Superstitions

A source of constant surprise, frustration, and amusement, I encountered numerous superstitions while living in Lutugino. Whether these are uniquely Ukrainian or held over from Soviet times, I can not say. Most people will admit that the majority of these are ludicrous, but they've been hammered with these beliefs since childhood and they are now behavioural norms. There are several overlaps with the rest of Europe and with America, such as the black cat, salt spilling, and "knock on wood" tradition. Here are the ones which I've noticed over the course of 2 years:

Rule:
You mustn't whistle indoors.
Repercussion:
You will not have money (this is a common consequence).

Rule:
You mustn't walk through any triangles (not only under a ladder).
Repercussion:
You will contract an illness (another super common one).

Rule:
You mustn't step on manhole covers.
Repercussion:
You will contract an illness. (This one originated from the fact that covers are often loose or stolen, so it's better to just be in the habit of avoiding them. For your health.)

Rule:
You mustn't tear (e.g. a thread or tag), cut, or sew any clothing that you're wearing.
Repercussion:
You will contract an illness.

Rule:
You mustn't sit at the corner of a table.
Repercussion:
You'll never get married.

Rule:
You mustn't count money or pay someone after dark.
Repercussion:
You will not have money.

Rule:
If you have a slice of bread, you must finish it.
Repercussion:
You will not have money.

Rule:
You mustn't take out the trash or throw things out after dark.
Repercussion:
You will not have money.

Rule:
You mustn't pass money from hand to hand, but instead lay it on a surface (traditionally a wooden one, but that's become rather flexible).
Repercussion:
The passer will not have money.

Rule:
You mustn't cut your hair while pregnant, nor cut the child's hair within the first year.
Repercussion:
The child will be unhealthy.

Not to make it seem as though it's all doom, gloom, illness, and poverty, there are also some situations that will bring one good luck and riches:

1. A spider descends from your ceiling and lands on your head.
2. A swallow or a stork builds a nest on your roof or balcony.
3. You allow your pet to enter your new home before you start moving in.

I know there are also myriad examples of wedding superstitions with which I'm simply unacquainted, and I've already written about Ukraine's borderline mystic health beliefs. If you know of any Slavic superstitions that I've overlooked or you've encountered any weird ones in your travels abroad, I'd love to hear about them. Comment below!

Community Encounters: "Oy, Amerikanitz! Get over here!"

Beware Russians asking for T-shirt translations.

A week ago, my neighbour across the hall came out of his apartment at the same moment I did. I had seen him around before: he can frequently be spotted on the building's front stoop, sucking down a cigarette and glowering out at the youths in the yard. This time he stopped me to ask what was written on his shirt.

This shirt would look good on your bedroom floor.

Andrei is a plump, buzz-bald married man in in his early thirties. Obviously he had purchased that particular article of clothing secondhand. Nevertheless, he found it entertaining and it served as an ice breaker between us. We struck up a conversation, but it wasn't an especially fabulous one. I could tell he was struggling to understand me, and I was on my way to buy groceries for dinner anyhow, so I wasn't particularly invested. When he found out my destination, he promptly invited me to dinner. “We're neighbours, we should get to know each other!” I agreed, though cautiously. Everything seemed pleasant enough, but he also did not strike me as the type of person with whom I wanted a close friendship.

How right my instincts were. After stepping foot in his house, I could no longer do anything correctly in his eyes.
“What are you doing? Take your shoes off. What the hell kind of socks are those?” (A: Black dress socks.)
“Would you sit down already, I know my house is nice. Stand up, we're going to move this table. Sit down, dammit!”
If I tried to talk to anyone else in the room, “What, you care more about them than the guy who invited you?”
If I asked about the toys around the house and what I assumed was his child, “What's it to you?”
If I ate, I was wrong. If not, he was insulted.
If I was serious, “You don't understand anything I say.” If I smiled, “What are you laughing at?”
Needless to say, the whole exchange was laced with some of the more choice cuss words of the rich Russian lexicon.

