Culture Share: Bathing in Japan by Juliette Wade

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses Bathing in Japan.

Before I actually went to Japan, I'd always been given the impression that Japanese families bathed together. And given my cultural background (and ignorance) I'd figured that was like what I did when I was really little, having baths with my mom or my baby brother. This is not how it works.

Let me start by saying there's a really terrific reason for taking baths in Japan, as opposed to showers. No Japanese home I have visited has had central heating; it's room by room. This means that when I was living with my first host family, I had days when I woke up in the morning with my nose hurting from being so cold; once I checked with a thermometer and discovered it was 3 degrees C in my bedroom. Unfortunately, this was also the period when I didn't feel comfortable with the Japanese way of bathing, and I froze myself silly by trying to take showers. After I moved in with a family that took time to explain things and be friendly, I was sane and used the bath. Still, I would wake to my alarm in the morning, lie still and calculate for several seconds the leap it would take to reach my kerosene heater before making the move and rolling immediately back under my futon cover (I'll do futons another day!).

Every house or apartment I've visited in Japan, no matter how small, has had a bathroom. The traditional Japanese bathroom is completely tiled (or at least water-friendly) and has water sources on the walls outside the bath itself. This means that the area with the sink is not actually in the bathroom. Nor is the toilet, but that too is a topic for another day. When going to bathe, the bather enters the bathroom, sits on a small plastic stool and washes head to toe in the general waterproof area, rinses off, and then at the very end steps into the bathwater, which is mostly for relaxing and warming up. If you've watched the movie My Neighbor Totoro you will have seen an old-fashioned version of this. It makes a lot more sense (at least to me as an American) for people to share the same bathwater when they're each getting clean first.

Some tubs have ways of keeping the water warm, and some don't. All the tubs are deep, though, because they're made for soaking, often up to the neck. High-tech modern tubs may have built-in heating elements, but the funniest thing that ever happened to us when my husband and I lived in Japan was that we got to use an old-style bath belonging to some friends who lived on a tiny island off the north coast of Honshu. In this bath, I was shocked to discover that the longer I sat, the hotter it seemed to get. I had no idea what to make of this, so I took a very quick bath; then my husband discovered the same thing. We had been told before going in to put lots and lots of water in, but because Japanese has a different word for "hot water" (oyu) from "cold water," (omizu) I missed which one had been used, and mistakenly assumed that it was like the US, where when the water gets too cold you add more hot water. Not likely in this case! When my husband and I emerged bright red and asked what was going on, we were told that there was a real fire burning underneath the bathtub! Now I know what a lobster feels like... To make this particular bath pleasant you had to keep pouring in loads of cold water. Little did we know. The family we were staying with laughed their heads off at us, which was great, because it made us feel welcome and like we'd been adopted into the family.

There are also public baths. Towns will have public baths which are relatively simple; resorts (onsen) will have more complicated ones with tubs of different temperatures, fancy waterfalls, etc. Public baths are mostly divided into men's and women's, but are not always. (In some natural hot springs you can even bathe with monkeys - now there's inclusiveness.) Many people will take a washcloth into the tub with them, to cover up critical areas, but in general I haven't noticed a great deal of embarrassment among the people who bathe together in this context. The Japanese people I have observed are more embarrassed about having someone see them in the process of getting undressed than see them naked. Thus, outside the common bath area you'll generally find curtained stalls for the undressing part.

People in a shared bath can in fact be very friendly. Once when we visited an inn near the temples of Mount Koya, I was adopted once by a group of elderly ladies who decided that as a foreigner I must not know how Japanese baths were supposed to work, and took it upon themselves to teach me. Because they were sweet and solicitous, I let them teach me even though I'd been through it a few times by then.

Not only do I find the details of Japanese bathing culturally interesting, I also think they show the degree of cultural difference that is possible surrounding a single activity. You see architectural differences in the bathroom; different shaped tubs; different ways of heating water; a separation of the function of the bathroom (washing) and the bath (soaking); different rules of behavior including gender separation, context for modesty, etc. This doesn't even include the rules about who gets to go first/next/last in the family bathtub. When I first arrived in Japan, I was subjected to strict instruction by my first host family about saying the proper words when I emerged from the bath. The phrase was, "Osaki deshita." At first I had no idea what it meant, but later I realized it was a way of humbly recognizing the fact that the other members of the family had allowed me to bathe before them. Literally it means, "I was foremost."

Of course, since I can't resist generalizing from tiny details of cultural practice, I recommend putting some thought into the details of daily activities in any alien or fantasy culture you're working with. Including a "bath scene" (I have a shower scene in chapter 2 of For Love, For Power) or a scene that shows another common daily activity gives you a terrific opportunity to deepen the culture you're sharing with the reader, to illuminate taboos and other general trends of the society through the use of closely observed detail.


Juliette Wade lived in Japan for a total of three+ years, spending a year with two host families in Kyoto, a year in a dormitory for foreign students in Tokyo, and a year and a half in an apartment in the Tokyo suburbs.

Culture Share: Philippines - Engagement and Wedding feasts in Ifugao

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz discusses engagement and wedding feasts in the Ifugao province of the Philippines.


Engagement and Wedding feasts in Ifugao by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

In Ifugao, courtship begins with a show of informal interest between a man and a woman.  If a man is interested in pursuing a formal relationship with the woman, his first step is to approach the elders of the woman’s family. Not just her parents but also her elders.

While there may be some unspoken agreement (as tends to be the case in this modern age) the woman’s family will still ask the woman for her reply to the man after the man has presented his case and asked for the permission to court her formally.

If the woman says “no” before the elders, this means the man has been turned down. If she says “yes” to the man’s declaration, then it means that they will have to arrange for a formal engagement ceremony. This ceremony is negotiated by the mediator and usually takes place some months after the woman has given her “yes” to the man’s declaration.

To the Ifugao, this formal courtship is the man’s statement of his seriousness and his intent to marry.
If the woman says yes then the following things take place:

1.    The man has to bring a mediator who will speak on his behalf. In my brother’s case, we had a family friend who was a former Mumbaki (native priest). This man agreed to negotiate and act as go-between for elders of the woman’s clan and my brother.
2.    The mediator is very important because it is he who negotiates the date for the engagement ceremony which must take place before the entire clan. This engagement ceremony is called the moma.
3.    The mediator also negotiates the number of pigs the prospective groom must bring to the moma. In my brother’s case, he was asked to bring two pigs of a good size.
4.    During the engagement ceremony itself, only the groom, the mediator and members of the woman’s clan are present.  Sometimes a member of the groom’s family will be allowed to attend, but basically the ceremony is held for the woman’s clan.

These are symbolic elements used during the engagement ceremony:
Rice
Betelnut
Salt
Dried Meat

In some cases, the engagement ceremony is as far as it goes. Marriage is a very costly endeavour and unlike marriages in cities like Manila that are westernized, there is no such thing as rsvp when you get married in Ifugao.

In Ifugao, the wedding feast is a community endeavour with the entire community pitching in and everyone working together to prepare the food and to provide for the wedding feast.

Tradition dictates that marriage should take place a year after the engagement ceremony. Terms are set before the engagement. In the case of my youngest brother, his wife-to-be expressed her desire to continue on with her intention to obtain her degree in medicine. In this, her family as well as my brother agreed to support her.

Terms were also set with regards to what the family desires the man to provide for the marriage ceremony. The normal demand is for the groom to provide ten to twelve good-sized pigs for the wedding feast.

Some couples chose to elope or to get married in the Western way to evade the high costs. Some get married in the city as getting married in the mountains costs a lot. One of our friends who got married spent half a million pesos for her wedding. This included the cost of a wedding performed in the Christianized way as well as the cost of a marriage feast conducted in the Ifugao way.

There is a reason why ten to twelve pigs are asked for.  A marriage is meant to be celebrated with the entire village and it is meant to symbolize a sharing of joy as well as a sharing of abundance.  It is not simply an endeavour of the groom. The bride’s family and her community contribute towards the feast as well. Some will bring rice for the marriage feast, others will bring salt and herbs needed for cooking, and others will bring vegetables as well as other delicious treats.

