I am an international student from Japan and have just graduated from OU with a Ph. D.in May. I have been in Oklahoma for nine years, and Norman is my second hometown and is my favorite town in the world. The town, the University, and my friends have been supportive of my personal life and research, and I am grateful to be part of the communityyes, I am proud to be a Sooner.
When my mother came from Japan for my graduation in early May for five days, I proudly showed her around the town and the University. We had been in good spirits and everything had been going well until one incident occurred on the second day of her visit. After lunch on one peaceful sunny Wednesday afternoon, my mother and I entered an antique store on campus corner on Boyd Street and Buchanan Avenue. The store already had several customers, mostly appeared young female students and their mothers. Then out of the blue, a woman in her late 40sRobyn, whom later we found as the store managerapproached us, fiercely grabbed my right arm, dragged me to the center of the store, and said out loud: I heard you stole one of our candles last time when you were here. It was unbelievable. I could not believe what had just been said in front of me, and worse yet, in front of my mother.
What did you say? I stood appalled. It felt like all my blood went down straight to the feet, and my mind went blank. The woman repeated: You took our candle. One of our girls saw you take our candle, put it in your backpack, and walked away. It was a completely unjust accusation. I didn't do it. There's no way! I have never looked at your candles. You must be talking about someone else. The manager stared at me and then continued: It was you, you come here very often, like in between classes with a backpack, so I remember you. I don't come here often at all. I've only been here several times in the past. I teach at OU and I cannot afford to come here between classes. And I had never carried my backpack with me. Although I actually carried my backpack that day, it was just to help my mother carry gifts she had brought from Japan for my friends in Norman.
My old mother, being exhausted after well-over 24-hour international travel across the Pacific, looked pale standing next to me. She was quiet yet was trembling in helpless confusion. I insisted that I should speak with the store clerk who claimed to have seen me steal a candle. She is not here today. But I will ask her if she wants to talk with you. I don't want her to be accused. But I was here, too, when she said it happened. I asked the manager if they had any video cameras in the store. We didn't have it on that day. The manager was unable to give us any specific date or time of the crime scene, eitherWe don't have the date, but it was about a month ago or something, said she. I was not in Norman in AprilI was in California for most of the month to attend a conference and to visit my partner's parents. But one candle was missing after you left, whenever it was, that's what I'm talking about. She was firm.
Everyone in the store was looking at us. Unfortunately, I even saw a student of mine among them. The manager eventually said: Then it may not have been you, but the candle was gone. There are so many OU girls who come here and take our items.
After ten minutes of fruitless discussion, I publicly requested the manager to apologize to me and to my mother. Her response was blunt: Does she [my mother] speak English? I was disappointed; how does it matter if my mother does or does not speak English? If the manager falsely accused me of being a thief in English, then she should apologize to us in the same language. After a brief line of apology, she continued: We are a small family-owned business, and we have to protect ourselves. Surely I respect the idea. Yet, the way she accused mean innocent customerwas unreasonable and unacceptable. She had clearly said: It was you [who stole the candle] to me, face-to-face, firmly seizing my arm. Without any evidence, she had called me a thief in my mother's presence. You will never see me again, I said to the manager. With a quick glance at us, she immediately left us there, cheerfully approaching other customers in the store.
I shall never forget how I was mistakenly accused in public with my mother standing next to me, and how the manager was unwilling to listen to me and almost refused to apologize to my mother.in short, my mother's visit was ruined right before her daughter's doctoral graduation and Mother's Day. Worse yet, our conversation had been recorded by my mother's video camera that had been accidentally on. Later my mother told me in a trembling voice how helplessly sad she had felt during the conversation with the store manager. Your American friends are all very good people, and I am glad that you decided to stay here. But that manager's attitude made me so sad. I had never seen my mother being depressed that way.indeed, it was the saddest moment that I myself had gone through for the past nine years in Oklahoma. The fact that it happened in Norman, my proudly adopted hometown, made me dizzy. I tried to be strong in front of my mother, but my heart was broken into pieces.
The story, unfortunately, does not end here. Later I found that a friend of mine, an OU graduate student from Viet Nam, had also been accused in a similar way at the same store. She told me how miserable she had felt when she needed to explain how she did not do the thing that I was accused for. We talked about our experiences overnight and came to an empirically-informed assumption that it was our foreign appearances that raised the store manager's skepticism. There might have been a theft. Okay. But even so, the bottom line is that we all look the same to someone like the antique store manager, sighed my friend. Again, we certainly need to be respectful to the manager's idea to protect her business. Yet, in order to keep our Norman and the University environment more pleasant, trusting, and breathable, I would like for the manager to understand the following ethic: there is no right for anyone to ruin others' feelings, breaking hearts or memories by falsely accusing them for anything without sufficient evidence. It was inevitably too late when the manager said: Then it [the shoplifter] may not have been you.
Although my mother left Norman for Japan with a big smile at the end of the graduation week, she had kept referring back to the antique store and its manager until the end of her stay. It was truly unfortunate that such an incident took place during her short visit. Thankfully it did not ruin her overall impression of Norman itself, but the disappointment of these unjust accusations will remain in our minds for a long, long time. It was one very sad day.
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