So What Does "Train" Mean to You?

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!

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.

On Observing the Gaza Conflict from a Jewish School

I was told recently that I work in the most secure location in all of Turkey.

“More secure than the American consulate?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” my department head replied.

Not only do we have no less than three Kevlar clad security guards outside our entrance throughout the day, as well as a large contingent of police that direct traffic past the school from morning to afternoon, but our in-house, 24 hour security guards check in and around the school grounds every single night for anything conspicuous or out of place. As a Jewish school in a predominantly Muslim country, one would expect high security. With the recent raid of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces, our school is now a bit more on edge.

There hasn’t been too much talk on campus about the Gaza conflict. Everyone feels downright awful over the death of the children, but I can’t help but feel like most at the school have resigned themselves to accepting the circumstances of the Gaza conflict as a necessary evil. This, of course, is pure conjecture. Have I taken a poll to find out how everyone truly feels? No. I’m merely reading into what is not being said, rather than what is being stated outright, which isn’t much. And I try not to push anyone into conversation about the matter. For one, I don’t trust myself enough to respond calmly to any countenance of the incredibly heavy handed Israeli response. And two, I’m afraid that my questioning will be interpreted as a push towards argument. Everyone knows how the English department feels. “I just want to hang an enormous Palestinian flag from the Bulgarian consulate next door,” one of my British colleagues announced to us earlier in the year.

It’s all a bit surreal, this going back and forth between two realities. There is the reality of the Jewish State, of Zionism, of an attitude that all is well in the world because, unfortunately, might still makes right. If outright support of Israel isn’t stated, then it is ambivalence that you’ll find. We can’t support the Palestinians, but we sure can feel badly for them. Nor do we dare speak out against the injustice committed by Israel. Of course, when I say unjust, I’m not saying that the crux of the matter, that is, responding to terrorist attacks by Hamas, is unjust. But I am saying that the nature of Israel’s response is so nefarious that it easily warrants sending her leaders to a war crimes tribunal.

Then there is the reality that exists outside my school. When I go home, images of massive explosions, strafing fire, and bloodied children are broadcast into my living room. Protests abound and every single news channel is openly supportive of the Palestinians. As I walked down Istiklal Street the other night, the “Times Square” of Istanbul, I couldn’t help noticing flyers in the colors of the Palestinian flag strewn about the street, stuck in shop windows, pasted to the sides of buildings. Ben Filistin’liyim, they read. I am Palestinian. I took one back to my home and it is hanging up in my hallway mirror. I even bought a white and black checkered Palestinian scarf. But I would never dare reveal these items to my Jewish colleagues at school.

Today, the Turkish Ministry of Education announced that all schools in Turkey would be required to observe a minute of silence at 11:00am, out of respect for the “Palestinian children who have been killed by the Israeli military.” Our school, understandably, did not take part. For one, never mind the principle of the matter, nor what is morally right. For a school director to require a bunch of Jewish kids, some of whom are zealous Zionists, to observe a moment of silence for their enemy, be them children or not, would be political suicide. It is awful, but it’s true. Secondly, this moment of silence was political in nature. Where were the moments of silence for the 650,000 Iraqi dead? For the wedding parties bombed in rural Afghanistan? For the victims of the Rwandan genocide of the 1990’s, or the ethnically cleansed in Darfur? If we are going to observe a moment of silence for the victims of war, we must account for all of the victims, not just those that align with us politically, socially or religiously.

Beneath a picture of Ataturk, the heads of department and admin placed a clock on the wall, turned it to 11:00am, and sat silently for one minute. This was the best they could do, and understandably so. But it is only a superficial act of the most minor proportions. It will not bring back the civilian dead—those who have been reduced to numbers in the context of “collateral damage,” a reprehensible, nauseating term. It will not heal. It will not do anything pragmatic. What it will accomplish will only exist in theory. Yes, we remember the Palestinians, the poor Palestinians. What has been done to them in Gaza is awful but…

A Free Country?

Last week the Turkish government decided to block all access to blogger.com. They gave no reason for doing so, and in spite of the more computer savy population's outrage, the high court refused to budge. I believe their only rationale was, "It has bad things." You tube has been blocked for over a year now, along with 1100 other websites.

