Landing immigrant: Hearing problems

My first date with cultural shock was quite harsh. I wasn’t slowly introduced into the culture. Didn’t join any program for temporary stay where other foreigners are with me. I was dumped in it, balls first. It won’t be surprising to you then if I tell you that the first and most vivid memory of the alien culture (and still remains so because of the sense of hopelessness I felt afterwards) happened on one fateful day in Auckland, New Zealand. An interaction between me and my first English teacher in an English classroom.

She was repeating her name time and time again in front of the class and forcing me to do the same. I kept trying to the best of my ability until I can’t tell why she asks me to keep on repeating even though it seems that I had already got the name right. The whole class was watching I felt embarrassed at failing such a simple task.

“Mrs. Hanneck” I’d say
“No, it’s Mrs. H a n n e c k” She’d repeat impatiently.

There must be some intonation that I can’t hear, or some sound that is hidden from my ear because it doesn’t exist in the culture that I was born into. So this is how it happened for me. Nothing exotic, pas romantique, nicht leicht. Quite traumatic if you ask me.

How did she look at me back then? Did she think I was stupid? Was I nothing but annoyance for her? What goes on in an adult’s mind in this situation?

The problem is beautiful in its own right. It combined both death and birth. Everything that constituted me died that day giving way to the birth of a new self. It played a major role in shaping the “all or none” approach I later adopted in life. For me, this is how transition have always worked.

It doesn’t happen often, but it happened enough times that I have to stop ignoring it and face it with my full attention. The seemingly random occasions when I can hear and reproduces sounds of the words spoken by people but fails to comprehend the meaning. Or, in most cases, fails to grasp the correct meaning. It happens more often when I am with people I am really close to.

The mentat side of me deducted the facts and came up with an interesting theory which I am ready to entertain for a while. The fact that I try to predict what people are going to say based on the context and the situation at that time. Whenever someone suddenly go outside of the predicted outcomes, I will have trouble hearing the words.