During the wedding feast itself, there is no telling the exact number of guests who will come as the feast is open for guests who are considered family, friends, and members of community as well as the extended community.

Rochita was the first Filipina writer to be accepted into the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. She attended the workshop in 2009 as the recipient of the Octavia Butler Scholarship. At present, Rochita resides in the Netherlands, but this could change in the future. Her short fiction has been published in The Philippines as well as outside of The Philippines. She has a livejournal at  http://rcloenen-ruiz.livejournal.com

Culture Share: USA (NY) - A Walk to the Subway in Brooklyn, NY, USA

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Nicole Lisa discusses her home of Brooklyn, New York.


A Walk to the Subway in Brooklyn, NY, USA

by Nicole Lisa


The New York City of television and movies is cleaned up or dirtied down or filmed somewhere else entirely, and doesn't much look or feel like the city I know and live in. Walking to the subway—something I do almost every day—reminds me of all the things I love about living here.

Brooklyn, one of the boroughs of New York City, is known for its culturally diverse neighborhoods, like Chinatown in Sunset Park, or Italian Bensonhurst. But in some areas, diversity happens on a micro scale—by block, building or even inside each building.

Before I leave my apartment building, I say good bye to my husband in Spanish (actually “ciao,” borrowed from Italian by some South Americans), hear the video game sounds of Russian television programming at full blast and pass brass or plastic mezuzahs on doorframes (small rectangular cases with a Jewish prayer inside).

During the week, on my 15-minute walk to the subway I dodge groups of teenagers chattering loudly in English, get distracted by a mom urging her son to walk faster in Mexican Spanish (“Orále, hijo”) and glance at a group of men sitting on their heels against the stucco wall of a deli, speaking quietly in Tibetan.

On the weekend, on this same walk, when the sidewalks are full of women, I might be one of the few with her head not covered. Hasidic Jews, dressed in black with their elbows and knees covered by long sleeves and long skirts, cover their hair, either with perfectly styled wigs or snoods that gather their hair at the nape of their necks. They tow large families of kids identically clad in home-made clothes. South Asian women, some Muslim, some not, wear bright butterfly-colored salwar kameez (a tunic and loose trousers) that cover most everything, or saris, that may leave arms bare, but cover knees and chests. Their heads are draped casually with a dupatta (a long scarf), more carefully with a pinned hajib, or even more carefully with a black niqab (a head covering with a veil). Fewer children accompany them, maybe only one or two, dressed in a mix of Western and Asian clothing. On summer days, I often wonder what the women think of me, with my uncovered head and knees and tank top.

Off the main commercial street, the buildings change from small free-standing homes mixed with large brick apartment buildings to mansions built at the turn of the Nineteenth Century. They’re really in a motley of styles, from an English cottage covered in roses, to actual Victorian mansions with wide porches and colorful gingerbread moldings...

to a Swiss chalet–Japanese temple hybrid in green and orange.


Flocks of chickens strut in a few driveways and eye passersby suspiciously. Chickens are popular again in Brooklyn, and people raise them in their backyards or in community gardens. Twenty years ago, mostly recent immigrants, or transplants from rural areas, kept chickens. Now many people who’ve never seen a farm keep them (and bees, since the city just reversed the ordinance making beehives illegal).

In other parts of Brooklyn, the row houses seen on TV are the norm: two- or three-story buildings with facades of brown or white stone, connected all down the block by shared walls, with high stoops leading to the entrance on the parlor floor—the main living area of the house if it's a one-family, or one of several apartments if it’s been divided up. Nineteenth Century cast iron fences with pineapple or urn-like finials enclose the front yards and under-stairs entrances to the ground floors—nowadays the coveted garden apartment with access to the backyard. The iron has to be repainted every five years or so to prevent thick orange rust. And there are specialists who replace the stone facades if they’ve become too damaged by pollution or lack of upkeep.

On Sundays, there’s a greenmarket in front of the library on my way to the subway. Farmers from New York State and nearby New Jersey and Pennsylvania set up tents and sell their bread, dairy, produce, sometimes fish, beef or chicken, and local honey directly to customers. On a fall day, you’d see baguettes and pumpkin pies, pears and apples, winter squash, carrots and potatoes, fresh yogurt and milk (sometimes the illegal unpasteurized kind), and hot apple cider and cider doughnuts. The doughnuts come with or without granulated sugar sprinkled on top. Past the greenmarket is the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) pick-up spot. If you join a CSA, you buy a share, or subscription, of produce for the growing season, and each week you pick up a box of whatever the farmer is growing and lug it home on foot.

Finally, I reach the subway. The whole system is old, dug or raised, and cobbled together over more than 100 years and it looks it: metal wheels squeal against metal tracks, the I-beams are exposed and often unpainted, nascent stalactites and stalagmites grow where mineral-heavy water drips through ceilings and walls year after year, and the big brown rats are bold enough to scamper across the platform while you stand there late at night. It’s dirty in a way that surprises Americans from other parts of the country and visitors from all over the world, but it takes us where we need to go (mostly), and makes New York City unique in the US, a place where a car is a liability, not a necessity.

My stop is outside, looking more like a suburban train station than a tourist's idea of the New York City subway. Sub means below or under, and my stop is below street level in a cut out, but it’s not under anything. Once, we had an out-of-town visitor decide he was lost when he got there. He returned to our apartment rather than risk getting on a strange train going who knows where. To make it more confusing, New Yorkers use “subway” and “train” kind of interchangeably. Subway is the system, but train is what you get on. Which isn’t that much of a problem, but we don’t always distinguish in speech between the subway (a purely intra-city system) and the trains on one of the five rail systems that will take you out of the city.

The suburban train feel is accentuated by the station house. In Manhattan, many subway entrances are simply stairs descending to toll stiles. But many, especially in the other boroughs, have actual station houses. This one, built in 1907 for the street-level, then-privately owned Brighton line (named for the beach/neighborhood of the same name at the last stop) hangs suspended above the tracks.

The other subway option in the neighborhood is this one’s opposite in every way; it’s an elevated train that runs three stories above the street on a wooden platform that feels like it’s been there since the original station opened in 1919 (although I don’t know if that’s true) and yet feels temporary too. The whole structure sways when trains pull in or grind away, and the whole world moves—a mini, localized earthquake. If you look down on the tracks, you can see bits of street, vertiginously. And if you drop your cell phone, fuhgeddaboutit (forget about it), as we really do say in Brooklyn. Maybe just not as often as in the movies.



Nicole Lisa is a Brooklynite by adoption. She writes YA and fantasy and is currently struggling with how to conduct research for her work in progress. She loves to geek out on language discussions, eat and travel. She has lived in Mexico, Nicaragua and several different states in the US and speaks Spanish and first generation Spanglish at home with her Chilean-born husband. She can be found at her blog Reading, Writing and the ‘Rhythmatic of Life and on twitter.

Culture Share: USA - The US through UK Eyes: What's in a Name? And Other Language Differences

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Laura Pepper Wu discusses her culture shock upon arriving in the USA.

The US through UK Eyes: What’s In a Name? And Other Language Differences.

by Laura Pepper Wu

I think the reason that I experienced so much culture shock on my arrival to the US was that I was totally, 100%, unprepared for it. I had lived in Asia for almost 4 years prior, so moving to the US seemed like it was going to be a breeze. I was expecting no language problems, a similar culture, and I felt that since I had seen so many US movies and TV shows that nothing could surprise me. How wrong I was!

The big, obvious differences were the easiest to grasp and get used to. Within a couple of weeks I no longer gasped at the size of the food portions or the oversized cars that rule the road in California. It took me a little longer to grasp the opening hours of the shops, to feel comfortable driving on the right hand side of the road, to remember that I could turn right on a red light, but perhaps only a month or two. It was the small, subtle differences that really got me. The ones that I couldn't even put my finger on until a visiting friend pointed them out, or until they would suddenly dawn on me months into my stay here. This is what I would like to talk about today.

