While living in Canada for a year and a half with a working holiday visa, I deeply pondered living as an ambiguous stranger. Most of the difficulties I faced came from differences in language and culture. What I felt was that mainstream people dwell where they feel comfortable. I defined myself as someone who walks on borders and belongs to neither here nor there.
In my instructors' book <When Attitudes become Artwork>, I came across a video called <In My Language> by Mel Baggs, who has a developmental disability. The repetitive and bizarre movements of people with developmental disabilities were their attempts to communicate in their own language. I realized that I might be an outsider somewhere, but I could be a member of the mainstream who does not start a conversation. We who speak different languages and have lived in different environments need the courage to hear and talk about a language we don't know. Such language is presented as the movement in <Til we have faces>, like Echo's voice, as it constantly resonates and reaches the unreachable point.