CULTURE SHOCK (part 1)

Picture by Frank Bryan

                CULTURE  SHOCK (part 1)

Are  the immigrants shocked, or are we all living in the world of a shocking culture? Since I am discussing the early '90s, I will take bravely the subject of "culture shock," as well as the "shocking culture" the immigrant from Eastern Europe finds in America. Yes, I will talk bravely - afterall, I am brave enough to get into your living room and you - the Americans, were brave enough not to take out a gun and point it at me. You offered me a chair to sit, I sat down and looked around for what else you would offer me. You did not know me. I came out of nowhere. I knew you from the books and the literature. I knew about democracy and slavery (what a comparison); I knew about your education system and hey, rock 'n' roll.

Let's see what my cat's curiosity and my wild cat's patience revealed. Culture shock is described in the Wikipedia as "the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration".... The immigrants go through one or more cultural stages, this is what the internet claims. What I write about sheds some light on my individual and my family's cultural experiences. By "my family," I mean my family at the time. I have the same daughter, but a new husband, who truly did not know what marrying a Bulgarian woman means. It means you are in Heaven and Hell at the same time, until you forget the difference between the two. Ha,ha,ha.

The first stage of the culture shock is described as the "Honeymoon stage." Well, who does not like a honeymoon, unless you are getting married because your parents want you to be married, or you are 3-months pregnant and just about to make it clear to everyone you have been having too much fun around. 

In good families, the honeymoon stage lasts "till death do us part." It was not like that in my case, but let's stay focused. We had no friends speaking our language in America, we jumped right into the new world having no clue how deep the water was, not to mention the fact that my daughter and I didn't know how to swim.... I just knew what Forest Gump's mama told him: "Life is like a box of chocolates, Forest. You never know what you are gonna get." 

With this mindset, I liked what I saw in America. I knew it was new and maybe always would be new to me; it was vibrant, colorful, beautiful houses with small yards and flowers. Don't get me started on the cars. Yes, God forgive me, I was jealous of the guy who had the Porche and had left it right in front on the street. In Georgetown, one of the rich areas of Washington, D.C., there were many beautiful cars I stared at. But the Porche, I still remember. What I knew about cars was squeezed in between The Russian Lada and The Eastern German plastic Trabant.

Once I immigrated, I was not looking back. I was not feeling sad or exulted. I knew exactly where I was. I wanted to be there. You can not psychoanalyze feelings, personalities, reactions of the rest of the population.  If you want to do something and you did it, no one cares about your complaints after that. You just suck it up (sorry for my language.) "Fresh off the boat", I had to march into the world of "Just do whatever it takes to make it within the limits of the law."

Somehow in the midst of it all, I felt relaxed. I felt totally in control of my life. In this chaos of babysitting, poverty, eating noodle soup - 5 cents/piece; hot dogs - 25 cents  a package, I believed a new life is coming - new family relations, new friends, everything new. I did not foresee anything negative. 

In communist times, the government was making plans all the time. Planning about 5 years ahead. I am still into the habit of planning all the time, but only for tomorrow. 

My family unit at the time was shaky, to say the least, friends had taken their own path in life. Many nights were spent crying from exhaustion, but I knew I have a lot to build. 

What I did not know was that American houses are built from wood, not bricks. You  build them fast and destroy them even faster. But this did not happen in the "Honeymoon stage."


To be continued....
  

COMING TO AMERICA (part 3)

Picture by Frank Bryan

                         COMING TO AMERICA (part 3)

Frostburg State University

Writing this section of my blog is extremely difficult. The memories bring more tears  than happiness. 

The deeper we got into the new way of life in America, the more we learned about it; the life plans changed and adjusted, then adjusted and changed over and over. 

Coming to America is quite different from the emigration to Europe. In 1992 and later, when Bulgaria entered the European Union, I did not hear stories from friends about their hard life during immigration. Maybe, they did not want to talk about it. Everything had to be kept a secret. This is one of our national traits. Kind of "whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," only this is not about gambling and drinking. Over time, I realized that keeping secrets defied logic. Sooner or later, in every organization, including the family, a weak link appears. Then comes the realization so much time was wasted not sharing ....