When British people meet for the first time in any situation, be it at the park, at the pub or even at a party, we rarely, if ever, exchange names until it is absolutely necessary. You can talk to someone at the pub for hours until you ask for their name, usually when he or she is about to leave or you have to excuse yourself. Neighbors might say hello to each other every morning for years without ever knowing what to call each other. If you bump into someone on the street and talk for the first time it might be considered rather intrusive to ever ask for their name without having a good reason to know (for example exchanging phone numbers or to find out if you know people in common). And yet here in the US I am asked for my name on a daily basis. It's usually the first thing people ask when we meet; they extend their hand and say "Hi, I'm John" even before we have had a conversation.

The first time I was asked my name in Starbucks I was shocked that they were going to call out my name and everyone in the store would know who I was and what I had ordered. It just seemed so personal!

I also realized early on that it is important for Americans to be called by their full name and that shortening the name might be considered rude or disrespectful. For Brits it's the norm; David is always Dave, Benjamin is always Ben, Thomas is usually Tom. And the abbreviations don't stop there. We will often replace a name with honey, love, babe, chuck, duck, sweetie, mate - anything to avoid using the name which might be construed as aggressive or too direct. In my dealings with American friends I have found it to be quite the opposite. Emails and texts will often begin with Dear Laura, Hi Laura and so on, which I have slowly learned is not aggressive but is instead considered to be respectful. This took me a while to get used to - I have a string of nicknames that I am known by and nobody calls me Laura in England except for my mother (and only when she is angry!)

Moving on from names, but remaining on the topic of the use of language, another subtle culture difference that I notice is the usage of the words sorry and thank you. Observe a transaction with a Brit over the counter and the Brit might say thank you several times; once when handing over the item to the cashier, once when receiving change, once when receiving the item back, and perhaps once again just for good measure. Here in the US I noticed that one thank you is sufficient, if it is said at all. Sorry is again used sparingly compared to the Brits; we are more likely to apologize to others for every small inconvenience that we cause which I have been told appears as passive or weak to an American.

When we talk about the difference between American English and British English, the emphasis is often on vocabulary. We say porridge, you say oatmeal; we say cotton bud, you say q-tip and so on. But the differences extend much further than that, to grammar as well. Brits ask questions differently using a lot more of the present perfect tense: “Have you had a nice day?” versus “Did you have a nice day?”. “Have you been dieting?” versus “Are you on a diet?”. I’ve certainly sub-consciously used the present perfect less since moving to the US; many of my friends and family in California speak English as a second language and would certainly have difficulty understanding what I was saying if I spoke English how I did 5 years ago.

To anyone making the transatlantic move, or to those in business who might deal with clients or colleagues from “across the pond”, I think it’s important for us to realise that just because we speak a similar language, we are two different cultures with two very different ways of thinking and interacting. This is something that has surprised me and continues to surprise me everyday and is worth keeping in mind.

How about you: have you ever had culture shock in a land that you thought you should be familiar with?


Born and raised in England, Laura Pepper Wu set off to Japan for a post-college adventure 5 years ago and hasn't quite made it back yet! She and her husband now live in sunny California where she writes to her heart's content and runs the site http://LadiesWhoCritique.com: a community for writers of all levels to find the perfect critique partner.

Culture Share: USA - The Reno you didn't see

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures. Colin Fisk discusses Reno, Nevada in the wake of the 2011 WorldCon science fiction and fantasy convention.

After reading a lot of Twitter and blogs posts from WorldCon about Reno, I thought people might want to see a different side of the town than the absurdly tacky, smoke-filled casinos that were, for many people, their only images of Reno. Even those who left the convention for the morning “Walk with the Stars” didn’t see an area of town that would leave a favorable impression. I should clarify this was not the fault of the organizers, but given the walk was designed to get people out of the hotel/convention hall for a quick stroll and have them back in time for the first panels of the day, the options were limited and the route chosen was the only one which had any small amount of nature in it.

The sad truth is that the area between the Peppermill and the Atlantis/Convention Center is on the edge of the low income/gang territories. So for those convention goers, Reno definitely gave an impression that was less than favorable. And, should people have decided to venture downtown, they most likely did so down South Virginia which is a quirky combination of art stores, neat resale/antique shops, low rent hotels and a lot of smut: from sleazy lingerie shops to exotic dancer “gentleman’s” clubs complete with large LED signs which rival the Peppermill and Atlantis. And then there’s downtown. In the space of six blocks you can go through the beautiful Riverwalk with its art galleries and downtown water adventure park which is home to many events including an annual kayak race, stroll past one of the oldest churches in the west as well as another which still has a working pipe organ and come face to face with a lot of half-gutted casinos which were being refurbished into luxury condominiums when the economy went south as well as pawn shops and the flashing lights of gambling halls in “attract mode.”

Looking at Reno from these viewpoints it doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer.

I won’t go into the amazing laundry list of places to go and geological wonders the area has (for example, most people don’t know that the Truckee river, which flows through downtown, runs south to north, one of a few rivers in the world to do so), which were discussed at the aptly named Welcome to Reno panel which opened WorldCon on Wednesday. I’m not even going to discuss the artistic culture which ranges from the aforementioned Riverwalk, a plethora of pre-Burning Man events (the majority of the large temples are constructed in Reno), to the month-long celebration of art in July with the not so creative name of Artown (http://www.renoisartown.com/) as well as many Burning Man groups such as the Controlled Burn fire dancers who make their permanent residence here.

From my perspective, one of the attractions of Reno that many people who visit will most likely never experience is the melding of suburbia with nature.



I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the better part of twenty-five years. During that time, the majority of my time was spent in suburban areas. On any given day, the fauna you were exposed to was limited to small birds with perhaps the occasional raccoon or opossum at night.

The area we live in in Reno was swampy farmland some fifteen years ago. Today, the majority of the swamp has been drained and large suburban tracts exist. However, in order to maintain adequate drainage, throughout these suburban areas there are ponds and the natural channels which fed the wetlands less than two decades before.

As a result, there exists small ecosystems within the cookie cutter housing tracts, all lined with walking paths which allow nature to maintain an odd balance within the intrusion of human housing growth.

In the open space behind our house (less than 100 yards to a major road so not as wide as to encourage a complete reclaiming by nature), there are a pair of mated Northern Harriers that have lived there for the five years we have. It’s a daily occurrence for the female of the pair to cruise through our backyard at dusk and often the male hunts through our yard several times during the daylight. The same area this year has been home to a pair of mated Red-tailed hawks. Though we live several miles from the hills, it’s not uncommon during the summer to hear coyotes trying to bait the local dogs out into the field behind our house.


My wife and I walk most days or evenings along this path; a loop totaling two and a half miles which takes us past a pond some two hundred yards from our front door and down alongside the drainage canals. As an amateur photographer, I’ve now cataloged seventeen or more different types of ducks in the pond, not to mention the Great Blue Herons and Egrets (both Snowy and Great,) and, much to our delight, a mated pair of Night Herons which had three offspring a year ago, two of which have stayed in the area as well.

Several times a year, the pond also hosts white pelicans. As I understand it, many years ago Pyramid Lake (home to some amazing Paiute petroglyphs on the nearby reservation) was an inland sea. As such, there are still pelicans which are native to the area, and while there has been a group of three that have been weekending on our pond for several months, usually our view of the pelicans come in the form of a vanguard of consisting of a few one afternoon, a flotilla upwards of sixty the following day and the next morning they take flight again toward their ultimate destination.

The additional birds which inhabit the pond and drainage range from the American Avocet, to Sandpipers, Virginia Rail, Sora as well as Flickers, Tern and vibrantly colored Swallows. During the winter, the pond has plays host to the occasional Snow Goose as well as many Kestrels.


So, for every glowing slot machine that beckons you to leave your money behind, nature counters with the occasional black bear wandering down from the Lake Tahoe area. For each classic car that comes to town for Hot August Nights, many species of hawks fly above the town. During the ski season, four wheel drive SUV’s with California plates slip and slide through intersections as magpies look down contemptuously from lamp posts. And while the bald eagle balloon which makes its appearance every year at the Great Balloon Race is neat, it doesn’t compare to the actual Bald and Golden Eagles which float higher than their propane-heated counterparts.

Colin Fisk lives in Reno, Nevada.

Culture Share: Australia - Through the Looking Glass

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses her discovery of Melbourne, Australia.

