Boundary Crossings
I remember about six months ago being on a morning flight to LA and every person on the plane was looking at their individual seatback entertainment systems. The cabin was completely silent. It was like rows of silos with each person in their own little world.
Americans have a very strong sense of boundaries, which is on full display when we travel. My assigned seat is my seat. My personal space is protected by an invisible boundary. My internal border is secured with a pair of Beats By Dre headphones. This wall is unspoken but very much present all the time.
We might hate to have our boundaries crossed, but a small violation is good for the soul and often makes you laugh. That’s why there’s an entire comedy sub-genre of armrests, tray tables and reclining seats. These jokes are good, clean, fun descriptions of boundary crossings that aren’t too high stakes. They are tiny illegal incursions into our protected area. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to write comedy when you’re in another culture, every day is a boundary crossing.
Humor researcher Peter McGraw wrote the “Benign-Violation” Theory of Humor where “laughter and amusement result from violations that are simultaneously seen as benign.” Funny stuff has to be disruptive and challenging while still allowing for a degree of safety. Effective humor must stretch us, but cannot overwhelm us. Paradoxically, it must cross the line whilst also not being threatening.
But most days we positively deplore to have our boundaries violated and so we go to absurd lengths to keep them up. We install bald headed men named Gary at the DHS booth in the airport. He checks our papers to make sure we’re where we’re supposed to be. There is very little humor and by extension very little imagination that things could be any other way. Gary is an arm rest down kinda guy.
Malawi Customs and Immigration is quite at the other end of the spectrum. The lady in line next to me went through while working on a glass of sauvignon blanc. Her “interview” with the agent had the feel of a sorority sisters’ chit chat. “Girl you look fantastic, where did you get your nails done?”
I don’t know what’s right or wrong, can customs be too casual? The Americans will chime in “yes” and use words like security, secure and safety. These are synonyms for rigid boundaries. But when people aren’t trying to kill you (cause you’ve been trying to kill them) customs can take on a whole different tenor. It feels more like a welcome than a vetting.
Yet even this warm welcome was maybe too much for my sense of order. We like to have recognizable roles and familiar expectations when traveling to another place. Something to anchor us in our time of geographic disruption. Like flight attendants and the way they speak to you. Their tone cannot be classified as “friendly”, for it’s too plastic and professional. But it’s predictable and we enjoy the lack of surprise. It’s comforting when we’re disoriented. They stay on their side of the exchange and we stay on ours, a perfectly acceptable boundary.
They serve us an in-flight snack, a miniscule quantity of Sunchips that can truthfully only be classified as “insulting”. It’s small, it’s got no nutritional value, it leaves us hungrier than when we started, it’s freaking Sunchips!! (which should not continue to exist)
But it’s predictable and we enjoy the lack of surprise.
Our apartment complex in Blantyre, Malawi
On the other hand Malawian Airlines is socially amorphous. A not even two hour mid-day flight, and they’re serving beef tips, steamed rice, noodles and large pieces of fried chicken. The inflight beverage cart lady gives generous non-standardized (and unmonitored) pours of gin and whiskey. These are not available for purchase, no they’re part of the skyward journey fam.
Rather than giving a special welcome to our SkyMiles and Medallion Members, staff and passengers are calling each other Sister, Brother, and Mom. It gets confusing to know who is who and also who am I in this?
On the ground it is even murkier. The lady checking visas moonlights as the head of Currency Exchange and will rent you a low mileage Chevy Malibu through Hertz if you say the magic password. A man I assumed to be a customs agent in fact turned out to be a porter. He instructed me on the procedure for clearing my bags on arrival with all the breathless confidence of a grizzled TSA agent. When it was all over he led me to the parking lot with his associates and said cryptically “You’ll take care of us right?”
The boundaries are so unclear. You didn’t realize at the time you were entering into a short-term commercial arrangement with this individual. Where was the documentation? Where were the lanyards and company uniforms? Will I get a receipt? Do you take American Express?
But here we are and you absolutely must tip because he has touched your bag. The International Standard for Tipping by the way is the following: 1) If someone’s hand grazed your luggage, that is five dollars 2) if someone pulls it more than five feet on its rollers that is ten 3) lifting at any point is twenty 4) and god forbid while lifting he tweak a hammy, oh forget it. You’re never getting out of Malawi. You’ll be driving Uber for the family until the debt is one day worked off.
Nothing is really better or worse, just different. And it’s hard to make sense of it all. People are actually talking to one another, but sometimes up in my business as well. We are a long way from the comfortable silos of individuality.