I am brown, therefore I am an international student
So today we had another session at the hospital. We have to communicate with patients effectively and gain as much information as we can about their past medical history, presenting complain etcetera.
Today I was doing the observing, and my partner, Liz* was doing the talking. We went into the ward and were ready to begin when the patient, K, looked at my name tag; “That is from… India!”
Sensing his excitement at correctly identifying the background of my name, which I thought was just pure friendliness, I smiled and congratulated his accuracy. Liz got into the history of the patient. K had a tendency to go off the tangent; actually, so completely off that the new topic was just a line so far away from the circle (which represented the medical topics).
O |
(MED) (NEW TOPIC)
He came up with the name of a place; “Ceylon.” I smiled and nodded because I had completely no idea what he was on about.
“You know where that is,” he looked at me like it was the most basic piece of general knowledge you had to know to get on with daily life.
“Uhh… what’s that?” Meanwhile, Liz was by my side, confused, but at the rapid change of subject. (“oh yeah so you got spots on your face last Monday” … nek minnut “Ceylon”)
when the supervising doctor came in to check on us, K exclaimed in surprise that I didn’t know where Silon was.
K man, cool story.
After a little while, K went off the tangent again (not as dramatically this time) and explained how his grand uncle twice removed was part of the army who fought at Gallipoli. He looked at me “obvioulsly you wouldn’t kow where that is” (“of course I do,” I laughed) and then he turned to Liz; “but for US it is a very important place.”
At this point I sensed the difference between “US” and “YOU.” I took it lightly, because, well, he was old and old people don’t know a lot of things ( I could say worse). He started explaining to me what Gallipoli was but we quickly changed the subject to be more medicine-related.
Finally, K asked for a drink of water from the nurse who walked in. Somehow he related this so the Murray Darling Basin. With a look of pity, he proceeded to explain to me what the Basin was used for in his fine land. By then I had realized his view of a brown person.
We were all obviously from overseas, and only the white people were true “OZZIES.”
“Oh yeah, I remember all the assignments I had to do in year 4 about the Basin… so tedious!”
That shut him up.
Why? Don’t we get clean water in India?
OH and BY THE WAY, Cylon is the old name for “Seeereee laaaaankaaa”
How dare those Sri Lankans name their country something soooooo, extremely difficult that “ozzies” can’t pronounce!
when the supervising doctor came in to check on us, K exclaimed in surprise that I didn’t know where Silon was.
K man, cool story.
After a little while, K went off the tangent again (not as dramatically this time) and explained how his grand uncle twice removed was part of the army who fought at Gallipoli. He looked at me “obvioulsly you wouldn’t kow where that is” (“of course I do,” I laughed) and then he turned to Liz; “but for US it is a very important place.”
At this point I sensed the difference between “US” and “YOU.” I took it lightly, because, well, he was old and old people don’t know a lot of things ( I could say worse). He started explaining to me what Gallipoli was but we quickly changed the subject to be more medicine-related.
Finally, K asked for a drink of water from the nurse who walked in. Somehow he related this so the Murray Darling Basin. With a look of pity, he proceeded to explain to me what the Basin was used for in his fine land. By then I had realized his view of a brown person.
We were all obviously from overseas, and only the white people were true “OZZIES.”
“Oh yeah, I remember all the assignments I had to do in year 4 about the Basin… so tedious!”
That shut him up.
Why? Don’t we get clean water in India?
OH and BY THE WAY, Cylon is the old name for “Seeereee laaaaankaaa”
How dare those Sri Lankans name their country something soooooo, extremely difficult that “ozzies” can’t pronounce!
Comments