Before I ever went to Australia, my images of it were mostly about animals. After all, we see them on nature programs - the koala, the kangaroo, the dingo, the emu, the platypus and occasionally the echidna. When I met my husband, who hails from Melbourne, I'm embarrassed to say that was the first time I'd ever taken the time to think about the human population of Australia to any extensive degree. Obviously I've learned a lot more since then! (Phew!)

When I started visiting Australia with a view to making it my second home, I got a very different view of it. I came out of the experience of Europe, where there are lots of countries side by side, often with distinct and mutually unintelligible languages - that, and Japan, where almost everything is unintelligible at first. From that perspective, Australia seemed much like home. It's not even just that the people speak English. The place is clearly a former English colony, and all kinds of little things resemble America, even as a whole lot of other things resemble England. The result is something uniquely Australian, but to this day whenever I'm there I have the sense that I've traveled through the looking-glass.

I remember how Lewis Carroll described the world within the looking-glass: every part of it that you could see by looking in the mirror was the same as this world, but every part of it that was outside the reach of the mirror's view was entirely different.

It fits rather well, of course, with the fact that in Australia, people drive on the left-hand side of the road. On my first visit, I had come direct from Japan where they also drive on the left, so it didn't trouble me much to look right first when crossing the street. However, since I never actually drove a car in Japan, the trouble I had was in walking to the incorrect side of the car. To this day, even after all the time I've spent in Australia, I still occasionally walk to the right side of the car expecting to find the passenger's seat! When you're driving, in fact, it's less difficult to figure out which side of the road to be on, and much harder to choose the correct side of the steering wheel (windshield wipers or turn signal, which in Australia is called the "indicator"). Also, because of one's different position in the car, it's easy to drive too close to the left-hand shoulder.


There are other things too that seem literally backwards. The toilet and other drains swirl the opposite direction (I had a commenter point out that the association between this and the Coriolis effect was considered urban legend - but I have noticed the backwards swirl, and I wonder what else might cause it!). Then of course there is the fact that autumn (they don't call it fall) comes in April and spring in September.

I very clearly remember walking down the sidewalk (the "pavement") with my husband on a beautiful 80-degree-Fahrenheit day (roughly 27 degrees C to an Australian) which happened to be Christmas Eve. You could buy Christmas cards with Santa on a surfboard at the news agent's, which is like a stationery shop plus newspaper and magazine source, and all the while the public speakers were playing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." It was extremely surreal for someone from the northern hemisphere.

One of the other interesting things I've discovered in Australia, which may or may not be common to other places in the southern hemisphere, is that the quality of sunlight is different. My gut instinct is to say that the sunlight seems brighter, though I'm pretty sure it's not literally brighter, only coming from a different angle. Certainly to anyone accustomed to gauging direction based on the sun's position, it can be a confusing place (my father and my brother noted this particularly).

As a person from California I am quite accustomed to the presence of eucalyptus trees. The San Francisco Bay Area is full of eucalyptus groves. What stood out to me about the gum trees of Australia were the sheer number and variety of them. Australia is home to vast forests which appear, at least at first glance, to be composed of about 75% eucalyptus. The other thing, of course, is that when you're in a grove of gum trees in Australia it's worth looking up to see if you can find a koala. It took me a good three years or so to break my husband of this "looking-up" habit whenever we encountered eucalyptus groves. I can see why he misses the possibility of koalas, though. While I haven't seen many, in spite of much looking, I still love the possibility of finding one myself. And of course I love the sound of kookaburras.

There are so many details that I could go on forever, but I do want to mention two things I particularly notice about Melbourne. In California we have a lot of strip malls - on a piece of land to one side of the road you'll have a large parking lot and on the inward side of it will be a long building, sometimes with end pieces like a bracket. This building will be divided into a number of smaller shops and restaurants. Melbourne doesn't have these strip malls. There is no "parking lot at the side of the road" phenomenon. Going to run errands is called "going up the shops" and the shops are right along both sides of the main road. Often enough the shop buildings share a wall, even if their heights and appearances are different. The closest thing to a strip mall is a long building along one side of the road (with the pavement directly in front of it), which gets divided into smaller establishments. You might find a news agent's, a chemist's (pharmacy), an op shop (like Goodwill), a bakery, a milk bar (like a snack bar, with ice cream bars and meat pies and candy bars, etc.), all side by side. Their doors will be kept open, but will have thick strips of clear plastic hanging down across them to prevent the entry of flies (you push them aside as you enter). The stores won't have small cloth awnings. Often what you'll find is something that appears half awning, half roof - an awning that sticks far out from the front of the building, supported by poles, which entirely shades the sidewalk. The names of the shops are labeled above this, or at the front edge.

Melbourne also has some beautiful historic homes with special ironwork which deserves mention. I see it as one of the defining characteristics of Melburnian architecture, much like the ironwork that you see in New Orleans, but in an entirely different style.

Australia is an awesome place, and I find Melbourne to be one of my favorite places in the world, even beyond the natural affection that comes with its being the home of my favorite person. I hope you'll have a chance to go through the looking glass too, one day. When you get there, remember that "G'day" is pronounced with some stress on both halves, like you're saying "good day" without the first "d."

G'day everybody!

Culture Share: Middle East - A Glimpse into an Uncommon Childhood

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Margaret McGaffey Fisk describes an experience she had while living in the Middle East as a child of the Foreign Service.

A Glimpse into an Uncommon Childhood by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

I am a Foreign Service brat. What this means is that my parents at the time of my growing up - most of the time my father, then both parents, and finally my mother after my father retired - were Foreign Service Officers, members of the United States diplomatic corps. I grew up in many countries (well okay not that many) but I grew up in the Middle East. And my parents, to be perfectly honest, fit the model of hippies very well. This worked as an advantage for the State Department because they got people who were fascinated by other cultures and enjoyed learning languages. These are all aspects that make a diplomat good, make a diplomat part of the place where they are, at least in my opinion of course.

One of the things that we used to do to connect to the country where we lived is go on what my parents called Magical Mystery Tours. Now, I didn't learn about the Beatles version of Magical Mystery Tours until much later. I thought it was my parents' creation and that they were so creative.

Anyway, how a magical mystery tour worked was everybody got in the car--there were five of us, my parents, my two sisters, and me - and we took turns at every intersection choosing a direction. The only part that was not random was we got to choose the starting point. In our case, this was almost without exception, "the mountains" (usually any exceptions were when Mom overruled, and the inner city tours were really just as fabulous in reality). This meant taking our Range Rover, or whatever off-road vehicle we had at the time, into the desert to climb mountains, visit abandoned structures, meet nomadic tribes or small villages, and whatever else
we could find enjoyment in on our random paths.

On one of those trips - at this point I don't remember age or which country, but we were small (I believe it was Afghanistan) - we found a minaret standing in the middle of the desert completely by itself, nothing anywhere near. Now if that happened in the States, you might think twice about it. In Afghanistan or Iran, we found a lot of these. We explored all sorts of archeological sites that were left unattended.

In this case we went up to the top of the minaret using the staircase that spiraled up its length. We looked at the minaret, we looked from it, and knowing us, we might have even tried some calls from the top. I don't remember for sure, but we enjoyed exploring this archeological site.

And then we went down to the bottom, set out our picnic, and sat down to eat.

Now the key point of the picnic in my memory is that we were drinking Coke in the old green glass bottles, something that becomes relevant later.

Anyway, so here we were drinking our Cokes, eating sandwiches, and having a wonderful time in the middle of a desert in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, coming up over a hill...was an army.

What did we do?

Well, I don't remember specifically what I did. Probably gawked, more fascinating in what was happening than interested in self-preservation.

My parents were not so taken in by the sight. They grabbed all of us bodily, along with the picnic things and threw everything into the car. I remember all three of us were huddling in the back back, the space behind the back seat. Yes, this was before seatbelt laws and it was a lot faster to toss us in with all the picnic stuff.

Then they got into the car and drove off as fast as they could.

This is where my memories become distinct, tactile even.

I remember sitting on the hard floor of the back back with my thumb over the top of my open Coke, peeking my head up to see these soldiers charging after us. They were firing their rifles right at us, and I remember the sounds of the guns going off, and laughing with my sisters as we hit bumps that sent us bouncing toward the ceiling.

