{"id":4532,"date":"2020-06-05T00:38:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T00:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2020-06-13T00:55:52","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T00:55:52","slug":"my-life-as-a-minority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/2020\/06\/05\/my-life-as-a-minority\/","title":{"rendered":"My Life As A Minority"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/06\/E-with-2-girls.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-4533 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/06\/E-with-2-girls-e1592009241756.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"530\" height=\"403\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s not a Chinese. What could he possibly know about medicine &#8211; let alone about history or politics?&#8221; Like most language learners, my listening ability was greater than my speaking ability. As a newcomer to living in Shanghai, China, my hospital colleagues simply assumed that I did not understand them. But their seemingly private comments were received with more comprehension than they assumed. Honestly, such remarks didn&#8217;t much bother me. I realized Chinese culture and philosophy were much deeper and more expansive than my own North American.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is not an African. Why would he want to live here? We have little to offer. Surely, he must be an agent of the CIA.&#8221; Years later, as a newcomer to living in Angola, southern Africa, my next-door neighbors were very slow to respond when I walked over to introduce myself. Their apprehension I found to be quite understandable. Until only recently, white people of European dissent &#8211; like myself &#8211; had principally only come to exploit them. Honestly, in light of this painful history I didn&#8217;t find their apprehension too troubling. Rather, I was determined to make a better impression.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>My daughter, Elizabeth, photographed above, grew up in this mixed culture environment. She developed values of care for everyone and justice for all. These\u00a0 have endured into adulthood. A glimpse of her life, and perhaps my own as well, is but a snapshot of what we all may gain from living- at least for a time &#8211; as a minority.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &#8220;He&#8217;s not a Chinese. What could he possibly know about medicine &#8211; let alone about history or politics?&#8221; Like most language learners, my listening ability was greater than my speaking ability. As a newcomer to living in Shanghai, China, my hospital colleagues simply assumed that I did not understand them. But their seemingly private [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cross-cultural-healthcare-pearls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/nicholascomninellis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}