SlavFile, Summer 2001

Bicultural Care and Feeding

Once upon a time, my sister tells me (she met the protagonist of this paragraph when they were both college students) a German family immigrated to Australia. The youngest child was a boy of four. He grew up in Australia, and when he attained maturity, he made a pilgrimage to the land of his birth. Though his active vocabulary in German was stalled at the level of a four-year-old, his speech was unaccented. He got around the country without mishap, except when in bars and other nocturnal gathering-places. There he would approach German women, and after an initial spark of interest, they would sidle away down the bar. The reason? Because his speech sounded native, the objects of his attentions didn’t believe it when he said he was from Australia. They thought he was German. To them, his childish vocabulary appeared rather to indicate arrested intellectual development. The general picture was not that of a man with whom most women would want to pass an evening, let alone a night.

The above anecdote is related to my own experiences only tangentially. The only language I will ever speak without an accent is my mother tongue, English. I have spoken it all my life without emigration or interruption and my vocabulary is age-appropriate, thank you very much. However, back when my degree in Russian was still new and I was having my first lengthy immersions in that language, a similar mismatch between the fairly literate sound of my spoken Russian and my blithe incomprehension of cultural differences led, if not to an undeserved reputation for mental retardation, then certainly to some ridiculous slipups and misunderstandings. For, regrettably, matters of cultural difference are rarely discussed in the language classroom, even though culture, I believe, is simply a larger unit of language, perched (sometimes precariously) atop words, phrases and sentences. And in the absence of classroom instruction, the quickest, if most painful, way to understand the norms of another culture is by transgressing them—unwittingly, one hopes.

I will attempt herein to recount some of my blunders, having mostly to do with food and hospitality. The lessons, I think, will be clear.

I. In Which the Non-Equivalence Between Russian “обед” and English “lunch” is Brought Forcefully to My Attention

 A year or so out of college, I was taken on full-time by a company called Classical Artists International, which booked and organized US tours of such performing troupes as the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, the Moscow Virtuosi and the Georgian State Dancers, as well as solo classical musicians from the Russian-speaking world. I was the only Russian speaker in an office of hard-boiled theatrical impresario types. I was a sort of Girl Friday, constantly being dispatched on a diverse array of errands. I took ballerinas for root canals. I bought turquoise spray paint in large lots at the hardware store to dye pointe shoes. I combed pet shops for a coat for a choreographer’s poodle. I stood on the podium next to a wrathful Russian conductor as he rehearsed a pickup orchestra of American musicians: “Who ever told you that you were professional musicians?” he thundered. I translated meekly, eyes downcast. 

My co-workers and bosses had not the faintest idea of Russian culture or gastronomic needs. And I was ill-equipped to advise them. This may explain why, when my employers signed a contract to bring the Bolshoi Ballet over for a ten-week tour, they naively committed to provide lunch post-rehearsal daily at the theater for the entire company (which, with dancers, conductors, wardrobe mistresses, stagehands, lighting technicians, massage therapists, administrators and informants, numbered well upwards of one hundred).

The скандал (which, as Nabokov reminds us somewhere in his voluminous oeuvre, should be rendered not as its apparent cognate ’scandal’ but as something more along the lines of ‘uproar’ or the British ‘row,’ pronounced to rhyme with ‘cow’) broke on the troupe’s first day at Lincoln Center. Weary and freshly showered after morning class and rehearsal, the dancers came in to eat and found, not Russian обед, but American lunch. Not hot roast beef, potatoes, a green vegetable, soup, salad, tea and dessert, but shrink-wrapped sandwiches (choice of turkey, ham and roast beef with cheese), colorful foil bags of potato chips, also chocolate chip cookies and brownies, again, in that ubiquitous shrink-wrap, and cans of Coke, Sprite and Seven-Up spangled with icy beads of moisture. (Truly an illustration that the much-vaunted American concept of choice can be most unsatisfying.)

The outcry was immediate, the indignation unadulterated. A phalanx of performers, a famous danseur noble at their head, announced their intention to contravene their contract and return home immediately without giving a single performance. The American lunch, they declared, was not only grossly inadequate to their enormous physical need for nourishment, it was an insult to the venerable traditions of Russian classical ballet.

