Strange Fruit 2

I ended the last entry in this series with a note about a pet peeve-- the infuriating and ubiquitous Spanish bar napkin. So I'll start with another one for this second edition of "Weird Things Spanish People Do That You Probably Didn't Know About."

1) They leave dog poop in the middle of the sidewalk
Obviously, this is a problem in the US, too, and in other countries. But as someone who is hoping to hit 41 countries by the end of this year, I can say that I have never been anywhere where the dog poop situation is quite so bad. My theory is that this problem is due to a lack of green space or bushes (for disposal) and a culture of impunity. Spaniards leave poop everywhere. The river walk in Talavera along the Rio Tajo is like a damn obstacle course. I can't count the number of times during my stay in Spain that I was walking along looking at the scenery -- wrought iron balconies over windows in sugary colors, charming side streets under stone arches-- or even just looking at a map and ... SQUISH. Ugh. It's true that laws exist against such practices, but they are poorly enforced. Gross.

The famous balconies of Madrid. But don't get too distracted...

2)  They say completely meaningless things to fill the silence
While it's true this kind of phrase exists in every language,  the phrase "bueno, pues nada" (which translates directly to "Okay, well... nothing") is surprisingly ubiquitous. It usually pops up at the end of a conversation, when things have more or less finished up and neither party has anything left to say. Where an American would probably stay mum and look around awkwardly (and, let's be honest, pretend to text a friend), a Spanish person is more likely to pull out this bad boy. The phrase is a good indicator that the conversation is now finished; the equivalent of "So, uh... yeah." It is a placeholder. It literally serves no other use.

3) They narrate their actions
This is something specifically that I've noticed since my arrival in Talavera. Maribel, one of my co-teachers here, often will come into the staff room Morgan-Freeman style (that is, doing voice over for her life.) "I'm going to wash my hands," she'll announce to no one in particular. Then; "Well, I guess I'll go upstairs." Similarly, my roomate, Judith, would never dare going to sleep without announcing: "I'm going to bed! Goodnight!"

I'll admit it, my American reaction is: '...So? Why are you telling me? What do I care?' But when I asked Judith about this habit, she explained that it's about being polite. If Maribel merely walked into the staffroom without saying anything, it would be like not acknowledging my presence; similarly, if Judith went to bed without telling me it would be an indication of bad blood between us.

Spaniards: human news tickers

4) They mean something totally different than Americans/British people do when they say "Let's meet this morning" or "I'll talk to you this afternoon" 
You probably know that Spanish people eat on an entirely different schedule than Americans/Brits/most of the non-Mediterranean Western world. Lunch is between 2 and 3; dinner is between 9 and 10:30. What you probably didn't know, however is that the eating schedule affects the working definition of "morning" and "afternoon." One is permitted to say "Buenos dias" until 2 pm and "Buenas tardes" until 8 or 9. Thus, I offer you the following tip when making plans with a Spaniard: keep in mind that meeting "this afternoon" means that any time between 3:30 and 8 is up for grabs. This can be especially confusing when talking to a Spaniard in English. He or she may say "I am only free this morning," and although the language is English, the idea of morning is still Spanish-- leaving lots of potential for misunderstanding.

5) They eat bread with EVERYTHING
Seriously, everything. My favorite story to tell about this habit takes place in Santander, with a couchsurfing host.We were preparing lunch from some leftovers: tortilla de patatas (kind of a quiche with potatoes inside) and arroz a la cubana (rice with peas and meat), plus some pasta we made to finish the meal off. There, amongst this cornucopia of carbohydrates, my host exclaimed in horror, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I forgot the bread!" Needless to say, I did not mind.

The classic "tortilla" with potatoes ... and bread

Bonus:
From what I can tell, this only applies to Manchegos, people born in Castilla la Mancha, where I live this year. When asked a question they don't have an answer for, instead of saying "Yo no sé" (I don't know), they say: "Yo qué sé?"-- "What do I know?" I don't know what it is about that little difference that gets me, but I always enjoy walking around and overhearing people say "What do I know?" What, indeed, do any of us know? That's deep, Castilla la Mancha. That's deep.

The trilingual's dilemma, part 2

I spent last weekend in Granada, an ancient Andaluz city that's famous for its mazelike ancient neighborhoods and rollicking nightlife, all watched over by a thousand-year old military/palace complex (the world-famous Alhambra.) I went with my good friend, Hannah, and besides the obligatory overwhelmingly gorgeous Alhambra visit, we spent the weekend exploring the old city's nooks and crannies and taking advantage of Granada's tapas bars, which rival Linares in their scope, diversity, and low prices.

