This is the Conversation

Where are you from?

I'm American.

But are you Armenian? [i.e. of Armenian descent]

I'm American, clean American

But there are no clean Americans. What American are you?

American American.

Where are you from in America?

New York City

Are there many Armenians there?

Some.

I have a [cousin, friend, neighbor's niece, etc.] who lives in Californian. There are many Armenians there.

Yes, in Glendale?

Yes, in Glendale. Is it better here or there?

[shrug of shoulders]

Huh? Better there? Or here?

[shrug of shoulders]

But what are you doing here?

I'm an English Teacher.

Oh, an English Teacher, where?

If I'm in the region of my village:

In A_____

Which school? S____yan's?

Yes, A____ School #1.

If I'm anywhere else in the country:

In A_____, a small village near T_____

Where?

A small village, near T____, called A____

Oh., what do you get paid for this?

I don't understand

What kind of salary do you get?

I don't understand

Money? Money! How much money?

Normal money, a teacher's salary.

Are you paid by the school?

No, by my organization.

What organization?

The Peace Corps

What organization?

Peace Corps.

Oh, peace corps. Want a smoke?

No, I don't smoke, thanks.

[lights a cigarette] How old are you?

You tell me?

umm...23?

Nope

25?

That's right.

Are you married?

I'm not.

You'll marry an Armenian girl.

Maybe, if she speaks English.

Nevermind, she'll learn.

Commentary on the conversation:

I have the conversation, on average, about once a day.  Some days I have it 5 or 6 times.  The questions are simple and common, nevertheless they're a minefield of cultural differences and assumptions.

But are you Armenian?

I'm American, clean American

But there are no clean Americans. What American are you?

American American.

Race, Ethnicity and Nationality are, as any reputable late 20th or early 21st century sociologist will tell you, largely social constructs.  "White" Americans tend to be blissfully ignorant of their racial and ethnic histories, and unaware of those around them, unless that person is obviously Hispanic, Black or Asian, in which case they are categorized into one of those excessively broad categories.  For Armenians, however, "Belorussian," "German," "Swedish," "Italian," or "Jew" remain separate, distinct categories of ethnicity and nationality.  The world used as a reference to a "pure" ethnicity is մաքուր (makur), which has connotations of both purity and cleanliness. [1]  In America, associating these concepts with ethnic heritage is decidedly un-politically correct as it implies that a mixing of ethnicity is impure or unclean.   I define myself primarily by nationality and consider my ethnicity rather vestigial. For me, the question is akin to "how large is your appendix?"

Yes, in Glendale. Is it better here or there?

[shrug of shoulders]

Huh? Better there? Or here?

[shrug of shoulders]

After a year, I still haven't formulated a response to this question that is both polite and truthful.  I very directly ignore it.  

If I'm anywhere else in the country:

In A_____, a small village near T_____

Where?

A small village, near T____, called A____

No one's heard of my village.  Unless they have.  In which case they probably know and are related to half the population of the town.  

Oh., what do you get paid for this?

I don't understand

What kind of salary do you get?

I don't understand

Money? Money! How much money?

Normal money, a teacher's salary.

Most Americans aren't comfortable discussing their salary or the cost of their personal possessions with strangers.  Most Armenians are.

Oh, peace corps. Want a smoke?

No, I don't smoke, thanks.

Almost all Armenian men smoke.  A respectable Armenian woman does not.

25?

That's right.

Are you married?

I'm not.

You'll marry an Armenian girl.

Maybe, if she speaks English.

Nevermind, she'll learn.

I'm of prime marrying age.

[1] For example, to find out if water is good to drink or to swim in, one might ask "այս ջուր մաքուր է?" (Is this water makur?) and receive the response "հա, մաքուր է." (Yes, it's makur.)

September 11, 2011

A few days ago, I was contacted by an alumna of my high school who is now a reporter for the New York Daily News.  Our high school was (is) located about 400 meters from the World Trade Center. She had found a picture I took on 9/11 of students from my high school being evacuated and wanted to use it.  She also wanted me to write something about it.  In about an hour and a half between classes I wrote an article in the teacher's lounge of my school on a legal pad.  When I finished the article, I found I was furious.  Who was I furious at? Was I angry at the terrorists? You might as well be angry at a force of nature, a typhoon or an earthquake.  The School Administration? They didn't do a bad job, really.  Most of my anger at them was adolescent angst.  The Bush Administration? They've been gone three years now, rejected by the American people and history.  I suddenly realized I didn't know why I was angry.  I had no reason to be. So I let it go.  I transcribed the article to my computer and emailed it to the reporter.  It was rejected by her editor.  This is that article...

