MICAELA BLEI: And so ninth grade starts, and I go to the first German folk dancing practice, and I discover that Josh was correct, German folk dancing is awesome.

BIAR KON: Three years later, I was relocated to the United State of America.

I was excited, happy.

Everything was new.

ANITA DE RUVO: We pull into the drop-off lane, and over to my right are these glittery cars shimmering in the Florida sunshine.

WES HAZARD: Tonight's theme is "Culture Shock."

Whenever we cross a cultural border, we are subjecting ourselves to a world of change, surprise, and new experiences.

Most often it is positive, but no matter what, it is disorienting and full of possibility.

Tonight, our supremely talented tellers are gonna share their individual stories of culture shock, and overcoming it, and growing through it.

♪ ♪ BLEI: My name is Micaela Blei.

I live in Portland, Maine, currently, and I'm a story editor and storytelling teacher.

I'm wondering, how did you first come to storytelling?

BLEI: My friend took me to a night of storytelling.

She was, like, "You gotta check this out.

You gotta see what this is."

And it was a slam, so it was a competition.

She was really excited to put her name in to tell a story, and she was incredibly nervous.

And she said, "Will you also put your name in?

I'd feel so much better if you did."

And I looked around, there was, like, 250 people there.

And I thought, "What are the odds that I get picked?

"Obviously, this is going to be fine, so, sure, I'll get the credit for being a good friend."

I put my name in the hat, and obviously, I get picked first and get on stage and told a story before I had ever seen a story told.

I've tried new things a lot in my life.

I love being a beginner, and every time I start, I sort of think I'm going to be like Robert Redford in "The Natural," when he just walks on the baseball field and he's instantly the best baseball player in the entire world.

Honestly, the first time I do a lot of things, I sort of think I'm going to be amazing at it, and I understand otherwise by the end of it.

What kind of stories do you most enjoy sharing on the stage?

I really like telling stories where both things are true, that I get to be vulnerable, but I also get to make people laugh.

I think one without the other is a little scary for me.

So to just be vulnerable, and not have the release of tension when people are, like, "Oh, she's okay now, it's okay," right?

That can be really stressful.

And, um, I tried stand-up.

It was one of those things that I thought I was going to be like Robert Redford at, and I was not.

♪ ♪ It's 1991, I'm going into ninth grade, and I'm nervous.

And you may be thinking, "Of course you're nervous, "you're going to a new school, what's going to happen?

New teachers, exciting."

I was nervous in a very specific way.

I had lost all of my friends in eighth grade in a pretty protracted bullying incident.

And now, bar and bat mitzvah season is over, so no one's parents are making them invite me places.

And I'm alone, it's summer, and I'm lonely, and I'm worried.

How is this all gonna shake out?

And then something amazing happens.

I meet a girl named Jess while I'm swimming at the pond near my house.

And Jess is so much cooler than me.

She, she has really curly hair, and she puts it-- she puts so much gel in her hair that her face kind of moves, but her hair does not-- like that, you know?

And she wears tights, and fishnets over her tights, and then jean shorts over the fishnets...

Right?

It's 1991-- you'll understand.

And she's a lipstick girl, and I'm a Chapstick girl.

So she knows a lot more than me.

And she's not worried about ninth grade at all.

She says, "No, it's fine.

"We'll hang out with my older brother.

He's going into tenth grade."

She tells me all about him.

His name is Josh.

He's really cool, he's really bad.

And I go over to her house finally, and it takes me about 30 seconds to be absolutely smitten by this guy.

He is so tall, he has an asymmetrical haircut, and he also is not worried for us.

He says, "Oh, no, no, it'll be fine, you'll hang with us.

It'll be cool, you'll come to GFD."

And Jess is, like, "Oh, yeah, GFD."

Like, she knows what GFD is.

I myself have never been invited to a club that isn't Hebrew school.

And so I do not know what GFD is.

I say, "Okay, but what's GFD?"

And he goes, "Oh, it's German folk dancing.

It'll be awesome."

(audience laughing) Like, not what was advertised, right?

Exactly?

But there's another problem besides the surprise of German folk dancing being the cool thing I'm gonna do, which is, um...

I am the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors.

We got rules in my family about German stuff.

We don't take German in school, we don't drive German cars.

I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to learn the traditional dances of Bavaria, right?

And I've never broken a family rule, I should say.

But to Josh and Jess, who are my new friends, I say, "Okay," and I do not tell my parents.

And it's the first thing I haven't told my parents.

And so ninth grade starts, and, um, we, I go to the first German folk dancing practice, and I discover that Josh was correct.

German folk dancing is awesome because we learn how to polka, and the second person I polka with is Josh.

Now, at this point, I have seen Dirty Dancing several times.

