Sometimes I pretend I am Russian in the Mall...and sometimes I get caught in my web of lies

Here in the United States Russian is a very useful language to know. Although I continue to hear rumors about a growing Russian ex-pat community in Lowell I have yet to really run into them. I have not (yet) heard of any Russian grocery stores or even more sadly- bookstores. If I need anything “Russian” I have to get it online or brave the unpleasant bookstore owner in Brookline who does not encourage browsing or questions.
I say it is useful because unlike Spanish which is practically everywhere and taught in every middle school and high school, people are not all that impressed if you can speak Spanish. No one expects you to speak Russian and no one certainly expects a non Russian to speak Russian. I have one friend who works with the poor in a smallish New England city who contacted me one day because he was visited weekly by a Russian man who was looking for donations and refused (or chose not) to speak English. Not sure how I could have helped that situation I was just happy that he thought I could be useful.
Mostly I speak Russian in my head, to myself, alone.
However I have found one “public use” for my Russian skills. I use them in the Mall when approached by the assorted people selling practically useless things at the kiosks. You know who I am talking about. The people who are selling skin products, screen protectors, gaudy hair jewelry and cell phone plans. They approach you as you walk by and ask you something about skin care or your cell phone and they only need to suck you in for ten seconds and then you are there for thirty minutes. Escape is difficult once these sales people get going.
So my trick is to say «Нет спасибо» (no thanks) if approached as I walk by. Usually this works. The salesperson assumes I am speaking some crazy language and they can’t sell me something anyway. I am more trouble than the sale is worth. I say usually because this tactic failed epically last week.
They were selling ceramic hair irons, three young guys selling something I did not want or need. So the young one with dark hair approached me and asked me “Can you take a moment for me to show you…” and I replied “Нет спасибо» and instantly heard «АГА красывая женщина вы говорите по- русский!!! Прекрасно! Мы говорим по- русский тоже!!!» (Wow beautiful woman you speak Russian! We speak Russian also!)
Crap
I could keep walking away however in addition to teaching and practicing Russian, each of my Russian overseas friends has emphasized the importance of being polite. Or as my Tashkent friend has said- “You must learn to be polite in at least one language.”
UF
Also this young guy called me beautiful. Sale or no sale it was still a nice gesture.
(The following exchange took place in Russian; the dark haired guy’s name was Avi)
Me: “Yes I do speak Russian.”
Avi: “All of us speak some Russian, are you Russian?”
Me: “No I am American. I have studied Russian for almost four years”
Avi: “WOW!” (Pointing to his kiosk comrade) “His girlfriend is Russian. Sit sit…please please…let me just show you this product.”
Me: “Um…ok where in Russia are you from?”
Avi: (puzzled look on his face) “What?”
Me: “In Russia, where did you live?”
Avi: “What?”
Here I switch to English and learn that these three guys are NOT Russian. (Knew I had my verb and tense correct!) They are Israeli. They met in the army and Avi learned Russian from the Russian speaking soldiers. His fellow Israeli soldiers were annoyed by the Russian Israelis, so Avi learned Russian from them and hung out with the Russians instead.
Avi: “My comrades said- Avi those Russian guys are so annoying, they should all speak Hebrew. So I learned Russian and annoyed the Israelis!”
Me:“And then?”
Avi: “They adopted me!”
Me: “And now?”
Avi: “And now I am in America! My whole future is ahead of me I can do or be anything here. What do you do?”
Me: “I am a teacher, I teach theology.”
Avi: “Judaism?”
Me: “Well it is a Catholic school, but yes I have many opportunities to teach about Judaism.”
Avi: “It is a beautiful faith.”
Me: “Yes it is.”
Now he begins to sing a Russian folksong to me. He is very entertaining. And now I am in the chair and he is playing with my hair and telling me all about this amazing product. It straightens, it curls, it de frizzes, it costs $200, but if I buy two I can get a third for free, and if I buy two they are only $100 each. I do not understand this business plan but it starts to make me wonder how much these things are really worth.
Avi: “So why do you speak Russian?”
Me: “It is a beautiful language with a rich history.”
Avi: “Have you ever been there?”
Me: (in Russian) “Sadly no, not yet.”
Avi: “You have to go! I have not been there either, maybe for the Olympics.”
Me: “Or the World Cup.”
Avi: “Even better!”
I was very polite,in both languages. The whole sales pitch and demonstration was half in English and half in Russian. Avi from time to time calling to the other two guys “Come over here and speak Russian with her! She speaks really well!” I was not sure if this was more flattery but as I am increasingly confident in my skill I am pretty sure it was not all an act.
Avi: “So are you ready to have amazing hair?”
How do you answer that kind of question? No, I would like to continue with the less than amazing hair. I am over 40 and have decided to just phone it in. Adequate is fine with me, thanks.
Me: “Well it is a pretty cool tool but, with Christmas and all I don’t think I can spend that money on myself right now.”
Avi: “You have sisters?”
Technically yes, I did have sisters but I was not sure how my sister in law would respond to this as a gift. He was still persistent and I graciously took his business card. Just then my husband called.
“I am sorry I am meeting my husband for lunch I need to go.”
“I am going to be here until February! Maybe longer! Please come by again, think about this amazing product. We can speak more Russian!”
I know very well that if I go back I am going to walk away with no less than six of these. But maybe this cute Israeli guy will sing in Russian. Makes me wish some of my Russian women friends lived closer. But as I walked away in a shower of Большое спасибо's I realized my plan both failed and was a great success.