His affable door step nature had become irrationally confrontational. My biggest clue that this was his own problem and not anything I had done was the discomfort with which his wife and close friends sat around the table. I started to recognise other tell-tale signs of drunkeness. He was overly affectionate toward his guy friends, couldn't discern minor pronunciation mistakes, was more than a tad rosy in the cheeks, and repeated himself often. His mantra: “I don't love Americans.” When asked why, his answer was, “I don't like McDonald's.”

His wife Alla was such a trooper. If not for her, I would have felt so much more uncomfortable than I already did. She stayed on him throughout. “Leave him alone. You already said that, and it was rude the first time. We've already discussed this behaviour. You need to go to bed. Why in God's name did you invite him over here if you don't want him to get to know us at all? That's enough, go smoke a cigarette.” After thirty minutes of hen-pecking and “I don't love Americans,” Alla managed to shuffle him out the door for a smoke. When she returned to the kitchen, she flicked her jugular in the universal Soviet symbol which means That guy's wasted and told me, “You had better leave now before he comes back. Don't open the door for anyone.” I thanked her profusely for the invitation, food, defence, and hospitality, and scurried across the hall to the sanctuary of my own apartment, without further incident.

*          *          *          *          *

On my way to the market the next morning to gather supplies for cooking club, I hear someone bellow across the crowded street, “Oy, Amerikanitz! Get over here!” Naturally, the morning market throng is staring at me as I tip my cap in a 'Yep, that's me.' sort of gesture. There is Andrei, and I'm nervous. I left last night in secret, without saying goodbye or shaking hands. Russian men can be so weird about that, even if you're not specifically a guest in their home. All seems to be fine, to my relief. I get introduced around to another 5 people, all of whom are very kind. Andrei is apparently still drunk, and has no recollection of what took place last night. “Did I tell you how much I don't love Americans?” Yes. Yes you did.

*          *          *          *          *

Another day passes, and I pass Andrei in the stairwell. This must be the first time we've ever spoken and been sober, because he is extremely contrite. He tells me how much he hopes nothing offended me the other night, and apologises for his drunken behaviour. I sweep it all under the rug, wanting only to move on without incident.

It's nice to know that, when sober, he is a perfectly polite man. It's discouraging how rarely he seems to be that way, though. We've gone several days back at our customary nod and hello, and I take comfort in the fact that Alla is indeed an ally. The last thing I need is more neighbour problems, and all I wanted was to be nice and buy some groceries. That's the last T-shirt I translate.

Escaping Arrest

It starts like any good crime story would: four guys, sitting around a table, discussing which pop songs to adapt for their Christmas concert. Unlike K-pop, I have yet to become interested in Russian music, so you can imagine how very little I had to add to this conversation. I got bored, I went home. I thought that was the end of the excitement for the day, but it turns out I was just a hair's breadth away from being cuffed and incarcerated.

It wasn't long after I left the House of Culture that Mikhail, Sergei, and Artyom followed after me. September brought nothing but bone-chilling rain, but last week was бабье лето. The boys decided to enjoy what little remained of the nice fall weather by sitting in the park behind the HoC and enjoying a beer. As it turns out, this park is regularly cruised by cops looking to bust gopniks violating the open-container law. My three friends get nicked. I would totally have been right there.

This should have been the end of the story, which really wouldn't have been worth sharing. However, it's Ukraine, and nothing is rarely as simple as drink your beer in the park, go down to the station, pay your fine. When the boys arrived at the station, they were sat in a waiting area under supervision while an officer ran their documents. You see, the penalty is weighted by the repetition of the offence. Only by looking up citizens in the system by their passport numbers can the police know the difference between a first timer (off with a warning) or a third (257UAH).

