Interesting linguistic story: I’d just arrived in Belgrade, on the second to last day of a fourteen day trip through the Balkans. It was 5:00am. I’d slept about three hours on the bus ride from Sarajevo. I was slightly—only slightly—nervous about being dumped off at a sketchy looking bus station in a city I was wholly unfamiliar with. And I have to say, after the unflattering stories I’d heard in Croatia and Bosnia about the Serbs—they were, according to one Croat, “primitive animals,”—and considering the permanent scars left on nearly every Sarajevan building by the heavy hand of the Army of Republika Srpska, I was expecting some sort of unprovoked altercation.
I'll tell you now that nothing dramatic happened. But for a linguist, I did discover something intriguing. I wandered back and forth in front of the bus station, map in hand, trying to get my bearings straight. I wanted to find the train station to get my ticket to Budapest that night, and I wasn’t about to ask. I typically don’t ask for directions, not out of pride, but rather out of the challenge afforded me by finding my way around a new city. But then again, even a minute of conversation about the whereabouts of the train station can reveal quite a lot about the local psyche. So I decided after a few to ask a friendly looking taxi driver washing his cab on the street corner.
I opened my Lonely Planet and looked under the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian section for the word for train. Vlak. Got it.
“Excuse me,” I said mustering as much geniality as was possible for five in the morning. “Do you know where the vlak is? Vlak station? Vlak?”
I always find it ridiculous when we try to communicate with those we assume don’t speak our language. We typically begin with a syntactically perfect sentence, and then, upon realizing we are not understood, we begin to speak as if our fellow interlocutor is either retarded or deaf. The funny thing is that we look more retarded to him than we think. Imagine someone coming up to you to say, “Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah train blah blah?” Train blahblah? Train?” It’s no wonder the world is at war.
The cabbie leaned forward slightly, as if inspecting a crumb on my lips or a scar on my cheek, and said in perfect English, “Excuse me. Do you speak Serbian?”
“No,” I said a little confused. “I speak English.”
The cabbie then turned his palms up, lifted his hands with a jerk, and shrugged his shoulders once. He cocked his head and pouted his lips slightly in a perfect expression of complete apathy. He turned around and continued to wash his taxi.
I stood for a moment, mystified. I wanted to say something insulting, but this was not my land, and nothing clever came to mind.
“Thanks buddy. Have a great day,” I mumbled as I turned and walked away.
A while later I was sitting in a café reading my Lonely Planet. I was still slightly disturbed at my mistreatment at the hands of this surly Serb. I flipped to the language section of the book, explaining all the useful idioms and phrases of the Balkans. I looked again under the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian section.
train
vlak (C)/voz (B&S) воз
That (C) stands for Croatian. The (B&S), Bosnian and Serbian. Reminder: this was the Balkans. A lesson I never thought I’d have to consider: you just can’t go around using words willy nilly as if they’re not going to conjure up things like, oh I don’t know, hatred, war, genocide, and massive forced expatriation.
Who would have thunk it!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
A Conversation in Albania
After three days in Tirana, Albania, my two friends, Bader and Noelle, and I hired a cab and hopped the mountains for the town of Librahzd in the east. Librahzd has a population of about 12,000. It stretches out along a narrow, rushing river, ensconced among layers of mountains, the furthest of which are snow capped and often hidden among slowly passing clouds.
Bader had family in Librahzd, and within an hour of meeting several of his cousins, I had a considerable amount of friends of my own. The next day, I was invited to watch the friendly evening soccer match, and afterwards I joined three of the guys for coffee at the nearest café.
I fell into conversation with Ladi, a burly, thirty-something electronics shop owner. He was one of the town’s more successful businessmen and his brother was a senator for Albania’s most powerful political party. Ladi was full of ideas, especially relating to business, but our conversation eventually turned to politics and the inevitable question that I’d been answering since November.
“So what do you think of Obama?”
“I’m excited,” I replied. “I think he’s going to do a great job. A lot better than Bush.”
“Not a Bush fan, are you?”
“Not at all,” I said. “He messed a lot of things up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, like with Iraq and the economy and all. I just don’t think he was a very good president. I’m really glad to see him go, actually.”
Ladi nodded his head and took a sip of coffee.
“So do you think Obama can fix it?” he asked.
“I hope so,” I said.
“He’s got a lot of pressure on him,” Ladi said. “I feel bad for the guy. I hope he can do all he says he’ll do. But it’ll be hard.”
