Perpetual Change

West vs East

This title has been one of the longest standing in my blog “on-deck” queue. It first referred to how the news is reported about Ukraine here and in the USA, then it referred to an exchange I did with students from the East of Ukraine, and then with a camp I did to get to know the East better this summer. As Stanley has just mentioned it, and I took my students back to the East on the other half of our exchange last month, I decided it is time to commit some thoughts.

First, the Russian language is very prevalent, even where I live, on TV, in movies, in music, and in books. Ukrainians think the languages are so close, but the fact is that if they have never spoken Russian, they are exposed to it constantly from a young age. Sometimes a program on TV will be in Russian, but the credits are in Ukrainian.

Second, this is an excerpt from an email to a friend, a while ago, “The debate wasn’t really if your news is biased, it all is. It was more do you think getting news from a limited angle skews your own views, even if you know it is biased. I am impressed BBC is on public TV [and they even have it here in Ukrainian on the radio], but as you yourself pointed out, all those sources are Western. In fact they are the core Western sources, and this is definitely not the West. Ukraine means borderland in some ancient context, and it is so interesting because it truly is a bridge between Eastern and Western culture, not fully either, but also not really distinct in its own right. Granted these are opinions, but my point was that I thought our (Western) news, with its concepts of free speech, were the best that you could come by. What I realized after arriving here and talking to people, are two things 1) the best may still be a long way off from the truth, and 2) not all nations have consistent government views and opinions. The same news events here can be viewed wildly differently from one region to the next, even from one apartment to the next, and in my experience the whole truth is yet somewhere else completely. I think you would get a much better idea of the situation here from being here for a week than reading all our news about it for a year, however, I still think your view would still be far from the truth. They create the truth here, from moment to moment. Ukraine is the mother of all things relative. Actually I suspect the further East you go, the more true you would find that statement, but Ukraine is the first culture I have lived in that is remotely non-Western. I don’t really know how else to describe this concept accept for the fact that my parents never really understood me when I told them, in person or on the phone, quite detailed accounts of how things happen here, common everyday things, but while they were traveling in Russia before they even reached Ukraine, they called me and said that it was all so clear to them now.”
I am amazed what you in the USA, do and don’t get from the news of my corner of the world, and even more amazed how subjective making and interpreting the news is here.

Third is Camp East Extreme. This was a camp that was organized by volunteers of the East to celebrate the East. They wanted only good Russian speakers to do the camp, all in Russian. I called and said, “can I come if my language is good but it is not Russian?” They said, “yes certainly, but some kids may have trouble understading” (the state language) and they certainly wouldn’t all be able to speak back to me in Ukrainian. I said fine, and found that for the most part, after they got used to my (funny way) of speaking, they had no problems understanding, but they indeed were uncomfortable, or couldn’t speak Ukrainian back. I imagine it would be the same in my part of Ukraine, but with the languages reversed. It is so interesting though, because they read literature, jokes, music of both cultures in the native language. They can joke between them or converse, each speaking his own, and everyone understands (except us, Americans). I think it is really unique. Maybe the other Soviet countries are similar. The cultures between East and West are definitely almost identical, though they think the difference must be greater.
Anyway, camp was a lot of fun. They made very cool Tie Dies. One woman on the Finland team would sing the name (Fin-land-ia) all the time and it was hilarious. I had to hold another counselor’s tongue, and he mine, and sing the National Anthem as a “humiliation” for being late one afternoon (not fun, but funny, I’m sure). My team was South Korea. Does anyone know the meaning of their flag?

Fourth, so I did this project last year with another volunteer, where we teamed our students as pen pals in English. The project was to compare lives, through English, and it worked great until they figured out they could text each other (or write there own letters) in Ukrainian/Russian. They came out to visit us for 4 days, and it was one of the most fun projects I have done. So then for fall break a few weeks ago, they invited us there. Unfortunately train prices went up, and even with fundraising (an alien idea here), I could only get 3 students to go. But we had a great time, and even the 29 hour train ride there and (26 hours) back (which I was dreading) wasn’t bad at all. I enjoyed getting to know a few students a bit better, and it was very interesting to see the other side of the country.
One day we went to a very old monastery. The Soviets rather effectively killed off religion in the East, and this is one of the only ones left. It is called the Holy Height and it has a church on top of a precipice of chalk that is carved out of it. It is really pretty. It has another monument on a hill that looks over the town, and we asked this woman to take our group picture. She talked and counted in Russian for like 14 photos, but when we said thank you in Ukrainian, she replied in Ukrainian. Our waiter at a café would also speak in the language we talked. I was told that people of the East are very intolerant and unknowledgeable of Ukrainian, but my experience was not that at all. Later, volunteers from further East told me that I just wasn’t in the “real” East yet, but where we were was quite far, and where they live, almost all the people are actually ethnically Russian, and I think a little bit upset that the area isn’t still part of Russia.
Oh, and as we were leaving, our massive group took up the road as some women were about to take a picture, and one of them said (jokingly important, in Russian), ‘could you please be quick. We have a Foreigner with us.’ To which our group replied, “but we have 2!”

posted by jjs @ 8:38 AM