The Man of Many Greetings

Each morning the hostel offered free breakfast in the cafeteria.  There was a small room where one could get cereal, muffins, bagels, and orange juice.  As I waited in line behind the rest of the hostellers, a portly, bearded fellow would approach me without fail and repeat his morning mantra:  “Give me a good morning in a language other than English.”  I later overheard that the man’s name is John. 

John wore a black shirt with red lettering on the back that said:  YES, I WORK HERE.  His job was to restock the breakfast fare, to facilitate the line, and to ensure that nobody placed a whole bagel into the toaster, the type with a rolling track that engulfs bagels and spits them out from a chute below.  Surprisingly, some hostellers needed constant reminders to cut the bagel before toasting it.  Failure to follow this procedure would result in two disasters.  The first is a fire, and the second is having bagels that can’t be toasted.  Due to the simplicity of John’s work and due to the eclectic ecosystem of nationalities eating breakfast before him, John seized the opportunity to become a polyglot when it comes to greeting people before noon.       

I was caught off guard the first time he asked me to say good morning in a foreign language.  As a general rule, I am not highly social before I’ve eaten breakfast, and due to my solitary nature I usually avoid eye contact.  However, I played along with his silly game.    

“Bonjour,” I answered. 

Satisfied with my response, John proceeded to ask the person behind me, and the person behind him, and so on.  He even double-checked to make sure that those already seated gave him an answer.  Bonjour, Guten morgen, Buenos dias, Bom dia——these were passwords to enter his domain.

The next morning I decided to be more creative.  When I was a student, a small part of me always wanted to please my teachers with my responses so they could shower me with praise.  Remnants of this desire still linger within me, and, after all, the cafeteria in some ways resembled a classroom, with John as the teacher, mainly because he was asking questions and insisting they be answered.  After I stepped into the line for breakfast, John repeated his daily query to me. 

“Maakye,” I said. 

“Machi?” John looked puzzled.  “What is that?”

“It’s maa-chi.  It’s Twi.  It’s a Ghanaian dialect.”

“Tree?  Are you making this up?” 

“No.  I assure you it’s true.  I’ve been there myself.”

He seemed sour at being bested at his own game, and he seemed hesitant to let me pass.  John did not ask for clarification on the pronunciation.  Instead, he seemed convinced I created a fake language to mock him. 

This clearly was more than a game to John.  I witnessed him approaching an Asian woman.  He asked her whether she was Chinese, Korean, or Japanese.  “Chinese,” she said.  John then told her good morning in her native language.  He made a charade of his linguistic skills.  He wanted people to know that he could speak a miniscule percentage of several languages.  To make his presence even more overbearing, he took his antics even further. 

He whipped out a giant black and yellow book:  Spanish For Dummies.  He flipped to a page to get his bearings and proceeded to butcher a sentence in Spanglish.  He hovered over an old man sitting down and asked him how to pronounce a certain word.  The old man hardly spoke any English, so, after reading the sentence in Spanish, he merely laughed at the rest of John’s comments. 

I could tolerate this spectacle as long as he remained a safe distance from me, but John preferred to be interactive with the service.  In addition to his instructions to prevent burning bagels, John saw himself as a match-maker, a human Facebook responsible for jump-starting connections. 

While I was engaged with a banana nut muffin, John slapped a hand on my shoulder and addressed the three ladies sitting to my right. 

“Has my friend introduced himself to you?” John asked.

A Dutch woman to my immediate right said that, yes, I had spoken with them earlier, which was true.  I overheard the Dutch woman asking her German friends how to say good morning in French. I explained to them that in French, you say good day as a greeting instead of good morning.

After John walked away to pester someone else, the Dutch woman turned to me and said, “He is funny.” 

I considered the nature of John’s character.  Although he may be overstepping certain boundaries and he could be considered borderline annoying, John had a point.  Even though the cafeteria was full, many of the hostellers were eating in silence.  A handful, including myself, hid their faces behind paperback books.  Some held up their smart phones and used Facebook as a shield to block their neighbor’s gaze.  A few groups managed to roll into a conversation about the differences of life here and there. 