“It will,” I said. “It will. But he’s honest about the expectations. He says outright that a lot of people will be disappointed because expectations are so high.”
“That’s what I like about him,” Ladi replied. “He’s honest about that stuff.”
Ladi took a moment to translate what we’d been talking about to one of his friends, a professional soccer player from the local team, who nodded in agreement as he sucked at his cigarette. Ladi turned back to me.
“But I think a lot of people criticize Bush too much,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?” I said, only slightly surprised. Albanians, I’d learned, liked Bush very much.
“Yeah. Well, he had a hard time in office, you know. With 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“True,” I said. “It was a difficult time.”
“It wasn’t easy. He had to make some difficult decisions, and I think people forget that. I mean, I know he made a lot of mistakes with stuff going on in the United States.”
“Yeah,” I said, “quite a bit.”
“Sure, like Katrina, and the economy and all. But he had a lot of challenges in the world that he had to deal with.”
“Very true, very true,” I replied. “You know, this is what I keep hearing from Albanians. You guys don’t think Bush is too bad of a guy, huh?”
“Well did you see when he came to Albania, and all the Albanians hugging him?” he asked.
“Yeah, I did. They stole his watch!” I said with a smile.
Ladi suddenly looked away from me and at his friend sitting across from him. He slapped his palm to his forward and dragged his hand down his face as if trying to stretch it out. He held out his hand, palm up and fingers straight, like he was expecting something to be placed into it. He muttered something in Albanian, then turned back to me.
“They didn’t steal his watch,” he said exasperated. “I’ve seen so many videos about this, and they didn’t steal his watch. He took his watch off and gave it to a secret service agent. They didn’t steal it.”
Ladi had begun speaking with both of his hands, and he kept looking at his friend across from him, making comments in Albanian. I immediately realized that I’d committed a serious faux pas, that I had pinched an incredibly sensitive nerve, perhaps the most sensitive one he had.
The watch episode looked pretty believable to me. Bush was greeting a throng of adoring Albanians in Tirana, his sleeves rolled up, reaching into the crowd, grabbing hands and arms and shaking them vigorously. Albanians were grasping for him, hugging him, hanging onto his hands and not letting go. One second you saw the black band of a watch clasp around Bush’s wrist, his left arm disappearing momentarily into the crowd, and the next second, as he withdraws his arm in order to plunge it in again, you see that his wrist is bare. He never even notices.
“So it’s not real, huh?” I said. “It looks real, but I suppose you would know better than me.”
“No, it didn’t happen,” he said pointedly. “He took it off and gave it to his secret service guy. Have you seen any other videos of this?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t. Just that one.”
“Well, the video you saw makes it look like his watch was stolen because it only shows a short part. Believe me, I’ve looked at a lot of videos about this, and I know it’s not true. He takes his watch off and you can see as he begins to greet the crowd he never has his watch on in the first place. Even the U.S. State Department spoke about it later on, and said that Bush absolutely did not have his watch stolen. Even the U.S. State Department said it didn’t happen.”
“Well, you’re the Albanian, and I guess I have to believe you if you say it isn’t true.”
“You know who did this, don’t you?” he asked.
“No, who?”
“It was the Italians. Or the Greeks. They made it look like Bush got his watch stolen.”
“But why would they do that?” I asked.
“Because they’re jealous,” he said. “They’re jealous that Albania and Bush have such a good relationship, that Albanians love Bush and that Bush supports them so much. It’s a jealousy thing. You see how it is when Bush goes to Italy or Greece. People are yelling at him, throwing things at his car, giving him the middle-finger. You see how they protest. But in Albania it was totally different. Even Bush came out of his normal routine—you know, where he’s usually got his coat on, and shakes a few hands and then speaks. In Albania he took his jacket off and just got into the crowd to greet all those people. It was amazing. But he can’t do that in the rest of the world. And the Italians and Greeks, they were jealous.” “Well,” I said, “that makes sense. The rest of the world doesn’t like him very much. And according to that video, Albania really does. It’s too bad that people think he got his watch stolen. I only just saw the video a couple of days ago, you know, so I had no idea until then. But I can see why it makes you upset. I’d be upset too.”
“Who showed you this video?” he asked. “Was it an Albanian?”
“You know, I can’t even remember who showed it to me,” I lied. Bader had actually showed it to me.