Great excitement.

And every once in a while I would pop my thumb off the Coke and swallow a sip with my mouth over the whole thing, then slam my thumb back so I didn't make a mess.

It was wonderful and exciting and marvelous.

Meanwhile my mother was twisted back in her seat screaming, "Keep your heads down," every time we sneaked a look.

It took at least ten years before I turned my own perceptions around when writing a fictionalized account for a class and saw the situation through my mother's eyes. She was not caught up in the adventure. She was sitting there seeing real guns fired at her children and trying to keep us safe.

However, that has not, clearly, changed the excitement and delight of the whole situation, a wonderful day trip into the desert that became an adventure. I guess there's no question as to why, years later when I saw it, I really enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Arc?

I have no idea what kind of person I would have turned out to be if I'd been raised in the States, but the life I did lead was full of wonderful fodder for tales like this, while giving me a grounding in the consequences of when cultures clash. Not only that, but I spent my days with ex-pat or diplomatic folks, the reason behind my current amateur philosopher status.

Thanks, Juliette, for the opportunity to relive this moment, and I hope you all have enjoyed reading something I usually recount in person with gesticulating arms and tonal emphasis.


Margaret McGaffey Fisk writes science fiction and fantasy; she lived with her family in more than one Middle Eastern country as a child, but currently resides in Reno, Nevada.

Culture Share: England - The Routemaster

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: London Monsters discusses "The Routemaster," also known as the London double-decker bus.

The trusted red Routemaster with its rounded corners and open rear platform was for many city dwellers their preferred way of getting around London. As a youngster, I could travel from Leafy Barnes to Liverpool St Station for 60p and would spend an hour or so people watching as the streets passed by. Every inch of the ‘red elephant’ was carefully hand crafted with purpose, from the solid oak upper floor to the yellow bell cord summoning the driver your intention that you were about to vacate the bus at the next stop. The chord was truly democratic device, leaving passengers a way of communicating to the unseen driver in the cab at the front. The windows had chromed knobs that rotated and wound down the window slots for added ventilation, unlike the sealed Metro monsters of today.

Designed by Londoners for Londoners who travelled by bus, its oncoming growl summoned millions from their newspapers and novels as it approached. The wide front grinning grill and the bulky engine purring like a cat as people hopped on and off. Passengers were so close together that they were obliged to talk as though they were friends, usually about shared experience on topics that they shared: the state of the roads, the traffic and that ever-popular British subject, The Great British Weather.

The conductor, usually a cheerful Jamaican, would whistle a tune as we creaked and bounced our way along London’s famous landmarks: ‘Olympia, ‘Barkers’, ‘The Albert’, ‘Knighty Barracks’, ‘The Ritz’ and the ‘Dilly’, all names that rolled off the lips of the cheerful conductor as he rolled out tickets on the steel roller ticket dispenser, strapped around his hips and shoulders like one of those modern baby carriers.

The Routemaster was a really intimate space bringing people closer together than would be allowed today. The favoured seats were upstairs at the front, giving panoramic views of London’s streets as it weaved through traffic in a pre bus-lane era. Many boys (and a few girls) played ‘Bus Driver’ games on early trips around town. Other favourite spots were the back seat above the curved stairs at the rear, just the right size for an intimate couple with wandering hands and a taste for a hint of privacy. The rear window provided surreal framed images of legs and arms passing diagonally as passengers squeezed past each other in the confined intimacy of the rear steps.

Passengers were squeezed together on tartan benches who swayed in unison as the bus turned this way and that, stitching together the villages of London from Archway to Peckham Rye. Some of the Routemaster bus routes weaved their way right across the capital and took several hours. It was, for some cross-London travellers, a home from home.

This piece appeared in London Monsters (copyright 2011) and appears thanks to Simon Rogers, who lives in London. Any comments good or bad are welcome at: London.monsters@gmail.com

Culture Share: Serbia - Slava, the Celebration of the Family Saint

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Alma Alexander discusses Slava, the celebration of the family saint.

Where I come from, under the wing of the Orthodox Christian church, birthdays (the actual date of one’s birth) have long been secondary in importance to one’s so-called “Imendan”, name-day, which is celebrated on the day that belongs to the saint after whom one is named – it is in some ways akin to the naming rules of some religious more Western countries where it’s the Catholic faith that holds sway and whatever the actual name given to a baby might be there has to be an honest-to-goodness saint’s name embedded in there somewhere. (That’s why so many Irish girls are Mary Something, and so many French babies struggle with unwieldy middle names.) In Serbia, where I was born, the “Imendan” was the important personal celebration – but more than that, there is another custom which hinges on a saint’s identity and which is I believe unique to the Serbian Orthodox faith. This is something that we know as “Slava”.

The word literally means “Celebration” – or maybe “Thanksgiving”. It is not an individual but rather a family celebration, and it is kept on the feast day of the patron saint of the entire family. The identity of this saint depends on the day on which the family celebrating the Slava first became Christians. If you consider the idea of this more closely you will realize that the Slava of a family is something that unites the entire family under the banner of this commemoration of their first acceptance of their faith, and the same saint has been celebrated by individual families for centuries, for generations. Even during the most suppressive of the Communist years, when the church was not popular and the people were hardly church-going on a regular basis, the Slava was kept – because in a lot of ways it is embedded in a secular as well as a religious bedrock. A Slava day defines you, as a Serb, in much the same way that keeping Seder would identify you as a Jew. There are celebrations and traditions which are passed down from generation to generation together with the icon of the family saint which is a treasured heirloom from the old to the young over the passage of decades and centuries.

In the traditional religious sense, on the day of the family Slava the family home is literally considered consecrated, if just for the day – it becomes a church, and the family within its congregation. It is a day for the family to gather from near and far, traditionally at the home of the oldest living member of the family – the holder of the family icon – and the gathered people, from great-grandparents to babes in arms, gather together to celebrate the existence of that family, to pray for the shining futures of the young ones, and to remember the ones who have passed from the family circle. This is perhaps one of the most poignant and moving aspects of this tradition – the dead, the beloved ancestors, are not forgotten. The Slava has been called a “spiritual family reunion” by some, and while some may recoil from that I think it is beautiful – in this church, in this culture, death has no dominion, and the grave does not sunder loved ones. Those of us who have gone ahead are as present at these family celebrations as the noisiest of toddlers being kept a solicitous eye on by young parents. We are all one, we are family, we exist in a timeless place where there is always a memory. My own grandparents, two decades and more dead now, are as present to me on Slava days as if they were still sitting across the table from me at the family feast. I have loved them; they loved me; they live within me, always, under the blessing of the Slava.

The religious aspects of the celebration are – perhaps inevitably, given the identity of the celebrants – wrapped up and embedded in that feast. The family gathering generally culminates in a shared smorgasbord which the women of the family labour for days to produce – but there are two things on the menu that have deep religious and spiritual significance. One of them is the so-called “Slavski Kolac” (it’s pronounced “slavsky kolach”, and literally means Slava cake) which is a sort of bread baked specially for the occasion. It bears on its crust the sign of the cross. But before you even get to the table you are greeted with a bowl of a special dish known as “Koljivo” (pronounced “kolyivo”) which is a dish made from wheat, nuts, sugar, and cloves. It is offered to visitors at the door in a bowl, and a spoonful is taken almost as a ritual greeting with “Sretna Slava!” (Happy Slava!) offered in return. The wheat has deep ecclesiastical meanings of its own – symbolizing such things as the Resurrection of Christ – but this is… a remembrance dish, made and offered and consumed in remembrance of all those who are only here with the family in spirit. Every morsel of koljivo I take on November 11, my own Slava day, serves to take my mind back to those vanished and beloved grandparents whom I carry in my heart.

Another of the Slava traditions is the candle – one that is supposed to have been purchased at the Church, or at least blessed by a priest, and which, once lit, is not permitted to be snuffed out. It must be allowed to burn down naturally until it gutters out of its own accord. To do otherwise invites death into the family. (In practice, this has often meant that somebody has to sit up with the candle until the wee small hours, until the moment it dies – leaving unattended open flames in a household, particularly one with (for instance) pets, is not a good idea and it needs to be supervised; I have resorted, on occasion, to having the guttering candle tucked away in a metal foil nest in the bathtub in a bathroom firmly closed to unauthorized entry, if it persisted in still burning at two or three in the morning – but nothing on earth would induce me to be practical and just snuff it out and go to bed. It must be allowed to burn down in God’s time, not my own.