I ask myself many questions, that's my natures. "Why didn't I ask for help when I was hungry? Why all of this immigration life was a secret for so many years?" The answer comes back to me always the same -- I did not want to connect with the past, to show weakness, hopelessness, failure. How many around you talk about their failures?

In 1993, I was accepted in the MBA program at Frostburg State University. Frostburg is situated in Western Maryland; the climate is chilly, but people are not chilly. 1994 was the coldest year in the history of the city. That must have been our luck. The coldest temperature maximum was -21degrees F (-29 degrees C); the total snowfall was 50.6 inches. Frostburg was for me a symbol of the American life in the small, low income part of America. In the little, old, coal mining town with about 9,000 population, I found the University, where there were no other Bulgarians. Out of over 5,000 students, no Bulgarians.... I was the first to discover it! I also became the bread winner of the family with my part-time job as a research assistant. 

My daughter went to the only high school - Frostburg High School. She was an excellent student, there was no need for any help with homework or any modern form of punishment. She was not going anywhere, no one showed any interest in a foreign girl from unknown country. I was also one of the few foreign students at the MBA program. Being different did not attract any attention, but my different way of thinking and antics were helping. This made me a little hip. And I was not even trying.

We lived in a shabby apartment, barely furnished. We had two mattresses, a little TV we took from the trash and a computer (from the school trash). My daughter was sitting on a broken speaker to study; we had no chairs. I was using the school library for papers, requiring a PC. Luckily, technology had not conquered the world that fast. Paper and pencil were still in use.

The worst part of living in Frostburg was the cold. There were so many snow days, when school was not closed. My daughter will try to walk in the snow alone in the days in which I was at school. Most of the times, I was able to pick her up and the two of us were walking trough the deep snow home.

My classes were mostly in the evening. On the way to school -uphill and downhill, on the way back - the same... I am not sure what scared me more - the darkness in this tiny path, or the big dog in one of the houses closeby.  I always felt one of these nights, when the dog was very hungry, he would break off the  chains and would have me for dinner.

 What happened in Frostburg briefly was: The Redskins arrived in the summer of 1995 choosing the city as their training camp. This was the most exciting event for the last 100 years. Next, my daughter graduated high school at 16; then, the parents were all through with their diplomas, degrees and board exams.

The Best Part - we won the Green Card Lottery! It became clear soon thereafter that  the 16-year old would go to Georgetown University - somehow financially this had to happen, while the adults needed to do what they had to do - find jobs and a place to live.

With the broken Nissan, putting in everything we had, we drove back to Washington, D.C.  There was so much done and so much waiting to be done.  The success outweighed the failures.

Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. Pic. by G. Coleman

COMING TO AMERICA (part 2)

Picture by Frank Bryan

 COMING TO AMERICA (part 2)

Coming to America cannot be a blog running in an orderly fashion. My intent is not to write a memoir -- chapter by chapter. I may do it at a later stage of my life.

In 1993, there were no precedents to follow; there were no books for dummies. Meeting a Bulgarian at school in Washington, D.C.? Even if this were to happen, I do not remember help coming in bulk. 

In this bubble of the unknown there was a flash light - THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

All of us three, were speaking the language. This allowed me to write a resume,  although I did not know that certain things were not such big accomplishments in USA. Having been in France for an internship did not translate into a gigantic level of IQ. It probably distracted the admission officers and made them think about a trip to Paris, wine, nice food, but academic success? Translating what corresponds to 'research assistant' into 'scientist' wasn't correct either. Having a Bachelor's degree from a communist university does not equate to business acumen in 1993, [but it did not hurt, I thought]. 

The hard days of babysitting, crying  from exhaustion and worrying what tomorrow will bring -- non of this did speak about my ability to be a good student, ready to be successful in a business graduate program. The good score on GMAT was a surprise. My math teacher from the English Language School in Bulgaria (God bless his big heart) would have been proud of it. Almost perfect. The English was not bad either. Having the resume typed by my ex-husband at his university, he and and I circled all universities in the Washington, D.C. area. Maybe, a few universities were skipped....They looked like castles; the air did not smell like they need a "Bulgarian immigrant." There was no such thing as a "Bulgarian immigrant."

