I was really adamant about writing a thesis this year, but it turned out to be another project I didn't finish. (I'd like to think the reasons were beyond my control) But I wanted to immortalize some of my writing, because I do believe in the project, and hopefully maybe I will publish it one day. It seems like the right thing to post the introduction of my thesis, especially since it is regarding online communities and online interactions...
For my mommy:
Click, click, click, click, , click, click, click. “There!” She said, “Finished at last.” As she quickly scrolled the screen down, re-read her message, she pressed sent and then the screen flashed: Message sent! She sighed with relief and got up and hurried up the stairs.
“Wake up daughter; I want to share with you the three things I’ve learned today.” It was only nine in the morning, but time seemed not to faze her, as she crept into my dark room and genteelly, at first, tried to wake me up but after receiving no response from me she began to shake me furiously. The fact that I was sleep deprived after a long hard semester, seemed to escape her mind as she was just too excited. As she continued to try and wake me up, she simply became lost in her thoughts. Did I really just do that? Was it really that simple? As she replayed the moment over and over again in her head, going over every detail, making sure she didn’t leave any detail out, so she could tell it to me properly, scared that it might have been a dream.
As she continued to think quietly to herself, a moan from the bed interrupted her thought. “mmmmm?” She began to speak out loud, not sure if the moan she received from me was my indication that I was up and listening. But then she thought to herself, “was that a snore?” Not caring and too excited about the events that occurred this morning she told her story.
“Today, daughter, I did it!” I turned on the machine. What did you say it was called? You know…the box looking thing? Oh, darn. I can’t remember what it’s called...oh you know what I am talking about! Come on! Tell me please?”
“Tower” I mumbled.
“Yes, yes. That’s it! I turned on the tower. I did everything you told me to do! I even followed the diagram you drew for me.” “Just like you told me it would happen, I pressed the big circle on the tower and it beeped, the machine started making all this noise. I was so scared, what if I broke your computer? But then, a light came on the screen. And I didn’t have to do anything! And the next thing I know, a message flashed on the screen: Welcome Chayanee. And I just knew then, that I did it…but I did exactly what you told me to do anyway, I clicked on your name, by the way daughter, I named you.”
As I sat up in bed and rolled my eyes, I said, “Yes, mommy I know that. Go on”
“Oh, ja. Where was I?” she said.
“You clicked on my name,” I said.
“That’s right! I clicked on it; I held my breath of course! You know how it’s a Thai tradition and all. Can’t break good luck! And then the computer made some more sounds...Am, is it supposed to sound like that?
“Yes, mommy, it’s an old computer. Tell dad to buy us a new computer, hint, hint.” I said.
“We’ll talk about it later. Am, then it happened! I was on! I scanned the screen for the picture that you told me would get me onto net, I found it. I clicked it once, with the mouse. By the way, do you remember why it’s called the mouse?”
“Mommy…”
“Okay, so I clicked it on it, but nothing happened! And I got scared again. There was nothing in the instructions about what to do if nothing happened! So I did step #11 again, but this time I double clicked it and the Google page appeared! I typed in Thailand in the Google box. Am, did you know that there 19 millions things on net about Thailand? There was so much to choose from but I chose to click on a newspaper site.”
As she sat there telling me about the things she read and the pictures she saw, her face lit up and my mind wandered back to a memory four years ago and how I hadn’t seen her face light up like that since our last trip to Thailand. I remembered her running through the airport in Thailand like a little kid in a candy shop, laughing at herself. As she continued to run through the airport, she stopped in front of a newspaper store. She heard people chatting in Thai around her, laughing and smiling. It appeared that she was allowing the language to re-seep into her skin. She then, picked up a newspaper, smiled, and said to herself “welcome home, I am home at last.”
“Are you listening to me Am?”
As my mind quickly returned to the present, she told me that she had sent and e-mail to her old friends hoping to reconnect. She laughed at herself. But I could see that she was excited about the prospects of receiving an electronic mail.
“Okay, Am. I let you sleep now, but Am? I am happy you are my daughter. I know I gave you a hard time about the learning the internet…maybe now I send you an e-mail when you are in school, won’t that be nice?
As she closed the door behind her, I sat in bed thinking about what I had just learned. I thought about what I learned in school and remembered a quote from Benedict Anderson who said: a modern nation is conceived in language and not blood. When I think about how this particular story about my mother and the memory of her in Thailand, I think of three words: excluding, becoming, and belonging.
