bature and oyibo. in addition to being "white," i have also had the following shouted at me on the streets: china! japanese! also, in conversation with people, i have been asked where i am from and always get a strange look when i answer with, "the united states." i then go into an overly rehearsed explanation about how my parents came from vietnam, a country south of china (this is the part where the look of confusion immediately melts away for a brief moment, at the familiarity of the word china.), and came to the U.S., where they married and started a family. after this explanation, i usually get a, "oh, you look like china." i have also been called korean after i refused to answer to china and japanese, for some reason. when i list asian countries near vietnam, the closest one that garners a response (that is not confusion) is the phillipines.

there is simply not a strong vietnamese presence in nigeria. a shame, i say. when i was in yankari, i noticed that they attempted to keep a record of all the visitors that came. among the questions asked was country of origin. i listed america like all my travel mates before me. in fact, i didn't even write the word, i just wrote tick marks underneath that area. but in hindsight, i should've written vietnam, because i found a plaque that had all the countries that visitors came from and nowhere on this extensive list was vietnam. a shame, i say.

to explain this lack of knowledge about vietnam, i go to the world cup, which i had the pleasure of watching nearly every day the last month. football (soccer). that is the key. vietnam isn't known for soccer! if it was, people would be yelling vietnam! at hillary when she was here. or i just suspect this would be so.

in addition, there is a strong chinese presence in nigeria, mainly chinese businessmen. there are chinese restaurants in nearly every major city. there is also a strong lebanese presence in nigeria.

another person who volunteered for a short time during my stay here, who happens to be of indian decent, was asked if she was from ethiopia or zimbabwe. i am not sure about the implications of these questions. but it is certainly interesting to observe.

probably the most surprising thing to me, is the amount of celebrity i have gained just by being a foreigner. when i say i am from america, people jump at my feet. i have never been treated so well in my life my strangers. i no longer need to be a rock star or royalty, because i have already had that experience in jos. it's certainly interesting to experience. nigerians love americans. love them. it's quite odd, having traveled to areas of the world where americans are hated. i have had the luck of escaping that backlash by my vietnamese features. i was just so used to the stigma of being an american in a volatile world. coming to nigeria is like being in a time warp where colonialism is the norm and whites are god. there is no separation of color, like in south africa though. not much differentiation between light-skinned and dark-skinned nigerians. they do call mixed children "half-casts" though.

i have been asked if black people walking down the streets in america would be pointed out by the americans, chanting some equivalent of oyibo! or bature! at them. i chuckle a little, and politely respond, "no. probably not."

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Viet, this was so interesting!!

Take care,

Kelly

8/04/2006 5:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i love and enjoy your journal, very proud of you. i hope that you are still proud of being a vietnamese girl and i am sorry for bringing you to the world with to much complication.
love

8/05/2006 2:28 PM  
Blogger t said...

Welcome. I'm Nigerian living in California and I'm glad to have found your blog. I just linked to it on this group blog that I manage: http://www.upnaira.blogspot.com

Thanks for writing so nicely.

8/05/2006 8:54 PM  
Blogger Citizenalpha said...

See, part of the realization is that our conceptions of race relations are completely different from other countries who often don't
1) have the same opportunities to meet people from many backgrounds and races
2) have the education/political correctness to recognize such sensitivities that we do.

I dated a Korean girl here in Kazakhstan for a little bit who first was interested in me because she too thought I was Korean, because there simply aren't any chinese people here in Ust-Kamenogorsk (only the ones working in the bazaars, actually). So in her worldview, I was Korean.

People here often ask me what 'nationality' I am, and "American" to them is simply an unacceptable answer. That'll work for a white person, but not me. Usually the response, after I say American, is "no no no, what is your NATIONALITY, YOUR RACE", so I just settled on Chinese-American.

It's easy to get offended, but you get used to it, because it's not really their fault - in a way, we've become hypersensitive to it in the states because it's such a big isssue there.

8/23/2006 7:40 PM  

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