Pride and prejudice – national identity and presence abroad

 

Being a foreign visitor exposes one’s sense of nationality, eliciting varying reactions depending on country, circumstances and personality. When people become the ambassadors of their country, locals receive them in a manner ranging from “the savior of our nation” to a persona non grata, generally somewhere in between. In response, foreign visitors exhibit a certain pride or lack thereof in their homeland as expressed in their willingness to identify themselves as citizens of that country, speak their national language and talk with pride about their home. Of course, a country is made of individuals, each with his/her manner of speaking. However, certain national tendencies do dominate as I will show in regards to Americans, French and Israelis.

Americans have for many centuries believed that America is the best country in the world and English is the only language one needs. Thus, many Americans speak as loud abroad as they do at home, which is often in extreme contrast with the local low tones, such as in Hungary or Germany. Despite having formally learned a foreign language in high school and, in many cases, being in frequent contact with Spanish speakers, most Americans assume that everybody speaks English. Moreover, they also think that most people think America is a great country. Thus, they speak with pride of their country, albeit a bit diminished for some with the advent of Trump. Americans stick out in terms of language. Moreover, not only do they not hide their origin but they are proud of it.

The French relationship with France is a bit more complicated. Most French deeply believe that the French language and culture are superior even if they recognize that the world doesn’t quite see it that way. As a result of that pride and a generally awful system of teaching foreign languages, the average French citizen cannot get by in English or chooses not to do, with exceptions, of course. When asked, they are proud of being French and extol Gaulic values, mainly food, art and sophistication. On the other hand, when asked about their appreciation of its government and policies, alas, according to many studies, the French are not very patriotic and even sometimes rather embarrassed by the current situation. The self-identification “L'État, c'est moi” attributed to Louis XIV is not a sentiment shared by most current French people. It is wonderful to be French but not a French citizen, apparently.

The relationship between Israel and the world is quite complex. To begin with, many Israelis carry a hidden or not-so-hidden concern about anti-Semitism based on events during a long diaspora and in recent years. This suspicion affects Israelis abroad. True, after 1967, Israel gained such status that Israelis traveled abroad with great pride with locals admiring them. Alas, those Halcyon days are long gone, having been replaced by pro-Palestinian demonstrations and violence and open antisemitism in some places. In terms of language, most Israelis, especially younger ones, are quite proficient in English by international standards and can function quite well in English. Thus, Israelis have a choice to speak English or Hebrew. In regards to national pride, while the level may have dropped due to political differences of opinion in Israel, Israelis are among the most patriotic peoples in the world.

To illustrate the dilemma of being an Israeli abroad, I will recount two anecdotes. In 2010, due to a hurricane on the East Coast of the United States, my wife and I had to take a return flight to Israel which involved a 7-hour wait at the connecting airport in Istanbul. On the day before, the Israelis had intercepted the Mavi Marmara, which had been on its way to bring aid to Gaza, resulting in ten deaths. The Turkish government was not pleased, to put it mildly. As we waited in that airport, we suspected that the government would react by hassling Israelis, which they later actually did. As a result, we sat in a quiet part of the airport, avoided attention and spoke in English. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor. By contrast, we have just returned from Germany and the Czech Republic. We made the conscious decision to speak Hebrew openly. For me, I refused to take on the role of the cowed Jew. By the way, nothing happened. The worst reaction was the failure, intentional or not, of a Turkish restaurant manager to understand our country of origin. I consciously chose, as do many Israelis, not to let fear control my life and did not regret that choice. That choice is not always easy.

Thus, in the face of a foreign culture, every traveler chooses an attitude. Whether it is hide or flaunt their identity depends on the person and country. To a certain degree, this decision reflects the travelers’ relations with their country, language and history. Visitors abroad must deal with pride and prejudice as Jane Austin would say.

Ode to the Mediterranean diet - Portion, proportion and price

                                           (Eggplant and tahina as prepared by my wife)

I just returned from a three-week trip to the United States. I was happy to return to my bed, cats, computers and, no less importantly, my diet.  It was not that I ate badly on my trip.  I ate solid American food, fancy French food, tasty Asian food and good basic Mexican food, to name a few.  I certainly did not go hungry.  Still, it is a relief to go back to my Mediterranean diet, filed with lots of vegetables in dishes and salads, a reasonable amount of protein, fresh fruit and nuts.

