Two Stops Past Siberia
- Projects
- Handicrafts
- Books
- A History of Inner Asia, Svat Soucek
- Beyond the Sky and the Earth, Jamie Zeppa
- Chasing the Sea, Tom Bissell
- Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present, Christopher I. Beckwith
- Erica Marat, The Tulip Revolution: One Year After
- High Adventure in Tibet, David V. Plymire
- Setting the East Ablaze, Peter Hopkirk
- Shadow of the Silk Road, Colin Thubron
- The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, Chingiz Aitmatov
- The Great Arab Conquests, Hugh Kennedy
- The Lost Heart of Asia, Colin Thubron
- This is Not Civilization, Robert Rosenberg
- Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
- Informations
Posts Tagged language
The Great TV Divide
So, it’s cold here in Naryn, even with our paltry amounts of snow. On the one hand, the city is dry and dusty without its winter snow; on the other, the roads are safer than last year without their 6 inches of caked ice…
Along with the cold, folks, comes indoor activities. While I don’t believe that the girls at my house are spending any more time studying (and God knows they’d never consider spending any less), there has been a definite increase in time spent watching TV. That’s right folks, the boob tube: its a ubiquitous machine here in country, present in even the smallest village houses. The is seldom more than one station available in Kyrgyz, and usually 4 or 5 more in Russian. Most homes, it seems, also sport DVD players. These little accessories make the wonderful world of Korean soap operas a very real phenomenon.
While in China, I had often heard that Koreans were the pretty boys of Asia, and that their television programming was a great export, particularly popular with the ladies. Here in Kyrgyzstan, DVD collections of these series flood the market. In one, four very rich boys gallivant amongst dramatic familial intrigue. In another, a 4 member, all boy, glam-rock band features a member who is a girl, but beneath all the make-up and general androgyny of the scene, nobody knows it. It is all exotic and the kids sometimes stay up until the wee hours of the morning watching it. Unfortunately for me, however, it is all in Russian.
In fact, folks, my family, all being fluent in the language, watch TV almost exclusively in Russian. “There is no interesting Kyrgyz programming,” my host dad had once explained. Unfortunately, of course, that means I can’t really partake. When the family retires to the den, unless I can scratch out a tickle-fest with the toddlers, or a chess match with one of the older girls, I inevitably sink back into my bedroom. Before my computer died, I’d write on it, and now I read, or just visit friends away from the house. This, I have noticed, has created a very real divide. Much of the unstructured social time in our house is dominated by the television, and that means I can seldom participate.
That is, until the other night.
Just the other day, I happened to be home around 6 pm. At this same time, the TV happened to be on (two not infrequent occurrences), but this time, it was the Kyrgyz channel that was playing. Then, out of nowhere, I heard an excited holler from the other room, “Carl!” my host sister shouted, “the news is on, in English!” When I came running, it was true. I had always heard of a mythical Kyrgyz news program delivered in English, but had never really believed it. But there, before my eyes, was a young Kyrgyz woman reading the news, the domestic Kyrgyz news, in English! Then, as I watched, with my host mother and sister in the background, I learned about many things that otherwise would have gone far over my head, including a general strike threatened by the country’s medical professionals.
“Oh, are they talking about our strike?” My host mom chimed in from the background, herself a doctor who delivers babies and performs more c sections than she can count (all for a salary that would make the Ameican professional weep). She is an impeccably smart lady who studied English in grammar school. Between that and her knowledge of English-Latin-Russian cognates from her medical training, can pick up a lot if she’s listening.
“Yes,” I said, marveled.
“They asked us to hold off until the first of February, when they think they will have more money to pay us. I hope so,” she said.
And right there, over just the littlest bit of shared media, we bonded in on a new level. For at least that moment, I wasn’t just a silly foreigner blissfully unaware of Kyrgyz national affairs; I was in the know, and I liked it. But then, as brief as it had come, the fast-talking Kyrgyz news anchors were back, and I was underwater again, trying desperately just to keep up. And, easy in retrospect, I know it is moments like this, thrust out of my comfort zone, that I realize just how many things there are working to divide us, even down to what kind of TV we watch. Needless to say, though, the divides are shrinking, and my host family and I grow closer every day.
Love always, and mind your TVs.
Western China, and on to the Mainland
I wrote to you last from Urumqi ( I think) the capital of the once and former Uighurstan. Today it is a modern Chinese city, appearing almost identical to every other Chinese city I’ve seen since. The marvel, of course, is how the Chinese are able to build at the speed that they do, and with such uniformity, in such far flung places. Urumqi sports clean streets and beautiful parks. It also features a 75% ethnically Chinese poplation, effectively drowning out the natives.
