Shhhh!
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Raleigh, and I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get all the things done before we leave on Monday. So please note: we are not in Turkey right now!
Shhhh!
Being here in the US is always a mix of familiar and strange, comforting and discombobulating. It’s hard work in every way—physically, emotionally, intellectually. Weirdly, though, one of the things I find most difficult is all the words. So. Many. Words. People are talking around me, talking at me, talking with me, and I understand them all. I even join in. I talk until I’m hoarse, gabbing with friends and family and random people I meet waiting in line at Target. In the land of my native tongue, sometimes I feel like I’m standing under a waterfall of words.
We’re leaving on Monday for Azerbaijan, and we’ll go right back to talking mostly to each other, peacefully ignoring the impenetrable sounds of a language we’ve never heard before. I won’t be able to talk to anyone. And that will be just fine.
When we were in Turkey last year, I listened to an American couple trying to order coffee at breakfast. He wanted a latte in a to-go cup. He said something along the lines of ‘Could I please get a latte to take to my room, in a to-go cup?’
It was a struggle. The waiter didn’t understand, so he called over a buddy, who also didn’t understand. This poor caffeine-deprived man kept repeating his sentence, getting louder and throwing in ‘You know,’ and ‘like,’ and making drinking motions. It went on for several minutes.
Eventually he got some kind of coffee and went away. I had tremendous sympathy for him, because I’ve been there, done that. The problem was all those words.
Lee likes to say he and I are ‘post-language.’ He’s right. I am all too conscious of how my instinctive stream of babble makes most situations worse, not better.
When I stop talking, two things happen. First, my attention turns outward—I’m able to focus on what’s happening around me, what the routines and customs and local words are. I can look for context clues, and see what other people are doing. The other day, Lee watched an older American man trying to get a table setting at the breakfast buffet. He kept repeating the word “silverware” to the barista, saying it more loudly and slowly as his frustration grew. “SIL-VER-WARE.”
If he had just walked further into the room, he would have seen that cutlery was already set out on the tables. (Ten seconds of Googling would also have told him that ‘silverware’ is an American word that doesn’t make sense beyond our borders, but in his defense, that requires a bit more observation than just looking around.)
The other thing that happens when I talk less is that the words I do attempt to use get more attention. Think about it: if a foreigner walks up to you at the local (American) mall and babbles a whole paragraph at you in French (which you haven’t spoken since that required class in high school), you’re probably going to shrug and turn away. But if someone walks up to you and uses one or two French words, your ear is more likely to hear them and maybe try to remember what they mean. That’s when you at least have a chance of figuring out what this poor lost French speaker needs.
Since I am usually the foreigner in that equation, I try to remember not to babble. It’s hard for me—words are my stock-in-trade, after all, and my goodness, I can talk a blue streak—but life goes more smoothly when I use fewer words.
Take care,
Lisa
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