Have you ever heard those iconic American catchphrases and wished you could understand what they were saying? Me too. I was born here by the way. I find it particularly interesting how vernacular American phrases come to be, like Coloradan phrases (which I had no idea were a thing) sounded so obscure and odd to me. I have an extended family that got remarried a long time ago, meaning before I was born, and their family is majority white. It's sometimes odd having just a random group of white people in a mostly entirely Mongolian household whenever we'd celebrate New Years or Thanksgiving. I try to make an effort to avoid them, I don't have anything against them, I just don't really know what to say other than "It's been a while!" (It's been exactly 330 days). However, this last Thanksgiving, I lingered and tried to continue my conversation with my uncle-in-law. Now, Brian is a very nice man, but he is so... Coloradan.
He's "born and raised in the peaks" (LOL), which went over my head initially, and when he collected that I didn't get it, he cleared his throat and shoved his hand into his "dress jeans" and said, clearly not boasting in the slightest, "The peaks are the 14'ers... Y'know, the summits?... Okay, mountains?"
In an effort to not seem inadequate with this strange slang that I've never learned in my years of living here, I simply smiled and nodded, "Ohh, gotcha." (I didn't 'gotcha'.) I cleared my throat and swallowed awkwardly, with nothing else to discuss with this Baby Boomer, I returned to one of my safety topics: My grandma.
"So, my grandma is coming soon... From Mongolia." I said, nodding. Thankfully, the topic of my grandmother always proved to be a great conversation-saver and Brian quickly exclaims, "Oh, very nice!"
It was short lived. With another few pandering seconds of awkward brainstorming of the next conversation topic, which I suddenly realized in that moment I clearly needed to add on to, Brian spoke up again, "Hopefully her flight went well. Make sure you say hey to Blucifer when you pick her up." He said lightly.
I smiled and nodded (again), but in my head I was trying to decipher who 'Blucifer' was. And it seemed like Brian has an insane fake-laughter-detector that he jumped into (yet another) quick explanation on what 'Blucifer' was,
"Y'know, that scary blue horse at the airport?"
"The what-?"
"... With the, I don't know, red glowing eyes, it's standing up?- Nevermind." He shrugged off quickly Immediately, I feel horrible for making him feel this awkward. But it also made me wonder why the hell this demonic blue horse was named Blucifer... of which, by repeating to myself, I get now.
I use this awkward interaction with my white in-law to illustrate the pains I know immigrants get whenever they strike up a conversation here, or literally anywhere else in the United States. That's what's so interesting to me, the vastness of this country. It's huge and its vernacular idioms and slang differ from state to state. So whether I'm in New York City, Chicago, Toledo, or even Colorado Springs, I'll always feel like a sort of outsider. But maybe, instead of viewing myself as a "forever foreigner", instead I could see it as that I'll never run out of things to be fascinated by.
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