“Well if it was an Albanian, if I knew who he was, I’d punch him right in the nose. If it wasn’t an Albanian, then I’d be upset but—if it was an Albanian I’d be really angry. I’m serious, I’d probably punch him right in the nose.”
“Sure, of course, I can see why it’s so upsetting. Albania was there, on the world stage and—“
“And the biggest news that comes out of the Bush visit was that he got his damn watch stolen. Excuse me, but really, this is bullshit. Here we are, the world watching, and the only thing people get out of it was that Bush had his watch stolen. And it wasn’t even true! Really, go online and look up some other videos about this, and you’ll see it isn’t true.”
Ladi clipped off a few more statements in Albanian to the other two guys sitting with us. He took several more sips of his coffee and asked me if I’d like another lemon tea. I said I would, and he ordered one for me. He was beginning to come down from his indignant high.
At about that time, Bader and Noelle entered the café. Happy greetings abounded and they sat down with all of us. The conversation turned to Bader’s business ideas for Librazhd, for which Ladi showed considerable enthusiasm. Ladi then turned his attention to Noelle, and finally back to me. We began speaking of something else, I can’t quite remember what, but Ladi mentioned something about the watch video. Noelle turned toward us with a smile.
“Hey we just saw that video the other day. It’s hilarious. I can’t believe he got his watch—“
“But it’s not true,” I said to Noelle, quickly grabbing her harm and squeezing it hard. “Before you came here Ladi told me it didn’t really happen.” Ladi was staring right at Noelle.
“Really? It looks pretty real to me,” Noelle said.
“No, no,” I said, “not true, it’s not true,” I said. I wanted the subject to change. I wanted Noelle to leave it alone.
“Have you seen the whole video?” Ladi asked Noelle.
“No,” she said, “I haven’t. Just that one part.” She was still smiling.
“Well, you should see the whole thing. If you did you’d see that it’s just not true. It never happened.” Ladi was vigorously spinning his cell phone between his thumb and forefinger.
“Oh,” Noelle replied. “Ok.”
“I get so angry that so many people believe this. Even your own State Department made a public statement saying it wasn’t true. It never happened.”
“Oh, I didn’t know it wasn’t real,” Noelle replied.
“But now we know,” I said. “It’s a good thing Ladi cleared it up for us. Anyway, why don’t we—“
“What are you guys talking about?” Bader said, taking his attention away from rolling his cigarette.
“Ah, nothing import—“
“The video of George Bush getting his watch stolen,” Noelle said.
“Ostensibly,” I said.
Ladi was now staring at Bader, waiting to hear his response. I looked down at my lemon tea, studying the smooth surface of the liquid.
“Oh, we just saw that,” Bader said with a laugh. “That was hilarious. I’m actually glad he got his watch stolen.”
“He didn’t get his watch stolen,” said Ladi flatly. “It’s not true.” He had one of those forced grins and was shaking his head slightly now, looking down at his coffee. I noticed that his right leg had begun to shake up and down like a piston.
“Really? It looks pretty real to me. He just stuck his arm in the crowd and—poof!—there goes his watch,” Bader laughed. “Right into the crowd!”
Ladi continued to stare at his coffee as if he’d resigned himself to some unpleasant fate. He then looked up at Bader, continued to shake his head and said,
“You think this is funny? You’re an American, but of Albanian decent. As an Albanian you think this is funny? You think this ok?”
Bader slowly rolled his cigarette, apparently wholly unaware of the sensitivity of the issue. I watched the cigarette, wondering how he rolled them so thin, and wishing he’d launch into some philosophical discourse on how he did so.
“You know what?” Bader said slowly, “I think if you promise a bunch of people money, then don’t give it to them, you at least owe some guy a nice watch.”
Ladi just sat there shaking his head, lips permanently molded into a disgusted grin of disbelief. He said nothing in response and we all left soon thereafter, making stock salutary phrases before we all went off for the evening.
Bader had family in Librahzd, and within an hour of meeting several of his cousins, I had a considerable amount of friends of my own. The next day, I was invited to watch the friendly evening soccer match, and afterwards I joined three of the guys for coffee at the nearest café.
I fell into conversation with Ladi, a burly, thirty-something electronics shop owner. He was one of the town’s more successful businessmen and his brother was a senator for Albania’s most powerful political party. Ladi was full of ideas, especially relating to business, but our conversation eventually turned to politics and the inevitable question that I’d been answering since November.
“So what do you think of Obama?”
