Women seem wicked when you're unwanted.

            (This is a response to the previous post by Helen)

I have many friends in Ukraine and overall I have found most people ready to lend a helping hand. However, nearly everyone I interact with (this is mainly students, other English teachers and travelers) speaks English. On the other hand, I have walked into an internet café and the person refused to assist me because I didn’t speak Russian. Another time, the clerk at the train station sent me to the “foreign ticket window” when she could have just as easily sold me the ticket. I have also had people ask me for money and then act very rudely (they do seem to know how to say, “Yankee go home”) when I said “No”. This included one person who stopped me while I was walking down the street in Odessa. He must have recognized me as a Westerner because I was carrying a day pack. He offered his services as a translator but I said that I didn’t need one because it was toward the end of my trip. He then asked for $40 and when I refused, he asked why I wouldn’t just give it to him! Once I even saw an American that was taking pictures outside of his hotel being told that he must pay for the privilege by some unknown person who probably did not even work for the hotel. It seems to me that people in clothing stores, restaurants and the people who have their own business at a market are the most helpful. When I’m eating out, I always like to tip extra when a member of the wait staff speaks English.

I’m not really acquainted with “the evil spreading from the West” but I know my brothers thought that one way to judge who won the Cold War was the fact that there is a McDonalds directly across from Red Square in Moscow. I can understand someone’s confusion about why Westerners move to Ukraine. I got this question all the time in my classroom. I got so tired of answering it that I wrote a rationalization note on my Vkontakte page.

Kharkov is very excited about being one of the hosts for 2012 UEFA European Football Championship (Euro 2012) during June and July of next year. I think a lot of the current infrastructure maintenance in the city is to put on a better face for this event.

It is a mystery why so many Asians come to the Universities in Kharkiv. I guess the education is a better value here or the teaching is just that much better? I am aware of this first hand because I have taught many foreigners in my classroom as well. I’m sure the universities/schools have enjoyed the extra inflow of money from these students. My university in the United States had many international students but it was nowhere near 50%. I always thought of this as a good thing. If someone traveled that far for an education then maybe I made a wise choice myself.  In some of our states there are many illegal immigrants. This may cause schools to be filled with non-English speaking children.  Towns that are not growing may welcome the additional students but sometimes it can also be a burden; if new bi-lingual teachers are required or if there is overcrowding. It may be a surprise to Ukrainians but even if these children are the offspring of illegal immigrants they are guaranteed an education by the U.S. government.

Some things are hard for me to comment on. It is understandable how the oldest citizens in our city might not like hearing the German language because of the Nazi occupation during WW II and the four battles that took place for control of the city but it is unlikely that I would ever be conscious of this because these opinions will not be directed toward me especially in a language that I understand. Alternatively, I do know that the Russian saying “we will show you where a crayfish spent winter” means “to give a person a piece of one's mind” or to punish.

It is interesting to hear the Ukrainian view about the placement of Russian gangsters in American Movies. I can recall them in the movie Eastern Promises and also The Boondock Saints. I don’t really want to talk about taxis right now. I’ll keep the option open to write a whole post about them in the future.

Posted by John

People are Strange: Part II. Those foreigners!

Ukrainians have an equal attitude to all non-Russian/Ukrainian speaking visitors. It doesn’t matter where you are from or how wide the smile is on your face because most people just HATE you. Initially, I think in some minds there is a Soviet mentality of evil spreading from the West. Others will detest you because they don’t know how to communicate beyond their own language. A less rational reason for hatred is that they do not quite understand what in hell brought you to the UA from your well-ordered perfect US/Canada/Germany/Sweden etc. Did you get so bored with everything being perfect at home that you decided to try your luck in a place which some people think of as the Third World? If this is true then we will show you “where a crayfish spent winter”! Also if people do not understand what you are doing here, you will instinctively be considered dangerous. Furthermore everything we are afraid of, we hate, since it reveals our own weakness.

In other words, most Ukrainians aren’t open-minded, so you should expect bumping into a lot of “walls” before you find a common language. However, there are some types of people, mainly translators/interpreters, travelers, students, who would talk to you with pleasure and with whom communication will be easier. The younger generation is curious and doesn’t mind foreigners mingling in their narrow world. It is the exact opposite with people over 30 who also don’t belong to aforementioned categories. If you try, you will meet a strong resistance, people walking away quickly, or pretending that you don’t even exist. This could be proven by one volunteer action I took part in this summer, the main idea of which was to find out whether or not the citizens of Kharkiv are ready to meet foreigners during Euro 2012. As part of our training, we did some role-playing. We pretended like we couldn’t speak Russian and that we needed some help to get around the city. We tried to receive some information from the unsuspecting people of Kharkov.  The reactions were not all the same, but the general statistics were rather upsetting. Even a policeman, quite young, promised to find somebody who could help us in English (he didn’t speak it by himself) and then he disappeared. Poor foreigners! They could have waited for help until Euro 2120!