(audience laughing) And so I know that the way you fall in love is through dancing.

And high-stakes dancing, which German folk dancing clearly is.

So I'm, like, "Okay, we're in business.

This is how it's going to happen, this is so great."

However, I am the kind of 14-year-old who tells her parents everything.

It's killing me.

And it's also killing me that I'm breaking this family rule.

I gotta tell them.

And so one night at dinner, they're asking me how school is, and they're asking me about friends-- they knew about eighth grade and all of the stuff that went down.

And I say, "Things are going really great, actually.

I got invited to join a dance club."

And my mom is, like, "That's so great.

"What kind of dance, you know?

You love to dance.

Modern?

Ballet?

Like, what are you doing?"

And I sort of take a deep breath and I say... "It's German folk dancing."

And there is silence at the dinner table.

And my dad looks at my mom, my mom looks at my dad, and my dad turns to me and says, "We respect your decision."

(audience chuckles) No explanation, and we're not the kind of family that does a lot of explanations and, like, talking about feelings, so, okay, I got an okay, I'm going, right?

And so as the fall progresses, it is so fun.

I found my weird group of people.

I know all of "Monty Python," which is, like, a big asset with them.

And we're up until really late talking on the phone and quoting sketch, and it's just so fun.

And I finally found my little group.

And then getting towards December, everyone is talking about the lock-in.

Like, "Are you going to the lock-in?

Are you going to the lock-in?"

And I'm, like, "I don't know, what's the lock-in?"

And Jess says, "It's where you get locked into a church, "you play games, you eat candy.

"It's boys and girls, you never go to sleep, and someone always makes out."

(audience laughing) And Josh looks at me and says, "It'd be great if you came."

And I'm, like, "Hell, yeah, I'm going to the lock-in.

"Just tell me what church, like, where should I go?

Like, sign me up."

And Jess says, "You just have to join St. Stephen's Catholic Youth Group."

(audience laughing) We don't-- we don't have rules about Catholic stuff in my family.

Like, we have the German rules, but no one's ever gotten to the Catholic rules, right?

Why would we even have them?

But, of course, to Josh and Jess, I say, "Okay."

And now I gotta tell my parents.

Sitting at dinner, "How's school?"

"Really great.

I got invited to join a service organization."

(audience laughing) My mom says, "That's so wonderful, "service is so important-- like, what is it?

"Is it Habitat for Humanity?

Is it Kadima?"

And I say, "It's St. Stephen's Catholic Youth Group."

(audience laughs) Silence at the dinner table.

My mom looks at my dad, my dad looks at my mom, and my dad finally looks at me and says, "Don't tell your grandmother."

(audience laughs) "But we respect your decision."

(audience laughing) And once again, he does not explain, and once again, I do not ask.

I did go to the lock-in.

I think I did think it was going to be like when Jennifer Grey shows up at the staff party at Dirty Dancing.

Like, that's what, the image I had in my head, like, a lot of, like, a smoky room-- that was not what that lock-in was, and I did not make out with Josh, sadly.

And we all sort of moved on from there.

I ended up joining, with all of those friends, Model United Nations the next year, so it, it all continued.

But I never figured out why my, my parents let me do this and I never asked them, until a few years ago.

I said to my dad, "Am I remembering this correctly?

"Did you let me join St. Stephen's Catholic Youth Group?"

And he was, like, "Yes, I did."

He was very proud.

And I said, "Why did you let me join "St. Stephen's Catholic Youth Group?

Just out of curiosity."

And he got really serious and he said, "You know, Micae, if your kid is crying "every day after school in eighth grade, "and then they get to ninth grade and they're having fun, "they're having a good time, "they're quoting their movies with their friends, you're going to let them do what they need to do."

And it blew my mind.

This whole time, I was so worried about how worried they were about my Jewish identity, right?

But they were being the kind of parents that just want their kid to be happy.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ DE RUVO: I'm Anita De Ruvo, and I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan.

I live in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and right now I'm an assistant at a pharmaceutical company, which has been really exciting.

HAZARD: As a newer teller, what did you learn in the process of preparing for this story?

I actually learned that the way I thought I was so different from everyone else is actually not true.

More people relate to my story than I thought.

I still had a lot of fear about telling this story about growing up in poverty, and being an outsider, and in telling it, and telling other people about my story, even a synopsis of it, people always relate to it and are always very excited that I'm going to tell it.

And so it taught me a lot about, being honest with yourself and being humble will really broaden your horizons and your network.

After the audience hears the story that you're going to share with us this evening, what would you most hope that they take away from that experience?

DE RUVO: I really hope people take away that there's more than these manmade borders that are drawn in the sand.

There's these invisible borders that we walk through, and that no matter what border you are crossing, everyone matters.

