Conversations

Madrid

Welsh, student living in western England.

In Madrid late one night, a young drunken Welsh lad, saw that I was awake typing away or drawing silly pictures on my computer one night and waved me out of my solitude. He proceeded to chat up a storm which led many near by to become disgruntled but we ventured forth in to the lands of laughter and good conversation, all the while he stood facing my bunk bed tapping his fingers on my closed lap top and I sat semi nervous on the top bunk whilst Krystin kicked the mattress beneath me to warn me of the hour.

I’m not sure I even caught his name and the next day I realized he probably wouldn’t have talked to me (and didn’t for the next two days) had he not been drunk, but we had a good time.

The conversation began simply, “Where are you from?” I asked noticing his strange accent (not quite English and not Scottish, but hardly thick or distinctive at all) and he said Wales, which I gave a weird look at him for (knowing that Welsh accents are usually quite distinct) he said, well I live in England, and I thought okay that might do it and asked where, and he said “in between Manchester and Liverpool” which I then laughed at, because once again you got some distinctive accents there and I explained why I laughed and he said “yeah isn’t it weird, how like every town has a different accent?” and then we started talking about that and how in Britain just about anyone can tell where a person is from if they are local (sometimes down to the neighborhood of a city) or about where they are from just because of the way they speak, (something I’m quite fond of guessing in secret, which is why his case posed a particular challenge being not quite anywhere specific) 

 BBC Voices Project

Anyway our conversation began in ways of speaking, then switched to words in English, the similarities and differences (mainly focused on American vs Britain, leaving Canadians, Aussies and Kiwis for another day. 

So we proceeded to discuss the fact that different cities/regions have different words for things, with him occasionally spitting out phrases I couldn’t understand, and me occasionally using my casual and very anti-formal American slang (which I do without realizing it, sometimes even in papers.

Then we started discussing why he was able to understand me while I couldn’t understand him, which lead to a conversation very briefly on the media and then flooded into politics, after I explained that I had recently heard that our vice president shot a man but would not go to jail.

Anyway we started comparing notes, on the US, Iraq and Afghanistan, the EU, but mostly on the British political system and its similarities and vast differences to the US system.

For instance I got to explain why we had Bush for a president despite his losing the popular vote, and he got to explain the trend toward conservatism that Tony Blair has recently turned to (his theory was for reasons of legacy). 

Our similarities began to add up when comparing leaders and we especially noted the trend towards the middle that both sides of our respective political parties (in each country) tend to start running to. While both of us complained about wanting a left party that leaned left and a right party that leaned right, each of us agreeing that we would surely vote left, if we felt they were left enough.

I started wondering how to get this on track for a globalization spin, so I brought up Britain’s position in the EU and he explained how more and more he was sick of the west’s view of globalization being something so horrible. The classic “they will take our jobs” line of the right along with the popular “its hurting people economically in other countries” line of the left, had left him with a feeling of frustration. He felt personally that the west could offer several jobs, and that that was capitalism so why not, and that the thing to do, (not that globalization is unstoppable) was to stop complaining and speed up the possible process of making it work for all (I heard very similar things in India).

By making it work for all, he meant using systems of government to ensure equality and relative security to all and felt that this was the EU’s intention, but that the countries who stall or do not work to make the changes help their citizens are merely hurting themselves. In this sense, the EU is the world on a smaller scale. That’s about it from what I remember.

Barcelona. 

This would run a lot more into Krystin’s topic

But I went out with 2 guys one night to get tapas, some nice Spanish food, which I don’t eat because I’m a picky eater and I don’t understand why every Spanish dish (except Paella) has jamon in it…?

Anyway a night on the town in the heart of Barcelona eventually led us down the more seedy streets of the Gothic Quarter (as a side note Barcelona is one of my favorites cities in the world)

 I was with an English guy from Manchester and an Aussie from Perth and the guy from Manchester had seen a pub earlier in the day called “Manchester” and thus he had to take us, more for laughs then for anything else. 

Our conversation was mainly centered on four things: traveling, food, comedy and very seldom politics.

The traveling bit we got out of the way early all of us were fairly well traveled, which led to the conversation on American junk food, and Australian delicacies such as oh say anything but wombats and koalas apparently….

It was kind of funny as the English guy went down a list of anything he could think up, including snakes, crocs, roos and grubs, and the other guy checked off each item as if it were nothing and compared their taste to what he figured we would know. I think he said he hadn’t had British blood pudding  which I had to agree didn’t sound too good.

From there we started going into comedy tv and comedians, which was a fairly interesting conversation I found hard to follow noting that I had only seen like three of the shows…but apparently British comedies are often exported to Australia where they tend to do quite well if they aren’t too dry. The British guy explained why American comedy doesn’t do too well in Britain, mainly it is too blunt or too posh as in too fancy and wealthy, where as British comedies go after the middle class working family, or typical office situations which everyone can relate to. 

The Australian shows minus one (that one Kylie Minogue was on-she is now a pop singer) almost never do well in Britain because Brits are too classy for low brow beer humor, was the general opinion….