Before my eyes and beyond the pages of my book was a multi-cultural contact zone.  People from all over were concentrated in a single room.  Every one of us traveled from different homes, different countries, different environments with different ecosystems, and for a brief period we all shared the same space.  This was an opportunity to discover different lifestyles, to hear tales from foreign lands, and to make far-away friends to justify even having a Facebook.  Yet only a select few took advantage of this.

When did we stop talking to our neighbors?  Somewhere in my memory there is a clear break between wanting to belong and preferring to be alone.    

When I rode the school bus to elementary school, I remember that I would sit next to anyone without making a fuss.  I wouldn’t mind sharing a seat as long as my seat-mate didn’t smell or as long as his butt didn’t take up too much room on the bench.  On the way home, I remember hanging over the seat-backs and engaging in over-enthusiastic conversations with my friends.  We were brimming with excitement to escape the boredom of the classroom, and now we had the rest of the day to waste however we pleased.  Energy long dormant erupted from our bodies, out of our mouths in overly loud mutterings.  Our words shrieked like peacocks; the boys wanted to stick out and be rambunctious so the girls would notice us.  We may not have understood why our bodies and our uncontrolled hormones coerced us to act in certain ways, but we liked to make noise together.       

I also remember buying my first iPod as a teenager in the early 2000s, when they took over the market and immediately made standard mp3 players uncool.  Before I bought my iPod, I carried around a gold Walkman CD player and listened to my music with the ear-muff headphones with the cushy sheaths that were easily torn.  But I had to carry my CD player and ensure I had a change of music.  Listening to music was somewhat of an ordeal compared to clipping an iPod to a belt or an armband, or storing it in a pocket.  I could take my music with me everywhere I went, and I did.  

Even when I went to family gatherings, I always kept one ear-bud in.  If I didn’t care to listen to what was going on, I could tune out the world.  But if someone needed my attention, I could respond.  Now I didn’t need anybody to talk to me.  Someone sang into my ear, and I didn’t have to make eye contact with this stranger.  I was only half-there.  

I know I’m not the only one who did this.  There’s a stereotype of teenagers portrayed in movies.  He usually has long bangs that dangle in his face, and he’s wearing headphones.  Each time the parent tries to get his attention, he rips off the headphones in mild disgust and says, “What?”  My brother did this as well.  So did my cousin.  We were all listening to different songs together, not saying a word to each other.

I’m sure technology plays a major role in the hermitization of modern urbanites, but there must be other forces that prevent neighbors from exchanging hellos.  Recently, I went for a run around my neighborhood.  As I passed a woman walking toward me, she clutched her purse.  She immediately judged me as a potential thief.  When I reached my street, I tried to make eye-contact with and acknowledged a woman in her garden.  I passed within a few feet of her and nodded, but she paid me no mind.  

I don’t know any of my neighbors by name.  I could not imagine living in a place where neighbors welcome newcomers with apple pies or Jell-O desserts.  If I ran out of sugar while making cookies, I would run to the store several miles away before knocking on a stranger’s door a few feet away.  When I walk home at night, I look over my shoulder to make sure nobody is following me.  There have been times I’ve been walking on the sidewalk at night, and someone will be walking toward me.  When they see me, they’ll cross the street to avoid approaching me closely.  I’ve done this maneuver a few times as well because after the sun goes down I assume everyone is out to mug me, stab me, or shoot me.  I’m sure that not every neighborhood is like this.  I’ve taken walks in the middle-of-nowhere in the sticks where people wave to you as they drive by in their pick-up trucks.

As impersonal as our world seems to be, there are still folks out there who will greet you and wish you a good morning.  I know for a fact there’s a man in D.C. who does this on a daily basis, in several different languages.  