I was 15 years old on 9/11, a sophomore at Stuyvesant High School, and that was a good thing.  Fifteen year old boys are immortal and invulnerable, at least in their own minds.  So on 9/11, after seeing American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower, I skipped out of class and walked around the school taking pictures.  It would be another two or three years before everyone had a camera on their cellphone, and my camera was a hyped piece of 1990’s technology called the Sony Mavica.  About the size and weight of a brick, it took 1-megapixel images and recorded them on a floppy disk.  I had three disks with me, enough for about 30 photos.  I wasn’t sure if I should take pictures of the burning towers, brilliantly framed through the floor-to-ceiling windows in my 9^th floor homeroom, or the reaction of the students at the school.

I took a picture of Julie, an inaccessible purple-haired punk with a safety pin pierced through her left eyebrow and a Powerpuff Girls backpack.  I’d silently crushed on her since we’d sat next to each other in Music Appreciation on the first day of freshman year.   She was sobbing in the 6^th-floor hallway.  When she saw me taking her picture, she yelled, “How could you do something like that, Sam? How can you take a picture of someone when they’re like this?”  I don’t remember the response I stuttered, but I do remember thinking, “Hey, she knows my name.”  I deleted the picture.

I took a picture of Vlad, a self-styled Russian Mafia gangster who told stories of guns, speed and crashing BMWs on Brighton Beach Blvd.  Even now I don’t know whether or not to believe him.  In the picture, he’s wearing the uniform of gangstas and suburban wannabe gangstas-oversize sneakers, basketball shorts, a plain white t-shirt and a Yankee’s cap with a straight brim.  He’s perched on a windowsill, the soft light from the smoke reflected on his face.  I kept the picture.

I took a picture of Roman, a preternaturally cool and self-confident gay 15-year old.  He’s alone in our empty English classroom.  The teacher, in one of those miracles of the Department of Education, would show up 20-30 minutes late for class every day on an old granny bicycle, but couldn’t be fired. (I later heard she was reassigned to be a college advisor.)  On that day, she didn’t show up at all, so most of the students left.  Roman is sitting on a desk, watching the classroom TV showing what was going on 500 yards away.  He’s wearing a T-Shirt that says, “I’m not a slave to a god that doesn’t exist, I’m a slave to a world that doesn’t give a damn.”  A moment or two later, the first tower fell.

In Art Spiegelman’s oversize comic book, “In the Shadow of No Towers,” Spiegelman, drawn as his usual anthropomorphic mouse, shows up at Stuyvesant to get his freshman daughter.  While arguing with the security guard, he hears the principal announce, “due to the terrorist attacks, students will not be allowed to go outside for lunch today.”  I don’t remember that particular announcement, but it summed up the attitude of the school administration.  Terror attacks, displacement, toxic dust in the air, trucks carrying rubble to marine cranes just outside the school walls; these things were merely bureaucratic obstacles to the efficient running of Stuyvesant High School, and should in no way be allowed to interfere with anyone’s college application or GPA.

So by October, after a few surreal weeks of Stuyvesant classes and teachers at Brooklyn Tech, we were back at school and nothing had changed.  This was, I felt, for the best.  “I mean,” 15-year old me reasoned, “shit happens, y’know?”  Our school became the recipient of hand drawn posters from high schools in middle America, scrawled over with hearts, American flags and phrases like “Bomb Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Lebanon.  Kill 10x as many civilians.  Make the survivors pay reparations.” 

I wondered about the students who wrote the posters.  Did they really believe what they were writing or were they cynical teenagers like us?  And we, the last generation of the 20^th century, were cynical.  We had grown up watching Beavis and Butthead and listening to angry, flatulent young Eminem; we learned about oral sex from our president, and in the last election “Who would you rather have a beer with?” was a serious qualification for candidates.  When enough people in Palm Beach voted for Pat Buchanan to throw the election to Bush, we shrugged because, hey, Shark Week was on.

We wore our cynicism proud, took 9/11 head on, made plane crash and jumper jokes.  We groaned through pious early memorials: 6-month anniversary, last girder removed from ground zero, 1-year anniversary, the Republican Convention.  We were horrified and embarrassed as the tragedy that happened in our backyard was hijacked to justify the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and Guantanamo. 