On Saturday night, we were walking along yet another narrow cobblestone alley, from one bar to another, and Hannah asked me a question. I'm not sure what the question was, and really in this context it's unimportant; the important thing is that I didn't know the answer. So, my answer to her was: "Not an idea."

Of course, "Not an idea" is a phrase that could conceivably occur somewhere in the English language. Any given object-- be it table, computer, sneaker, or apple-- is, in fact, "not an idea." One might even use it to say that something is a foolish prospect. "Try to drive on Storrow Drive between 5:30 PM and 6? That is totally not an idea." But as an answer to a question someone asked you? It hardly makes sense.

In Spanish, however, "ni idea" (which actually translates to "not even one idea") is a perfectly acceptable answer to a question you don't know the answer-- and herein lies my current trilingual problem. As I mark 1.5 years living abroad in Spain, I find my languages mixing and melding in an entirely unexpected way. I speak English and Spanish about 40% to 60%, respectively, in my daily life (varying depending on who I'm meeting for tapas, which classes I'm teaching, how many hours I'm at school that day, etc.) But I am finding that after prolonged exposure to Spanish on an every-day basis, my English is altering. I'm not sure if I want to call it thinking in Spanish because I still am aware of English words in my thoughts, but it certainly appears that my mother tongue conversation is being filtered in some way through a Spaniard neighborhood in my brain.

The incident in the Granada alleyway was far from the first time something like this has happen: I've caught myself saying "I hope we have luck tonight!" (which translates directly from the Spanish "tener suerte") or using the phrase "to put yourself in contact with [someone]" (which sounds almost right in English but is still just the tiniest bit off.) And I'm not the only one. I've heard Hannah do it a few times, and about a month ago during a visit to Madrid, my American friend Thomas referred to some future visitors as "coming in car." This is clearly a common, if little-noticed, side effect of linguistic immersion.

Long time readers of this blog have followed my progress in Chinese and my Spanish beginnings. In 2010, I wrote about starting to identify as a "trilingual" as I struggled to rescusitate my middle-school level Spanish skills during six weeks in Guadalajara, Mexico. Last fall, I wrote about the balancing act between the two and the decision I made to put Chinese aside and focus on Spanish. And almost six (!!) years ago I wrote here about the strange melange of Chinese and English our study abroad group developed together, using the word that came to us first, regardless of language-- "Pass me the kuaizi [chopsticks]," for example.

 That last phenomenon of language-mixing comes close to what I'm talking about now, but it's never developed this far before. I've code switched (I wrote here about the first time I couldn't remember the English word for "ski lift," only the Chinese-- lan che), but I've never noticed my mother tongue being filtered by some other force. It feels the strangest because it doesn't feel like anything at all. Only suddenly, I find my words and phrasings (which, as a writer, are not small parts of me) strangely altered-- speaking the way I've always spoken and the way I've never spoken all at once.

It makes me wonder what else is being reconfigured. I've written here before that in anthropology circles, it's a widely accepted idea that culture is language. If the language making my basic linguistic decisions right now is Spanish-- a language that has 10 words for various cuts of pig and types of pork-- what does that say about me as a Jew? Does my power of idiom and wordplay stay the same, and if not why not? Do I have the same sense of humor? Will I write the same way if I don't speak the same way? Basically: does my changed grammar change me?

The trilingual's dilemma, part 1.5: One little letter

I'm currently in the course of moving out of my apartment (a process which for me is usually accompanied by a period in which my room appears to be the epicenter of a disastrous earthquake), and therefore I don't have a lot of time for blogging. I can, however, offer this tasty morsel, a cautionary tale about the quirks of living in a second language.

The scene:  I am hurrying down Calle Mayor to take a train to a nearby town. The train station is at the far end of the street, so I always enjoy the scenery, even though I am usually near-running to get the train on time. This particular recent day is no different, and as I power-walk past the entrance to Plaza Mayor I am accosted by a GreenPeace volunteer. I try my best to smile politely. "Lo siento, tengo prisa." I say-- Sorry, I'm in a hurry.

The volunteer clearly doesn't buy it. He starts to launch into a patented "I'm sure you're really not in too much of a hurry to save the earth, right?" guilt trip schpiel, but I cut in, looking at my watch distractedly.