Luckily for the guys, there had been a power outage, causing a system reboot: a system reboot which, for whatever reason, wasn't working so well. While waiting for an hour to be punished, Misha, Seryoja, and Tyoma sat around the waiting room under the heavy glare of area babushkas. Already busted for drinking on government property, they asked the cops if it was fine to finish up their beers, so as not to let it go to waste. They ended up spending the hour drinking with the policemen and debating the merits of the law. In the end, the system never did work (what system here ever does?), so my friends were released with no penalty and a good buzz. Justice done.

70% of me wishes I hadn't skipped out on the harrowing adventure. The other 30% regrets the irony that, while a first-hand account would have made for a better story, I would not have felt comfortable telling that story because all my bosses read this blog.

Health Concerns

To an American, lots of countries approach medicine and health in ways that seem...well, foreign. Koreans believed that if you left a fan running overnight without opening the windows, the closed circulation would literally kill you. Eating dog soup was considered holistic Viagra. In major hospitals, open containers of blood and urine samples would sit next to each other, but sitting on a desk was dirty.

I'm only able to speak with any authority on Korea's idiosyncrasies because of the extended time I've spent there. Just passing through a country isn't enough to unearth these traits. More time is required before the peculiarities of health beliefs present themselves. After 15 months in Ukraine, I've been educated in some of the unexpected effects on my health that I would never have expected. Here are 8 things Ukrainians wig out about.

Sitting
Seemingly harmless, sitting can lead to serious consequences. A Ukrainian would never be caught sitting on the ground or on any concrete for that matter. This stems from the belief that such cold surfaces will render you infertile. Interestingly, neither the season nor your gender seem to be a factor. Ancient and unfamiliar women have no qualms about admonishing you for breaking this tenet.

Cold Water
As with most other countries, it's difficult to find liquids at a sufficiently cold temperature. Ice is a luxury, and in the summer even grocery store refrigerators may be used as simple shelf space to conserve electricity. I've heard echoes of the same widespread belief that cold water hinders digestion, but that's not its most interesting health property. Ukrainians believe that ice water is an immune system booster. One of my neighbours pours a bucket of cold water over himself every evening, and he's not alone. On the cover of our school's health text book is a man doing just that. The permeation of this belief was best seen during the Epiphany ceremony in January, when several dozen townsfolk baptised themselves in our frozen lake. Even those who eschewed the privilege averred that no one could possibly get sick after such a plunge.

Wind
Anyone who has taken public transport in this country can attest to the aggravation this health concern causes. I say wind, but the Russian word is separate from typical wind, being more correctly translated draft. Whereas Koreans believe that the closed windows will kill you, Ukrainians believe the exact opposite. When I first moved in to my apartment, the men who were helping me were reluctant to place the bed under the window. Small cracks in the window will let in drafts, which would kill me. Numerous times on buses or trains I've opened windows, only to be barked at by someone behind me. There are children and the elderly on this bus! Are you trying to kill someone!

Chalk
It's a common occurrence in Ukraine to brush against a wall in a stairwell or public building and later find that your whole shoulder is dusty and white. Until several months ago, I believed Ukraine was using chalk as a cheap alternative to paint. Only recently was I corrected. It hadn't dawned on me that the cheapest alternative to paint is nothing. So why rub chalk on all the walls? Locals tell me that this coat of chalk acts as an antibacterial. I think it begs the question: why have we got bacteria all over our concrete walls?

The Common Cold
Three things that I love to ask people from other countries: what do you put on pizza, what do you do to fight hangovers, and what is your cure for the common cold? Well, in Ukraine we add ketchup and mayonnaise, we drink cognac to beat the headache, and if you feel a head cold coming on you need, you guessed it, vodka. Not just any vodka, however. Ukrainians drink a hot pepper and honey infused vodka, slightly warm or at least at room temperature, chased with a lemon slice, followed by a good sweat. This is usually induced by immediately burying yourself in all the blankets in the house.