And then I went to college, and everyone around me had watched 9/11 on TV, and none of them lived with it every day for three years.  My cynicism and bluntness made me a weirdo.  If I told my 9/11 story in the dining hall, described the view from my homeroom’s window, watching the debris fall and trying to figure out if it was a girder or a jumper, the words on Roman’s T-shirt, everyone got quiet, stopped talking and eating, looked awkward.  So I’ve stopped telling the story.

I’m 25 now, and a teacher.  I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer, riding herd on classrooms of English students at a village school in Armenia.  Last winter, at an ex-Soviet ski resort, I was having dinner with a group of other American 20-somethings.  For some reason, one girl decided to eagerly recount her 9/11 story, the usual banal I-was-in-my-classroom-when-someone-came-in-and-said-there-was-a-terrorist-attack-and-I-couldn’t-believe-it.  I sat, twisted my napkin, looked at my lap and waited until she was finished and the topic of conversation changed.

On 9/11/2001, I didn’t want to be anywhere except New York City, my home.  But on 9/11/2011, I’m happy to be anywhere but.  That cynical 15-year old, the one who can’t stand self-righteous piety from authority figures and wants to just get on with it is still within me.  I have no interest in ceremonies or dedications.  Maybe I’ll get together with a few other expat New Yorkers and drink a Manhattan, if we can dig up some vermouth and bitters.  Most of all I’m glad I won’t have to see that offensive bumper sticker “9/11: Never Forget.”  As if I ever could. 

The Soviet Arcade Games of Gyumri

In the Central Park of the town of Gyumri, once called Alexandropol, after the Czar, and still referred to as "Leninakan" by most locals, across the gorge from the Russian military garrison, and down the hill from the opulent restaurant owned by friends of the Mayor, is a small, square building with [Attractions - Games] written on the outside.  Inside the building are a dozen Soviet-era arcade games and attractions.  Give the middle-aged lady who works there 100 drams-worth about 30 cents, and she'll give you a Soviet 15 Kopek coin, enabling you to travel back to 1987 and experience the best in Soviet entertainment technology.

Today, a father and his young son are the only other people in the arcade besides myself and the attendant.  The father helps the son shoot targets in "Snayper-2," a target shooting game, then the boy challenges me to race him.  This is the only true video game in the room.  I control one little car at the bottom of the screen, and the son controls another other.  To move the car, I twist the wheel.  I have to fully spin the wheel to move the car across the screen.  I avoid hitting other cars on the road, and when I crash into them the little 16x16 pixel drawing representing my car goes red and gets a broken wheel  As we're getting to the end of the race, the screen goes blank.  The machine hasn't malfunctioned-electricity has gone off in the town.

"Snayper-2," a shooting game

Racing Game-the only true video game

"Morskoy Boy"-"Water War," a submarine shooting game.

15 Kopek coins 

The airplane on the left is clearly modeled on the MiG-21 Fighter Jet

The guts of "Snayper-2"

"Morskoy Boy"-"Water War"

Adventures in Teaching

The last two weeks of school, there isn’t much to do.  I go to a party for the village boys who will go to the army.  The old men sit around toasting with vodka, the old women serve the food, the boys dance together and the girls watch them shyly from behind curtains in darkened rooms.  Some of the boys are my students.  We dance the military dance, leaning back and slapping our palms together.  The smallest boys I push over when we clap hands.  The bigger boys are strong, and want to test me.  We clap our hands together three times, then slap palms.  Clap, clap, clap, SLAP. Clap, clap, clap, SLAP. Clap, clap, SLAP.  The last one is the hardest and it feels like my palms are about to bleed, but another boy wants to challenge me.  Clap, clap, clap-he feints away and laughs.  From then on each boy gets two slaps and a feint, to protect my hands. 

            An NGO has agreed to give my school 2000 English language textbooks.  The textbooks are beautiful English language-arts books that encourage critical thinking and practical language usage.  An SUV from the NGO was supposed to deliver them, but it’s the last week of school and I want those books.  “Don’t worry,” I tell them, “I’ll hire a truck from town, just pay me back sometime.” 

            I explain the situation to my school director.  [Go see the mayor.] She tells me.  The mayor is not in his office.  He’s outside in the town square, wearing his usual sportcoat, standing under a tree with his buddies/aides.  The school director has explained the situation.  [You want a car?] he asks. 

-No, I explain, a truck or a van.  There’s 500 kilos of books there.  It’s too big for a Lada, or even a Volga.