An emergency meeting was called. The troupe administrators presented their demands. The impresario people, cowed and confused, listened and complied. Where had they gone wrong, they wondered? They had agreed to provide lunch, and they had done so. The next day, however, steam tables were duly brought in, a hot, multi-course meal appeared, and preparations for Swan Lake and Giselle went forward. Unfortunately, the tone of the entire tour had been irrevocably set. For the next ten weeks, the Bolshoi dancers and staff stalked about in a huff, anticipating further demeaning treatment.

The management of Classical Artists International learned its lesson, though. A year later, the company brought over the Bolshoi Opera. This troupe had more than double the number of personnel as the Ballet. (And their combined avoirdupois was probably some four times greater.) Again the impresario committed to providing meals, doing so this time in proper Russian style from day one. It was no doubt partially as a result of assuming responsibility for the feeding of a few hundred portly opera singers and their entourage that the company went belly up shortly thereafter, just around the time the Soviet Union exited the world stage.

I had left that job by then and was making my way on the freelance market, where I continued to bump up against the issue of обед versus lunch. Shortly into my freelance career, I worked at a meeting about water resources management. A group of environmental scientists (many of them members of their nations’ Academies of Sciences) and cabinet-level environmental officials from five former Soviet countries spent some days travelling in the Southwest, seeing how the Colorado River was managed. We interpreters juggled terms like ‘aquifer,’ ‘reservoir,’ ‘dam,’ ‘flood plain,’ and ‘groundwater’ as we rode through dusty border towns. And every day we stopped for a hasty lunch at whatever fast-food establishment the meeting organizers deemed most convenient to our route.

The visiting dignitaries grew increasingly irked. “Are we having sandwiches again?” they asked each day as the midday meal approached. (They referred to hamburgers as sandwiches, because they were served on buns.) “People of our rank should not be received this way. This is not how we do things at home,” they muttered. We interpreters conveyed their comments to the organizers, but no changes were made. The lack of decent nourishment led to intense friction. I composed a ditty, based on the famous Mayakovsky verse :

                        “Говорим Ленин; подразумеваем Партия,

                         Говорим Партия; подразумеваем Ленин.”

 

                        [“When we say Lenin, we are implying the Party,

                          And when we say the Party, we are implying Lenin.”];

declaiming instead, to the visitors’ merriment,

                        “Говорим обед; подразумеваем бутерброды,

                         Говорорим бутерброды, подразумеваем обед.”

 

                        [“When we say lunch, we are implying sandwiches,

                          And when we say sandwiches, we are implying lunch.”]

It was one of the most unpleasant interpreting experiences of my career, and, I believe, the only project I have ever worked on that I can say without question led to a worsening in international relations.

II. In Which I Learn About Different Ways to Measure Wealth and Security

Another early freelance assignment involved interpreting for functionaries visiting the United States for “training” in drafting trade legislation for their newly independent country. On the weekend, the delegation was invited to the home of a federal government employee to experience an American-style cookout.

The food was hearty and delectable: hamburgers and hotdogs grilled over an open flame, potato salad, bean salad, fresh lemonade and all the other accoutrements of a cookout were available in generous quantities. Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves, dining with relish and communicating well. The visitors seemed impressed by the hosts’ hospitality and their spacious split-level home.

However, as the gathering was winding down, three of the visiting dignitaries, stocky men in their late fifties, pulled me aside and asked in concerned undertones, “Is this family doing all right? Can they afford to receive us?”

“Why, yes,” I said, puzzled. “Their home seems quite comfortable, even luxurious.” I gestured to the vast living room with its wall-to-wall carpeting and the patio, bordering a flawlessly manicured lawn. “Why do you ask?”

There was an awkward silence. Then the highest-ranking one spoke. “But they can’t afford regular dishes and silverware!”

“Of course they can,” I answered, my puzzlement deepening.

“Then why did we eat off paper plates and use plastic utensils?” another one blurted.