Slava is passed on through the generations – but it gets complicated by intermarriage and the lineages of the families which celebrate different saints. It is usually the husband’s patron saint that the family takes on when a newly-wed couple choose their Slava – but the family icon is kept and treasured by the eldest member of the family and that only gets passed down to the next heir after he inherits the mantle of Eldest. In my own family it was an interesting wrinkle that my grandmother and grandfather proved to have the same Slava day. This is very unusual, especially if the saint is a relatively minor one, and in this case the saint in question was St Avram, or Avramije – which translates into Abraham in the more westernized versions – and when I was younger I was extremely puzzled for a long time as to what the Jewish biblical patriarch Abraham had done to deserve being turned into a Christian saint. But this was a different Avram, whose feast day fell on November 11, and my grandparents both held allegiance to him as their families’ patron saint –and thus he became ours. This particular family, mine, has almost disintegrated in some respects – my grandparents had no sons, only two daughters, and each daughter produced a daughter in her turn, and one of those (my cousin) married a Jewish man, and so out of faith, and has only daughters herself in any event and the other (myself) married a relatively atheist American and has no children at all. The two cousins, myself and my aunt’s daughter, both still keep Slava anyway, and our husbands have been trained to accept this and even to partake in it, being “adopted” into the family and the faith. But after us, the branch grinds into dust because there is no son to inherit, no more generations to carry it further.

This “adoption” is partly possible because of the dual religious/secular nature of the celebration – because a big part of the family Slava is, well, family. And food. Traditionally anyone who calls at the door wishing the family a happy Slava must be fed; the women make appetisers and entrees, roast beasts of every stripe, and soups, and salads, and sweets of every description from tea cookies to rich cakes, and it’s all brought out and set out around the icon of the family saint, for the nourishment of the living and the souls of the dead. There is so much light, and love, and laughter, and remembrance. It is truly a celebration, a celebration of life and of living, and it is a protection and a shelter against the onslaught of a world that does not care. FAMILY cares, and you will always have family – and the family will always have their Slava.

I will be celebrating once again, with the koljivo and the candle and the icon, come November 11. In honor of that St Avram on whose feast day, once, a long time ago, the distant ancestors whose blood now flows in my veins laid down their pagan beliefs and embraced Christianity. In memory of their blood and their bones, and the laughter and the loving arms of the grandparents who once loved me.

Happy Slava.


Alma Alexander is a writer of both YA and not-so-YA literature, published in 14 languages worldwide. Born in a country which no longer exists, she's made a career of living all over the world - and currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two cats.

Culture Share: Latvia - Living at the Crossroads

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Jelena M. discusses the mixed peoples of Riga, Latvia.

LIVING AT THE CROSSROADS by Jelena M.

I was born in Riga, Latvia in a Russian-speaking family; however we are of a mixed European origin. This made me something of a cultural chimera. I’ve been introduced to several traditions, yet I do not hold any religious beliefs nor fully belong with any particular cultural tradition of my blood relatives (or anything else, in fact). Sometimes this makes me an outcast - I live in constant conflict with my “inner cultural self”, who is “blank” and the “outside world”, trying to force things I cannot relate to on me.

Nevertheless, I hold a professional interest in cultures. I’m a writer and (hopefully) have the ability to dissect and process them in order to make my own for the sake of world building. I might say I’m like the ruins of long time past, which have seen many peoples and epochs. And when all is long gone, they are the only witnesses remained, standing in silence, observing.

I wonder if it is a coincidence that I’m living here. Geographically this small piece of land had been a crossroads for a very long time going as far as prior to the recorded history.

Looking at the concrete block apartment houses in my neighborhood it is hard to imagine this place that was still covered with ice some fifteen to ten thousand years ago, with a Post-Glacial period only starting roughly around 6800 BC. That’s why the land in the whole country is relatively flat, with some hills and sandstone cliffs.

#1 Zvartes rock, the view from the Witches’ rock

Since the very end of the late Paleolithic many different peoples walked this territory until the proto-Balts settled here around 2000 BC. It is possible that the three groups - proto-Scandinavians, proto-Balts and Finno-Ugric tribes had contact with one another. And probably since the Stone Age the route which involved the Dnieper and the Daugava played an important role in establishing a communications network between East and West through the Baltic. Unfortunately it is hard to say how these tribes lived, whom they traded with and whom they warred with. There is little info about the customs and cultures of the area prior to the end of the Viking age. Perhaps the best sources of knowledge, besides the archaeological finds and a few historical records done by other nations, are the languages and geographical names. They can tell stories spanning back several hundreds, if not thousands of years.

#2 Turaida (“Thor’s garden” in Livonian language) in the Gauja National Park

Of course, Vikings were also interested in controlling the river mouths and usable ports, but local tribes made life difficult for them and conquests were not easy or sustained. They did however leave their influence which is very much part of today’s Latvian culture, as Viking presence in the region forced change and sometimes unification of tribes.

Now, the Vikings journeyed around the world mostly as their geography allowed them. Sweden was the primary source of the Viking activity from present day St. Petersburg to the Arab world and Byzantium (present day Istanbul). And again, this was done by the extensive river systems of the Baltic region and Russia, so the Swedish Vikings would travel back and forth.

The local tribes of Latvians, Lithuanians, Livonians and Estonians managed to maintain their independence until the eventual conquest by the German Teutonic Knights, the continuous Swedish presence and Christianization in the 13th century. The Livonian Confederation soon emerged, creating more distinct boundaries and cultural divisions.

Several diverse tribes of people lived in this region. The Estonians were in the north, and in the middle and southern sections were the Livs, Lettgallians, Selonians, Semigallians and the Couronians. These tribes existed as separate entities and all lacked a real hierarchical structure, which made them more susceptible to conquest. Of these peoples, the Estonians and the Livs spoke Finno-Ugric languages while the tribes in the south spoke Indo-European languages. The diversity of language increased the difficulty for these peoples to form alliances. These southern languages would combine over the centuries (with the exception of Livonian) to make up what is now the Latvian language.

The Livonian Confederation was a loosely organized alliance between the Roman Catholic Church, crusading German knights, German merchants, vassals, cities and existing indigenous peoples in this area. The strategic location of the Baltic region has made it a prime target for other nations’ expansionist ambitions. With shores on the Baltic sea and important rivers such as the Daugava in Latvia, commerce was one of the prime attributes this region had to offer.

#3 Koknese castle (Kokenhuzen), ca. 1209

The Hanseatic League (Hansa), formed around the middle of the 12th century by German and Scandinavian seafaring merchants, followed the Livonian conquest into the eastern Baltic. For this reason, the first and most important of the eastern Baltic trading cities, Riga, was established in 1201 at the mouth of the Daugava.

The territories that comprised the Livonian Confederation had always held an attraction to foreign powers. The sea ports and the commerce they brought, and the stable agrarian economy with a strong work force were factors that appealed to Livonia’s neighbors. By the sixteenth century the surrounding countries were solidifying their power structure and looking for ways to expand their territories. And since instabilities weakened the Confederation from within, it became a prime target. And after the collapse of the Livonian Confederation the region was divided up among the neighbors.

Latvia is fairly small and throughout the centuries has been repeatedly attacked and invaded by many nations: Swedes, Danes, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans and Russians. Throughout all the centuries, however, no such thing as a Latvian state existed so the borders and definitions of who exactly fell within that group are largely subjective. The state borders as they are now formed only in the beginning of the 20th century. Yet more wars devastated the land and its people.

But people who live at the crossroads don’t assimilate into cultures; they incorporate cultures layer by layer. This is very well seen in the Latvian mythology and folklore. The top has some Christian influences; the core is that of a very ancient pagan descent. For example, the public holiday Jāņi. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates 24th of July as the birthday of St. John the Baptist. But there is little to no connection between Jāņi and this Christian figure. Jāņi is an ancient festival originally celebrated in honour a Latvian pagan deity Jānis, referred to as a "Son of God" in some ancient Latvian folksongs. It is held in the night from 23 June to 24 June to celebrate the summer solstice and takes its roots in the ancient earth fertility cult, the sun cult and the phallic cult.

