People are Strange

 (Note: This is the initial time that Helen is posting first. John’s response will follow.)

There are a lot of stereotypes about Americans that exist in our country, but before discussing foreigners, I should reflect on myself and maybe confirm some clichés about Ukrainians first.

John wrote that 70% of Americans do not have a passport. This is absolutely unacceptable and illegal in Ukraine because we do not possess any other identity card which is powerful enough to replace a passport. You can’t even rent an apartment or get accepted at a job (a legal one), university, or get married/divorced without having one. It usually includes a lot of personal information such as your permanent residence, a marriage “stamp”, and the amount of children that you have. This explains the expression that comes from the Soviet Union which supports the bureaucracy: you’re a nonentity without “paper”, but with “paper” you’re a man.

Ukrainians are given their national passports at the age of 16 and are supposed to keep them for their entire lives (adding new photos at 25 and 45). They are way too big to keep in a wallet and way too fragile to carry every day. The funniest thing is: we can’t really go abroad with a national passport (except Russia) and have to obtain another one – a so called foreign passport (even though it’s not an obligatory document inside the country). As a result, if you are going to change your last name (usually for women) you will have to change both passports. This takes a lot of time and money.

We tend to be malicious (maybe because of too much red tape?). Everybody is jostling everyone else in the public transportation and you’re thought to be crazy if you are smiling while walking alone in the street or you may actually be suspected of having dangerous intentions if you grin at a stranger. Of course, if you’re really off your rocker (such as in love, happy, reminiscing about some hilarious incident, just consumed a few delicious cocktails, or perhaps while you’re sitting in a coffee house reading a book that has “Zombies” included in its tacky gothic title). Maybe you don’t really care what other people think, even though you may be given strange looks. To prove you’re normal you just have to wear a straight face all the time.  Ukrainians tend to remain aloof unless they work at McDonalds where smiling is required. However, I’m not sure whether this tradition is still being kept, because I haven’t been to this establishment in years.

We, Ukrainians, don’t like when somebody bothers us while we are working, especially if we don’t enjoy our jobs. Do you want to know who the alpha person is in a public place; for example, an office, a supermarket, a school etc? It is the one who thinks his assignment is the most important, the one who regulates the “traffic”, and the same one who will give you a hateful look if you get in his way? Of, course it’s generally a member of the cleaning staff, usually a middle-aged woman, who hates when you dare to walk near the aisle/floor where she is working at the time. You’re usually supposed to wait until the area is dry and then you are allowed to enter the forbidden zone. There is no valid reason for their angry and the worst thing is that I assume they behave the same way at home (poor relatives).

 Ukrainians are survivors. Nobody understands how we can live on $120 a month (it’s the salary on the border of living-wage) and maybe this is a good explanation why the cleaning people hate you. Actually for Americans even $250 per month, which is approximately an average salary in Kharkiv sounds quite scary.

The people of Ukraine are reserved. They don’t usually trust strangers and suspect them of primarily looking for mercenary gain if they ask us about our personal life. We don’t consider somebody our friend just because we had a nice conversation with them one day. We can give the benefit of doubt to our enemies, but a friend has a different status that can easily be compromised by unusual actions. If you are able to share your thoughts, your expectations, your plans, your emotions the first time you meet a person, you’re definitely not Ukrainian.

However, sometimes Ukrainians can be empathetic without a sound pragmatic reason. Maybe it is just the result of some kindness that is found in the depths of their souls. One can help you if you have a traffic accident by giving you a lift to the hospital. In addition, in some cases a taxi driver may let you go without paying a fair after you were driven to your address. This is after you told him that you missed your last subway train (or fell asleep and skipped your stop) and had no other way to get home. Maybe your face looked astonished, which may have made him believe you, but it wasn’t enough to not collect a fee and couldn’t be explained by any other rational reason. 

Posted by Helen