The one who went to school a few days after "COMING TO AMERICA" was my daughter. Someone said to her at the place we stayed, "Are you playing hooky from school?" That was a signal for both parents to realize her school SHOULD be on the list right away. And IT WAS. With her weird clothes, funky accent, not popular style hair, not popular anything, she never missed a day of school. She was clean, combed, did her homework every day, BUT that was not enough. She never saw a birthday party; she was never invited to one. There was no time for a walk on the Mall....

I have to say again what is already in my published book "Seize the Seizures" : SHE was ready. The kids were not. The parents were not ready either.


To be continued....


 

THE THREE SECONDS

Picture by Frank Bryan

                     THE THREE SECONDS

I was not planning to write about a seizure disorder today. This is the medical condition I suffer from as a result of a viral brain infection. I was not born with it, but I live with it through all the brain cells' thunder and lightening. The brain cells fight with each other; they do not discharge energy the way they should, they keep firing and firing; they try to tear you up, just like the gusty winds two nights ago - they bang on the windows, growl, shake the front door. 

There is no spring, no summer, no season for the seizures. There is no inappropriate moment. You can't say, "Ms. Epilepsy, please come back later. I have company." The cells of the brain do not always carry out their electrical communication in peace and harmony. There is some politics going on." This is how I described the seizure disorder, or epilepsy, in my book Seize the Seizures. Treating "Ms. Epilepsy" as a living and breathing part of me turned her into the best therapy I could get (in addition to the big bag of pills.)

There are many types of seizures. Some are very violent; some give you a chance to keep a part of your brain in action. Through the years, I got to the point of having not the most mean ones. But two nights ago, I don't know why, Ms. Epilepsy was very cruel. It took me a whole day to recover.

According to my husband "the visit" lasted several seconds. A girlfriend of mine wanted to know "What happens during these Satanic seconds?"

First second: I am conscious. I stop breathing; my whole body gets stiff. I cannot talk, but try to make some noise; the body jerks, like trying to escape from a force -- bigger and stronger.... What is around me looks very blurred. I feel the hand of my husband rubbing my back and whispering "Breathe, breathe!" If he is asleep, I say to myself,"You are on your own. You have to fight!" I have no strength to touch him and talk.... I don't know, maybe I really want to be a hero, because I do not think clearly.

Second second: Like the first, but it gets stronger; the numbness takes over a bigger part of the body, I feel the lack of air closing my throat, choking me; repetitive movements of the body, struggle with my body and my head. Over and over. The fear and anxiety settles in.

Third second: I get weaker and weaker. The world gets darker and darker. I may black out briefly, but I am still capable of thinking that I have to start breathing. 

I always do! Rarely, I don't and lose consciousness.Very rarely.

But in this last one, I kind of gave up on myself. I just laid on мy back and "was ready." Then, all of a sudden (per Gary's description), just at a snap of a finger, I started breathing.  

It took a day to recover, but today I am writing. Hey, life goes on!

I listen to a lot of music. This song describes best the mixture of this 3 seconds of life - mixture of music, feelings, being alive.... I chose The Piano Guys with their Disney's "Frozen" to bring back my happy, happy after the three seconds and one day after....

 

COMING TO AMERICA (part 1)

Picture by Frank Bryan

COMING TO AMERICA (part 1)

                                     

I will make this blog colorful, like the Bulgarian national flag. It has 3 colors -- white, green and red. 

 Coming  to America in 1992 for a family of three was not like in "Coming to America" movie. My daughter (12 years old at the time) and I arrived in USA from Bulgaria after my ex-husband. To give you a crash course of where Bulgaria is -- the country is situated in Eastern Europe; it is not part of the former Soviet Union, though SSSR had strong ideological and economic influence on its development in the past. 

All we knew about where we were going to live got into our crazy heads as a result of graduating from the English Language School in Plovdiv. We had good education, good control of the language, (incl. my daughter.) On top of this, we knew all the rock bands:) Ha, ha! "The Iron Curtain" fell in 1989. Finally if one had relatives in Western Germany or Eastern germany, they were able to cross the border and reunite with them. The new life has just begun!!

Emigration time in Bulgaria started as soon as the people realized they can live in other countries, get better education for their children, live the "American Dream", whatever they thoughtt it was. From a totalitarian country, they were flying to a capitalist environment, democracy and everything they believed they missed for so many years. The American Constitution was their pocket book.