Hats
This is another touchy subject for the grandmother police force that patrols the town. Your hat must appropriately reflect the weather conditions and is, naturally, their business. Warm winter hats are a must if you don't want every person in town to inquire as to its whereabouts. What I find really interesting is this: the hat doesn't have to cover the ears. Covering up my ears was always one of my mother's winter bundling priorities, yet here it needs only to be on top of the head. Leaving the house without a hat in winter is a recipe for your death of cold, and it is every woman's job to prevent you from coming to such an end. Don't make the mistake, however, of wearing an even partially winter hat into the warmer months: that will kill you, too.

18:00
Something mystic and esoteric occurs at six in the evening. Common dieting wisdom in Ukraine tells us that anything consumed after six will become fat, regardless of what you do in the evening or how late you stay up. For whatever reason, lots of women in my town believe and follow this commandment: после 18:00 не жрать (After 6, don't scarf). In fact, I've seen it more then once as a refrigerator magnet, warning off would-be late night snackers.

Jogging
This applies to most aerobic exercise that isn't folded in to sports like soccer or basketball. Ukrainians can not comprehend why we exercise using transportation. Running is for going places, but you don't go anywhere. You just go in circles. It can't be good for your heart to move so fast. I have actually heard people tell me this. Lots of other volunteers jog around their towns, and they will support me in this. The staring is ubiquitous and consistent. I guess no one explains to them that the accelerated heart rate is exactly what causes the weight loss, or perhaps Ukrainians simply don't support detaching the process (sport) and the goal (exercise).

I'm always interested in uncovering new oddities about this and other countries. If you're reading from Ukraine or any other foreign country and have another strange health story you'd like to share, leave me a comment! I'd love to read about it. 

Happy New Year

You have to skip forward a bit through the Russian, but this totally happened. This is what my life is like. Every day.

Adaptation

So the other day, I wake up hungover from a night of Russian billiards and cards with my neighbors to the piercing toll of an 8:30 am doorbell. I totter over to the door and answer it in my boxers, despite my deeply ingrained and cultural body image problem. My neighbor leads in the employee of the electric company to check the meter for accuracy. I sign some form and lead them back out, but by this time I've had to think too hard about communication to hope for sleep.

Getting my rear in gear, I light the broiler and start to take a shower. Within 60 seconds I notice the bathroom floor is covered with water, dropping my soap into the litter box in my scramble to shut the water off. Apparently when the landlady came yesterday to paint over the rusty pipes she moved the tub, which disconnected the drain from the plumbing.

Now I'm on the floor, wading under the tub to reconnect pipes, and all I'm thinking to myself is, Well, I won't have to mop this floor for a while, and now my soap is exfoliating. Then I realize that any one of those incidents would be unacceptable to me just 6 months ago. Maybe it was the apathy of the morning after, but maybe just maybe I'm starting to adapt to the unpredictability the governs every aspect of life here.

Ukraine: it's no Africa, but it's no cakewalk either.

Interactions with the Remont-ing Community

With winters here grueling and hard on both the soul and the structures, most Ukrainians busy themselves in the summer with remont-ing, or repairing. Finally, labourers are not discouraged by the subzero temperatures, and neither ice nor frozen earth can prevent access to pipes or walls. In this summer, I've had the experience to work with 3 remonters to prepare my own apartment for winter. Here are their stories.

Andrei
Actually the shop teacher at school, Andrei came to install a light fixture in the hallway and a counter top around my sink in the kitchen. He did a very fine job and used materials from the school, so he didn't charge me anything. The most distressing thing about my new apartment, however, is the broken window on the balcony. Left as is, my home will be open to all the ravages of winter without even a single pane of glass to protect me. Andrei promised to return with glass. 8 weeks ago.

