The Fourth Toast

I was freezing my ass off.  It was the first day of my two week sojourn through Ukraine. My bus failed to arrive.  Finally, I made my way to the hotel where I habitually stay while in Lwow.   

After an overnight train ride, all I could hope for was a few hours of sleep. My first Rotary presentation wasn’t until the next day. One of my professors assigned me two multi-page research reports, as I would be missing class. Quite annoyed, I started into the first of the reports and finished the next day. Then, I rushed to the Rotary meeting.

My first presentation went well.  At first I was surprised that there was no meal before my presentation. Then I found out why. “After the meeting we usually have a reception” one Rotarian told me. Then came a difficult choice: Vodka or Cognac?

Here I first learned of a Ukrainian tradition: Making toasts. We began by toasting Rotary, then friendship. The third toast was to women. I later heard that women cut men’s ties if the third toast isn’t for them. After that “just some words” are all that’s needed. It’s the exercise of the toast that’s important. “Without toasting its just booze” my Lwow contact informed me.

 A similarly ‘toasted’ Rotarian drove me back to my hotel.  I felt a renewed happiness to be in the moment. It washed away the difficult circumstances of my arrival.

This feeling prevailed through the rest of my trip. My presentation in Alushta was made over more than a few shots of grapa.  Afterwards, a resort owner insisted that I stay at his establishment. It was closed for the summer. The restaurant was opened for me every morning .

I rented a car in Crimea. There, got to feel the exhilaration of Ukrainian driving - passing on curves and barreling down narrow streets. One such avenue led to the famous Liavadia palace. It was a serene experience to walk in the footsteps of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.

Later, I met with Yalta’s Rotaract. They saw to it that my car was loaded down with more local wines than the passenger seat could hold. I was beginning to like this country.  

Yet, it’s still marked by it Ruso-communist past. This doesn’t stop at the stereotypical boozing.  In central-eastern Europe, or even Moscow, you must attend an exhibit to see Soviet monuments.  In eastern Ukraine Lenin still greets you in the main square.  

This part of the country is ethnically Russian.  Many don’t agree with communist political beliefs. They view these symbols as monuments of a time when Russia ruled the roost. In Yalta, the younger generation wished that the statues would be removed.  “We are Russian speaking, but I don’t like the Russians who come here” one opined.

 I didn’t get the chance to finish my presentation in Charkow. They stopped me.  Someone poured the vodka. It was the easiest money I’d ever earned.

The express to Kiev traveled at over 160 KPH. That wasn’t why I couldn’t get my bearings. As I made my way to the nation’s capital, I wondered really constituted Ukraine. I’d seen the four corners of the country. Despite a soviet commonality, it felt like I was in different countries for the whole trip.

I was still freezing my ass off as I walked the hills of Kiev. But, this time it was with a new respect of the levity that it entailed. The similar diversity of a nation constructed from its past. 

Somewhere

“Everyone’s from somewhere”. Most speakers of English know this expression. I do not doubt this cliché’s intuitive veracity. However, I wonder where that somewhere is.

I spent last Tuesday in Wrocław’s main square, talking with a young woman. She was born of the first emigration from Poland to Germany, shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain. She told me that she feels more a part of her heritage in Germany than she does in Poland. While proud, she said that she practically dreads mentioning her Polish heritage in Germany. Afraid she will become an object of ridicule. In Poland it’s a different story.

We both went to the same summer immersion program in Kraków.  There, she befriended one of the program’s leaders.  One evening he told her that, as far as he was concerned, she was German.  “I felt hurt when he said that” she told me.

Even as the third generation descendant of Poles who emigrated to America I could empathize with this sentiment. I grew up in a majority Chinese community. To my friends, I was always the Polish one.  They or their parents were from China, or Taiwan. Everyone had to be from somewhere.  Myself included.

In Poland, the same is true. Everyone is from somewhere. But, the perceptions are different.  In California, I might as well be from Poland. In Poland, I am ‘the American’.

After class, the professor, a couple of my first-generation friends and I got into a discussion. They told the teacher of their own dual life. Then she jokingly asked me:  “Of course, you feel as an American.”

My parents raised me to be international. I never really learned to play American football. Yet, from ten years old the highlights of my life were trips abroad. Though I come from a country where relatively few have a passport, I made a life abroad my goal. I settled on Poland as the place where I’d like to build that life.  

In graduate school, I was the only student  to place at the highest level of the Polish course who did not speak  the language at home. I’d be hard pressed to say that I’m a main stream American. I’d never say that I’m completely a Pole either.  