However, I think I need to find a new Mall.

Oh the places you'll go!!

I know the title of the blog is “Adventures in Russian” and at the time I created it I really saw the language itself as an adventure. I see learning as an adventure and because I am a teacher by profession this pretty much sums up my teaching style.
I expected to learn Russian, I expected to conquer and master its ancient streets of syntax, case and aspect. I am still scaling the mountain of vocabulary. I still have the goals of wanting to be able to read fluently as I am discovering there is a vast wealth of modern Russian writers that are not translated into English. And of course I want to be able to speak fluently without accent.
Here is what I did not expect:
I did not expect to be “The Russian Speaking” teacher which really amuses me. I am now introduced to new students at my school as such. I have discovered that speaking to students in Russian does get their attention. For example it is not unusual for them to hear: Садитесь! Тетради! Ручки! Поехали! (Sit down! Notebooks! Pens! Let’s Go!) Being the teacher known for taking on a difficult language has allowed the other closet language learners to come out of the wood work. We have something called “ridiculous sentence of the week” which can manifest itself in Russian, Latin, Arabic or even Swedish. This was started after sharing the sentence “The tallest man in the world saved a dolphin.” It has been wonderful to talk to students who drop by my room after school to discuss the benefits of studying Farsi or German and how they hope to acquire many languages in their lifetime.
I did not expect to spend afternoons and late nights conversing in Russian with native speakers. I did not expect to have such an incredible resource to correct all of my silly stupid mistakes and ask my dumb questions. Russians are very patient people, and I am grateful to have such exceptional friends in the Russian speaking world. And in truth this too may also be a source of life changing experiences for both of us.
But here is what I really did not expect.
I did not expect to meet another fellow Russophile who like me was ensnared by this amazing language. I did not expect that we would become each other’s cheerleaders and support. It is so nice to have one other person in the world who also does not understand WHY Russian needs 2,000 verbs of motion (I am exaggerating but only a little they have много!!!). I did not expect to have another English speaker who also sees himself as a citizen of the world and seeks to travel to learn. I did not expect to have another English speaker who understands my Russian PERFECTLY without mistake or mispronunciation. In fact though our Russian is less than perfect, our Russlish is fluent. Certainly I did not expect that I would be asked to work as a volunteer for a sister cites organization he is a part of and it never occurred to me that as a result I would be packing shampoo and lotion into 3 oz containers and getting ready to set off for a weekend in St. Louis, Missouri.
So this Adventure is now taking me to the “Show Me” state, where iced tea, the ice cream cone, and Dr. Pepper were invented not to mention the home of my beloved Panera bakery. We have quite a list for the weekend.
- New nicknames, possibly code names.
- Meet all people who have been up to this point, names on a schedule.
- Taste vodka from Kazakhstan.
- Teach him FINALLY how to write Russian Script.
- Speak a LOT of Russian with Russians in St. Louis.
- Sample the international culture of STL.
- Successfully toast in Russian.