(A Lada is the standard Soviet-era car, about as sizeable and powerful as an ’84 Civic.  The Volga is the Soviet luxury car, similar to a ’84 Chevy Caprice, but smaller.)

-Okay, he says, be here at 3 o’clock.

At 3:00, I’m standing outside the mayor’s office with Scott.  A green Soviet panel van, the kind that’s used for everything from ambulances to prisoner transport, pulls into the town square. 

“That’ll do nicely,” I tell Scott, my sitemate.  But it’s delivering supplies to the town store.  A man drives up in front of the mayor’s office in a tan Lada whose rearend has been replaced with a little camper arrangement.

[Come on, come on.] The driver says.

-Are you sure you can haul 500 kilos of books?

-Yeah, no problem.

-How much do you want for the trip?

-Just take care of the gas.

There’s two seats in the cab, and a gearshift. 

“Well Scott,” I say, “better grab a marshutney and meet us there.”

-No, no, come, come, he can sit. Says the driver.

Scott squeezes in next to me.  It’s the last day of school, the first day of summer.  I’m wearing a sleeveless tee.  There’s barely enough space in the cab for the three of us.  I put one arm over Scott’s shoulders, the other over the driver’s. 

“I can feel a wet spot on my shoulder.” Says Scott.

“Toughest job you’ll ever love.” I tell him.

We make our way to the village where the books are.  By the time we get there, my left leg has fallen asleep from trying to keep my armpit off Scotty’s shoulder.  The school’s assistant principal is on hand.  She opens up the storage room.  It contains shop machines, Soviet-era computers, hundreds of gas masks in green canvas bags and somehow, in the very back of the room hundreds of boxes of English language arts books with mailing labels from places like Michigan and Missouri.  I grab a few of the bigger, sturdier looking boys hanging around the schoolyard and have them pass the boxes out the window to the driver waiting below.  In 15 minutes, the little Lada is carrying thousands of books.  We pat ourselves on the back.  The Lada squats on its haunches.  The driver and I get in.  Scott stays behind.

            The weight is almost entirely on the underinflated back wheels.  The nose of the car wobbles as the front tires lose traction.  The driver compensates by keeping a steady, creeping pace.

            -You said 500 kilos, he tells me.

            -Well, we have 2000 books.  Each book is about a fourth of a kilo.

            -This is more like 600 or 700.  Did you bring the gas with you?

            -Well, no, but I have money for the gas.

            -Oh, that works too.  We’ll stop for gas then.

We stop at a filling station and get out while the attendant refills the car’s propane tank, a cigarette dangling from his lips.  In Armenia, most cars are modified to run on propane, which, for geopolitical reasons, is far more abundant and cheaper than gasoline or diesel.  The fillup costs $6. I buy the driver a coke. [You shouldn’t drink too much of this,] he says, [it’s full of chemicals.]

            We get back to the school, where I’ve asked the English teacher to round up some boys to help move the books to the 3^rd floor.  I’m expecting a contingent of 10^th and 11^th grade boys eager to prove their strength.  Instead, I’ve got two of the scrawnier 9^th graders and half-a-dozen 6^th graders.  They go write to work, jumping in the back of the car and tossing out boxes.

            “Kamatz-kamatz!” [Bit-by-bit!] I tell them,

            “Kamatz-Kamatz!” they parrot, “Kamatz-Kamatz! Kamatz-Kamatz!”

The boxes are moved out of the truck to the school’s entrance, then from the schools entrance to the staircase.

            “Kamatz-Kamatz! Kamatz-Kamatz!” say the boys.

I divide the boys into teams, each headed by one of the ninth graders.  The first team carries the books from the first floor to the second, the second team carries them from the second story landing to the classroom on the third floor.  A few boys playing in the schoolyard watch the excitment, then climb through an open window to help.

            “Kamatz-Kamatz! Kamatz-Kamatz! Kamatz-Kamatz!” Say the boys.

            By the time we’re finished, I’m panting and sweaty.  “Thank you, guys,” I say. “Shorakatultsyun, akbarjan” [Let’s go to the store, I’ll get you ice cream.]

