same same, but different

I first learned “same same, but different” from a shirt Richard brought back from Thailand. He said it was the phrase everyone there used when trying to sell you knock-off items: “same same! but different…”. One Cambodian was particularly clever, and noticing that foreigners found this phrase amusing, he printed it on a t-shirt. The only person I have found here using the phrase is Matt (from the UK), who when trying to make connections between something here and something from the West he will say, “ah, same same?” obviously having picked it up in his previous travels here, though I think it’s more common to hear on busy city streets than in this quiet town.

However, I find that the phrase comes to mind often, in a variety of different thoughts and situations. Most frequently, with regards to myself and my interactions with other people. Last entry I wrote on this topic touched on the human condition: there are many universals that apply to all of us (same same), but how we go about acquiring our needs and wants unfolds in an extravagantly diverse and uniquely personal way (different). Right now, I see the phrase applied to the multitudinous aspects of humanity in another way. This time, ‘same same’ applies to the individual, while ‘different’ applies to people as a greater whole.

My visit to Khok Kloi (now nearly a week ago, so apologies if this blog post is vaguer than usual… I’ve been having trouble putting it to words) was… well, beyond words. Part of me thinks that I’m running into issues describing it because it was in many ways one of those cliché “westerner in the third world” experiences and I’m not sure how to render it into a unique story, despite that every moment was unique for me. Yet I don’t think that’s wholly true; my memory usually fills in spaces where I’ve forgotten details and I’m always willing to prattle on about a universal sentiment as if I’m the first person in the world to unearth such observations. No, a bigger part of me is having trouble sharing this experience because at the time… I didn’t want to. I clearly remember rumbling down the dirt road to the rubber plantation and feeling, for the first time since arriving here, a subduing of the “need to share”. This need of mine has always been hard to hold back, from sharing hugs at show-and-tell in kindergarten against my teacher’s most adament requests (perhaps she didn’t like the disciminatory nature of my hugs, as they were reserved only for my crush…) to attempting to catalog every detail of my flight to Hong Kong so I don’t forget to tell my friends everything later… I love to share. I am driven by an intense and often irrationally overwhelming need to share nearly every bit of my life with those I hold dear (except ice cream, that is always reserved for me).

Of course, I must be clear—I absolutely want to tell my family and faithful readers what the day was like, what things looked like, how adorable the children were, etc etc… but those stories, I am convinced, will come with time. Right now I remain out of the story-sharing mood, happy with clinging to that feeling of calm I experienced on Thursday when I was traveling around. The feeling immediately evaporated when I returned to my room with my computer and internet and I was overcome with an anxious need to check my email, respond to email, etc… realizing that this technology has a greater hold on me than it did in the past (perhaps because while I am here it is my only connection to those I love, as I am not currently able to see them on a day to day basis).

But how are these anti-share sentiments connected to same-same, but different? Well, pretty basically actually. Like I mentioned above, the differences were all around me, blinding my eyes with their glaring contrast to my own life. Skinny old men heaving huge metal tanks full of watery latex onto truck beds; the corrogated metal roofs and walls of the shacks these plantation workers lived in; the school situated 10 meters from the “village” and overflowing with children running across the tops of tables and slapping each other with protractors, no teacher in sight… Yes, the lives of these people is without a doubt different from mine. While I could make some associations in my grasping mind (the taps on the rubber trees remind me of those we put on maple trees at home), at the end of the day there are way more differences than similarities to be drawn. I’m very pointedly not talking about humanity because I could find many parallels there (one example being one boy’s bullying behavior in which I recognize the quintessential boy-tries-to-impress-girls scenario that is ubiquitous in any country), no I’m just talking about ways of life. Because these ways of life— specifically, the environment in which we were raised, affect us in serious, enduring ways. They shape our worldviews which, despite numerous changes in our location, continue to act as the lens through which we see our surroundings.

If you couldn’t already guess, that’s the same same. Me. Sitting with friends outside the Pub in Lake Placid, trekking around the Golden Gate Bridge, or wandering around a rubber tree plantation in rural Thailand… the person experiencing all these different environments is always the same. That isn’t to say I won’t change—I am learning something every day, but that is just part of the greater picture of who Alyssa Devlin actually is. It sounds simplistic enough, and that’s exactly how I came to this mini-epiphany. Even in the airport when all havoc was breaking loose, I was still motivated by the same principles, hung up on the same thoughts, and very basically feeling like myself. Namely, amidst the ever-changing world around me, and my ever-changing person, the girl I identify with, laugh with, and cry with is still just me. Around graduation I felt like I could no longer pin down who I was, let alone what I wanted. But in a new environment, around totally new and different people, who I am is clearer than ever. I’m still hazy on that “what I want” thing (I am, after all, the queen of indecision), but even that becomes clearer with every passing day.

And that’s just what’s happening—the days are passing and I am learning, loving, changing, but in the fundamental ways… staying the same. I will have the opportunity for 7 more community visits during my time here, but these times I will be writing reports of what goes on. With that forced reflection I think blog posts on the visits will become easier, and spending a total of half of my remaining workdays here on community visits I’m sure I’ll be at no loss for words (as if I ever am?).