Random Happenings in Hayastan

I'm sitting at work, it's about 2:30, and the security guard comes into my room and just says "Come come!" Ari ari! So I get up and follow. I ask him why as we walk out the door and he says to eat. He prepared some spaghetti and hot dogs. I was actually about to leave and was starving, I planned on picking up some baked goods on the way to a photo exhibition, so this was an amazing meal and I feasted on chicken, salty cheese, and a hard boiled egg. This of course made me late for the exhibition, but that was okay, I had a full stomach.

This isn't the first time I've been asked to eat with the security guards. Whenever I'm working late they usually make dinner and they will invite me to eat and drink with them. It's moments like these that you really see the hospitality of Armenians. They invite in a foreigner that can barely speak their language, I can speak about typical things, but once you get an unfamiliar topic, my lack of depth in Armenian really shows. But we get on nonetheless, food is always piled on your plate, even if you say you've finished and that you're full.

I have a new water heater, that is electric, and shuts off after one or two minutes so that the fuse doesn't blow. Whenever I turn it on the lights dim. While this is okay for when I do dishes, it's not okay when I want to take a shower. When I first got the place I said I wanted a new water heater, the old one is gas, which is fine, but you have to turn on the gas switch then light it, and I don't want to blow myself up. So I said I wanted an electric heater, but what I really meant to say was a gas heater with an electric, or automatic, starter. So eventually I got up the courage to ask my landlord for a new heater, a new gas one. My landlord has been really great with getting me anything that I asked for and I felt bad asking for yet another thing. I asked him for a wardrobe and he brought me two. This was after I thought we had decided I didn't need one and could use the closet space. And he brought me a new bed, which I needed, but didn't even ask for.

So I finally ask him and he sends over one of his cousins to expect my heater now. I show him how it works (or doesn't work) and then he asks about the gas on I have now. I haven't had an Armenian lesson in a while (I'm between tutors) and I really have no idea how to say "I want a new heater, that is automatic, so that I don't have to light it, because I am afraid I will blow myself up if I use this old soviet one," so I spoke with lots of gestures and props (my lighter for the stove) and liberal use of the word ban which just means 'thing' (Hooray for circumlocution!) and eventually, after 2 phone calls between my landlord, a call from my landlord's daughter in Russia who speaks English we get to an understanding about the water heaters. The last conversation between the daughter and the guy inspecting my heater situation is a bunch of I knows and he already told me this which I would like to attribute to my awesome pantomime skills, though I may have just been misunderstanding the last conversation.

Lastly, I just saw this thing in passing online, about Rush Limbaugh. I want to address a small part, that wasn't even cited as controversial, among something else that was cited as controversial. So the headline says Limbaugh mocks Chinese president's language or something like that. And so he's complaining that there weren't subtitles for a broadcast of a live statement by the Hu Jintao on Fox News. And then he went on to describe what his Chinese sounded like, using all sorts of random noises, pretty typical third grader stuff. This is largely irrelevant and I don't much care if this is controversial, or insensitive, I think he was sincerely trying to be funny, and the only sad part is that it wasn't funny, he dragged it on way too long, and really just sortof childish.

So then there's this throwaway line, he says that President Obama is sitting there listening acting like he understands, and then Limbaugh says "what would you expect from the ruling class."

First of all, I'm almost certain Barack Obama does not speak or understand Chinese. But what I want to focus on is this concept of, the 'ruling class' having knowledge of foreign language. Monolingualism isn't a reality for a majority of the world population. It is the opposite. The majority of people know and use more than one language (to varying degrees) as merely the reality of their daily lives. Monolingualism is a luxury that Americans and other native English speakers have that the rest of the world doesn't. So bilingualism as a characteristic of the 'ruling class' doesn't make any sense, because the majority of the world isn't monolingual, the majority will use more than one language throughout their lives.

Aside from Americans being largely monolingual, that can at least part be attributed to our language policy. Namely, we don't have an official one. But instead what we do have is a large cultural stigma attached to languages learned in the home, say as first generation immigrants might learn from their parents and family. The worry, by the same people like Limbaugh is that these immigrants, by learning these home languages, they will not learn English. This is not the case, but it is the common perception by many. And so then you have this learning of foreign languages, only when the person has grown up nice and monolingual, without the benefit of having learned two languages from birth. So then you have something approaching this 'ruling class' idea of learning a foreign language when you've only been anglicized and made into a 'proper' American, ie one who is monolingual. Imagine if this stigma didn't exist and you had German Americans, 17% of the US population all knowing German. I highly doubt we wouldhear anyone say that those 51 million people are all part of the 'ruling class' for their knowledge of two languages.

Le sigh.