Anyway both of these guys were huge fans of American cartoons like Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy, (all pushing the extreme) and would settle for things like Cheers, Friends and Seinfeld which they found appealing (in that middle class sense).

As far as politics, it was funny, for 3 worldly guys semi well educated and such we preferred to get the old well how do you feel about Bush questions out of the way and then move away from politics. But I think when you look past that level, you got three guys complaining about paying too much to travel (knowing full well the fact they are able to travel puts us in like the top 5 % of the world’s wealthiest and still we complain). We scoff and joke about the silliness of the Danish printing anti Muslim cartoons in their papers causing riots and the deaths of several protesters… meanwhile we tend to each proclaim the glory of the free press (me especially loving European papers and news because its less censored, but just as hyped).

Then we discuss foods and television, suggesting snacks and programs to download or buy the DVD of ignoring the fact that most of the world can't afford that food or even dream about that computer, TV or DVD player.  All night the English guy had been trying to use his debit card at the ATMs finding they had cut him off for the day (reached his daily limit) which he hadn’t and I started wondering about our dependency on global banking, electronic transactions, etc…

So the next time I was at an ATM I took out extra money, just in case the same thing happened to me.

Later in the hostel in Barcelona a group of 8 or so of us, Germans, Americans, Aussies, Canadians, and Argentinians spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out the name of a "set crème dessert with vanilla beans and sometimes raspberry sauce" That was funny with 8 minds looking through translation dictionaries hoping to stumble on the right word, hoping even more that if one of us did we could convince the others that that was indeed what we were looking for. Its not flan, its not tiramisu, its not pudding, its not… etc. French, German, Spanish three types of English not one of us could figure out the word.

But a girl from Toronto made my day and said she drinks Coca Cola and Orange Juice together which is a drink I'm quite fond of and that I have never been able to convince anyone is good. 

I think I fell in love.

Ignoring the Anthropology student/free lance writer I met last night who gave me a lecture on ethnography while I was typing a paper on Anth methods...

In Vienna 

I had a conversation with a Turkish man tonight that I may go visit again..

We have become quite fond of kebabs (apparently “gyros” is trademarked or something).

So I was out for a late bite and the guy asked me if I was Australian and I said “na, American” with a sigh like I tend to do… and he apologized saying that he can't tell English speakers apart by country.  I nodded figuring its probably like how I can't tell Germans from Austrians or Dutch even though they are apparently quite different, but assuming that he wasn’t from any of these countries I asked and he said he was from Turkey. Having been there I asked where and he said Istanbul (because everyone from Turkey says that) and I remarked how it was one of my favorite cities in the world, life, beauty, culture, history, millions of people, whats not to love? Anyway I started wondering whether he was Turk or Kurd but he answered without me asking saying as a Turk in Austria he felt like Istanbul was still the most beautiful place in the world. He said he had lived in Vienna for three years and that every night he still dreams of the city. What is it that is so great I asked? 

You are free in Istanbul he continued, true you have laws and rules and such but there is a natural chaos that comes from a city like that (his closest comparison was New York). He loved that in his city you could find anything, you had everything you needed, 4 religions on one block, not being a devoted Muslim by any means he noted the beauty of the mosque (while sipping beer). “In the mosque” he said “you have light from everywhere, unlike in the churches of Europe which are dark the domes allow for light and color, warmth, and carpets…” 

Hard not to agree with him

He was a cook by trade but an artist by birth, by love, by nature and noted the colors of Istanbul of the mosques, etc. His colorful paintings decorated the restaurant we sat in (and being a bit of an artist myself) I asked him about them.

He started discussing the symbols and colors, the compliments etc and then started talking about the Turkish (oriental) in Austria and how the Austrians don’t have color, or life, expression in their art, they don’t express from the heart (this was according to Austrians who buy “oriental” art) and so the “oriental” art is extremely popular and it is easy to get a showing.

He also noted that his parents (who were still practicing Muslims and didn’t let him sell pork in his store) were quite famous amongst other Turkish people in Vienna because they came very early and helped many of the people around Vienna get legitimately in touch with the Austrian Government for social services and visas and such. 

Pretty cool guy, makes a delicious sandwich.

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On backpacking... its still the low season but that is the time of year I was here before just a few years ago and one strange but welcome difference is the dramatic increase in women traveling. They tend to travel in groups where as guys partner or travel alone, but when I was here before the ratio at best was about 2 girls to every 10 guys and now it is at least 50/50.
Interesting, is the world safer? Are women more independent? What would cause such an increase?

Already falling behind

We spent a few days in Stirling where I finished the Chua book (World on Fire).
I thought it was interesting that before I even read it I had been commenting on the economic oppression of ethnic groups, but in a completely different way.

