As a research assistant at Trinity College, the cultural differences that I encounter in the workplace are not very Irish at all. My research team is scattered around the world, and because of this I have never met most of them in person and communicate only through emails and zoom meetings. The most daunting cultural challenge I face stems from that fact that every member of my team, aside from myself, speaks Italian as their first language. Half of the team is based in Italy, and the other half are Italian-born scholars working abroad in Ireland and America. Because of this, emails or parts of emails are often conducted in Italian, although they try to communicate in English on every email chain and zoom meeting I am on. The most challenging aspect of this language barrier is when they send links to articles and pages that are written in Italian. Our research project focuses on the relationship between America and Italy, and although my work centers on the American side, it is inevitable that some sources we find are not written in English. This obstacle would not feel so daunting if I were not the only monolingual member of the team. This had led to a feeling of linguistic inadequacy that I am forced to ignore. I pride myself in being able to pick up new technologies or methods quickly when the team introduces them to me, but fluency in another language is a completely different challenge altogether. 

In my position, I am almost sheltered from Irish culture. Not only are none of the members of my research team Irish, but very few of the research assistants and PhD candidates in the Trinity Research in Social Science (TRiSS) office where I work are either. My in-person community/workspace at Trinity College is just as international as my team and even more diverse. Researchers from around Europe and the world work in this office, although all focused on their own projects. The varying backgrounds of the individuals in the office have created another language barrier for me, and this time one that creates social divides between the language groups of the people who work here. Speakers of the same language interact socially, share lunch, and leave together when the workday is over. Each of these groups communicate almost exclusively in their own native language, making it difficult and awkward for me to engage with them socially. The languages spoken in the office range from Italian to German to French, and even some I do not recognize. My inability to speak a second language has always been a bother of mine, and my time working at a research university in the European Union has shone a spotlight on that issue.

Outside of the workplace, I have been exposed much more intimately to Irish culture and its differences. The most recurring and glaring of these differences for me is the lack of culinary diversity in Dublin. As a Vietnamese American, Asian ingredients and flavors have always been a large part of my diet at home and the restaurants I ate at. At home in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, I was always surrounded by a wide variety of Asian and other cultural restaurants and markets. In Dublin, I have struggled to find authentic Asian restaurants, as most of them serve Irish-influenced dishes. This has opened my eyes to the cultural food I am used to at home, and how Americanized those places are. I have countered this by cooking cultural foods more, but I have struggled to find some ingredients at supermarkets that I always assumed to be common.

As with anything else, I have little choice but to accept these differences and adjust. I have begun using Irish pork sausage in rice dishes, and it is actually delicious and pairs very well. Although I have had some less successful experiments like my first experience with Tesco rice, which I do not recommend, I have enjoyed trying new things and shifting my perspective on what I consider “normal.” Knowing I will only be here for another month has made me much more comfortable with the uncomfortable aspects of these cultural differences. As the end of my time in Ireland approaches, I know I will soon miss the things that bother me, so I use that perspective to appreciate all of my experiences, including the less desirable ones. If nothing else, my time in Dublin will help me appreciate the aspects of American culture that I never realized were unique.