Thread: Culture Clash (DaddyIsHere and TerraFirma)

It was about four years ago when my family decided it would be good to yank me out of my high school in Islamabad, where I was very well-adjusted and mostly sane. This was done so that we could move to America for a better quality of life. To my dismay, I was told I had to attend American high school. Pakistani students, and I'm guessing most students who aren't from the USA, have grown to view American high school with a sort of terrified reverence. Hollywood movies had portrayed it as world full of angst, cruelty, vapidity, cliques and pre-marital sex. So my horror was justified. I had no problem with the language. I went to what is called an English standard school, where you had to speak English at all times for fear of being physically punished with a ruler. No, my problems adjusting to American school happened because I smelled slightly of onion and spices, due to the scent constantly permeating the house. It would cling to my clothes. I fixed that issue by taking a change of fresh clothes with me to school but that was not the only thing that made me odd. I also did not understand American slang, or the idioms, and was sometimes frustrated by the speed at which my peers managed to make their mouths move. They found my hint of an accent to be quite amusing. I found their stupidity to be profoundly exasperating. The cliques were real, just like in the movies, and while this was fascinating for me at first it eventually began to discourage me. I eventually had a paltry number of friends among those normally considered the loners and those who were called nerds. I spent a lot of time in my parents' restaurant for the three years I attended high school here. It was there that I first noticed Max. It's odd that I'd mention him, since we never spoke once during the handful of times he came to my family's restaurant. But he was one of the few regular customers who were close to my age. I guess my loneliness gained some sort of masochistic pleasure from covertly watching him with his friends or family. Sometimes I caught him sneaking glances at me, and I'd recede to one of the darker corners of the establishment. He went to a different high school, but I had a feeling he too thought I was disturbingly strange, in my traditional salwaar kameez , with my hair pulled up in such a matronly bun. God, was I awkward looking. It was a bit of a shock to see him again during what's called a mixer, though the term automatically evokes images of a food processor for me. He seemed a bit different though I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I had befriended Sheila, a British girl who found American college to be just about as new and shiny as I did. She was the one who first pointed him out to me because she liked something or other about him. And then as if he sensed our attention, he began to walk our way. For some reason I found myself freezing up a bit. I had begun to wear Western clothing, now that my parents weren't around to berate me for it. Sheila even complimented my jeans, saying they made my butt look nice. White girls are interestingly open with each other. Still, I was prickled by the old fear that he thought me to be a foreign oddball. And then... I uh... I uh... Samosas are really good. I stared at him for a good two seconds, though I tried not to. My eyes can go disconcertingly wide. Then I sort of realized that he was just nervous, and was trying to start a conversation with me. Seems like you miss my parents' restaurant already, I responded with an easy smile.