In my distraction, my tongue gets twisted up. What I want to say is, "Tengo que coger un tren"-- I have to catch a train.
Instead what I say is, "Tengo que comer un tren." I have to eat a train.

I don't blame him for giving me a little bit of a strange look as I hurry away.

Use Your Words

One of the most well-loved stories of me as a baby finds me in the kitchen with my mother. She is at the counter fixing me some kind of soft baby something for dinner; I am in my high chair babbling away--I've just started talking. Of course I don't remember any of this, but in my mind's eye my mother spoons out the soft what-ever-it-is and fixes me juice in a plastic sippy-cup. I start to fuss, waving my arms and crying in that nasal toddler whine. My mother can't figure out what's wrong -- are the high chair straps too tight? Do I need changing? But she remembers what I don't, that I now have tools to express what it is that is so upsetting me.

"Alissa, use your words!" she implores. I stop crying almost immediately.
"Oh," I say. "I want the orange cup."

Of course, that was almost a quarter of a century ago, but I've been thinking about it a lot recently. Gaining fluency in a language feels a lot to me like that Orange Cup moment. There were moments of extraordinary frustration when I first arrived in Spain in September, of course, but I don't think I realized exactly what I was missing out on until I found it again. It's been a long time since my Chinese was at the level my Spanish is now.

Two weeks ago I took a long-weekend trip to Basque Country in the north. It was a fantastic trip-- the weather cooperated as much as almost-constant-rain can cooperate, the countryside was gorgeous and green. Friday brought me to Bilbao, vivid and gritty; Saturday through Monday to San Sebastian, equally as exquisitely delicious and cultured. And through it all ran a ribbon of newly-discovered communication.

I.
Friday night I stayed with Thomas, a fellow American teaching at the city language school. After a night roaming the city, we went on Saturday morning to an event called Arrozes del Mundo-- Rices of the World. It was a paella cook-off in the immensely diverse neighborhood of San Francisco, where virtually all of the immigrants that flock to Bilbao for its industry settle. Thus, the "del Mundo" portion came from the twist each entrant was supposed to add to the paella, a little something from his or her own country.

Thomas and I arrived via a long, straight street lined with Caribbean grocery stores, halal butchers, and African produce stands to find a crowded plaza filled with the most amazing smells. We threaded our way through rickety tables piled high with chopped ingredients ready for the flame-- everything from couscous to mango to pomegranate--and watched as a group of Moroccans danced and sang in the space between the swings and trapeze in the plaza's small plaground. We'd brought breakfast with us, but there didn't seem to be anywhere to eat. Finally, we found a seemingly empty table to one side of the festivities-- there was only one man sitting toward the end. After some inquiry, it became clear that the man was waiting for his group, but we could sit and eat our pastries and drink our coffee in peace for just a little while. And so we did, savoring the colorful chaos in the plaza. Finally, Thomas turned to me. "It's pretty amazing that we can do that," he said.

"Do what?" I asked.

"That we can ask him if we can sit down. That he can explain to us the situation. That we understand each other." It seemed small at the time, but so did the cup color I preferred so many years ago. He was right-- the ability to understand and communicate with people in another country improves and enriches one's traveling experience to an extraordinary extent.

The next day, I took the bus to San Sebastian. Feeling disoriented, I took a walk in the post-lunch quiet through the narrow streets of the old town. In the distance, I could hear singing, and I walked toward it. In front of a tavern, a group of some 15 men stood in a semi-clump-circle as two others performed some kind of rollicking song and dance, circling around each other, patting each other on the back, and gesturing exaggeratedly. I arrived for the tail end of their song-- after perhaps thirty seconds the crowd broke into applause and started to hug and kiss their goodbyes.

I smiled to myself. walked a few steps away, and pulled out my map to check where to find a nearby hiking path that would take me up to a famous lookout point over the harbor... but then I stopped. There's something about talking to strangers in a foreign language that is both terrifying and freeing. What did I have to lose?

I turned back and, practicing my most polite, formal Spanish, tapped one of the men on the shoulder. "Excuse me," I asked, "Can you explain to me why those men were dancing? What was that about?"

The man I'd accosted interrupted his dancer friend, who was chatting nearby. "This pretty young girl wants to know what you were doing!" he said.