This layering also creates tension. In the modern society it is showing itself through the struggles of ethnic majority and minorities. Cultures do not clash as openly as in some other cases (e.g. like during the crusades), yet where they live, people start to long for cultural uniformity in one form or another. Some ethnic Latvians openly dislike Russians; some ethnic Russians openly dislike Latvians; both were born here, in Latvia; both are citizens of this country (we also have non-citizens, the so called “aliens”: they were born here and lived all their lives, yet no compromise has been found). Some people don't understand one simple thing -- we are not like the previous generation, and the generations before that -- we don't belong where they belonged. And we are not responsible for the historical events that happened before we were born; we are something new. The product of this country.

Another thing that's happening here, kids use 'foreign' cursing or junk words without understanding what they truly mean. It is funny and sad at the same time to witness how languages deform. And that is what the Latvians were so afraid of. The language will change. The culture will change. Again.

However, it has been said by many, including historians and cultural anthropologists, that by observing the past, we can ‘find’ ourselves in the present; and therefore foretell the future. By this process we hope to learn from mistakes and lead richer lives.

People usually ask me why I’m not living some place else, some place where my ancestors were. I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Jelena M. lives in Riga, Latvia.

Culture Share: USA (California) - Eastern Friends on Western Shores

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Lillian Csernica discusses discovering international friendships in Santa Cruz, California.

Eastern Friends on Western Shores
by Lillian Csernica

I live in the Santa Cruz mountains. There are times, especially in summer, when it feels like the whole world comes to Santa Cruz. Perhaps it does. Out on the wharf I've heard Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and even Turkish. I have a particular interest in the cultures of Asia, which has led me to make some wonderful friends right in my own area. Out of respect for their privacy, I won't be referring to them by name.



The Lady from Bangkok

A new Thai restaurant just opened up in my area. I think Coconut Milk Noodle Soup is absolutely divine, so I couldn't wait to indulge my passion for lemongrass and galangal root. The lady who waited on me was very kind, explaining the words on the menu I couldn't figure out and making recommendations about which dishes went well together. I ordered Angel Wings as an appetizer and the duck curry with white rice. As I so often do, I got into conversation with the lady and asked her what part of Thailand she was from. She said Bangkok, as if that was the most obvious answer in the world. I happen to know the name the Thai themselves use for Bangkok, but when I tried to say “Krung Thep,” the lady laughed good-naturedly and pronounced it properly for me. When I mentioned I had friends who'd lived in Chiang Mai, that seemed to prove my credentials as more than a tourist. The lady and I chatted about the various wonderful sights I hope to see if I'm ever fortunate enough to get to Thailand.

Now thanks to the excellent novels of John Burdett (Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo, and the rest of the series), I have learned a lot about Thai culture, most specifically the art of the wai. A wai is performed with the hands together palm to palm and held in front of the face while bowing. Exactly how high or low you hold your hands in this position reflects both your social status and the status of the person you're addressing. In this aspect it's much like bowing in Japanese. You really need to know the fine nuances of who's who to get it just right. Even so, I was so grateful for the Thai lady's conversation that I made her a very respectful wai. Up until then she had what might be called her “business face” on, the cheerful way a waitress speaks to a customer. When she saw me wai, her eyes opened wide, her jaw dropped, and her face generally lit up. “How do you know to do that?” she asked in a breathless tone. I explained that I read a lot about Thailand. Well, from that moment on it was clear she considered me just too cool. She returned the wai and said something in Thai that I'm afraid I didn't understand, and didn't grab the opportunity to have her translate for me. That's all right. There will be another time when I enjoy the excellent Thai food there and the company of that very nice Thai lady.



The Korean Couple

In the same shopping center as my favorite Chinese restaurant, there is a florist shop called the Flower Outlet that's run by a very nice Korean couple. In addition to the usual cut flowers, they have a marvelous variety of orchids and those impressive bamboo plants that have been braided into lovely shapes. It's amazing how wide a variety of flower-related merchandise they can fit into their relatively small shop. Those fountains with the little water wheels or the bamboo dippers that fill up then spill, a selection of lavender-related products including sachets stuffed with fresh lavender, and of course all kinds of vases and pots for displaying flowers and plants. The closer you look, the more details you see. The vases have a distinctly Asian flavor. The pots often have frogs or pandas as a motif. I really enjoy going into the Flower Outlet because even though it's rather crowded in there, I get a sense of peace and order. I'm sure this has a lot to do with the Korean lady in charge of the shop who always has a friendly smile and helpful suggestions. When I had to choose an arrangement for the funeral of a close friend, the Korean lady was very kind in showing me all the options in the ordering catalog and helping me get a sense for what my departed friend would have really enjoyed.

I don't see the gentleman in charge quite as often, but he's every bit as kind as his wife. One day I went into the shop looking for some bamboo rods I planned to use in making a birthday gift for a Chinese friend of mine. I mentioned that purpose and explained my plans to make a scroll using the bamboo rods on each end. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the shop that fit my design ideas. As I was getting into my car out in the parking lot, the Korean gentleman came hurrying after me. Somewhere in the back of the shop he'd found two lengths of bamboo that were a bit thinner than what I had in mind, but their color was perfect. When I pulled out my wallet, he waved that away. I was a good customer, and he was happy to help. I was really touched by that kindness, that extra effort. The scroll came out very well and my Chinese friend was happy, so I owe the Korean gentleman another round of thanks.

In a curious coincidence, the only Korean phrase I know relates directly to the Flower Outlet. In Korea, there are some men who are very attentive to their appearance, getting manicures and facials and generally making the most of their often quite handsome features. Another Korean lady I know explained this phenomenon to me. Such men are referred to by a particular term which I will render phonetically as “koht mee nahm..” It translates as “flower men.” The nearest equivalent I could find in English would be “metrosexual.” The term “flower men” does not reflect on the sexual orientation of the Korean men to whom it's applied. In the same way an artful florist knows how to show off flowers to their best advantage, these “flower men” make the most of their own beauty.



The Japanese Lady

Everywhere you look up here in my little corner of the world you find people with unsuspected talents. This proved true the day I had lunch at the new sushi place in town. I am a staunch Japanophile, so I was looking forward to the opportunity to exercise my limited Japanese. Our waitress was a tall, gracious lady. As I salted the conversation with the occasional Japanese phrase, she asked if I'd ever been to Japan. When I told her I'd once spent a week in Yokohama, she was delighted. Yokohama is her home town. While I ate my delicious lunch and she kept up with her other customers, we kept up our hit-and-run conversation about my interest in Japan. I mentioned my latest novel which is set in Satsuma during the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. A samurai and an English woman meet under dire circumstances which lead to them falling in love. The Japanese lady liked the sound of that. Now that she knew I work with English for a living, we talked about trading language help. She'd help me expand my Japanese and I could help her with her English pronunciation. This sounded like a great idea to me. Then came the really delightful discovery. When the Japanese lady was still in Yokohama, she worked as a jazz singer! Clubs, weddings, social events, they were all excellent venues for her lovely soprano voice. She'd already had some engagements in Santa Cruz. We exchanged e-mail information, and I promptly went to her web site so I could order her CD. I can't wait for her next performance so I can go and hear her sing live.



The Gentleman From Hong Kong

My favorite Chinese restaurant happens to feature cuisine that combines the flavors of both Hong Kong Chinese and Vietnamese cooking. My favorite waiter there is a tall slender gentleman with jet black hair and a rather stern look that in the presence of children will give way to a shy, sweet smile. Out of respect for his privacy I will not mention his name, but I will say that he and I have been friends for almost ten years now. He has taught me a great deal about feng shui. He's been to my house a few times, and while he's there he'll look the place over and make one or two comments about what I might do with mirrors or plants or perhaps a small water fountain. Keeps the chi moving and that makes the luck flow through the house! In my office I keep the gifts that he has given me over the years. They include a pair of lavender money frogs, a fine dragon lantern like the kind that's carried in Chinese New Year parades, and a Lion Dog made of fine ceramic, one of the best examples of this particular creature I've ever seen. When my friend gave it to me, he made me promise to take good care of it for him. I've kept that promise. The Lion Dog sits on a square of silk on the top of a bookshelf that faces my office door. Why does it occupy that precise location? Anyone who walks into my office will be line of sight to the Lion Dog, who traditionally devours wicked people.