“I’m excited,” I replied. “I think he’s going to do a great job. A lot better than Bush.”
“Not a Bush fan, are you?”
“Not at all,” I said. “He messed a lot of things up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, like with Iraq and the economy and all. I just don’t think he was a very good president. I’m really glad to see him go, actually.”
Ladi nodded his head and took a sip of coffee.
“So do you think Obama can fix it?” he asked.
“I hope so,” I said.
“He’s got a lot of pressure on him,” Ladi said. “I feel bad for the guy. I hope he can do all he says he’ll do. But it’ll be hard.”
“It will,” I said. “It will. But he’s honest about the expectations. He says outright that a lot of people will be disappointed because expectations are so high.”
“That’s what I like about him,” Ladi replied. “He’s honest about that stuff.”
Ladi took a moment to translate what we’d been talking about to one of his friends, a professional soccer player from the local team, who nodded in agreement as he sucked at his cigarette. Ladi turned back to me.
“But I think a lot of people criticize Bush too much,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?” I said, only slightly surprised. Albanians, I’d learned, liked Bush very much.
“Yeah. Well, he had a hard time in office, you know. With 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“True,” I said. “It was a difficult time.”
“It wasn’t easy. He had to make some difficult decisions, and I think people forget that. I mean, I know he made a lot of mistakes with stuff going on in the United States.”
“Yeah,” I said, “quite a bit.”
“Sure, like Katrina, and the economy and all. But he had a lot of challenges in the world that he had to deal with.”
“Very true, very true,” I replied. “You know, this is what I keep hearing from Albanians. You guys don’t think Bush is too bad of a guy, huh?”
“Well did you see when he came to Albania, and all the Albanians hugging him?” he asked.
“Yeah, I did. They stole his watch!” I said with a smile.
Ladi suddenly looked away from me and at his friend sitting across from him. He slapped his palm to his forward and dragged his hand down his face as if trying to stretch it out. He held out his hand, palm up and fingers straight, like he was expecting something to be placed into it. He muttered something in Albanian, then turned back to me.
“They didn’t steal his watch,” he said exasperated. “I’ve seen so many videos about this, and they didn’t steal his watch. He took his watch off and gave it to a secret service agent. They didn’t steal it.”
Ladi had begun speaking with both of his hands, and he kept looking at his friend across from him, making comments in Albanian. I immediately realized that I’d committed a serious faux pas, that I had pinched an incredibly sensitive nerve, perhaps the most sensitive one he had.
The watch episode looked pretty believable to me. Bush was greeting a throng of adoring Albanians in Tirana, his sleeves rolled up, reaching into the crowd, grabbing hands and arms and shaking them vigorously. Albanians were grasping for him, hugging him, hanging onto his hands and not letting go. One second you saw the black band of a watch clasp around Bush’s wrist, his left arm disappearing momentarily into the crowd, and the next second, as he withdraws his arm in order to plunge it in again, you see that his wrist is bare. He never even notices.
“So it’s not real, huh?” I said. “It looks real, but I suppose you would know better than me.”
“No, it didn’t happen,” he said pointedly. “He took it off and gave it to his secret service guy. Have you seen any other videos of this?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t. Just that one.”
“Well, the video you saw makes it look like his watch was stolen because it only shows a short part. Believe me, I’ve looked at a lot of videos about this, and I know it’s not true. He takes his watch off and you can see as he begins to greet the crowd he never has his watch on in the first place. Even the U.S. State Department spoke about it later on, and said that Bush absolutely did not have his watch stolen. Even the U.S. State Department said it didn’t happen.”
“Well, you’re the Albanian, and I guess I have to believe you if you say it isn’t true.”
“You know who did this, don’t you?” he asked.
“No, who?”
“It was the Italians. Or the Greeks. They made it look like Bush got his watch stolen.”
“But why would they do that?” I asked.
“Because they’re jealous,” he said. “They’re jealous that Albania and Bush have such a good relationship, that Albanians love Bush and that Bush supports them so much. It’s a jealousy thing. You see how it is when Bush goes to Italy or Greece. People are yelling at him, throwing things at his car, giving him the middle-finger. You see how they protest. But in Albania it was totally different. Even Bush came out of his normal routine—you know, where he’s usually got his coat on, and shakes a few hands and then speaks. In Albania he took his jacket off and just got into the crowd to greet all those people. It was amazing. But he can’t do that in the rest of the world. And the Italians and Greeks, they were jealous.” “Well,” I said, “that makes sense. The rest of the world doesn’t like him very much. And according to that video, Albania really does. It’s too bad that people think he got his watch stolen. I only just saw the video a couple of days ago, you know, so I had no idea until then. But I can see why it makes you upset. I’d be upset too.”