I have only the dimmest recollection of my answer; probably I mumbled something about convenience and saving time. But these men were from a world where family is unshakeable and patriarchal, and where porcelain, crystal and napery are among a household’s proudest possessions. Such objects symbolize something intangible but terribly important: the social, economic and emotional stability of the family itself. To these men, there must have been something starkly unnerving, nay, frightening and incomprehensible, as well as unthinkably rude, about serving guests with plastic utensils and paper plates that would go straight into the trash as soon as the visitors were out the door.  

III. When is an Unannounced Guest Preferable to the Invited Variety?

Once, while sojourning in the Caucasus, I had an instructive exchange with a woman I knew who had just returned from a trip. She anticipated that friends might soon drop by to welcome her home.

“They probably won’t call first, since they know that it will be easier for me that way,” she said.

“Why?” I asked, my mind going immediately to the inconvenience of uninvited guests.

“Well,” she said, as if speaking to a child, “they know that if they drop by without warning, I won’t be embarrassed and ashamed that I haven’t spent two days shopping and cooking for them, which I would have to do if they told me in advance that they were coming.”

IV. “I Love American Hospitality!”

Several years into my career now, and having learned the above lessons and more, I was still making a mistake not uncommon among people who come into contact with foreign cultures. I had decided that their way was not only different, but superior. We Americans could never be as hospitable, as warm, as selfless as people from the former Soviet Union, I believed. Even when we tried, it was a put-on, a pale imitation. We were spoiled by our material wealth, our unbridled individualism. So I thought.

Then one day at a buffet lunch in San Francisco to welcome some collective farm workers from Kazakhstan, the head accountant of the farm exclaimed, as he struggled to balance a plastic plate on his lap with one hand, hold his drink with the other, and somehow wield his fork at the same time, “I just love your American hospitality!”

“Why?” I asked, watching him maneuver.

“It is so free!” he said. “No one sits you down at a long table and forces you to eat too much of things that make your stomach hurt. No one dominates the conversation and insists on making inane and sentimental toasts everyone has heard a thousand times before. Here, you go over to the table, serve yourself, leave what you don’t want, and go into a corner and talk to whoever you feel like for as long as you like. It’s wonderful!” He lifted his plastic cup high in a gesture of approbation, then caught his plate as it teetered and nearly flipped over.

V. Just When I Thought I Had Nothing More to Learn

Finally, as this article was going to press, my charges of the moment, Russian entrepreneurs, expressed a desire to hear live jazz. I called a club and made inquiries. I was told that if we had more than eight people and they intended to order food, we needed a reservation. However, if it was a matter of music and drinks only, no reservation was required. Ever cautious, I reserved.

Then I asked my group whether they would be eating. I think I used the word ‘кушать,’ [kushat’/one of several verbs meaning ‘to eat’] the first time I asked. They said no. I cancelled the reservation.

On reflection, I found this answer odd. I asked again. Were they were planning to ‘ужинать’’[uzhinat’/have dinner] at the club? Again they answered in unison, “Nyet.”

I pondered this. We would be at the club at precisely the dinner hour after a long day of meetings. Were they sure they were not going to eat? I asked again, this time employing the word ‘есть’.’ [yist’/the most common word for ‘to eat.’] Patiently, they responded in the negative.

Evening came. We went to the club. I got everyone seated, left them in the hands of other English-speakers at the table, and stepped out to make a phone call. When I returned, all of them had soup or salad in front of them. Apparently, because it was a weeknight and the place was almost empty, they had been allowed to order food although we had no reservation.

On the walk back to the hotel, I reflected on the fact that three times I had asked the group if they were going to eat, and three times they had clearly said no. And then they had ordered food and eaten. What part of nyet didn’t I understand?

I asked one of the trip organizers who had been at the jazz club with us, a Russian employed at the US consulate in Yekaterinburg, someone with fluent English and no small experience communicating across cultures. She listened to my account, then paused a moment in thought. All at once she seemed to grasp the situation in its entirety. “Ah,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “Это мы не ели, это мы просто перекусили.” [“We weren’t eating, we were just having a bite!”]

I threw up my arms, rolled my eyes heavenward. When would I ever learn?!

Laura Esther Wolfson is a Russian-English interpreter/translator and the Associate Editor of SlavFile. Her most recent translation, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, the Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, edited and with an introduction by Joshua Rubenstein, was published by Yale University Press.