There’s a little something I’m rather ashamed of – I can’t tell a Lada from a Lexus. I think I must be illiterate when it comes to automobiles. Whenever I see a big Lexus [there are many big Lexus cars around here in the Urals] I’m always surprised and always ask myself the same question: when did Lada start making such luxurious SUVs? I repeat this question inside my head every day, and I never get tired of it [I only get tired of myself for not getting it] because in my mind there’s no real difference between the Latin letter L and its Cyrillic counterpart. And if you’ve seen both the Lada and the Lexus signs, then you, comrades, would understand why in my mind it’s one and the same brand. They really look just the same. Except that they’re written with letters belonging to different alphabets. If I was still going out with my former more handsome half he would have had my hide for this, since he’s an expert on cars and I… can’t tell a Lada from a Lexus (honestly, the only cars I know at all are the obvious ones, considering my heritage – Saab and Volvo), even though the difference is obvious to anyone lacking such a linguistic mess in their head as I’ve been blessed with. I’ve come to apprehend that to my brain there’s no differentiation between the three languages I know. My brain doesn’t differ between them. It catches the wave of the one I’m using at the moment and hangs onto to that one until I switch in speech (reading, strange as it might sound, doesn’t affect my ‘brain wave’). This is sometimes troublesome for me. For example, last night I called my mom, and then my dad, and spoke with both of them for some forty minutes each, which lead my brain to dream in Swedish during the night. I’ve learned to figure out which language my dreams are in by what people I see in them (in my dream last night – big surprise – were all four members of my immediate family); though that, of course, gets increasingly intricate if my mind decides to mix, for example, friends in Sweden with friends in Russia. It also happens. Then today during the day I spent the whole day studying for a big seminar tomorrow on Russian avant-garde poetry, only going out in the afternoon to have lunch/dinner at a pizza place and then show a Swedish movie to my students at the university in the evening. And I found my brain having much difficulties getting out of Swedish and into Russian. English is the only language I can use whenever, wherever without thinking twice about it. I suppose that’s because it’s in between the two others. Anyway.
Last night I caught my dad on a good day, which almost never happens. I always talk to my mother on Skype close to and hour or so, but my dad never has more to say than what can be said within ten minutes. Last night he went on and on about some programs he had listened to on the radio about Dostoevsky, and then about some article on Shostakovich that he read in the paper, going on and on about how great it is that I’ve acquired all this rare knowledge about Russia. He even asked me about my boyfriend! That never happens. He must have had a really good day. I had to tell him, though, that we actually broke up almost three months ago and that he left the university for a mental institution in his home town two months ago. Dad was pretty surprised, but took it pretty well. I guess he never saw me as the relationship type. He told me that my sister’s listening to opera now. Great. Then he said he was going to the states in April, and that he wants to drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to have lunch with Annie and Paul (we were at their wedding together last summer). I told him I’d write Annie and let her know. After this he talked about Berkeley for a while, and he tried to put me on the spot about my future doctor’s dissertation! I know he knew that I already have ideas and plans, but I also know that he wanted to see just how far ahead I am in my head. I told him about Shalamov and he said he’d try and buy a collection of his short stories in Swedish. My dad can be such a great person when he’s not even trying to be anything but himself. It was a nice experience. In fact, I think yesterday was one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with my dad. Strange how life sometimes works out like that. Good times come as suddenly as the bad, and you’re as poorly equipped to deal with them as with the less pleasant ones.
You know what I’m listening to like crazy right now? No, you probably can’t guess, now can you, comrades? One of my students gave me two discs [in mp3 of course] with Swedish folk songs. The double disc is called “Ljuva svenska visa” and I can’t stop listening to it. On it are about 40 songs which I grew up listening to subconsciously, but never really paid attention to, they were just a part of the culture around me and that was it. But now I can’t stop listening to it. I think I even might buy all of Carola’s religious discs in Swedish on iTunes. There’s one religious song of hers on that disc and I can’t get enough of it. It feels nice to be listening to Swedish folk music. Lately I’ve started feeling like I lost my culture. It is not good. It is sad. I’m almost done with my Russian novel in Russian, and now that it’s done I can say that it is not true anymore. I started writing it in February 2006, and even though it has changed a lot during the three years that I’ve worked on it, some things still remain in it that aren’t true anymore. The novel is not completely untrue; in some regards, it is very true. But in the context of myself it is no longer correct. It is no longer the way I feel about life. It is not the way I feel about Russia. No longer. Living abroad for a long time without your own language, culture, people with the same upbringing and experiences in their past does something else to you, but I can’t really put my finger on it. Jen told me the other day that when she leaves Russia for Minnesota she’s never coming back. I tried telling her that you can actually never go back home after being gone for so long (she’s lived for seven years in Russia, six of them in a row), but she didn’t want to hear it. She’ll see, though. Because something happens to you when you’re abroad for long enough time to become a part of another society. The normal human measurements of ‘we – them’ disappear with time, and it should be a good thing, but it actually leads to an identification issue. I’ve only lived in Russia for five years, but I already have trouble figuring out who I am. I don’t me ‘who I am’ in terms of personality, but in terms of cultural identity. I’ve heard people telling me that your culture is defined by movies and music, but I’m afraid those people got it all wrong. I don’t listen to Russian music, but I don’t care what kind of movies I watch (since I don’t care for watching movies period) so I don’t think I can measure my cultural identity by their – clearly foreign to me – standards. I read. In books I have read a lot of Russian literature, but I like all kinds of literature. Once again, no preference there either. Consequently, I don’t who I am. I just am. A vegetarian who knows the Bible (both testaments) as well as other people knows “Days of Our Lives” and can’t tell a Lada from a Lexus.
