Just a typical day in class [Video Post]

9th, 10th and 11th graders in a conversation class unit on clothes roleplaying "fashion model and journalist."

Another example of American Cowboy diplomacy

I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said "Speak softly and carry a small child"

The Fruit-a photo post.

Peaches and Plums

 Sunflower Seeds being sold in situ

No distinction is made between wine grapes and eating grapes

One of my favorite pictures from Armenia.  I showed it to an Armenian, and she said, "but the Plum is really more a Georgian thing you know." 

April, and the apricots blossom.

The Fruit

On one of the last warm weeks of summer, I was biking uphill on a country road, standing on the pedals of my steel-framed mountain bike when a car pulled alongside me.  It drove uncomfortably close for 10 or 15 seconds, then the front passenger window began to roll down.  I stopped, dropped my feet to the ground.  A hand came out of the passenger window.  It had a perfectly ripe peach in it.  I took the peach. "Shnorakalutsiun" [Thank you] I said.  The car peeled away. I ate the peach.  It was delicious.

Fruit is a very important part of life in Armenia.  Any halfway decent host will put out a plate of cut fruit for a guest.  The pomegrante, and especially the apricot, are celebrated as avatars of the nation, considered to be a superior breed to any pomegrante or apricot anywhere else in the world.  During Soviet times, under the command economy, Armenia was considered to be the Soviet republic best endowed with fresh produce that was rare in stores in Kiev, Leningrad or Bishkek.  Today, with the exception of bananas and oranges of varying quality, all fruit in Armenia is locally grown and eaten only when it is in season.  The country does not experience the "miracle" of modern produce supply chains.  There are no strawberries in November, flown in from New Zealand, avocados from trees across the continent for making Guacamole for New Years parties or coconuts available for tiki parties in February.  Indeed, during the winter, there's barely any fresh fruit in the country at all, except for in jams or at ridiculous prices at the nicer supermarkets in the capital.  But come the spring....

The first, and most important fruit of Spring is the apricot, whose flowering in April marks the beginning of warm weather.  For months, the quality of the apricot harvest is a topic of discussion at every dinner table.   Was there too much rain? Too little?  This Spring, my region saw a wave of hail which devastated the crop, causing a depression almost as acute as if a medium distant relative had died.  The loss is not just culinary, it's economic.  For a farming family, a strong apricot crop means enough money for heat, food and clothes in the winter.  During those middle weeks of April, when the trees are covered in white blossoms, the season seems full of possiblities.  They come in quickly towards middle of June, and quickly progress from green and hard to yellow-orange, astonishingly sweet and soft and oozing sticky juice.  After eating them (it's really no problem to eat 8 or 10 at a setting), the seeds are cracked with a heavy rock to reveal a brown nut that tastes almost, but not quite, like a moist almond. By the middle of July, the apricots have become overripe and are boiled down for jams and juices.  By August they are all but gone.

The first apples and plums will start to appear after the apricots, and will be eaten for the excitement of fresh fruit.  But these are rather poor, sour, green fellows.  Still, children will pick them and eat them for the thrill of it, enduring pursed lips and sore tummies.  They won't reach their peaks until August and September, when the apples will be abundant, firm and fat and the plums will be deep purple and incredibly sweet, exploding with juice once their smooth skins are pierced. Sunflower seeds are chewed year round, but at the beginning of summer entire sunflowers are sold and the seeds can be eaten fresh.  Of course, they must be checked to make sure that a little caterpillar has not burrowed into the shell, eaten the seed and decided to make it his home.

The middle of summer belongs to the peach, the best of which are sweet and juicy but somehow don't quite compare to the apricot.  It's also when the best vegetables appear; cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, green beans, red, green and hot peppers.  Lettuce is rare, but cabbage is common, usually made into slaws or soup.  The standard Armenian "salat" more closely resembles an American slaw, consisting of shredded vegetables with some small pieces of meats or fruits in mayonaise.  But fresh cucumbers and tomatoes are a part of every table, along with a knife for diners to slice them.

As summer starts to turn to fall, grapes are harvested, another opportunity for farmers to make money by selling to wine factories.  The manufactured wine in Armenia suffered terribly during Soviet times and remains of poor quality.  But the homemade wines poured into plastic Coca-Cola and Fanta bottles and kept for private consumption, shared with the neighbors or sold on the sides of the road make an excellent social lubricant. At this time, walnuts begin to fall off trees in green fleshy pods and are roasted to keep for the winter.  I was also given a bag of pears so delicious it made me want to cry.

Now, as fall turns to winter, the Pomegrantes are the last of the fresh, fleshy fruits to be harvested.  They will remain in markets at least until December.  Apples can be stored to last until at least New Years.  But the months of January, February and March will see no fresh produce and all Armenians will look forward to the Apricot blossoms in spring.

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"