And everyone deserves a seat at the table.

♪ ♪ The summer of my sophomore year, my mother gets this grand idea that it's time to move us from this small town in Michigan to the suburbs of central Florida.

I hate this idea.

I'm 15, I know everything.

I know it's a bad decision.

And I know it's a bad decision because Michigan is home.

It's comfort, it's safety.

My mom is the youngest of seven, and my favorite aunt comes over every day and is a second mother to me.

We go to the grocery store and everyone knows my family.

We leave our door unlocked every day.

Our car keys live in our car.

It's perfect.

But my mom has a bigger plan for us.

Because my mom sees things that are difficult and not traditional.

She bears the brunt of going to the grocery store and paying for our groceries with colorful paper money called food stamps.

When that limited food comes into our home, it's actually quite common that I eat food past its expiration date, or else I don't have dinner.

In the winter, we boil water on the stove and I wear blankets inside to stay warm.

But all I know is that it's amazing, so why do we leave?

But I bear a great face, I put a smile on, and I go with my mom to Florida.

We arrive, it's the first day of sophomore year.

I wake up... And my hair, the natural curly hair, has expanded three times its size because it's never experienced 80% humidity before 9:00 a.m. And so I'm pouring gel into my hands and into my hair to look like some sort of person.

(exhales): But I get through it, and I put on my jeans, I put on my best Kmart T-shirt, and my sneakers, and my mom takes me to campus.

We pull into the drop-off lane, and over to my right are these glittery cars shimmering in the Florida sunshine.

And these are cars I've only seen in magazines.

A BMW X3, a silver Mercedes, a black Audi A4, all-cream interior.

And I think, oh, maybe my mom is onto something, because the whole drive down, she kept talking about how this high school was amazing.

It was voted the number-one high school by U.S.A. Today.

It's going to be great.

So I look at these cars and I think, "Okay, "there's not a sunspot on them, "there isn't a spot of rust on them, "my mom must be onto something, these teachers must be getting paid amazing."

In three weeks, I will actually learn that that parking lot is for my classmates, for 16-year-olds who just got their license.

But I don't know this on my first day.

So I walk onto campus, and it's picturesque, it's open-air, so there's buildings around a quad with all of these palm trees reaching up through the humidity.

And these little lizard geckos running around that I am acutely aware of, and my classmates, without sweating, and in their flip flops and shorts, are just oblivious to.

But we make it through.

I get to lunch, I've sweated through my T-shirt, and my stomach is in knots.

My stomach and my insides feel like how my outsides look.

But I make it to my next class, geometry, with Mrs. Smith.

And when she opens that door, a beautiful wave of air conditioning hits me, and Mrs. Smith greets me.

She's a bottle blonde with a perfect blowout, the best manicures, and the cutest snakeskin high heels to teach us geometry proofs in.

(audience laughs) Okay, I walk in, I choose a seat behind two girls who are sharing about their summer.

One took a trip through Spain with her family.

The other enjoyed a yacht around the Bahamas.

And I'm quietly thinking... "I don't know anyone who has a passport in Michigan."

But I make it through the semester.

During the semester, I do make some friends.

And I'll be honest, I keep it very surface-level, because while I'm too afraid to go and get my free lunch because it's going to be embarrassing, and so I eat a single granola bar to make it through the day, my friends are circling catalogues with the gifts they want for birthdays or holidays, knowing with certainty that a Tiffany blue box with a white ribbon will be waiting for them on those holidays.

The friendship that I actually do build is surprising, because I'm actually failing geometry.

I've never been good at math.

I can't really divide.

I'm barely hanging on to a C. And so I see Mrs. Smith actually a lot.

I see her a lot after school.

And one day after school, I've hit a wall.

I'm done.

So I go to Mrs. Smith.

"Mrs. Smith, I'm just going to fail this class.

"I'm absolutely done, I can't do this.

"I can't even divide.

I'm, I'm just done."

"Anita, you can do this.

"Everyone in this school "has had to learn these concepts at some point in time.

You can learn them today."

"Mrs. Smith, you don't understand.

I don't belong here, I don't fit in."

"Anita... "Intelligence is not something you're born into.

It is something that is earned."

And she was right.

And I would love to tell you that through high school, the economic divide between me and the people I perceived to have everything got smaller, but it didn't.

I still kept my friendships surface-level.

But what I learned from Mrs. Smith is that I could make it and that I could do it.

And she was right.

I went on to graduate high school with honors.

I got a bachelor's degree in Florida.

I have a master's degree in social work.

But what she taught me in that moment was that I belong and I have a seat at the table.

And what my mom dared to dream of was that one day, I don't have to worry about wearing a jacket inside, I don't have to worry about eating rotten food.

My mom was right.