“Who showed you this video?” he asked. “Was it an Albanian?”
“You know, I can’t even remember who showed it to me,” I lied. Bader had actually showed it to me.
“Well if it was an Albanian, if I knew who he was, I’d punch him right in the nose. If it wasn’t an Albanian, then I’d be upset but—if it was an Albanian I’d be really angry. I’m serious, I’d probably punch him right in the nose.”
“Sure, of course, I can see why it’s so upsetting. Albania was there, on the world stage and—“
“And the biggest news that comes out of the Bush visit was that he got his damn watch stolen. Excuse me, but really, this is bullshit. Here we are, the world watching, and the only thing people get out of it was that Bush had his watch stolen. And it wasn’t even true! Really, go online and look up some other videos about this, and you’ll see it isn’t true.”
Ladi clipped off a few more statements in Albanian to the other two guys sitting with us. He took several more sips of his coffee and asked me if I’d like another lemon tea. I said I would, and he ordered one for me. He was beginning to come down from his indignant high.
At about that time, Bader and Noelle entered the café. Happy greetings abounded and they sat down with all of us. The conversation turned to Bader’s business ideas for Librazhd, for which Ladi showed considerable enthusiasm. Ladi then turned his attention to Noelle, and finally back to me. We began speaking of something else, I can’t quite remember what, but Ladi mentioned something about the watch video. Noelle turned toward us with a smile.
“Hey we just saw that video the other day. It’s hilarious. I can’t believe he got his watch—“
“But it’s not true,” I said to Noelle, quickly grabbing her harm and squeezing it hard. “Before you came here Ladi told me it didn’t really happen.” Ladi was staring right at Noelle.
“Really? It looks pretty real to me,” Noelle said.
“No, no,” I said, “not true, it’s not true,” I said. I wanted the subject to change. I wanted Noelle to leave it alone.
“Have you seen the whole video?” Ladi asked Noelle.
“No,” she said, “I haven’t. Just that one part.” She was still smiling.
“Well, you should see the whole thing. If you did you’d see that it’s just not true. It never happened.” Ladi was vigorously spinning his cell phone between his thumb and forefinger.
“Oh,” Noelle replied. “Ok.”
“I get so angry that so many people believe this. Even your own State Department made a public statement saying it wasn’t true. It never happened.”
“Oh, I didn’t know it wasn’t real,” Noelle replied.
“But now we know,” I said. “It’s a good thing Ladi cleared it up for us. Anyway, why don’t we—“
“What are you guys talking about?” Bader said, taking his attention away from rolling his cigarette.
“Ah, nothing import—“
“The video of George Bush getting his watch stolen,” Noelle said.
“Ostensibly,” I said.
Ladi was now staring at Bader, waiting to hear his response. I looked down at my lemon tea, studying the smooth surface of the liquid.
“Oh, we just saw that,” Bader said with a laugh. “That was hilarious. I’m actually glad he got his watch stolen.”
“He didn’t get his watch stolen,” said Ladi flatly. “It’s not true.” He had one of those forced grins and was shaking his head slightly now, looking down at his coffee. I noticed that his right leg had begun to shake up and down like a piston.
“Really? It looks pretty real to me. He just stuck his arm in the crowd and—poof!—there goes his watch,” Bader laughed. “Right into the crowd!”
Ladi continued to stare at his coffee as if he’d resigned himself to some unpleasant fate. He then looked up at Bader, continued to shake his head and said,
“You think this is funny? You’re an American, but of Albanian decent. As an Albanian you think this is funny? You think this ok?”
Bader slowly rolled his cigarette, apparently wholly unaware of the sensitivity of the issue. I watched the cigarette, wondering how he rolled them so thin, and wishing he’d launch into some philosophical discourse on how he did so.
“You know what?” Bader said slowly, “I think if you promise a bunch of people money, then don’t give it to them, you at least owe some guy a nice watch.”
Ladi just sat there shaking his head, lips permanently molded into a disgusted grin of disbelief. He said nothing in response and we all left soon thereafter, making stock salutary phrases before we all went off for the evening.
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