To me, Turkey is like an 11 year old child. She wants to grow up and be like her friends, but she just doesn't know how. Actually, let me rephrase that. She does know how, but she's convinced that her illogical way is best. Yet it's stunting her growth and all her friends who have grown up around her are losing respect for her. Lovely, Turkey. Really wonderful. Please spare the cries of, "We love freedom and democracy!" during your next Republic Day, because they are ringing far too hollow to be taken seriously.

Despite the Turkish high court's fight against freedom of information, there is a proxy server which I use to check otherwise "dangerous" websites. In fact, I think just about everyone knows about this proxy server, which renders the Turkish court's decisions to block websites completely obsolete. So thanks to that, I am still able to access blogger.com and write my scathing posts.

I returned from Wales and England a week ago, and it was lovely. I took some pictures and, as usual, have posted them on my facebook. If you copy and paste the link below you'll be taken to facebook. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090833&l=f06a3&id=26310454

Posted by my Aunt Becky from Laos, interesting - which country is supposed to be more free???

Been two months since I posted anything. Anyway, this week I had a wonderful traveling experience. I saw Turkey in a new light, and I have to say it made me feel a little closer to this country. I traveled with three friends out into Anatolia to Safranbolu, Amasya, Bogazkale and Ankara. We rented a car, so we got to see the beautiful, rugged landscape. We also met some very friendly small-town Turks.

I was desperate to get out of Istanbul, especially my neighborhood. In two weeks I'm going to Scotland, so I'll have some great photos of there posted soon. Just check back. As always, copy the link below and paste it in your address bar to see my photos.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2088543&l=cf459&id=26310454

Manny Can Be Manny Now and I Just Don't Care!

Let's talk baseball. The other day the Manny Ramirez era of Red Sox baseball came to an abrupt end, as he was traded to the Dodgers in a three team deal. The Sox got Jason Bay, a 29 year-old left-fielder from the Pirates. With the exit of Manny, everyone took to lamenting the impossibility of the Red Sox making any substantial playoff run (including me). Manny's and Bay's stats at the time of the trade were almost identical, although Manny had a batting average a good 20 points higher. The issue was that while Bay is a good player and can hit the ball over the fence, Manny is the most feared hitter in the game, reducing the opposing team to shakes, jitters, and sudden bouts of diarrhea each time he steps into the batter's box. ESPN also cited Manny's .400+ average with runners in scoring position, while Bay's is somewhere in the low .200's. "The Red Sox," ESPN's Peter Gammons said with stone-faced conviction, "will not make the playoffs without Manny."

Fastforward to last night. Jason Bay stepped up to the plate, stepped out of the batter's box twice (on account of the Fenway Faithful's ecstatic ovation), and he got on base on a walk. In fact, he got on base four times in the game (two walks, hit-by-pitch, two strikeouts and a triple). Even though the walk was a bit anti-climactic, you could very well see how excited the fans were to finally have a hardworking professional who will ACTUALLY run out ground balls. Hell, he even ran to first base on the walk. He RAN! Bay scored the first run on a sac-fly, and in the 12th inning, with two outs and nobody on, he hit a high fly that bounced off the Green Monster, just a few feet shy of a walk-off home run. He made it to third and scored the winning run on a Jed Lowry grounder. Thank God Jed Lowry runs out his ground balls too. Sox won the game 2-1, and you want to imply, by citing RSP averages, that Bay isn't clutch? Sure, numbers don't lie, but given this guy's performance in a game proceeding a string of Sox losses, a guy coming from a non-contender to the World Series Champions, in Boston of all places...I have to say, he doesn't seem like one to choke. Bay also made a brilliant sliding catch, one that I could never have seen Manny making.

I say after one game, yes only one game, the Sox are clearly the winners in this deal. The energy is there, and I'm a believer in Bay. Red Sox WILL make the playoffs, and they'll go deep.

Oh, and what did Manny do last night in his first game with the Dodgers? He did get two hits. But in the 9th inning with no outs and one man on, he grounded into a double play and the Dodgers lost.

Red Sox - 1
Manny - 0

In Israel I hath suffered from divine sunburn

Two links to two new albums of my recent Israel trip. It was short, but filled with all sorts of religious experience-ness, yeah...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072743&l=445ea&id=26310454

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072790&l=398fb&id=26310454

Just cut and paste in your address bar, people.