The Uighur language is very close to Kyrgyz, and during a mission to track down my laptop (unfortunately now lost forever), I got to speak to many Uighur people. They comiserated my loss, helped me try to track it down, and took the opportunity, for whatever reason, to share their discontent. Perhaps it was the novelty of a white man speaking something like their language, but the stories were unending. China, folks, is a big a complicated place.
(Language side note: The Uighur people I spoke with sprinkled their language liberally with Chinese, just as the Kyrgyz do with Russian. Just one more parallel with the old Soviet Empire…)
But we haven’t just been on a tour of big cities, not at all. My crew and I spent some serious quality time in the city of DunHunag, the plastic-y Disney Land tourist town nearby the spectacular MoGao caves. Once we got over the overwhelming mass of tourists pumped through the caves (an attraction in its own right), we were able to see some of the most extensive Buddhist cave art in the world. The colors were magnificent, and the restoration an abomination. It would have all been for naught had we not also gone to the dramatically less touristed 1,000 Ming West caves, a singificantly smaller find, but absent the tourist hord. In this place, we experienced a quiet ambiance that might have been closer to how the place could have been during its heyday. This plus a riotous night market and a desert oasis (chock full of Chinese tourists all identically clad in knee-highm, bright orange, sand protecting booties) rounded out our desert time in sheer magnificence.
Since then, folks, we dropped by the delightful Lanzhou, for a taste of a pleasant working class city (with more commerce than, perhaps, all of Kyrgyzstan combined) and are now resting peacefully in the city of Xi’an, in China proper. It is this place that houses the unparalled Terracotta Warriors. While my friends check it out themselves (these are old stomping grounds for me) I’m resting from our long train rides, getting over an ear-ache, and waiting to see what my old home, Beijing, has waiting for me, after all these years.
When Language Just Isn’t Enough
First of all, folks, Spring is officially on its way, and the thaw is just magical. I know I have written about this in just about every recent letter, but I simply can’t express how great of a change it makes. People are out and about constantly, and the bazaars are filling up with produce. There is a fresh excitement in the air. Seasons here, folks, are very, very real.
But that’s not the story for this week. This week is about a struggle. While learning to speak well is very important, just knowing how to talk isn’t always enough.
This story takes place at my friend’s dinner table on evening. His host-father asked me the question that so flatters America, “where are you a teacher?”
“I’m not,” I responded, “I work at the UNDP. We do poverty reduction, try to help people help themselves.”
His response surprised me. “That’s bad work,” he said, “only people who can’t work for themselves work at big institutions like UNDP. My volunteer is a teacher, that is good work.”
What I didn’t know was that he had friends who had been burned working with UNDP and other international organizations, like the Asian Development Bank. Without knowing this, I fell into my standard routine of explaining my work. This lead to a lively conversation about why we do what we do, and why we work at the very grassroots level that we do. He maintained that we should just give out trucks and other machines, and I explained why that was an unsustainable solution.
I walked away from this conversation very satisfied, as in the end he agreed with me. I had changed a mind, I thought. I had taught someone something I believed in, and thought very valuable. Plus, I had held my own in a complicated conversation, and we really discussed some heavy issues. It was exciting, deep and stimulating. This was not how my friend’s host dad walked away.
After I left, he said to my friend, “is Chicago kind of a troublesome place? It seems like it would be one.” This translated pretty clearly to, “I didn’t like that boy.”
What I hadn’t realized was that my conversation wasn’t polite. From his perspective, I, a boy 40 years his junior, had blatantly contradicted him at his own dinner table. I had stood my ground and refused to agree with him. He found me belligerent and argumentative. Plus I had ignored some very clear signs. For example, when I had tried to lighten the mood, and tell some Kyrgyz puns that are invariably met with laughter, he had simply said, “see, that’s the kind of dumb thing UNDP people say.”
Polite is different in different places. At my home in America, friends who don’t engage in dinnertime conversation are suspicious. This kind of conversation would likely have lead my father to say, “that boy has passion.” I had been so proud of my language skills, I had ignored cultural signs. Language, folks, without culture, simply isn’t enough.
But every experience, for better or for worse, is a learning opportunity, and never fear, next time, Kyrgy Carl will know just what to do.
More on Spring, and a Year from Home
Spring, it seems, is finally on it’s way. There is a warming in the air, and with it, in the people. Everywhere I go lately, I seem to run into people that I met, in one way or another, during these long months of winter. Now though, instead of brief, bundled passings, we’re shouting out “hulloo!” across the street.
