Thailand is a sweating nation. The heat overpowers citizens and strangles newcomers. It is a country with glass mansions and mud houses, futuristic technologies and ancient abacuses, silk handkerchiefs and wood toys. In a freezing room smelling of antiseptic, scattered with latex gloves and filled with bags swollen with blood, our team worked. We toiled for hours at a time, clicking on pristine keyboards, separating components of blood with machines seemingly from the realm of science fiction, and cleaning up the inevitable spills with dirty rags. We were emotionless robots, intent on finishing our individual tasks.

Outside the colorless room, the sun melted the professional exteriors away. Immediately, they formed separate groups. I stood on the edge of a group, staring at a scratch on the concrete, unsure of the proper protocol for lunch. Occasionally, a sympathetic member of a circle would toss me a question- what my name was, why I was in the laboratory, which area of Thailand I was from. When I mentioned living in America, the extraneous conversations immediately halted, each volunteer turning to stare at me. I don’t have the coloring of a typical Thai, but a mixed child is not rare. Too focused on their own conversations to listen to my mumbled answers, none of them processed my distinct accent. The forced questions quickly transformed into a stream of inquiries, each more personal than the last. Unaccustomed to paying attention to rapid-fire Thai, I stuttered through my answers, discussing the school system of America, describing my neighborhood, and explaining my father’s career as a lawyer in the shortest amount of words possible.

The more questions I answered, the closer the group moved towards me. After the interrogation was completed, they bought me food, seating themselves in a circle around me. We were almost half an hour late coming back from lunch, and the lab supervisor began a long lecture, interrupted by, “We were talking with our new friend. Did you know she is American?”
My interactions with my coworkers from the sterile room became friendlier, all welcoming me into the groups. We never started on time after lunch again. The supervisor never seemed to notice.

The day before I left, my associates pulled aside on multiple occasions and told me the gifts I should bring for my nice, polite, good friends- American shoes, handbags, and perfumes. I responded that I didn’t have the income for such purchases, and I was asked my last question: Was I not from America?