Honesty/Chestnostz/Честность

I am going to take a post to describe what is in my opinion, the biggest cultural difference I've noticed between Russia and the US. In Russia, people tend to govorit pravda (speak the truth)...all the time.

EXHIBIT A
(with my old host family)
Dasha: Why did you cut your hair?
Me: I don't know, I just wanted a change.
Dasha: You are more beautiful with long hair.
Mama: I agree.

EXHIBIT B- in school, 7 year old Oleg has just recited a lengthy poem by heart, but mixed up a few words, and spoke rather quietly
Teacher: Class, how do you think Oleg recited?
Student: Very badly.
Teacher: Why do you think so?
Student: He said the words wrong.
Teacher: Why else?
Another Student: He recited quietly, and without emotion.
Teacher: Yes, absolutely correct. Oleg, becuase you did so badly, I am going to give you a 2 (the worst grade you can get in Russia, keep in mind this is in front of the whole class)
So, rather defeated, Oleg returns to his desk and the teacher calls on Nastya to recite the poem, she does.
Teacher: How did Nastya recite?
Student: Very well!
Teacher: Why?
Student: She knew all the words, and recited beautifully.**
Teacher: Correct. Nastya, I am going to give you a five 5, you're a good girl.***

At first I was really taken aback by such bluntness, but the more I get used to it, the more I think it is a good thing. Look:

Person A: Hi, How are you?
Person B: good, you?
Person A: Good.

How many times a day do you have that conversation? Tomorrow, if you want, count. Then think how stupid it is.
Why do we say everything is fine when it isnt?
Why do we say we like things when we dont?
Why do we say something was good when really it just wasn't?

I think its because we are afraid of offending people, but really, a difference in opinion or taste should not offend.

I am more of a compare contrast person than a we do it better here/they do it better there person, but this is one of the few times that I'll say it: I think the Russians are doing this right, and we are not.

*Just a little footnote, washing the floor means on your hands and knees with a cloth. 

**In the Russian language its not weird for someone to 'recite beautifully' its also not weird for something to 'smell tasty'.

***Again, in Russian this doesn't really sound abnormal.

Festival/Фестиваль

This past week I didn't study in my school, but rather in another school in my city. That is because at the school I studied at there was like an international festival, and all the foreign students in the area went to school there that week. It was cool to experience another school, and also fun to hang out with other foreign students.

       We each had to do a presentation of our country, a national holiday, and then do a song/dance that is representative of our country. Each foreign student was paired with a class of russian students and we prepared the presentation together. I did one on thanksgiving day. I wanted to do halloween, but with classic russian honesty, I was told that 'no that is a bad idea, do thanksgiving day'.
         Theres no candy or costumes, but I think it did in the end wind up being a cool presentation because no one knew about thanksgiving beforehand. For our musical number I was clueless as to what to do. I asked the people in my class for an opinion and they said they wanted to do a dance.

Just a question: faced with 25 Russian teenagers asking you to show them an american folk dance what would you do?

I will post the video of our dance, and preface it with nothing more than this: If you ever find yourself in Nizhny Novgorod, and everyone thinks that all americans are cowboys, its probably my fault.

Even if our presentation was minorly stereotypical, I think the school enjoyed it. Also, it is not as if there was no work done to break stereotypes, because going to school with these people and dancing with them for a week, they got to know me, a real american, so they get a picture of the real, and the presentational United States.

Also, all the foreign students for the finale did a Russian folk dance to a song called Katyousha. Its about a girl named Katya looking out at a lake waiting for a bird to bring her a message from the person she loves. Russia if nothing else is unique.

I'd love to also post the complete video of that dance, however the 8 year old I told to film didn't know how to work my camera (and I didn't do a fabulous job of explaining in Russian), and therefore I'll show you about 10 seconds of it.

Also I'm planning on doing a question and answer blog post, so if you have any questions about Russian, Russians, or Russia please email them to me in the next week or so: lindsaysaligman@gmail.com

C 8 Марта!/Si bosmoy Marta!/Happy 8th of March!

       Sorry I've gone a while without posting...I should start by saying:
 For reasons it wouldn't be right to go into in such a public setting, I have had to move to a new host family. It wasn't something I wanted to do, nor was it something something my host family wanted, but it had do happen.
        The good news is my new host family is also pretty great. I have a dad, Lyosha, mom, Irina, a 24 year old brother, Tyoma, and a 17 year old sister, Yulya. She's in my class at school, which is quite convenient, because now I have someone who can explain physics to me. None of them speak a word of english, so there is a lot of going back and forth with a dictionary, but I'm sort of happy about it, because what better way could there be to learn Russian? The other good news is they live in the same appartment building as my old family, so I can visit them as often as I'd like.

          So now to the main subject of this post. Remember protector of the homeland day? Well today was another lovely (and entirely religionless I might add) national holiday. It was womens day. It isn't like mothers day though, where you sort of kind of give your mom flowers and maybe call grandma... It's quite the legitamate day. Yulya about every five minutes was getting texts from every boy she knew wishing her a happy womens day. Tyoma got Yulya and I roses, and our parents got us chocolate.
          Yesterday there was a celebration at school too. We only had four lessons rather than six, and for the rest of the day we had a concert, which was one of the most russian things I've seen. It began with kids from the 2nd grade dressed as mushrooms doing a dance to a folsky song about grandma, continued with the girls in 11th grade reciting poems about being a woman, and ended with our middle aged male PE teacher playing the guitar and singing about how lovely women are. Only Russia.
       After our concert just the 10th class went to the classroom of our advisor and which all the boys in our class had decorated for us. They also bought us cake. So we drank tea, which they served to us, and ate cake. It was sweet, literally and figuratively.  Then they recited a poem for us, along the lines of 'beautiful, wonderful girls of the 10b class, we love you, and on this special day we want to give you gifts to show how glad we are to have you in our lives'. Then all the boys went and got gifts, and each one of them presented a gift to a different girl in our class. I got an apron and a spoon decorated with traditional russian patterns. "For to cooking!" a boy in my class enthusiastically explained. The whole thing seemed a little sexist to me, but the good kind of sexist, if that makes any sense. Its not like they are saying 'you are a woman you belong in the home' they are saying 'you are a woman and thats wonderful, we love you'.

                       He is singing about how wonderful women are. And this isn't creepy at all. Only Russia. I might add that this is the same PE teacher that forced us to run in circles for a half an hour and if we didn't go fast enough (or sometimes just because) he threw volleyballs at us.

Part of the concert