I am getting on the plane in a few days…let the antics begin and dear readers- Stay tuned!

Distracted, Attached and looking for the next hook

So where have I been…? Distracted, hooked and attached.

Distracted and attached the basic essence and problem of the human condition. Our society provides us with any number of distractions and attachments that prevent us from focusing on the one thing that is eternal. The mind. And thus helping the mind focus and allow us to act in a way that is the most true to our true selves, with kindness, compassion and love. To hippy dippy…? Let me break it down for you. (And be patient. I will make this relevant to language study.)

Let pretend we are pessimists. Most of us don’t have to pretend. A simple glance at our own lives whether, personal, social or political we can see a real mess and tangled web of suffering. If you have not seen it check your facebook newsfeed…go ahead…I will wait…

See?

It does not take much for us to see suffering or to be affected by it. To live is to suffer. As soon as we are born we are already in the process of dying. I have done a lot of thinking about suffering over the past eighteen months not just for myself; a lot of other people have had a lot of suffering in their lives. It just is.

If life is suffering why would anyone want to follow the Buddha or ascribe to Buddhist ideas? Like Jesus, the Buddha offers a way out of suffering and attachemnt. However, with both the Buddha and Jesus- it takes work. The payoff is liberation, freedom, joy and a unity with the ground of love. And no, this does not mean you walk around with a ridiculous smile on your face handing out daisies. ANY of my students will tell you I am not about developing a childish, saccharine faith. I am about developing an intentional, honest faith one you can live with real integrity.

So what is it that Buddhists believe about suffering and liberation? And how does this help with language study?

There is a wonderful movie called Little Buddha which if you have not seen you should. (Regardless of Chris Izaak being horribly miscast in this film.) It tells the life and enlightenment of the Buddha and explains a few important Buddhist principles. In one scene the old Lama explains the eternal mind this way: He takes a cup of tea and smashes the cup against the table breaking the cup and scattering the tea. He then asks “Where is the tea? Is it still tea?” It is still tea but the vessel holding the tea has changed. The tea is on the floor, table and in the towel. But it remains as tea. The only thing that is eternal is our mind and what we do with it, how we train it. The vessel that holds us now is not eternal and will change. We have the ability to guide how it will change or even what the next vessel will be, if we sufficiently detach ourselves.

When I wrote in the last blog post that it is the attachment we have to our language study causes suffering. At first this seems like a joke “OH woe is me…I am trying to speak Russian.” (boooo hooo) Well sadly if you have already made this decision and have been studying for more than a year you are well aware of what you signed up for. I am not talking about that kind of attachment because honestly, the people who are at that stage of study may stay or may drop out.

I am talking about the student who is in over two years, the one who scours iTunes for their favorite Russian bands (because now they have favorite Russian bands), their iPod language is set to “Russian”. They have native speakers on their Skype contact list and these speakers have become more than just contacts these are friends and comrades united for a common purpose, maybe even projects beyond grammar and pronunciation. They have applied Cyrillic stickers to every computer in the house. They may have even met some of their Russian friends and are actively planning to meet more. They carry books of Russian word puzzles around with them. They have flashcards held together with rubber bands all over their house, car and office. Their children are forever moving and organizing their grammars, readers and dictionaries into a pile they refer to as the “US Branch of the Moscow State Library”. They are attached because they have so much they have lost sight of what to do or where to start when they sit down to work. They are scattered and distracted.

