The other day, one of my friends asked me what it was like living in a city where I look so obviously foreign. He asked as he knew a girl who looked like me – blonde hair, blue eyes, a total ‘guiri‘ – who chose to leave Barcelona because she was tired of people treating her differently because of how she looked.
Spot the guiri! (It’s not hard).
That meant being rude to her, purposely charging her higher prices in the stores, seeing her as an easy target for pickpocketing, or just not taking her very seriously (especially when it came to dating).
He wanted to know – was that a real thing? Or was she just being dramatic?
I hesitated. I didn’t want to make it seem like I was a huge victim (I’m not), but yes, your appearance definitely does make a difference to how people treat you.
The same sort of stuff this girl complained about does happen to me; every once in a while, it even makes me cry.
If you haven’t had that sort of experience on a long-term basis, it’s hard to explain how draining it can be. It’s frustrating when people automatically discard you because you’re obviously foreign based on your looks, and it’s not something I’d ever experienced before.
It’s really not the same as being treated like that on vacation or in a temporary situation. Well-intentioned friends often think it’s the same sort of thing they experienced when they were in “x” place for a year. But that’s not true. When you know that it’s going to go away as soon as you get back to your normal life, it’s much easier to deal with.
Other friends, equally well-intentioned, think I’m making a big deal of small stuff. And sometimes it IS just small stuff. A lot of small stuff that builds up, and then it only takes one more stupid comment to bring me to tears.
I think it’s gotten a bit more frequent with all the current backlash against tourists in Barcelona, which occasionally spills over into being flat-out xenophobic. It’s really not nice to constantly stick out a lot of the time.
A lot of people will say “Well, the guy who said that is an idiot – it doesn’t matter what he says.” That’s true. But it can and does hurt to have people repeatedly treating you unkindly, no matter how idiotic they are.
So yeah, it is a real thing.
But….there is actually a major silver lining to this.
Looking so obviously foreign is an instant character filter.
As soon as I realized that, something clicked into place that made dealing with the negative stuff a whole lot easier.
Those shopkeepers who double their prices for me? The people who swear at me in Spanish when they think I don’t understand what they’re saying? Waiters who are flat-out rude when I’m eating out with another foreign-looking friend? People who automatically discard me because of my appearance?
Those people are absolutely not the sort of people I want to spend time with, and they’ve just instantly let me know that.
So OK, not as many people will want to be friends with me here as they would in a place where I don’t look so foreign. And sure, being treated that way does upset me sometimes.
But that just means my appearance can be a shortcut to getting to know genuinely open, fascinating people who are interested in connecting with other cultures and making friends who aren’t the same as them. In short – great people!
Like this girl – a.k.a. the world’s best roommate!
Basically, it filters out all the people you don’t want to hang out with anyway and leaves you with people you do want to spend time with. There might not be as many of them, but you know that they don’t care about what you look like or where you come from. They’re more interested in getting to know you as a person.
And that’s actually pretty awesome.
It’s no coincidence that almost all of my close friends here are people I’ve met through some kind of travel-related activity (language exchanges, the Erasmus program, and travel blogging events).
Part of that is because that’s what I’m interested in, but I really believe it mostly comes from the attitude that people bring back home from traveling. People who travel are often people who are open to meeting foreigners – and actually excited about it too!
True.
So while some days I DO get frustrated and upset and wish I didn’t stick out for my appearance, it’s not something that’s going to go away. It’s just one of those things that comes from choosing to live in another country. I know I’m fortunate because I am choosing.
And on top of that, it just takes a simple perspective switch to make me realize that even this cloud has a very shiny silver lining.
This weekend, my roommate and I threw a party. Looking at our silly Facebook event invitation makes me feel so, so lucky.
We invited sixty friends who come from all over the world. I was worried so many people were going to show up I was going to have to move the party out of my tiny flat and down to the local plaza.
Luckily, everyone fit – just. Tons of people showed up from four different continents and I don’t even know how many countries. The party kept going all night long, and there was an endless stream of fascinating, open-minded people to chat to.
And I can guarantee that lots of those people I never would have met had it not been thanks to being a ‘guiri’.
What a fantastic problem to have.
Besos!
-Jess
“the current backlash against tourists in Barcelona” ?!???
Yup – here’s a piece about it from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/mass-tourism-kill-city-barcelona
I don’t think it’s quite as bad as it’s made out to be in that piece, but some people certainly aren’t very happy about tourism here at the moment.