The smells of Spring are also out and about. The air is often moist, heavy with the scent of mud, but on sunny days, the roads dry out, and dust is in the air. The roads are also a bit of a surprise. During the winter, they were in valleys of snow, thick with ice, and mostly level. Today, they have grown, in places, to twice their width, thanks to the snow melt. But we are also reminded now as to how bad the potholes are. Where they had hidden under the ice for many months, today traffic weaves and dodges, paying far more attention to the holes than the yellow lines.
This olfactory stimulation is also transporting me back to my training village, it looks like now, oh, a full year ago.
That’s right folks, I’m a year out of America, and looking at roughly 15 more months to go. That, frankly, is a long time to be away from home.
Some things are getting normal, like dodging the mud puddles, and switching between Kyrgyz and English as a matter of practice. I’ve have now brought some friends home to my house, and as my family learns more about me through them, I learn more about my family. Our relationship is deepening far beyond the polite or convenient. We have now seen each other in many circumstances, both the comfortable and the non.
My language is coming along well, though progress is hard to gauge. I couldn’t say for certain what I was understanding before, what I wasn’t. I am still all too cognizant of my limitations. Fluency seems like a mythical beast, and the more I learn, the more I wonder what the word even means.
And work. Work is the wild card in the whole system. My experience here hasn’t been what I read in Peace Corps stories of old. We weren’t sent out here to build fish ponds or improve water systems; no one committed resources to us before our arrival. Instead, we were taught how to engage in a community, given a site with a vague order to “help,” and then sent on our way.
I feel like I have spent the lion’s share of my time learning the people, the problems, the motivation. I’ve helped with a few trainings to date, asked for some money and sold 25 laptop sleeves, at roughly 12 dollars a piece.
It’s a small contribution to a place I’ve come to call home, but barely to understand. I miss Chicago, my friends and my family on a daily basis, but the Internet helps people be close when they’re far away. It’s work, it’s life, it complicated. I’ve plenty of time left here to help, and most of all, it’s exactly what I want to be doing.
Programming: The International Language
Posted by KyrgyCarl in Bonus Content! on March 14, 2010
“Needs Assessments” are activities we Community Developers engage in to find out what the people we are trying to help need. The great thing about them is not just the answer we get, but the little bonuses, the positivie externalities.
During the visit to the last village on our agenda, a place called Ming Bulak, or “A Thousand Springs,” we found ourselves in an IT classroom. Besides the 17 women eager to tell us about the felt making machines they wanted to produce more, higher quality shyrdaks, were lots of computers and hand-painted, plywood signs, in Kyrgyz, detailing how to write code.
Some cool little bits. The letters are all cyrcillic. Most of it is transliteration of words we know, like байт for byte. You guys who know about programming can surely figure out what all is going on.
Kyrgyz Food! Chicago! Hot Dog!
Posted by KyrgyCarl in Bonus Content! on January 8, 2010
While I don’t think the deep fried hot dogs in the bazaar here in Naryn are on their menu, this spot has just opened up in Chicago, not one single mile from my boyhood home! Can you Believe it?
Right. Anyway, they’re getting rave reviews from both the Chicago Reader and the Yelp!. And they’ve also got a facebook page. They don’t seem to be serving the organ meat that I see so much of at home here, but thats probably all the better for you guys.
Anyway, for those of you in Chicago who want a real taste of what I’m doing out here (no pun intended), check them out!
Fun fun Language Tips:
Man on Man: greet with a hearty “Salam alaykum!” (“I wish peace upon you,” the traditional Muslim greeting). Then insist on going in for a handshake. If you haven’t totally blown their collective minds, you’ll be returned with an “alaykum asalam!”
When Greeting with a Woman (Man on Woman, Woman on Woman): Salamatizbi? (How are you?) Ideally they’ll break through their shock and respond “Salamachilik!”
With these formalities out of the way, given that their overwhelming friendliness will surely make you comfortable, regardless of gender, throw in a quick “kandaisiz?” (another “How are you,” often asked in rapid fire succession with the more formal greetings.) By this time, they’ll recognize your worldliness, and respond with a jovial “Jakshi!” (Good!)
Then, for kicks, if they sock you back with another “kandaisiz,” just give ‘em “jakshi.” But, if you’re a man, especially a young man, and they happen lob out the more casual, “kandai,” really knock their socks off with an “aigirdai!” and really roll that rrr! This is literally, “like a stallion!” It’s a little bit of casual, young man bravado, and would go over well between men.
Now, don’t get too comfortable. Flip back into English for the rest of your meal, but once your server comes out to see how everything is, really get ‘em smiling with the great compliment, “damdoo ecken!” (Full of Flavor!, So tasty!) Then, once its all over, throw a happy little “chong rakmat” (thanks a lot!) their way, and your reputation will be secured.