My mother, Chongkol Kotama, age fifty-six years old, before moving to the United States (US) was considered by any standards, a very social person. She had several groups of friends, all of whom she considered close and saw regularly face to face. At the age of thirty years old, my mother decided to move to the United States (US) where she met my father and had two kids. Besides us, she had never known anyone outside of our kinship and never felt like she needed to. Having grown up in Thailand and having spent a third of her adult life in Thailand, she never questioned her nationality, ethnicity, or identity. And even after the physical journey outside her nation state; or having gone back less than five times since her departure; or even the fact that she calls New York her home, she feels no less Thai. Her sense of belonging is not tied to her property but to her identity of which she claims proudly as Thai.
When she moved away from her homeland, she also left behind her social connections as well as her sense of belonging and community. This, she often admitted was the one thing she missed about being in Thailand. The gap that was created when she left made her all the more aware of how distance created a sense of loneliness. While she interacted with people on a daily basis, she felt no connection to these people. “These people have nothing in common with me,” said my mother. This was always made particularly clear to her when people tried to relate their recent experiences in Thailand, the sites they saw or the food they ate, all things she remembers but the familiarity is not the same. These experiences reconnected her back to her old nostalgic memories but always left her feeling sad about the distance between her and nation state. While these stories might allude to the place she once knew very well, she knows she no longer knows these places well. She has no new narratives to share or show that she has an ongoing relationship to the nation-state.
I often watched my mother at school or temple functions unable to connect with people because she was uncertain about her ethnic identity and her ability to belong. She shied away from speaking Thai in public or even admitting that she was Thai. Even in temple, a space where Thai was the language spoken and the religion and culture were practiced; she left feeling vulnerable and insecure because she could not figure out she still belonged to Thailand when she no longer actually lived there. However, her first interaction with the net made her realize not only how accessible, easy and secure it was but she also realized it was the solution she was looking for. She could access newspapers and any other form of print media that she loved which helped her reaffirm her Thainess. Through the access of language, she was able read and reconnect with home. Whereas, her other option was reconnecting herself through a physical journey which she could only afford to every couple of years.
Convenient is what my mom called it. Connecting herself through the net allowed her to connect as often as she wished but also provided her security among her own surroundings. Had she actually been in Thailand and she had read something exciting in the newspaper, she would not be able to run up and would have to settle for a phone call. But here, in her own home, she could read things on-line and run up to my bedroom and tell me about all the things she read. She didn’t need to run home and share, because she was already home. Instead of running out to get the newspaper, she was able to bring the newspaper to her house and access it at her own convenience.
As I retrace my mother’s first experience, I think about these notions of belonging and how print media and technology, particularly the internet, complicates existing social patterns and creates differences between those who prefer preserving community formations in the realms of “reality” and those who see value to online community as a building block for transnational communities in a global way. Once again, this made me think about a question Emile Durkheim posed in 1893: What are the bonds which unite men with one another?” How have the realms of public space changed? Technology has created the existences of several realties creating the mesh between the realms of public and private life. People can now bring the public realm inside to their own private homes.
Thus, we should look at language as the common ground in which communities are built upon, because it provides key opportunities for new media studies to intervene and develop new representations of identity because it offers people interactivity. Interactive media within the web allows people to connect and enable them to solve or question their identities while building a community of their own. My mother excluded herself from her nationhood because of physical distance but through a click of a button, allowed herself to become and belong to a new community without even realizing it; a transnational community of citizens who have used the internet to reach for a space of their own. Creating and defining their space as a transnational, all conceived from their own notions of what it means to be excluded and belong. However, none would have been possible without the development of technology and the internet.
*For my family and all the other families that straddle two worlds, conflicted by, a world they love and the world their children love. One day, I hope you will understand it and me.*
Does she look Asian to you? This is Indian Barbie, proper title of the Barbie is "Diwali-Barbie" And I bring this up today, because on my way home on the train, I watched an South Asian family across from me. The mom and grandmother looked tired from a long day of shopping but the little girl of 5 yrs old (or less) clutched on to box and hugged the box around her body. She was so excited to get home and open to box. She would point to somethings on the box and talk about why she loved it so much. I was wondering for a long time what the doll looked like until I finally caught a glimpse of it. It was a Barbie dressed in cowgirl gear (no joke). She had a black hat with a red and white check shirt, a black studded frill suede skirt and no JOKE black leather boots. I guess my problem with this sighting is watching this South Asian girl clutching a white doll and I wonder if she will look back on this moment and wonder why it her dolls were all white? 