Boris
Having been left with mostly old furniture that was used by someone's grandmother for centuries and then left unattended with the rest of the apartment after her passing a year ago, the sofas and chairs here were in no condition to be used. Boris, the cousin of a teacher from school, offered to reupholster the furniture with old drapes or excess fabric in his spare time. He has done an excellent job so far, but when he came to pick up the last three sofas (right? why do I need so many?), he gave me the most honest Ukrainian answer ever.
   Me: When will you return with these sofas?
   Boris: Not soon.

Vitaly
The downstairs neighbours had been complaining about the pipes leaking water for longer than I've been here. Two years ago, they got on the waiting list for a public plumber to come remont. Finally, an appointment was scheduled for last week. Seeing as how the pipes are either in their ceiling or my floor, the landlady asked me if the plumber could work through my apartment. Of course! What could go wrong?

Vitaly arrived at nine in the morning to begin replacing the rusty old pipes with plastic ones. He stood my tub upright, removed my toilet, dug out large sections of wall and floor, and in the process covered everything in my house with a layer of concrete (and presumably asbestos) dust. Around three or four o'clock, I noticed the stillness in my apartment, but judging from the state of things, he must have been working downstairs. It was only after the landlady arrived to survey the completed work that I realized Vitaly had left.

Now, I've not had a lot of experience with American repairmen, either opting to fix things myself or ignore the problem altogether, but I have a feeling that if one's work involved creating such a mess, one would at least take the hunks of concrete and rusty pipe out to the garbage, not to say anything about the grey snow left everywhere. Worst of all, a hole the size of a strawberry rhubarb pie was left in the floor behind my toilet, not only providing an escape route for my cat but also laying bare all acts performed in one bathroom to anyone with auditory or olfactory senses in the other. My landlady's solution? To remove the rug from in front of my bathroom sink and spread it neatly over the hole.

My favourite part of this story is that all four times I have explained to a Ukrainian the previous paragraph and my expectations of a repairman, the result has been identical: uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Perhaps this is a country in which the squeaky wheel always gets the oil, or perhaps I'm just too softened by first world conditions, but at the very least this is all part of learning to operate within a new system with different standards and expectations. Who knows what life will be like once September comes and I enter this strange world of Ukrainian employment alongside other labourers!

Pickles Got Made

About a week ago I made a request of all my neighbors: If you are canning something, just knock on my door and let me watch. You don't have to give me anything but the recipe. Three days ago, Paulina took me up on that. She gave me a list of products to hunt down for home-made pickles. With limited Russian ability, I was only just able to locate all the specific ingredients (it is so hard to say "liter jars with lids"!). While gathered around  the potable water refill truck, I mentioned to Paulina that I now had everything I needed and would like to know what to do next. She gave me some lose instructions (some of this, cut it, add that), but I guess she could tell that I still wasn't quite sure what to do. 15 minutes later my doorbell rings, and there's Paulina with every other married woman from the building. They marched into my kitchen and made pickles happen. Here's how it went down.

They started by "sterilizing" the jars with cold water and baking soda. Does anyone know if that's a real thing? Meanwhile, one of the women was chopping the dark green leaves from horseradish and plucking yellow flowers from dill weed. They threw that with whole peppercorns and some garlic cloves (halved lengthwise) into the jars.

Yet another lady was slicing horseradish root at an angle to be added in. At the same time, Paulina was cramming in as many cucumbers as could fit in the liter jars. Some got cut, but she says that doesn't matter.

The jars were topped off with cold water, not vinegar. A tablespoon of salt and a heap of ground mustard got added to each one. In two of the jars, I convinced the women to allow a dried chili pepper to be added for some extra heat.

We didn't actually can them per se. These plastic lids sat in boiling water until they became malleable then were crammed on the jars. Now they've hardened again, but next time I can I think I'm going to do it legit. The product is three murky jars of pickles-to-be, just waiting for winter. It was all over as quickly as it started, and the women filed out.

Community Encounters: Leonid Antonovich the ex-Militiaman

NO! We are talking!