The Other White House

Outside the White House, there is a smaller, lesser known residence on Pennsylvania Avenue.  A small white tent serves as the temporary home of peaceful protestors.  A middle-aged, Rastafarian-looking man with extremely long braids sits outside his meager abode, surrounded by two yellow signs with slogans such as “Ban All Nuclear Weapons or Have a Nice Doomsday.”  

He’s arguing with young, conservatively dressed college grad about whether the Jews have the right to claim Israel as their homeland.  The college grad earnestly defends the state of Israel.  His face puckers in frustration, and his voice is curt and aggressive.  He clearly thinks the protestor has no knowledge on this issue, so, rather than hitting him, he attacks the man with well-researched questions.  The protestor does not stutter, but parries his retorts with semi-adequate responses.  I don’t really understand the religious origins of the issue between the Palestinians and the Jews, but I can tell the college grad is winning this near-hostile debate. 

As tourists snap photos of the President’s home, I linger around the tent when a man with curly blond hair approaches me.  He’s wearing a black shirt that reads SEX? across his chest.  Despite the immaturity of his fashion, he seems well informed about the protest.  He begins telling me that this spot has been inhabited for over thirty years.  William Thomas began the White House Peace Vigil in 1981 to protest nuclear arms. After his death in 2009, Concepcion Piccioitto, a woman of Spanish birth, became the main resident of the Occupy Peace House, which is now home to activists from all over the world.  The man with the sex shirt tells me that the activists are grandfathered into an old law.  Now if you are to establish a camp outside the White House, the man tells me, you would be ordered to move.  If you didn’t, you’d be fined and arrested.  Even during Hurricane Sandy, the protestors battled fierce winds and rains just to make a point about retaining the freedom of speech.

The man claimed the government is taking away our constitutional rights and striking shady deals with big corporations like Wal-Mart by using the public’s tax money.  I don’t know how he discovered this information if it is secretive, but I suppose that is the purpose of these protestors.  They spread awareness of issues that are largely hidden.  The average citizen goes about his day, unbeknownst to the regular travesties committed by his own government that he supports with portions of his paycheck.  There are many ways to view protestors like the SEX? man and the pro-Palestine Rastafarian. 

Many dismiss them as unhinged wackos.  Passersby glimpse their placards and quickly walk away, muttering to themselves and their cohorts about the crazies camping outside the White House. 

Some view them as nuisances making a lot of unnecessary noise like the neighbor’s dog who yaps non-stop.  I imagine if I were the President of the United States, I would be annoyed to see protestors outside my window every day.  The sight of them would remind me of my failures.  I would rather contemplate a more relaxing view while I drink my morning coffee. 

Others, like the SEX? man, are motivated by the activists and wish to play a larger role.  They are persuaded by the protestors, and now they wish to convert the uninformed.  Viewed in this light, the protestors have their own type of religion.  They all share similar beliefs.  They claim to have evidence that the rest of us lack.

Personally, I found the protestors’ company to be quite pleasant.  The SEX? man rattled on about the flaws of the American tax system, and I listened politely, despite having insufficient knowledge to ask intelligent questions.  The man was not forceful with his beliefs.  Instead, he reiterated well-researched tidbits to stake his claim.  He spoke with confidence and a noticeable tinge of disdain for the government, but he never seemed angry.  He was only passionate.  I let him finish his lecture, and waited for a lull in the conversation to take my leave.  During a heavy pause in his speech, I shook his hand and thanked him for appeasing my curiosity.

I have a great respect for the protestors because of their steadfast desire for peace and their ceaseless dedication.  I could not imagine expending so much energy for a single cause.  Should we devote so much of our lives to play a minor role in a grand scheme?  At best, we can hope to be footnotes in history books as the pages accumulate and the planet ages.  It is much easier to say you don’t care and simply walk away.  I prefer to disregard what has no direct effect on my life.  I have to pay my taxes anyway, and there’s little I myself can do to change the government.  I’d rather spend my only lifetime engaged in less stressful activities, but we can’t all be so disengaged from the struggles of others.  Some of us feel the urge to take action and herald the wrong-doings of the world, while others choose to be neutral, inactive, and sometimes apathetic.