At each of the restaurant types I dined in, something seemed off.  Typical American fare, such as deli sandwiches, pancakes and American breakfast, is tasty and filling but the portions are simply too big.  The feeling after the meal borders and even sometimes crosses over to heaviness. While it is possible to order smaller portions or split dishes, the eyes are much bigger than the stomach.  The food on the plate only turns out to be too much when after you have finished eating it. I really can live without American food.

I also enjoyed several Asian restaurants.  I relish curries and spicy food. The issue is the matter of proportion.  Hot is as hot feels. Everybody has a different comfort zone but a restaurant can only cater to it to a limited degree. I always felt that I wanted it a bit hotter or milder. Having eaten Chinese food in China I understand that there simply is no single standard of spicing.  The process of trial and error is a long process. Also, the proportion of meat to vegetables is low by Western standards. That is probably good for the body but not always enough for the soul. For me, Asian food is a treat, not an everyday meal.

I also dined a several very fine French restaurants.  The portions were right for middle-aged persons and left me with a nice feeling of having eaten enough but not too much. The taste was rich with complicated sauces complementing the well-prepared meats.  The problem was that the price was rich also.  Comparing the price and the amount of food it purchased, something seemed off. While I was satisfied in terms of quantity and quality, the cost seemed exorbitant. French restaurants are an expensive diet.

Now I am back home with my eggplant, chopped vegetable salad, tahina, shakshuka, falafel, kabab and humus, not to mention lamb, chicken and fish.  The portions, even in restaurants, are sufficient but not exaggerated. The flavors are balanced.  If I want it hotter, I can add some sahug, a hot pepper condiment. The prices are quite reasonable by local income standards and more than reasonable for tourists. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I would say it also has the same effect on the taste buds and stomachs.

Spelling law and disorder

In this world of accelerating Future Shock, there is almost nothing that your great grandparents would understand. At home and at work, almost everything has changed.  However, there remains one bastion of conservatism, the rules of spelling. This one area seems to change little but, in fact, has been subject to various grades of the whims of authority or anarchy, depending on the language. A very brief survey of four languages will show the tectonic plates underlying the solid rock of spelling rules.

Russian has the advantage of being the native language of only one country, albeit a rather large one, with a historical tendency to have authoritarian governments. The Russian written language went through its last major reform slightly more than 100 years ago, in 1917. The Bolsheviks, upon taking power, implemented major changes in the dictionary. The gist of the changes was to eliminate unpronounced letters and symbols. Through its control of printing, these recommendations were enforced, leading to the more logical spelling and shorter books. In more modern times, there has been some incoherent policy regarding official use of е [ye] and ё [yo]. So, due to the monopolistic power of the Soviet government on Russian, spelling was rationalized and maintained.

The French language also has an academy, which takes itself very seriously, of course. However, unlike with Russian, France is a democracy and French is spoken in other countries, notably Belgium and Canada. (Africa, as usual, has no weight on this issue). The French academy recently issued some minor changes in spelling, mainly regarding accents, double l’s and dashes. See https://www.francaisavecpierre.com/reforme-de-lorthographe-du-francais/. I am sure that these changes interest the teachers of French language as well as the readers of Canard Enchainė (btw – I fit both categories), but they have no real effect on the consistency or rationality of French spelling. By contrast, any attempt to introduce the Belgium use of septante and nonante to replace the mathematically challenging soixante-dix and quatre-vingts-dix as the terms for seventy and ninety would be rejected offhand by the learned members of the academy. The French language will continue its creative and non-user-friendly spelling system.

Hebrew is an ancient language spoken as a native tongue in one country. An official language academy even exists: https://hebrew-academy.org.il/. That said, when you have two Jews, you have three opinions. Even in the Bible in the same section, the same words are spelled in different ways. Formally speaking, there are two written forms of a word: the short form without vowel symbols (what most people read) and the long form with the vowel sounds marked, used for learning and reading the Bible. Unfortunately, the Israel school systems does not very actively or effectively teach spelling and pronunciation, which sometimes creates confusion for these readers. For example, the wordבקר can be pronounced [boker] meaning morning or [bakar] meaning cattle. While context should be sufficient to distinguish the correct sounds, many people, with the acquiescence of the Hebrew academy, add a ו [vuv], the symbol for the [o] sound, in an attempt to clarify. Likewise, people also add a י [yud], the symbol for the [ee] sound, to words to emphasize that sound.  As one speaker at a conference in Beit Berel said, Hebrew speakers must and have been able to apply intelligence when reading. She was strongly against stupefying the language. So, chaos and debate have always ruled the Hebrew language and will apparently continue to do.