Kharkov, being a city of students, might be the municipality with the most foreigners in Ukraine. This makes our town more liberal. But I have to admit that I don’t like that the Chinese represent almost half (and the amount is increasing) of the students in my University. Although, I have gotten used to Koreans who have been running their businesses in the Kharkov market for years. The older people would rather not hear German for well-known reasons. Giving foreigners a cold reception in Ukraine may have its consequences. As a result, in Hollywood the worst drug dealers and Mafiosi in movies seem to be Ukrainians or RussiansJ.

The picture I painted here might seem creepy, but I’ve tried to think about the dreadful occurrences which usually happen to foreigners (not because of their own mistakes), and the only one I know for sure is overcharging in taxis. Once the driver realizes you don’t speak Russian he will ask for twice the usual price. So, find a Ukrainian friend who will order you a cab and have some fun!

Posted by Helen

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

Chernobyl, the Ukrainian response to McDonalds

You can usually figure out how people feel about their country by their first reactions to questions about it. This is a good way to tell what they may be proud, embarrassed or scared of (fear is often connected with respect). I’m not going to provide a psychological analysis of what John wrote about Ukraine, I just want to talk about some out-of-date facts, which are no longer true but have never the less become part of our history. We have learned since primary school, that Ukraine used to be a bakery of Europe, but for me it seems embarrassing to even say this aloud now. While we still have rich soil, Ukraine doesn’t use this resource in a productive way. Our harvests don’t yield enough because of a lack of modern agricultural technology and also because of some unpredictable changes in the weather during the last few years.

So, let’s talk about some less historical and more trivial issues. The question is: what are the real things that could be mentioned about Ukraine? To discover this, I’ve carried out an informal survey concerning what Ukrainians think the two most famous or infamous things about our country which are well known abroad. The answers could be random events, facts or persons but the requirement was to answer my question quickly and spontaneously. The absolute chart leader among them unfortunately happened to be Chernobyl. Second place was a tie between the brothers Klitschko (http://klitschko.com/)  (although Andriy Shevchenko was named too) and the Orange Revolution (2004). In the third position we had the Ukrainian dishes borsch and salo. Oddly enough, among the culinary delights, varenyky was brought up just one time. Other things mentioned were The Black Sea and the fact that UA was once part of the Soviet Union. Some of the responses showed that Ukrainians have quite a low opinion of their country. The cruelest thing I’ve heard was the reply of a 21-year old girl (she studies in conservatory, plays violin and is quite modest in general), who answered “salo and vodka”. On the contrary, someone also remembered the Antonov airliner (http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=389). This probably means that we still have patriots.

Of course, the goal of my exploration was to also find two facts about America. This questioning basically divided people into two camps (although the participants were not really aware of it). The first of these was concerned with economics and politics, with the other discussing national symbols of America and some trivial stuff as well. The primary group referred to their widespread currency represented by the U.S. dollar, the powerful economy, strong military, NATO, and finally struggling with and suffering from terrorism. Among the most memorable events named was September, 11th.

But anyway, and it is the second group’s entire fault, the absolute leader among the things associated with America was fast food in general (and McDonalds particularly), which according to the latest investigations of American scientists can be put on the same footing as Chernobyl for Ukraine. The second place was allocated by such “icons” as cowboys and the Statue of Liberty while the third one was occupied by Hollywood which of course is the principal center of the US movie industry. Also mentioned by one person each were the NY Yankees baseball team and US Capitol.

I’ve got to say that a lot of people have some positive stereotypes about America being a country of big opportunities, independence, and a high standard of living; (maybe this also was a hidden meaning in bringing up the iconic cowboys and the Statue of Liberty). American people were considered outgoing (people’s mentality will be discussed at a later date). Seems like Ukrainians are much more negative about their country and do not really appreciate what they have here. For example, just one person pointed out the beauty of Ukrainian women.

Even though I have a good excuse because I’m not a sociologist and I didn’t have a large audience to ask my questions (the very first intention was just to write my own opinion), any complaints about the results of the “exploration” will be accepted.

Posted by Helen