Last night I caught my dad on a good day, which almost never happens. I always talk to my mother on Skype close to and hour or so, but my dad never has more to say than what can be said within ten minutes. Last night he went on and on about some programs he had listened to on the radio about Dostoevsky, and then about some article on Shostakovich that he read in the paper, going on and on about how great it is that I’ve acquired all this rare knowledge about Russia. He even asked me about my boyfriend! That never happens. He must have had a really good day. I had to tell him, though, that we actually broke up almost three months ago and that he left the university for a mental institution in his home town two months ago. Dad was pretty surprised, but took it pretty well. I guess he never saw me as the relationship type. He told me that my sister’s listening to opera now. Great. Then he said he was going to the states in April, and that he wants to drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to have lunch with Annie and Paul (we were at their wedding together last summer). I told him I’d write Annie and let her know. After this he talked about Berkeley for a while, and he tried to put me on the spot about my future doctor’s dissertation! I know he knew that I already have ideas and plans, but I also know that he wanted to see just how far ahead I am in my head. I told him about Shalamov and he said he’d try and buy a collection of his short stories in Swedish. My dad can be such a great person when he’s not even trying to be anything but himself. It was a nice experience. In fact, I think yesterday was one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with my dad. Strange how life sometimes works out like that. Good times come as suddenly as the bad, and you’re as poorly equipped to deal with them as with the less pleasant ones.
You know what I’m listening to like crazy right now? No, you probably can’t guess, now can you, comrades? One of my students gave me two discs [in mp3 of course] with Swedish folk songs. The double disc is called “Ljuva svenska visa” and I can’t stop listening to it. On it are about 40 songs which I grew up listening to subconsciously, but never really paid attention to, they were just a part of the culture around me and that was it. But now I can’t stop listening to it. I think I even might buy all of Carola’s religious discs in Swedish on iTunes. There’s one religious song of hers on that disc and I can’t get enough of it. It feels nice to be listening to Swedish folk music. Lately I’ve started feeling like I lost my culture. It is not good. It is sad. I’m almost done with my Russian novel in Russian, and now that it’s done I can say that it is not true anymore. I started writing it in February 2006, and even though it has changed a lot during the three years that I’ve worked on it, some things still remain in it that aren’t true anymore. The novel is not completely untrue; in some regards, it is very true. But in the context of myself it is no longer correct. It is no longer the way I feel about life. It is not the way I feel about Russia. No longer. Living abroad for a long time without your own language, culture, people with the same upbringing and experiences in their past does something else to you, but I can’t really put my finger on it. Jen told me the other day that when she leaves Russia for Minnesota she’s never coming back. I tried telling her that you can actually never go back home after being gone for so long (she’s lived for seven years in Russia, six of them in a row), but she didn’t want to hear it. She’ll see, though. Because something happens to you when you’re abroad for long enough time to become a part of another society. The normal human measurements of ‘we – them’ disappear with time, and it should be a good thing, but it actually leads to an identification issue. I’ve only lived in Russia for five years, but I already have trouble figuring out who I am. I don’t me ‘who I am’ in terms of personality, but in terms of cultural identity. I’ve heard people telling me that your culture is defined by movies and music, but I’m afraid those people got it all wrong. I don’t listen to Russian music, but I don’t care what kind of movies I watch (since I don’t care for watching movies period) so I don’t think I can measure my cultural identity by their – clearly foreign to me – standards. I read. In books I have read a lot of Russian literature, but I like all kinds of literature. Once again, no preference there either. Consequently, I don’t who I am. I just am. A vegetarian who knows the Bible (both testaments) as well as other people knows “Days of Our Lives” and can’t tell a Lada from a Lexus.