I have to say that I sometimes enjoyed being obviously foreign because I felt like it gave me an excuse to be slightly embarrassing – not even things I was doing because I was foreign, but just little things like, “My outfit is really unstylish today. Oh well, they’ll just chalk it up to me being a weird foreigner!” Kind of silly, but it worked for me. But as you say, it’s different when you know it’s temporary, and I never intended to stay in Spain forever.
I’ve definitely struggled with xenophobia in Australia. I don’t stand out immediately here, but all too often, as soon as someone finds out I’m American, I’m met with nasty and ignorant comments about the U.S. I never expected it in a country as supposedly friendly as Australia, and it really gets me down sometimes. I’m slowly learning to disregard those comments, at least!
That’s true! I feel like I definitely dress a bit more out there some days because I know I’m going to stick out anyway. I don’t think I’m going to stay here forever either, but still!
That anti-American attitude gets really draining to deal with as well. People can be so rude.
Oh I get you. I currently live in Turkey and saying that I stand out is nothing less than an euphemism. The fact that I do look like an Indian but then do not fit into the Indian mould means that I get stared at everywhere I go, people feel that they can touch me without my permission or even talk in front of me without knowing that I can understand them. On the other hand, it has definitely made me realise who to choose as my friends and who not to.
Ugh that must be so frustrating to deal with. People have done the talking about me thinking I don’t understand, but they usually don’t touch me without my permission – that would make me feel really uncomfortable.
I’m disappointed to hear that Spanish merchants or restaurants try to take advantage of you as a foreigner. I tried so hard to fit into the Spanish culture and environment on my first trip to Spain in 2013. What I didn’t realize is that I would stand out with my red hair! It was so obvious. I rarely saw another person with red hair. Good for you for turning your experiences into a positive outlook. Ardis
Thanks, Ardis! You know, it’s not something that’s unique to Spain at all. I think being an obvious foreigner makes you susceptible to those unpleasant type of people, who unfortunately exist all over the world. Still, most people are pretty nice. 🙂
This post was great, and I’ll definitely remember it the next time I’m feeling down for sticking out as a foreigner! I most often get people attempting to switch to English or crudely translate what they’re just said to me in Spanish as soon as they see my foreign ID card or hear my accent, I try to brush it off (and always continue speaking in Spanish), but it still often grates me.
Great article, and I like the way you’ve put a positive spin on it – the way these people treat foreigners makes it easy to filter out the ones who don’t deserve your time. But, I have brown hair and brown eyes and speak Spanish fluently but I still get treated the same way all the time too. I used to be an English teacher and when I tried to speak to my students about how I’d been pick-pocketed and how awful it is here for crime, they would imply that it was my fault for looking like a foreigner since I’m tall (5 foot 10) and have freckles – urghhhh!
Great article and I totally understand this feeling, the good and the bad side. I love the fact that I can take pictures of literally everything, even a normal Spanish lunch, because well, everybody thinks I am a tourist anyways!
This comes a bit late, but if you still think that your physical appearance alone -being blonde or blue eyed- makes you stand out in Catalonia or Spain, then you obviously haven’t got to know the place truly well 🙂 First, locals can have these traits more often than people from other countries assume.. But even if that wasn’t the case, there also are many people born and raised here who are of mixed ascendancy. Not to mention the tons of expats and immigrants from various countries.. Id’ say we should be used to all kinds of physical appearances by now.
What really screams foreign to us are the little things. Some of them are pretty obvious, like certain ways of dressing, makeup or hair styles that may look out of place. Others are more subtle; Catalans, like other Mediterranean Europeans, tend to speak in a rather energetic and direct way, often using our bodies to accompany what we say.
Then there’s things that apply to all places: if you aimlessly wander around with a look of being amused and distracted, that screams TOURIST. Try adopting a look of “I’m worried about paying tax and commuting” and ¡bang! you’re a local 😀
I think you’d be surprised. Even though people should be tolerant of all kinds of backgrounds and expats, especially in an area with so many immigrants, it is definitely not the case. Not just here, but in lots of places. Like last weekend, when I went to restaurant where a local friend asked the waiter, who was Catalan (but with Chinese parents), endlessly about where he was from. Maybe the waiter could have done his makeup differently I guess? People do treat you differently based on how you look (though, like I said, it happens in lots of places!)
I don’t “aimlessly wander around with a look of being amused and distracted”, and do actually work and pay taxes, but you know, thanks. 😀
FINALLY. 👏🏻 Someone said it! This has precisely been my situation as a blonde, blue-eyed, freckled expat in Spain, since moving here in October and studying abroad here two years ago.