The dancing man smiled broadly. "We were in the army together around 1939 or 1940, and every year since then we get together in the first weekend of June and have lunch at this restaurant. And you know, we've had something to drink now. And when we Basque men drink, well, it starts here [he pointed to his mouth] and travels up to here [then to the top of his head] and ends up here [finally he gestured to his throat.] And we have to sing! So when I saw this other gentleman there, who I hadn't seen for years and years and years... well, we decided to sing an old song together."

We spent some minutes talking before the group broke up for Saturday siesta. At the end of my subsequent hike,  watching the waves far below, I reflected on just how my language skills had served me. Without them, my memory would have held an interesting, exotic interlude of dancing and music,  brief and mysterious and without depth. Instead, the story I took home was so much more nuanced, so much richer-- a piece of these men's lives instead of a one-dimensional tableau.

II.
A week later I found myself in a different part of the country, exploring the ancient university city of Salamanca. The city is known for its stunning architecture, including a beautiful, enormous 500-year-old main square and the gorgeous facades of the university buildings themselves. There's a legend that goes along with those facades: the architect hid a tiny frog among the many elaborate carvings, and it's said that those who can find it are guaranteed luck in love and scholarship.

One evening at dusk I walked to the Plaza Mayor, filled with students sitting on the still-warm flagstones eating and chatting, with tourists snapping photos and old people out for their paseos or watching the world go by. I chose a seat next to an older man who immediately struck up a conversation with me. When I told him I was American, he explained he had lived some years in Germany and so always tried to help tourists and visitors in Salamanca because he knew what it meant to be a stranger in a foreign land. After the initial pleasantries, he started to ask me what I'd seen so far in Salamanca, and I was forced to confess that although I'd stood for some minutes in front of the university facade, I hadn't been able to find the frog.

"You couldn't find it!?" he said horrified. "Coming to Salamanca without seeing the frog is like not coming to Salamanca at all!... Okay, come with me. We're going to find the frog right now." And so it was that I found myself taken firmly by the arm, weaving my way through the crowd following this insistent old man. I chatted with him about his childhood in the city ("Everything is so much bigger and spread out now!") as we walked. When we finally arrived in front of the university, the stone was pink-tinted from sunset. With my new friend's help, I was able to spot the frog within a few minutes, perched precariously on a well-hidden carved skull.


III
Of course, not every experience is enriched by language skills. Rewinding to that same weekend in San Sebastian, I had intended to finish my trip with a blues/jazz concert at a bar near my hostel. Unfortunately, the actual concert schedule was different than the one the bar had published, so when I arrived the music had already finished. Disappointed, I consoled myself with an expensive cocktail and the paperback book in my bag.

As I read, I became aware of a man to my left-- he sat down at the heretofore empty grand piano and started to play around with scales and glissandos. There were people sitting around me in groups chatting, but as the man's musical doodles started to become something more, I noticed a change in the bar. The jazz riffs grew, strengthened, and eventually became a full, gorgeously harmonic improvisation-- and the energy in the room changed, as well. Now, as the music subtly transitioned from one genre to another, I closed my book and noticed conversations all around the bar dropping off into silence.

After a few minutes, a particularly powerful crescendo marked the end of the impromptu performance. The man got up and left without so much as a bow, but it didn't matter. We all burst into spontaneous applause-- the English-speaking businessmen in the corner, the Spanish tourists at the table behind, the Basque teenagers next to them, and me.

Mother Tongue

I'm sitting in a small cafe/bar in a little town in Normandy, and evening is falling fast outside. The clank of the boats moored across the road at the harbor is just audible over the wind. It's been stormy all today.

I went for a walk in the gale, and when I came back I treated myself to a cafe au lait. For awhile I was the only customer, and the genial owner brought me my coffee and went back to his newspaper at the bar. The radio babbled in the background in French, and I surfed the free wifi (here's it's "wee-fee") from the cafe next door. A few customers came in, locals who knew the barman, and they chatted among themselves. Everything was entirely normal and alien, in that strange way it can only be when you're staying in a country not your own, and I was feeling a little melancholy with the weather and no one to talk to... until the opening chords of Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" came over the radio. Suddenly, everything seemed better. Maybe it was the caffeine kicking in, but just hearing that familiar song made everything brighter.