The Tibetan teacher Pema Chodron writes about this in her book “Don’t bite the Hook”. We become attached to things when we react instead of acting in a more mindful way. The Tibetan word for this is shenpa it refers to that which hooks us. That enticing thing we see and we think that if we just grab it, this thing, this emotion, this event will bring us happiness. Instead we realize we have fallen for the attachment trap once again. Once trapped, we lash ourselves even tighter to the wheel of cyclical existence and suffering. Again and again and again we bite the hook and remain attached. So recognize that new language program, book, list of grammar exercises and website for what it is. It is a hook, bite it if you want but you will continue in your suffering and cyclical existence as a learner.

What the Russian learner in this case needs is to be liberated from the attachments of books, music and exercises. One thing the Russian learner needs is a native speaker who will speak Russian with them. Just speak, tell them a small story, clarify vocabulary, and reorder their disordered grammar. What the Russian learner needs to do is to breathe deep and listen and then open their mouth to engage. By the way this also works for the Russian speaker learning English. Letting go of the exercises and trusting that the grammar has stuck as well as it will for now is the first step toward liberation. However, it can be a frightful and often frustrating step.

The prayer of commitment in Buddhism is very simple. It is called the refuge prayer and it goes like this:

I take refuge in the Buddha the awakened one
I take refuge in the teaching (the dharma)
I take refuge in the community (sangha)

Perhaps we can also adapt this to language study. To at least take refuge in the grammar and vocabulary we have learned and to practice it with our community. If you have been working with a Russian speaker for longer than a year I would bet that at this point that is someone you can trust to help you with your goals. (And you also pledge to help them with theirs)

And as for the people I work with… clear some space and let’s talk. I am ready for a good story. I think we are both ready for liberation.

What language would Buddha study?

Life is suffering
That is the first of the Four Noble Truths.
When my father was about to undergo bypass surgery I was facing a six hour train trip to New Jersey. I knew I would need something to pass the time. Friends and colleagues suggested all sorts of mindless novels. While I was willing to read anything to occupy my mind on this trip my friend Grace suggested I take The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche and How to Practice by the Dalai Lama. This was not my first introduction to the Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Previously I had read Awakening the Buddha Within by Surya Das and was already an avid fan of Tricycle and Shambala Sun. By the time I was heading down to be with my family for this event I was well past the idea that this first Noble Truth was some self indulgent expression of unhappiness. (I am sad because my life is hard) For really the first time in my life I was not just facing but facing down this reality in a very real and painful way.
I have been thinking a lot about this and the other 3 Noble Truths lately, in my work, in my life in really everything. Not merely because I am teaching a unit on Buddhism in my 11th grade World Religions course. (This, is by the way one of my favorite lesson units to teach because I can talk about Buddhism with almost as much confidence as I can about the Bible. ) I have also been thinking about the Noble Truths because Ash Wednesday is next week and I really need to get about the business of repairing my spiritual life. Not out of fear of going to hell or anything like that, just that I miss it, I miss that connection with something bigger than myself. In the past this has worked the formula is simple; the dharma repairs the dogma.
The dharma is about starting small also. One does not start to follow it, throw on saffron robes, and hop a plane to Nepal. So I try to apply this to “simpler” areas of my life. I do try to apply walking the eightfold path to my interactions with my family, my work, my relationships and especially my passions. After three years as a student of the Russian language I have solemnly come to the conclusion that the best path for language study is the dharma.
Life is suffering.
The cause of suffering is attachment.
The cessation of suffering is possible.
Cessation of suffering comes with following the eightfold path.

I want to write about this over the next few posts as I am inspired because it is certainly too large a job for one blog post but I hope it might give you some insight for yourself in some part of your life. Let me leave you with a few thoughts.
Language study suffering is caused by attachment.
The attachment is connected to our desire to speak, write, and communicate correctly.
It is also connected to our desire to stay attached to previous notions of success and failure as well as previous notions of how to learn.
Detachment is possible. . .