What do I do in return for all this generosity in both information and material objects? Of course I stop in at the restaurant often and bring my friends and family with me. What's more, I remember his birthday every year. I bring him something special at Chinese New Year. I also mend his bracelets. We share a fondness for semiprecious stones. My friend likes to wear bracelets of stone beads which are rather large in diameter (in millimeters). The beads are strung on elastic, which in time can become frayed. Once my friend learned I make jewelry for a hobby, he asked me if I could mend the bracelet he wore at that time. I did so, using a new type of elastic he hadn't seen. Now he trusts me to make all his repairs. Just recently I was doing some mending for him and he showed his thanks by taking off the bracelet he was wearing at that time and giving it to me. He assured me it will bring me luck. This bracelet is made of hawk's-eye, a special variation of tiger's-eye. It was my friend's favorite bracelet. I was so touched I couldn't speak. He has since had another bracelet made to match it, so now we share not just our love of this particular stone but the stone itself. I treasure the bracelet so much I wear it all the time.



Wherever we go in the world, people are people. What really builds bridges is having some idea about what's important to those other people from those other parts of the world. It can be as much as having been in the same city, such as my time in Yokohama, or as little as the simple gesture of respect embodied in the wai. When we take an active interest in what's really important to the everyday people of other cultures, that's when we find the common ground in which we can plant the seeds of lasting friendship.

Lillian Csernica lives in Santa Cruz, CA.

Culture Share: Japan - The Tokyo Subways

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses subways in Tokyo.
The Tokyo Subways
by Juliette Wade

You've heard about the Tokyo subways - I know you have. The system looks like this (click to go to a web page where it appears larger):
That is, if you happen to have the nice map labeled in English. If you don't have one of those, it's a bit harder to read and I won't subject you to it.

I've worked with this system a couple of times: once when I was living as a student in Setagaya-ku (when I lived off the map on the Keio line to the west), and once when I was living with my husband in Nishi-magome (at the end of the Asakusa line in the southwest). It's essentially the way to get around Tokyo, because you can't get a driver's license unless you have a place to park your car, and believe me, that's tough. The stations are all quite close together. Once my husband and I walked from Roppongi to Gotanda, and it took us just under 2 hours on foot to walk that distance; it's usually 20 minutes or fewer between stations on foot.

Sometimes the station entrances are really obvious.
Other times they are hard to identify in the midst of all the buildings on a street. Getting down into the station involves stairs. Lots of them - it's a real workout, especially if your commute involves an hour and a half crossing town, changing lines, etc. as my commute to school did. You're lucky if you find an escalator. There are no elevators, and at least in 2001, very few accommodations of any kind to the disabled (I can't imagine trying to get around the Tokyo subways with a child in a stroller, much less with an adult in a wheelchair).

The big stations are absolutely enormous, like Shinjuku station: upwards of 3 million people pass through Shinjuku station every single day. You can't just say to your friend, "I'll meet you at Shinjuku" because you'd be looking for him or her in an entire city's worth of people. You have to specify which train line (since multiple lines run through there) and which exit or ticket gate to wait by. If you happen to be non-Japanese, and you're waiting for a Japanese person, the easiest way to do it is to say, "Please find me." Picking out a friend in the midst of the crowd is easier if that friend sticks out (and foreigners do).

The crowds are not like American crowds. First of all, I found I was taller relative to the crowd than I was used to being in the US. This was useful for finding my way, because it meant I could look above most heads if I stood on tiptoe. Second of all, these crowds are very homogeneous. Yes, sometimes you may see someone dressed in formal kimono or school uniform, etc. but the height and appearance of the people is much more uniform than I've ever seen in the US. Third, the crowds are strikingly quiet. People generally do not talk when in a crowd, and will use low voices even with the friends they travel with. When they speak on cell phones, they speak so quietly I can hardly imagine how the people on the other side can hear them. The result is these hordes of people moving in near-silence (which can be disconcerting for an American at first). Fourth, the rules of personal space are just different from those of the US. A Japanese person interacting with you in a private context with lots of room will tend to stand at bowing distance, i.e. further away than an American, who will typically stand at handshake distance. In the subways, however, the borderline of personal space moves to the skin. People move along their own trajectories as if no one else were there, and will often enough walk right through your shoulder with no acknowledgment that they have done so.

This brings me to the question of fitting all these people into train cars. A Metro car in Washington DC or a BART car in the San Francisco Bay Area will have pairs of seats facing toward the front or back of the car. This is inefficient when it comes to jamming people in. A typical Japanese train car will have long banks of seats along the walls, and a wide open space at the center. Plastic rings will hang by straps from metal bars above the passengers' heads, and they can hang on to these. (Paper advertisements hang from the ceiling at intervals, but these are no good for hanging onto.)
This means, of course, that there's a lot more room for standing people. I have been on the subway at crowded times when there are so many people in this area that you don't have to hold onto anything at all, because it's impossible to fall with so many bodies holding you up. Once I nearly passed out because the crowd was mindlessly crushing me against one of the vertical metal bars, like the one you see at the left of the picture above, and I couldn't breathe properly. Heating and cooling are done from underneath the seats, which can have the odd effect of roasting or chilling your calves, depending on the weather. On the most crowded line, the Yamanote which goes in a circle around the center of Tokyo, they have side benches which fold up into the walls of the car during rush hour. During the busiest times, no one sits at all.

Yes, there are pushers. Only in the busiest stations, however, and during rush hour. In Shinjuku station on the Marunouchi line, the trains run every 45 seconds during rush hour because that's as fast as they can run safely - and people line up in three separate locations on the platform for each train door, so that train #1 will stop with its doors in front of the first line, and train #2 will stop in front of the second, and train #3 in front of the third. Trains don't sit there with their doors open for long, either, so when your station is approaching you have to move toward the door, and then shove out as fast as you can. If the door opens and there's a wall of people, don't let that stop you! Dive in, because the people behind you certainly will. I've seen people step onto a packed train backwards, hook their toes behind the door track and their hands above the top of the door, and shove themselves in that way. When there are white-gloved station attendants pushing you in, it's that much easier. Everyone expects to be pushed and jammed in, so there's no resistance in the crowd that might push you back out. People just make room as best they can, because there's no alternative. Women often fear encountering "chikan" in these crowds - men who use the cramped conditions as an excuse to feel a woman up. I never encountered one myself, but it may have been because of my relatively formidable appearance. I did, however, carry a pin with me at all times, for female friends of mine had recommended this as a good way to deal with a chikan should I ever encounter one. I heard a story once about a woman who grabbed a chikan by the hand and dragged him off the train where she accused him and handed him directly to a station agent. Since chikan depend on their anonymity, I didn't find it particularly surprising that she'd be able to do this - and I certainly admired her nerve!

Subway tickets are usually small and rectangular, labeled with the amount of money you paid for them. That amount differs depending on how far you'll be going, and when you go to the bank of ticket machines, there will be a map above it showing the price for each destination station in the surrounding area. People who commute on the train can get a "teikiken," which is a special ticket (more square than rectangular, with rounded corners) that will take them on unlimited trips between two specified stations for a limited period of time (usually a month). These are very convenient, but very expensive. The ticket machines swallow and spit out tickets with a rapidity that always impressed me.

For someone like me, who grew up in smaller towns, the Tokyo subways can be quite exhausting. However, they are the best way to get around if you live in Tokyo. The result for me was that I imagined Tokyo a bit like a mushroom farm - not with a map of the whole city in my head, but with the subway map in my mind, and the stations coming up from it, with a small circle of the immediate surroundings attached to each station. Each line has a slightly different character, as for example when I always found the people who used the Keio line to be friendlier than the ones who used the Odakyu line to travel west.

The Tokyo subway system is a phenomenon, and certainly deserves the fame it has acquired around the world.