Alias Me

Sorry I haven’t been blogging lately. I have been grading papers, and also, the CIA wanted me to keep a low profile while they gave me a new identity. Did you know that I’m from the Balkans? I’ve had a few people ask me, so when Tom Ridge (Mr. Homeland Security) contacted me, of course we decided that my cover would be that I am a Romanian princess in exile from… something. I’m still working on memorizing my cover story and researching Eastern Europe, as I don’t know a damn thing about any of it.

So let me introduce myself (and this is at a considerable security risk, but you’re my dearest friends and family): My new name is Anna (or Ana) and I am twenty-four. When random men stop me on the street to ask, I tell them I have a boyfriend in England. For some reason, I think the ‘boyfriend in England’ response shuts them up better than a ‘boyfriend here’ response might. I should test it.

My primary mission thus far has been to investigate the attitudes of average Malaysians to the presence of American tourists in their country (as there currently are none, and probably never have been nor will be any). So, my methodology is as follows: sometimes when I’m walking down the street and random-ass folks approach me to ask where I’m from, I say Canada. Soemtimes I say the U.S. Obviously, it’s difficult to give both answers to the same person so I can compare that individual’s responses, but Tom and I have decided to scrap that old scientific method and rely on intuition. Based on my intuition, I would say that Americans are not as well received by foreigners as are Canadians, but everyone knows that Canadians are beloved by everyone around the world as they are so relaxed and non-abrasive (aka anti-American). Canadian citizenship is rewarded with big sunshiny smiles, while American citizenship generally garners an apprehensive smile at best.

My big question is… why is it that I am tempted to introduce myself as Canadian? I’ve talked to other Americans who do this as well, and have developed a sense of guilt about this desire. When my citizenship emerges after a conversation (imagine!!), it’s generally greeted with puzzlement… “But you’re so nice… I thought you were Canadian. Oh, but you’re half-Japanese? Well, that explains it—you’re Japanese.” So sometimes I just yield to the temptation, convincing myself that I’m safer traveling as a Canadian nowadays. But then I feel guilty about bolstering Canada’s already-sparking reputation and inadvertently bashing the US by confirming that nice people from North America all come from Canada. I feel sorta bad about it. Princeton in Asia sent me to Asia to represent the US and build some badly needed bridges, and here I am pretending to be a Canuck.
So, the addition of Romania (did I mention that I’m a gypsy? That’s why I have dark hair instead of fair hair and features, and why I don’t have a “home” in Eastern Europe) to my mixing pot of nationalities just seems a bit cruel. I’m now an extremely confused Japanese-American-Romanian-gypsy-English-teacher-cum-CIA-operative-in-a-peaceful-Muslim-country. Whew.