Oooh! You’re gonna have such a good time!
Secrets in Language (A Story for Christmas)
There are some moments when you realize that something has entered your life you never thought of as meaningful.
In my life, I have only received whispers in English, my mother tongue, until now.
See, I have a 6 year old sister here. I tickle her, we plan little games, sometimes she hangs on me at dinner, or sneaks over to kiss my cheek. And lately, she’s been whispering secrets close into my ears.
There is something profound about listening to words so close and quiet they aren’t meant for anyone else. So intimate. Never before has someone who didn’t speak the language of my parents trust me enough to confide in me using another one. No one has even whispered a secret to me since grade school. In that way, I feel both a bit like I am back there, but also, just like in grade school, I feel a bit like I am growing up.
And with these simple moments of innocence, I am growing closer with my family. My 2 year old brother, having seen this, has taken to copying his sister. But, unlike her, he doesn’t really know what is going on, so he just give me hoarse gibberish, and then sits close to me, and giggles when I kiss him. The whole family watches, and we all laugh together.
This is my tenth home stay family world wide. One might say I’m experienced. But here, only three months deep, by no means the longest duration, I am beginning to grow truly close.
To be with a family bold and strong and loving enough to really embrace me is a gift I’m so grateful to receive. I wish all of you in my correspondence the same gifts I am so lucky to have out here.
For this holiday season, find someone you love, hold them close with your hands, and whisper a secret to them. You just might surprise yourself.
Merry Christmas, and have a happy New Year.
Originally Written Dec. 24th, 2009
The Three R’s
I’ve spent the past two weeks giving presentations on solid waste at each of the 6 the local K-12 schools. The teachers prepared 30 students, ages 15 – 17 interested in the subject, and we prepared a training and a coffee break. Good deal all around.
As my first real foray into the schools here, I’ve been just taken aback. As in America, the buildings hustle and bustle, feeling like their own worlds of miniature people. They frequent large murals of the hero Manas and idyllic mountain scenes. The boys generally where clean, well tailored suites, and the girls some variation on the white blouse and dark slacks. In the classes we teach, there is no semblance of that Asian stereotype, passive, quiet listening. The kids pay attention, but they are quick to ask questions, and debate rules the day. They have strong memories and are keen on group work. In all, it reminds me of my high school days at Northside College Prep in Chicago.
In this way, too, the kids are universal. There are the quieter kids, the louder, more outwardly confident ones, and even the jokers. One young man, sporting a clean cut look and spiffy little suit, topped off his ensemble with a beanie perched precariously on his head. He was the same joker seen at every school I’ve ever attended.
The most profound difference, I noticed, despite not being able to understand much, was the profound bilingual ability of the students. No single language dominated our classes, not Russian or Kyrgyz, regardless of which the school purportedly taught in. When giving presentations, kids would flip casually from one to the other, sometimes applying the grammar forms from one language to words from another, and no one even batted an eye.
When it came time for me to present, I told them about my work with the new recycling program in Chicago, and about the Three R’s (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.) These translate delightfully into the Three K’s (and thankfully don’t hold their unique, American connotation.) To my surprise, I’m able to do this entirely in Kyrgyz.
However, that’s easier than it sounds. See, I always start my sessions with an apology, “I don’t speak your language very well, so I might need help.” With this in mind, the kids often fill in words I don’t know, and endings that I stumble over. I will smile and make hand motions, and they will spit out the word I’m miming. If I didn’t know the material well, I’d fall apart at the seams. You just never know what life will ask for.
In other news, I’ve recently become a connoisseur of fermented milk products. My grandmother offered me kymys the other day, and after pouring from the yellow, reused motor oil jug, announced that today the milk was from a cow, not a horse. I can now accurately report that cow kymys is thicker, and there is more sediment than from a horse. The flavor has a similar sourness, but tastes a little more “spoiled.” Once I go to Kazakhstan and sample shubat, fermented camel milk, I’ll have the trifecta complete.
Originally Written October 23rd, 2009
Happy 25
So, for those of you who measure your lifespans by fractions of centuries, this past October 8th, I hit the ¼ mark. When I come home, at the very least, my car insurance will be cheaper.
This year, I spent the holiday with my newest homestay family. First off, for those of you who keep track, this is 8th developing-country family to take me in, but the first to celebrate my birthday.
This new crew provides me a different view of Kyrgyz culture than the last. They have family living abroad and siblings who sport chess Grand-Masterships. The father one day asked me, “if the American economy is so bad, how come the value of the dollar keeps rising?” The children seem to study constantly.