            The boys and I head the store in the town square and pick out ice cream bars.  Total cost for ice cream: $2.50.  Total cost for moving 500 (or maybe 600 or 700) kilos of books to my school: $8.50

Conversations, translated from the Armenian

Scene: A modest kitchen in an Armenian village.  There's a metal pot of water a small propane stove, and a wife serving food.  Scott, the American Volunteer, and his host father, a seasonally employed Armenian, sit around the table.
Father: Sam, did you know Scott is a Keri
Me: Yes, I know
Father: Do you know what a keri is?
Me: It's the mother's brother.
Father: And what about the brother of the father?
Me: That's a Haieryepaigh (lit. "Father's Brother")
Father: Ooooo "Father's Brother," aren't you a fancy karaghetsi (city boy).  [he makes a limp-wristed gesture] Here in the village we say Horpay (Pa'sbro)
Me: Oh.
Father: Say horpay
Me: horpay
Father: Good job.  Live long.

Scene: A small bodega-style establishment in the capital city, just outside the city center.
Me: I'll take mi haht (one piece/item) of ice coffee.
Storekeeper: Mi haht? say mek haht.
Me: Is mi haht wrong? I don't speak Armenian well.
Lady Customer: No, mi haht is fine.
Storekeeper: Yeah, but he sounds like a geurghetsi (villager)

You can't win.

A note on style...

Because this blog deals with a lot of bilingual confusion, here's the style I use to give quotes in various languages:

"" Quotes are more or less the exact words in the original language as I remember them
"Barev," said the boy.
"Բարեվ," said the girl.
"Hello," I said.

[] brackets are translations of a foreign language.  They may or may not be accompanied by the original language
[Hello], said the boy.
"Բարեվ," [Hello] said the girl.
"Hello," I said.

- dash captures the gist of what was said, if not necessarily the exact words or original language
-Hey, said the boy.
-Hey, said the girl.
-Hi, I said.

The Face of a Killer?

Halfway along the ride to Yerevan, the marshutney from my village stops in the regional capital still referred to by its Soviet name so the driver can smoke a cigarette and wait to fill the empty seats in the van.  A strange looking woman hangs out around the marshutney stop.  Once, on a particularly long wait, I went out for a soda.
[Wow, look at you!] said the strange marshutney woman [Look how big you are! You're a real American, alright!].
-Yup. I said.
Today, I'm staying in the van with headphones in and my mind in a book.  Mentally, it's a decent substitute for personal space, my own little nirvana where nothing can touch me.  Through a pause in the "Legend" album, I hear someone shout "Hey Amerikatsi" (Hey, that's the title of this blog!) I take off my headphones. It's the strange looking marshutney woman.  "Hey Amerikatsi!" she yells.  I wave. She turns to her friend [That's the American! He rides this marshutney!...] she whispers to her. I put the headphones back in.
Behind me, a passenger asks, in English, "Where you from?"
I don't want to leave Nirvana.  He asks again "Where you from? USA?" I take out one of the earphones and turn around. His face is the shape, smoothness and color of a brown chicken egg.  I nod.
"Osama Bin Laden" he says.
okay...
"Osama Bin Laden hero."
"huh?"
"hero, Osama Bin Laden hero."
"I don't understand you. Հայարեն հոսում ես? [Do you speak Armenian]"
"Osama Bin Laden hero. I killed American soldiers in Afghanistan."
"Yeah, I don't need this."
I put my headphones back in and try to go back to nirvana.  But I can't concentrate on my book.  The guy has me freaked out.  Sure, he's probably just a nutjob, but then how does he speak English? Plus he didn't understand Armenian.  We're near the nuclear powerplant, what if he's a terrorist? But then why would he be on a marshutney? And he wouldn't want to give himself away.  You shouldn't take this, man, you were there on 9/11, are you really going to let him get away with this? But you can't start throwing punches inside a marshutney. Maybe he's armed and dangerous. But you can't let him get away with this.  Should you tell someone? What if he is dangerous? Shouldn't you do something? Shouldn't you show him you're not scared of him.
I reach into my bag and take out my camera.  "This is what you'll do," I tell myself, "you'll turn around really slowly and calmly, smile, and take. his. picture. It's completely non-violent, but it'll freak him out, make him think he'll get in trouble. He's not going to do anything to you in the marshutney with all these people around."
I turn around slowly and calmly with a smile on my face and my camera out.
He's fast asleep.
I take a picture of him.  The woman next to him looks at me funny.  I realize she's a head taller than he is.  And he's a little silly looking.  Sortof pudgy with a plum-colored sweater.  He doesn't wake up until we're in Yerevan.  He gets out of the van.  His pants fit loosely, and he carries a handbag with a flower pattern.  He walks in a sort of stumbling rolypoly way to a city marshutney, and he's gone.