I tried to explain it. Telling my professor where I’d grown up. Telling her that everyone is from somewhere there. Generations removed; I didn’t know where I belonged.  

“But you feel as an American, True?”

 A couple of years ago my parents told me the story of the lupe garue.  The pet of a  man who decided  his dog was too bad for heaven and too good for hell. It was doomed to walk the night as a ghost.

“We’ve raised a lupe garue” my father told me one morning.

I didn’t know how to answer my professor. Even though I knew what she wanted to hear. Everyone is from somewhere.  But that somewhere is differs according to every person we ask.

I could chalk it up to a matter of perspective. I could let it all go as a matter of national pride. All of that seems in adequate.

 A birth certificate might make one have nationality. But from where does that person truly come?

 For my own part it's still a question I struggle to answer.   

A Snarky Post About Singaporeans

I’ve been to Singapore twice. On both trips I felt like I was in an Orwell novel. On my ride in from the airport I noticed all the cars went exactly 100km/h. Not 99 and most certainly not 101. None of the flowering plants next to the freeway held a dead blossom. The city center is connected by a web of underground shopping malls. You could eat off the floors.

My most recent experience with Singaporean culture began yesterday. We were providing logistical support for a cultural exchange carnival between Singaporean collage students and Thai grade schoolers.

The Singaporean contingent danced to American and quasi-Hindi music. They also gave Thai students a taste of The Big White Rabbit, their ‘local’ candy. It just happened to come from China.

Although amusing, this actually makes sense. Singapore is a nation of immigrants mostly from China, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. So some traditions from the Old Country are inevitable. Still, most of its ethnicities seem to agree on having an exacting set of rules for just about everything.

We all played sports after lunch. First was a simple game of tug-of-war. On the Singaporean (and my) team it involved placing your center of gravity just so, and pulling in unison according to a number system. The Thais just pulled. Final result? Thai school-children 3-1.

I also managed to scratch my ankle during one of the games.  My usual course of treatment in such a case is to simply ignore the problem. The university students insisted on administering proper first-aid. This included washing the cut in saline solution, applying salve and wrapping my entire foot in gauze.

It’s not that I’m complaining. I’ve never had a scratch so well tended to in my life. But it does make a cultural point. In all of my travels I’ve never encountered a more protocol-oriented nation than Singapore.

But sometimes that’s their best trait. Today another Singaporean group arrived. We visited a village; while joking all the while they immediately tackled the problem of how to market the community’s reed mats with clarity and focus. Thanks to them I have an idea for what to do during this internship.

Although I may joke about the occasional excess in protocol, It’s what works for them. And even though it may be with a bemused smile from time to time, they’re the group I’d most like to work with.      

The Party That Never Ends

Roughly a week after the start of my arrival in Poland, the organizers of our language program announced that there would be a tour of of the city's old town. While I have been to Krakow many times I decided that this would be a good way to meet some new people, so I signed up. Instead of information about the old town's history, I had a discussion which I found to be somewhat shocking.
While on the tour I met a girl from Madrid, who eagerly asked me about the portrayals of American high school, which she had seen in Hollywood movies. According to her sources, the main goal of everyone in everyone in high school was to become either "a football player or a cheerleader." When I informed her that I and most students at my high school were much more concerned with getting a prefect score on the SAT and gaining admittance to a good university, she seemed almost to blame me for not living up to the unrealistic stereotypes set by popular western culture.
This experience highlights two negative ways in which exported American popular culture may influence those who consume it without any knowledge of actual life in the U.S. First: the obvious misrepresentation of real America. Second: the increasing tendency of a few Europeans to criticize Americans, for not living up to these same expectations.
While most Europeans I have met are honored by my goals of a career in eastern Europe, I have also met my share of those who respond by questioning why I would want to leave a country which in their view is free of problems and consequences. This in not their fault. Even in the smallest Polish towns the inhabitants are bombarded with a near-constant stream of media with such a theme. On the radio most American songs are about parties that never end in various American cities, while the most popular Polish one is about calling off a wedding at the last minute. Many Americans who come to Europe are on vacation and do party every night. It is only logical that some are going to draw the conclusion that this is an accurate representation of life in America.
As an American overseas, this can sometimes be frustrating. It is all I can do to say that America is a country with it's share of problems - like any other. It is up to the representatives of America abroad to set the record straight by providing a dignified, but accurate portrayal of life in their country.