Why do we speak up and protest, rather than letting certain actions take their course?  Why don’t we all just leave each other alone and let them fight their own battles?  I could live out my days, taking up menial work, and spend my leisure time reading novels on my back porch.  My actions would have very little effect on others.  My tread on this Earth could be insignificant.  I could elect to cause no uproar and not bother my neighbors in the slightest.  If I never turned on the news, the affairs of the world would not weigh on my mind.  I would not feel the tugging of a moral obligation to help those in need under tyrannical rule.  I would not feel guilty for luxuriating in comfort and safety while refugees wander helplessly after being stranded from their homes. 

What if the world consisted of scattered islands with no bridges, no boats, no airplanes, no radar, and no Facebook?  No connection whatsoever.  Tribes would only know their own struggles.  They would not worry about the lives of others beyond the sea.  But we don’t live in a world like that.  We can traverse the seas easily and connect with friends and foes across vast distances.  In small-town America, the folks who watch the news can know of the recent crises in Ukraine.  People who would otherwise never cross paths are united by a single conflict.  Outsiders from safe lands offer assistance because it is the humane thing to do.  We help because if we were in a similar situation we would want to be helped.  Charity is an insurance policy to safeguard our species and our dignity.     

Perhaps the most staggering plea for help was during the Third Reich as European Jews sought to escape the ghettos and concentration camps.  Many countries, including the United States, would not initially budge on their immigration quotas.  The MS St. Louis sailed across the Atlantic Ocean with 937 German Jews who were denied entry into Cuba and the United States.  Not only did the U.S. deny the refugees a safe haven, the Coast Guard stood watch on the Florida beaches to ensure that nobody tried to swim to shore.  Canada, too, refused to intervene, and so the ship had nowhere else to turn but back to port in Europe.  A political leader from Australia said that his country didn’t have a racial problem, and didn’t wish to inherit one by accepting Jewish refugees.  Ultimately, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands accepted the refugees after the rest of the world refused.  Certain countries wished to be neutral, while the Nazis committed genocide. 

With an extreme example such as unjustified, mass killings, it is easy to know where one should stand on the matter of action versus inaction.  But this dilemma becomes more complex during more innocent scenarios.  For example, when Hitler began segregating the population into Aryans and Jews, Jews were not allowed to use public swimming pools.  If a young German girl goes for a swim, is she an enabler?  Should she feel guilty?  Can she even detach her actions from the injustice?  If you strip the scenario of its social context, you would see a young human-being swimming in a body of water.  When I watch nature documentaries, I do not think lesser of the otters who splash in the rivers, so why would I judge this girl for taking a dip in the pool and enjoying the pleasures of youth?  However, once you overlay the scene with the unfavorable political issues, her actions become charged with meaning.  The person who can detach himself from this meaning is viewed with derision and contempt.  There is no escape from judgment while others are suffering.  Even though one may never fire a gun, culpability extends to those aren’t pulling the trigger.      

After World War II, Franklin Roosevelt said America can no longer stand by while foreign nations fight for true democracy.  We could be the one who ignores the cry for help.  We could shut our doors, drown out the pleas, and go about our business.  But both guilt and compassion motivates us to put our armed forces in harm’s way to fight for universal freedom.  If we do not intervene during times of crisis, we are ashamed of ourselves, and others may think less of us.  When I learned of America’s refusal to accept those Jewish refugees, I viewed my country with contempt for not offering assistance.  Not many of us wish to be called an asshole, and I would wager that most of us on Earth wish to live a good life with as little turbulence as possible.  But when turbulence arises, there are decisions to be made about one’s conduct.  

It is easy to be the person who pays his taxes and questions nothing and lives largely detached from external conflicts.  But someone’s got to be stubborn enough or passionate enough to sit outside the White House in the pouring rain and the hurricane winds to make a statement the rest of us don’t care to make.