Scarcely an inch over five foot, Leonid Antonovich bellows up at me, his catastrophic blood pressure evident by the firetruck complexion. My clustermate J was assigned this cherry bomb of a host dad, who kindly issued an open invitation for any PCT to stop in for tea. I had considered this a good opportunity to start making community connections as well as practice my Russian self-introduction. No sooner were my boots off than was I at the receiving end of a very intense interrogation.

Where have you come to now?
I'm in your house.
NO! Where have you come to now?
Where have I come to now.
NO! We are talking!

Clearly this man has a very specific idea of how this conversation should go, even more specific than I do (and I only know one phrasing of one of the many possible answers.) He whirls on J and continues his tirade.

WHY doesn't he KNOW this??
It's not my fault! (I'm so sorry Steven.)
Show me your papers!

He means of course the passport copies that I'm supposed to carry with me at all times. J has already told me that Antonovich is a retired militiaman and that he has instructed J in all the tricks of dealing with his brethren. For example, you should never surrender your papers but hold them just out of reach while they are being read. I'm totally ready to impress Antonovich. My fingers have gotten the pocket zipper halfway undone when the bellowing begins anew.

NO! We are talking! Where are your papers?
[does he want me to repeat the phrase?]
Where are your papers.
NO! Where are your papers? WHY doesn't he KNOW this?
[does he want me to ensure that he's really a policeman first?]
What do you do for a profession?
NO!

At this point I pull out the page of "Really Survival Russian" phrases and turn to the emergency section, the one reserved for near-rape scenarios in dark alleys of the capital.

Stop! I will scream!

Antonovich's onslaught evaporates like a broken fever. A twinkle glints across his eye and he lets out a hearty guffaw. Now we're in the kitchen, cracking walnuts, sipping tea, and pointing out on the map the towns in which he used to hawk potatoes before independence. We come to the conclusion that Leonid Antonovich was just looking for some entertainment and the bumbling Americans posed a perfect target for some good old-fashioned chain pulling. Next time I visit, I'll hopefully be strong enough in Russian to return the favor.

(Perhaps it's improper to speak of someone else's host family before my own, but I'm a sucker for a good story.)

Our Father, who art in Calgary, Bobsled be thy name.

Sunday afternoon,

raining on my window panes,

I need Jamaica.

That's a little haiku I whipped up in honor of our Cool Runnings party today. Yes, the Disney-portrayed Jamaican bobsled team that slid into the Olympics and our hearts graced my apartment today in one of the most random and awesome theme parties I've ever witnessed. What are the ingredients? For starters, you need a heavy supply of rum beverages. In this case, we used enough piña coladas to turn anyone into the kind of club-toting, raw-meat-eating, Me-Tarzan-You-Jane-ing, big, bald bubblehead that can only count to ten if he's barefoot or wearing sandals. Step two involves a bit of almost Caribbean dessert: namely, bananas foster.  Once you've got the coconut pineapple juices flowing and some happy bellies stuffed full of brown-sugar-rum-butter bananas, you're ready to feel good with Doug E. Doug and John Candy. We laughed, we cried, but there's one key element missing: bobsled style pictures. Nothing makes you feel like the best pushcart driver in all of Jamaica like lining up some chairs, setting the timer on the camera, and coordinating some fun. The inspirational classic of pride, perseverance, and friendship brings a little sun to any Asian monsoon afternoon.

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS!

"Left!"

"Crash!"

"Gold!!"

And Now, Some Pictures of Fish

Coex is the epic, American-style mall of Seoul. Complete with food court, convention center, and IMAX theater, it's a world where anything is possible. As you may have guessed, it also houses the most extensive aquarium in Seoul. It's not secret that I indulge in a touristy adventure now and again. This is a visual journey through one such adventure. May I just say I love working a job where I can spend all day Tuesday running around taking pictures, go to work, and still get out by 9:30 to have a beer?