And even though I've never taken a yacht through the Bahamas, I am wealthy beyond my means.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ KON: My name is Biar Kon.

I'm originally from South Sudan.

I grew up in Kenya, came to the U.S. five years ago, and while I've been in the U.S., I did graduate from Middlesex Community College in Lowell, and I also went ahead to UMass, University of Massachusetts in Lowell, and graduated from there.

So, since you first started sharing stories on stage a few years ago, how has it impacted your life?

It did in so many ways.

It gave me confident to speak in front of people.

I remember when I graduated from community college, I was actually nominated as the commencement speaker.

And through storytelling, I was able to gather that confident to actually address over 1,000 students and families.

So, it did actually impact me to become a better public speaker, and gave me the confident to speak in front of people.

What do you see as the power of storytelling, you know?

You know, what do you think of the strength of this art?

The strength of it is, it bring people together and it also connect people.

And people tend to learn from one another, because sometime, you don't know what other people are going through until you talk to them.

And through storytelling, it has the power of connecting people and bringing people together, bringing those stories together, the humanity.

♪ ♪ At 17, I was ready for the biggest moment of my life, sitting for my national examination.

But I've lived in a refugee camp since I was three month old.

But now that I moved to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, I'm excited to join better schools.

But that is when I was told, "In order for you to sit "for your national exam, you need your birth certificate."

But unfortunately, for a lot of us who are refugee, we didn't have them.

Then the family told me the only way I could retrieve my birth certificate was to go to the Sudanese embassy.

I found myself on the busy street of Nairobi, looking for the embassy, asking strangers for direction.

After encountering about six strangers, none knew where the embassy was, although they were polite, and friendly, and apologize.

I proceed, but then I was stop by an older woman who looked like she was in her mid-40s, with this beautiful curly hair.

She spoke to me in Swahili, which is the national language of Kenya, and ask, "Are you okay?

"Are you looking for something to eat, direction, or a place to stay?"

That is when I realize, she thought I was homeless.

It's not uncommon in Kenya to see homeless people on the street, even children, asking for food and money.

I smile and I told her no, I wasn't looking for something to eat.

I was actually looking for the direction to the embassy.

And she smiled.

She said the embassy is down the block, and she offered to walk me there.

While we're on our way to the embassy, we had a conversation.

And she told me, "The reason why I stopped you "is because I'm a mother first, before anything.

"And as a mother, I feel obligated "to help in any little way that I can when I see a child on the street."

That then reminded me of my mother.

Even when we were in a refugee camp, and had little to nothing, she always share with those who did not have.

Went to the embassy, told her thank you, waved goodbye, got my birth certificate, registered for my exam, and it all went well.

Three years later, I was relocated to the United State of America.

Massachusetts, to be precise.

While in Massachusetts, I was excited, happy.

Everything was new.

However, the weather was different, the food was different, the people were different, and even the lifestyle.

In America, everybody's busy 24/7.

(audience laughs) So that's something I had to get used to.

One thing I didn't actually expect to see in America was the homelessness.

Because it's something that is unthinkable.

When you live in a foreign country, America is seen as this beautiful country, one of the best, if not the best.

So you would never think to see a homeless person in the United State.

So, but one morning, while I was going to school, an incident happened when I bought my coffee at Dunkin'.

Just like many American, we cannot survive without our, without our morning coffee.

(audience laughs) So when I got my coffee and walking back to school, I saw a young man who looked very tired and had these worn clothes in front of the Dunkin' asking this young lady for some change.

But the lady, instead of helping him, she was rude, and start insulting him.

She call him all sort of names.

She call him a thug, a drug addict, and that he should go look for a job.

I was shocked.

And the young man had a stony face on because he felt humiliated.

When the young lady walk away, I approach him and offer him one of my Dunkin'.

And I told him, "I know how it feel "to sleep with an empty stomach.

"I know how it feel to be hungry.

"Because I was once a refugee.

"And in a refugee camp, you have to rely on the generosity of others."

So, he smile and say, "Thank you."

And he told me that he was once on drug, but he is clean now.

However, he cannot find a job or even a place to stay.

And that is when I actually told him that when I was in the camp, I was almost in a similar situation, because I didn't know that one day I could be able to achieve my dream or pursue my dreams because there were limited opportunities.

So the young man smile and I walk back to school.

But on my way back to school, I thought of the woman, that woman in Kenya, the woman who was so eager to help me even though she didn't know me.

And she taught me a very important lesson.

She taught me, even though we might not always have the money to spare to other people or the homeless people, we can always give them the most important thing, and that is our time, because they are human before anything, and that we should always treat people with respect and dignity.

That is the lesson she taught me.

Thank you.

(cheers and applause) OKOKON: The Stories From the Stage Podcast with extraordinary, true stories.

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