My husband at the time was already enrolled in a Master's degree program. My daughter started school as soon as we were able to enroll her in one. We were so poor, we relied on good Americans for everything -- basements to live, covered with cement, food cooked with the worst quality products you can think of, old bagels given to my ex-husband from the university store. This was his second job. I was helping with everything possible in the places we were welcome to live. Even if not asked, I felt I had to do my share. I was also preparing for exams, hoping I would be accepted to a graduate business school. 

The first visit to McDonald's was a real celebration. It was only my daughter, who was able to have a burger. This was the biggest victory of our first year in USA. She was keeping the napkin for a long time.  Probably until we "graduated" to Taco Bell.

It was really smart leaving Bulgaria with several essential items. My daughter and I had thick wool coats. We also had warm boots, hats, a lot of underwear :). We even got haircuts. Mine was actually an Afro. How would I know that there is a separation in hair fashion in USA? I looked cute with Afro style. But, when I arrived I saw no white woman with Afro hair style. I have to tell you, this is their loss! Until my Afro became straight hair, I was already in graduate school. I do not think Afro style was a style I will not choose now (if not "ostracized" by society.) I have been tempted many times to tell a woman at the hair salon "Straight hair does not look good on you. Why don't you choose something that makes you beautiful, not what is modern."

Later, in 1994, when I was in Graduate School, I learned about 'culture shock ' foreigners go through and its stages. I am absolutely sure for us there was no 'honeymoon stage', no 'negotiation stage'. There was a "How To" stage. How to get a roof on top of our heads, how to feed ourselves, how to have our child safe and keep her healthy. Romantic fascination with USA was out of question. Comparisons between life styles and cultures were the last thing on my mind. Survival was all the parents cared about. 

Of course, there was always the option of going back, but this was the last option. There were sooo many options to be explored. Afterall, this is America, the land of opportunities!!!!!!

Bulgaria

Plovdiv

MY PRECIOUS BAG

                

                                                   

                                                            MY PRECIOUS BAG

The line between acting brave and acting stupid is very thin. Looking back, I am inclined to think I was stupid that day. Not that I put my life at a huge risk in the early morning of a working day. Still, it was not a rush hour, crimes occur any time of the day. 

I was walking back from the doctor's office to my office building. As I approached the bus stop, I saw three men waiting for the bus. They were siting on a bench. One of them jumped in front of me unexpectedly. He pulled my bag from my shoulder. 

As all women know, we love our bags. We have everything possible in our bags. Any change to a new one causes huge turmoil in our lives. It is a disaster, it is a tsunami. It takes for ever to remember in what pocket are some of these items: the cell phone, the lipstick, the lip gloss, the hairbrush, the makeup, the credit cards, some cash, the keys, some meds (in case someone drives you crazy and you get a headache), more meds (if you have my disease.) If the office has a gym, a woman may have her sneakers, sports outfit. I do not want to disclose more secrets....There may be more "stuff" in there. You can see a relatively little bag on the outside, but if [God forbid] a woman drops it on the floor, your eyes will pop out.

I loved this wicker bag. The bag loved me, too. It was not expensive, but extremely reliable and well organized. I had it for years. Always there... on my left shoulder. I pulled back swiftly. My head was spinning. I had forgotten my watch. Everything I had was in the bag. 

There was no one on the street. I could not profile the man as a huge criminal, but he reached for his back pocket. You never know what is in the back pocket of someone who is trying to rob a woman on the street. Somehow, this did not scare me to the point of screaming for help. No, no... I took the matter in my hands. I said this is a voice which could scare a bear, "Do you know who you are dealing with?" Then, there was a pause. The guy seemed confused, while I was getting stronger and bigger. So I said what he definitely did not expect, "You stupid co*****er!" He stood like a dunce, while his buddies were sitting on the bus bench laughing hysterically.

I turned around and continued to walk to the office. I was still hearing the voices behind. 

Time came for me to panic. I called my office; explained what happened. Everyone was very concerned how I was doing. I had a feeling I was scared, too. 

Why did I do it? What if the man was desperate enough to rob me and run, or even have a knife, a gun in his pocket? The bag could have been the reason for my meaningless injury. 

I do not think my reaction will be different, if it were to happen today. I would make sure I have a wrist watch, this is the only difference. But my bag is my bag!