Stories from years ago.
I remember being in London a few years ago (Oct 2002) having a conversation with two Arab men who were drinking beer, making jokes about a christian who doesn't drink and Muslims who do.
We talked for hours about the state of the planet, politics, religion and such. The Iraq war hadn't begun yet but Afghanistan and 9-11 had. The man I talked to the most asked me how I felt about Muslims and I responded that I had no negative feelings and was quite interested in the religion. He felt he could give me a run down on the way of the world, and being younger and the non drunk one of the two of us I felt I could give him a few hours to give me a lecture. He sort of felt he was on a quest to find himself, and wound up drinking beer in a London Hostel talking to two German kids and later me the American boy.

The thing I remembered the most from his few hour long lecture, in which I halfheartedly nodded along, was his comments on Jewish people. I grew up in a town that use to be the MN equivalent of a Jewish Ghetto, 30% of my friends at school (as well as the city in general) were Jewish and I was very interested in his opinion. "The Jews are a clever people, God made them clever because he chose them." Was the most positive thing he could say. The rest was what Chua referred to about typical impressions of Muslims towards Israel and the Jews of the world.
"America has made them powerful, or else (motions of them being wiped away)... They use their cleverness to hurt people, they are greedy... They are secretive, they are ashamed, they are sneaky... They talk amongst themselves and plan things in their clever way... They are selfish... powerful... ...abusive... good with money... they talk in codes...they are planning something, they are sneaky... they don't let anyone know what they are talking about so they can steal from you... the Jews  were behind 9-11" etc etc etc
I objected to many of these statements and the man agreed that he was biased but asked how he could not be.

The next day or a few days later I took a bus to Edinburgh and watched two older Orthodox Jewish men be avoided on the 7 hour bus ride. They talked amongst themselves (certainly people are not all that open on long bus rides-most prefer to sleep). Anyway the two men did indeed talk in phrases that others could not understand, interjecting jokes and words in Hebrew and in Yiddish (despite having English accents -which was weird to me having only heard these words coming from American mouths). They looked through the business sections of newspapers and business magazines.

*I recorded all of this in my journal at the time which is why I remember it.

I remember being mad at them actually, for fulfilling so many of the stereotypes. These men, unlike my friends at home and such stood out, stood on their own and I could totally understand how men who grew up in a biased society would hold it against them, would assume they were plotting.
By the end of the bus ride though my feelings had changed, because I saw in them the bond of fraternity I guess, they reminded me of me and my best friends. Having spent years in close capacity we learned to speak in one liners that only we understood, we had our own interests and couldn't care less what others thought of our small group. These men had been friends for years and it showed. I felt really happy for them.

In that same year I met a hotel operator who very briefly asked me where I thought he was from. I was unaware that there even was a difference between Iraqi, Turk, Arab, etc at the time, (I'm usually aware of these things but the American media had me in the dark).
He was Kurdish. "Where is that?" I asked and that's when he decided he needed to give me his pre-wrapped political propaganda speech about needing a country.

"30 million of us and no country. Like the Jews before Israel, but the world steps in for them and not us? We are spread along the borders of many countries, oppressed, without freedom." 

Kurdistan (the land of the Kurds) is the ethnic and cultural area in which the Kurdish people live. It is within the political borders of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Later in my trip I visited one of those countries. Turkey was one of my favorite countries of the entire trip (and still is one of my favorite places in the world). On my first Day in Istanbul I met a man  who I initially pissed off -later he became a friend. He worked at a hostel in Istanbul, he was the manager of the restaurant upstairs and was incredibly nice and giving.
We had a conversation about Kurds in Turkey and he declared rather proudly that he was Kurdish. I asked him how he felt about Turkish/Kurdish rivalry (discrimination) and he said rather honestly he was sad to see his people being oppressed, treated as second class. He said how despite being able to be proud of his people in his restaurant, had he gone outside just a block down the street and yelled the same thing he might have been beat up. He was not joking and didn't seem to be exaggerating. Toward the end of my stay we discussed the upcoming war in Iraq, it was clear in Turkey well before here as the US was putting pressure on them to use military bases in the Eastern part of Turkey (Kurdistan). My Kurdish friend, along with many men of his age group, was being conscripted into the army.

"They want me to go and fight, you know who I'll be fighting? My brothers and sisters, my people the Kurdish people are in Iraq, and when they cross the borders they will want us to shoot them. They don't care about us, they don't give us a country, they use us to kill each other and we have to."

I didn't understand at the time, I mean how could one understand anything like that. But I have been pretty anti-war since the first gulf war so I knew I objected to his being used.
When men go to join the army in Turkey, their family and friends gather at the bus station next to the bus they will be sent away on. The families gather around them sing and pray, buses are delayed (sometimes for hours) due to this and its not questioned. I saw several of these events while heading out east to Cappadocia. The East of Turkey is very sparsely populated (or so they want you to believe) because its mostly Kurdish people. As I saw more and more of these gatherings, I realized he was right, Kurdish people were entering the army all over the country, the poor, the oppressed the ones without the right or the money to fight back.

Luckily the war didn't have as many people fleeing across the border and "ended" rather quickly. I would be interested to know how these men feel now, but I have no way to contact them. I would be interested to know if my friend is alive.

Turkish children doing a performance piece on War (Spring 2006).