Adventures in cross-cultural communication, episode 1


When I teach foundations of multicultural education, we spend a lot of time talking about culture - what it is, what it means, and can we please get past the 4 D's:  diet, dress, dance, and deity.  Or maybe the Heros and Holidays nonsense.  
My first full day in Tashkent was a great experience to share with the teachers I work with because when we think of culture we don't typically think of reading glasses.  For reasons I won't bore you with, I need a pair of reading glasses (ok, I am the worst packer on the planet).  I brought 3 pairs of sunglasses, two regular glasses, and mismatched pairs of contact lenses.  I need a pair of reading glasses to use with my contacts.

In the US, we just stop in at any Walgreens or CVS, and there's a rack of reading glasses and you try on a few until you find the ones that work for you and that's what you buy.

Let's just say that the concept of reading glasses does not seem to exist in Tashkent.  Nor does the concept of Walgreens or CVS.  

I'm sure you all can tell where I'm going with this.  I'm standing at the eyeglass store with 2 employees and Google translate on my phone, the employees ask me to switch to Russian rather than Uzbek (?), one of them gets her English-speaking friend on the phone, and we just are not connecting.  Because you can bink in "reading glasses" into googe translate all you want, and it will dutifully translate the words.  It will not translate the concept.  

So, when I get to Andijan on Sunday I'll try again, and if they have to measure my eyes and make me a pair that will be part of the experience.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Outdoor spaces

Image
It seems that every city I visit has some outdoor space - a city park with trees and walking paths for people to go, take a stroll, have a picnic, and just chill out surrounded by trees and quiet.  Pristina is no exception.  I spent the afternoon walking to the city park and taking a stroll.  It is a lovely refuge from the hustle-bustle and the street noise.  Of course there was a playground, and hearing the kids playing here like they do in playgrounds back home made me feel much more comfy in my new home. After strolling around the park I walked (Pristina is infinitely walkable) to the Xhamia e Madhe - the Great Mosque (sometimes it is referred to as Xhamia e Mbretit - the King's Mosque or the Imperial Mosque), built in 1461.  Below are lots of pictures of the scenes: Here is the entrance to the city park: There are several basketball cages scattered throughout the park.  I'm kinda liking the cages that keep the basketball contained instead of...
Read more

How to be an extroverted introvert

 I set three goals for myself for this Uzbek gig: try a lot of new food meet lots of great people break out of my introverted tendencies I don't think extrovert/introvert is a binary.  I feel it's more of a spectrum.  I can totally be extroverted: in front of my class, presenting at a conference, professional stuff like that.  Socially though is a different matter.  It takes some effort and awareness to get my extroverted side to shine through in social situations.  But I have to make an effort, and sometimes I'm not able to make that effort, and other people interpret that as aloofness.  Sometimes I just want to be inside my own head where it's warm and comfy rather than out with other people.   I decided that on this Uzbek gig I was going to really work at getting out of my warm comfy head and go out and be social.  I vowed to actually go out to dinner with my team (there are five of us teachers from the US as well as Jesse the boots-o...
Read more

Gracanica - my first outing outside Pristina

Image
First of all, it is pronounced GrachaNIcha, not GraCHAnica.  I tell my students all the time that syllable stress impacts understandability more than anything other aspect of pronunciation, and the very nice lady at the bus station couldn't understand anything I said until I showed her the town on Google maps.  She of course gave me a lesson (very politely of course) on how to correctly pronounce GrachaNIcha. Anyway, I got there for 1 euro, wiith two English Teaching Assistants along for company (the ETA program is a cute little program for recent college graduates who are very young and take themselves WAY too seriously but are basically cute and fun to have along on an outing).  There is a lovely llittle monastery in Gracanica built in the 1300s, and I wanted to go check it out so I can attend services there, seeing as how there isn't an Orthhodox church here in Pristina, or so I thought.  Surprise!  The very nice men at the monastery told me that St. Nicholas...
Read more