We have a grandmother who lives with us. One of the first things I noticed was that she does that adorable, cartoony old person thing of scrunching her whole face when she chews. At dinner one night, I noticed she was peeling the apples before eating them, and so I asked, “don’t you like to eat the skin?” to which she replied with a laugh, “I have no teeth!”
This year’s birthday celebration was marked by a large dinner, and the exchanging of simple gifts. This new family seems very eager to embrace me as another child. They gave me a bright white kalpak, the traditional Kyrgyz hat, and a towel, “for washing your face.” I wore the hat all through dinner. In return, I gave them some American candy I recently got in a package (thanks Lizzie!), all were impressed.
Aside from these delightful festivities, I had a quick glimpse into the language acquisition process of a non-native speaker. As we sat around, eating slowly, people took turns toasting to me. In America, while this would be a rarity, I think I could handle the moment, but here, I became uncomfortable.
See, when I normally don’t understand things, I can either bluff my way through, or ask for clarification. But when something poetic is being said in my honor, I find it impolite to bluff, but also to ask for a repeat. Then, as I became more and more eager to make a toast of thanks, it became all the clear to me that my Kyrgyz simply can’t support such an exercise.
See, I am good at saying the things I say a lot. Sitting around, casually talking, even being at work, those things I can get by doing. But formal, poetic, toasting language, moments of sincerity, spoken intensely from the heart are a seldom occurrence here in this land of second language.
Just as here, when I was a child, my parents brought me to these types of settings, and I watched, I learned how to do it, in our, American culture. But here, not only do I not know the customs, neither do I have the language to even understand them. And being with people who care, who are clearly invested in the moment, it just hurts so much to get things wrong.
But we can’t let that stop us, now can we? So I tried, I thanked everyone I could think of, and all seemed impressed. Sometimes, I just hope for a little patience, and assume that practice will make perfect.
Originally Written Oct. 8th, 2009
Apples and the Metropolis of Bishkek
To the Fine Folks of America and Beyond!
I’ve just come back from a professional development conference on cross-sector cooperation. To prove it, I’ve a head full of knowledge, and a fancy certificate.
In the spirit of working within different sectors, the conference, help on the shores of Lake Issyk Kul, was given in two language sectors, Russian and English. However, my language here is Kyrgyz. This meant that in order for my counterpart and I to discuss what was going on, we had to listen in either Russian or English, translated from the other, and then discuss it in my broken Kyrgyz.
When you try to identify all that you take for granted in life, how often do you include, “conversing with native speakers of my language” as one of them?
Now, in the spirit of living in Kyrgyzstan, I took this travel opportunity to do all the guesting I could.
Before the conference, I and two other guys from my training group went to visit our old host families. I brought mine some Kymys (the fermented mare’s milk), and a pyramid of bread. It was like visiting a favorite relative. We talked and caught up, but then their lives went on, and they put me to work. One night, dad got home, and told me to go to the shop and keep the 12 year old daughter, Jildiz, safe after dark while he took a banya, and caught up a little later. It was easy and comfortable, just like visiting family should be.
Then I made my way to Bishkek. I had been warned that Kyrgyzstan’s capital is so Russified that Kyrgyz speakers there can be hard to find. To quite the contrary, while at the gigantic Osh Bazaar, bargaining in Kyrgyz, I got an excellent deal on some well faded, heavily creased, “Dolce & Gabana” blue jeans: the height of Kyrgyz Fashion.
Since the conference ended, I’ve spent this last weekend at my former teacher’s house, Tamerlane the Hero-King. When I arrived, he was picking apples in his back yard. With around ten trees, each brimming with fruit, he was busy picking them and preparing them for sale, and I was eager to help. He gave me a ladder, and I twisted the apples one by one, setting them gingerly in my bucket. I watched the branches spring back towards the sun once I’d gathered their load. Our pace wasn’t the most efficient, and didn’t seem ideal for making money, but it sure was fun.
The next day, we found ourselves at an “Apple Festival” at my teacher’s school, filled with local products and happy people. Among other festivities, this place sported a wide ranging cook-off. While vying for tastes of each delight, I learned that if Kyrgyz people can do one thing quickly, its grab food. God bless ’em.
Love Always,
Kyrgy Carl
P.S. As a result of the conference, I know have a project all to myself here in KG, and I’m gonna try to make it work. I know lots of you folks have been asking about pictures, so I’m going to make an new section of the website dedicated to projects. Photos included. Have a gander.
Originally Written Oct. 3rd, 2009
Clustr Map
Kyrgy Carl, Making Waves!
