Day 27

Name: Sein Riordan

Profession: Stay-at-home mom

Location: Her home in Phoenix, Arizona

Question: What brought you there?

Answer: A better life

Today I spoke on the phone with Sein Riordan, my mother’s friend’s daughter-in-law. I was warned before the conversation began that her brother recently died and that she might not be as receptive to my questions; it was hard to tell if this was really the source of her five-word replies, if the hardly-conversational exchange was slow due to lack of interest, or if it just suffered from the culture gap.

Riordan, married recently to a chef at the Phoenician, is originally from Burma where “people are not very direct. I guess, don’t speak their mind as much,” she said.

In any case, the interview was comprised mostly of generalities and basic facts. When Riordan was 18, she moved to the United States in the footsteps of her brother, aunt, and grandmother to seek a better education and quality of life. After taking classes at Scottsdale Community College to tidy up her English, she studied Recreation and Tourism Management at Arizona State University. She now works at home to care for her three-year-old Chloe.

When asked when if she plans to return to work, she said, “In the future, yeah…. I’m not sure. I guess whatever’s available and whatever goes with my daughter’s school schedule. I wanna be there for her when she needs me because my husband works. He has a career.”

Though I was obviously intrigued by Burma and the cultural differences, my curiosity was hardly satisfied. Riordan seemed fatigued of the subject and, bored, casually dismissed it. I couldn’t help but feel as if her wealthy social position (which I knew from past experiences with her family) and her propensity to say only what she felt she was supposed to say got in the way of what could have been a rich storytelling opportunity.

Was I just not listening, you ask? Am I neglecting to tell my readers what she really said about her home country? Am I taking things from this conversation that weren’t initially there?

“Burma is in Southeast Asia right by Thailand. And it’s very green over there,” she said. “It’s not like here. It’s very humid. People are very friendly. It’s big, but it’s small in a sense. Everybody know everybody [sic].”

The second longest answer she gave, and that’s it. At least four questions specifically about her home country, and I’ve learned only that it is, as one would expect, humid.

It’s hard to listen to people who don’t want to speak. It’s harder to speak to people who refuse to hear.

“Hi, my name is Sierra Smith, and your mother-in-law said you might be interested in an interview. Is now a good time to talk? Well, I spend a little time every day interviewing a different person in an effort to get to know them, in a way. Then I post this interview on my blog. I’ll be doing it every day for a year.”

Anyone who doesn’t read into this, I feel, exists on a very shallow level of the term. Why am I doing this? What am I asking you, my subject, by interviewing you? Am I asking for your help? Do you think you are doing me the favor by answering a series of questions like you would half-heartedly fill out a survey? Well, I’m sorry to say that you wasted your thirteen minutes, then. I’m not here to fill a quota, and you’re not here simply to fill up my meter. I’m here because I genuinely want to understand you and want you to be understood. One could even say that I want you to understand me and my reasons for calling you. We should be mutually caring for one another’s thoughts. Instead, I’ve called you and, deciding to keep the blindfold on, you’ve continued walking.

Tell me, captain, now that my ship is in the hands of a sightless navigator, will you be expecting us to drown together?