About a month ago, when I first arrived in the UK, I intended to write an entry about arriving somewhere where everyone spoke English after so long away. As I said in my last post, I spent a lot of time in England dithering about what to write about first, and so I ended up writing everything at once and posting nothing at all. Here is part of a draft I wrote up during that time:

Despite the fact that I am a writer, a reader, and a self-proclaimed English nerd, I didn't realize how much I missed being surrounded by English until I arrived in the United Kingdom a few days ago. Suddenly, a whole world of auditory delight has been reintroduced to me. I had forgotten about overheard snippets of conversation in cafes, talk radio, political TV shows, news, soap operas, road signs, town names, menus, small talk with waiters in restaurants, chit-chat in the supermarket.

I'll be in the UK for a total of 2.5 weeks, a reprieve from a milieu of foreignness that makes everything harder. I had forgotten that life could be anything except that way-- the last English speaking country I visited (besides Hong Kong and India, whose denizens speak English if necessary but not among themselves) was New Zealand.

In the weeks I spent in the UK I delighted in my linguistic surroundings. I spent time in pubs doing some harmless eavesdropping and was amused by road signs for towns with names like "Thornfalcon" and "Fivehead." I ordered food with ease, asked for directions on the street, and followed with some interest the appearance of British politician Nick Griffin on the important BBC political TV show “Question Time." Griffin, who fronts a xenophobic political party with a platform that some say is redolent of neo-Nazism, created a stir with this appearance, and I was gleefully able to watch the video with my British friends, read the newspaper stories that followed, and talk to people I met about their opinions on the subject. It was entirely refreshing. I felt that I was really participating in current events, in the vital present-day life of the country.

When, on the way from a friend's house to the train station one Sunday morning, I was treated to an episode of "The Archers," a British radio institution that has been on the air since WWII, I felt similarly. As the hedgerows, fallow fields, and orchards of Somerset flashed by, I listened to the dramas of the families this program has tracked for decades. Following the sounds of their lives, I learned the lessons tucked into the narrative, about everything from family planning to how to plant a vegetable garden, along with the rest of the British public.

Sitting in this cafe after the last chords of Wham! died away, all of this has been on my mind. I've felt especially keenly the importance of linguistic immersion during the past few weeks, which were spent in France and, briefly, Belgium. Although I speak slightly more French now than when I arrived--that is to say of the latter none at all, and the former the basics like "one coffee please" and "could I have the bill, please"-- I have missed the feeling of deep comprehension and ease that comes with knowing the language.

And while I recognize this loss, I'm not sure that one experience is somehow "less" than the other. There is nothing like sitting down in a crowded Parisian (or Norman) cafe with a glass of wine or a coffee and losing yourself in the chatter and cigarette smoke, the foot traffic passing by, or the boats clacking together in the wind. It's easier to remind yourself of the otherness of your circumstances, to feel the exotic close up around you, when you are surrounded by a language you cannot understand.

It's certainly something to consider, these factors, as small as a passing mood or the weather or as large as a linguistic barrier, that affect a traveler's experiences and perceptions of a place. Would Paris have seemed as enchanting and magical if I could have understood the man next to me complaining about his lazy wife or those dirty immigrants? Would I have felt so at ease in England if I hadn't been able to ask new acquaintances their impressions of Nick Griffin or the bartender which local Somerset cider he recommended? Probably not.

So one thing I've learned from this linguistic adventure is that you have to embrace your travel experiences as lovely and perfectly flawed in their subjectivity. Like everyone else, I am a bundle of strengths and weakness (linguistics among them), and for me England represents the familiar and comfortable, while France is more mysterious and secretive. For another traveler the opposite could easily be true. But that's part of the miracle of travel-- that and Wham! on the radio in a little bar in an unexpected place.

Mint-as, bru!

Out having dinner in Kaikoura one night (entry forthcoming), I decided to sample a local soft drink. "Lemon and Paeroa" (better known as L&P) is apparently the official sports drink of backyard cricket, a fact I discovered while reading the label. I not only did not know what backyard cricket was-- I also found I could barely muddle through the entire label text. And so I present to you The Best Example of Kiwi English, Possibly Ever:

"As the official sports drink of backyard cricket, we've got heaps of mint-as gears taking up space in the tool shed-- so instead of hiffing it out, we're dishing it out. We've got BYC packs with bats and balls... and chilly-wickets (that's our flash name for chilly bins with wickets painted on them.). But hang on, it gets even way minter! There's also three 'choice-as' BYC weekends away for you and whichever five friends suck up to you the most. So find the fancy code on this bottle, then bash out a text or enters on the intertron."

Say whaaaaat?

(More Kaikoura coming to you after these messages)