Then there is English. Reflecting his personal pronunciation, Samuel Johnson published the first truly practical dictionary in 1755.  Learners have been suffering ever since. To be fair, the claim that English spelling is not phonetic is not accurate.  It is phonetic for places that have guttural gh’s and kn’s. Alas, that specific linguistic group represents a very small percentage of people in the UK, not to mention the world. The reason why this strange system cannot be reformed as was Russian is that no country or academy controls the English language.  Since the British cannot impose their spelling on the US and vice versa, English has taken the typical Anglo-Saxon attitude of agreeing to disagree but with a hint of disapproval. Thus, the Oxford dictionary places the American spelling in small letters after the entry while the Webster’s write the UK spelling in small letters after the American English entry. Given the number of parties with an interest in English, I am rather convinced that this state of organized chaos will exist in another three generations. Thus, for the foreseeable future, we are stuck with memorizing, spelling quizzes, dictionaries and spellcheck.

Thus, even spelling, that dry and iconoclastic form of communication, is subject to the influence of politics and culture. How your children will spell words is truly a matter of law and disorder.

Special oops

Sports are complex, leading to a constant series of errors. In fact, success in many sports is the exception.  For example, in baseball, a good hitter makes a hit only 30% of the time, meaning that most of the time the batter fails.  Of course, the reason for a given lack of success is often hard to identify since the interaction of a large number of players creates a complex interplay of forces. In the above example, the hitter can fail to get to first base because of good pitches, poor swing, heavy shifting of the defense, a great play by an opposing player and sheer bad luck, to name just a few.  Occasionally, a player makes a mistake that he can only look at himself and wonder how he did such a thing.  The fans, even the most sympathetic ones, often react to such mishaps in the most direct way – boos.  The less understanding ones want the head of the offending player.

Continuing with our first example, American baseball, players are faced with numerous situations where they are face to face with the ball, all by themselves. A loss of concentration can lead to the ball rolling between their legs, leaving the poor player looking really stupid.  Sometimes, a player forgets to touch all four bags after he hits the ball out of the park, nullifying the hit. A very rare example of being spacey is thinking there are two outs when there isn’t or vice versa. That will lead to a lot of kidding and even a fine on some teams.

Basketball is fast paced, team game, which leads to many mistakes of circumstances. However, there are some moments of individual ridiculousness.  The most common example is the player standing by the net with no opposing player around him and slamming the ball on the ring instead of the net. The only that goes higher than the ball is the blood pressure of the player.  Ball handling skills are taken for granted, especially for guards.  Yet, from time to time, the ball handler forgets that he has already dribbled but does it again in full view of the referees, who have no choice but to call double dribble. On a more ridiculous level, last minute confusion sometimes leads the player holding the ball outside the court to pass it quite accurately to a player of the other team.  Try and explain that to the coach and fans.

American football combines speed, violence and complexity, also leading to a large number of mistakes and penalties. Most can be explained by the interaction of the large number of players but some cannot. An example is the player called for lining up behind the line of scrimmage when the rules require that the offense have at least seven players on the line of scrimmage. As the commentators so sarcastically note, it is not hard to look left and right to see where you are located. Another infrequent error is the poor pass between the center and quarterback, leading to a fumble.  The two players practice this transfer tens of thousands of times. It should be automatic, right?  On the defensive side, cornerbacks and safeties are supposedly taught to look for the ball.  Unfortunately, under the pressure of the situation, a few forget to do so and get in the head with a flying football.  If they didn’t have a helmet, they would have a red welt on the back of their head.  Instead, they are merely very red-faced.

My discussion is limited is American sports with which I am most familiar.  I would happily love to hear about unforgivable errors in other sports.  For example, in European football, aside from a self-goal, are there other WTF moments?

Racism and the “Dash” problem

Pluralistic countries, such as the United and Israel, suffer from a human identity problem.  In the US, the people walking in the streets are black- Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish Americans, etc. while in Israel there are Russian, Ethiopian, Moroccan, Druze, Arab, etc. Israelis.  Most countries of the world share the same situation to one degree or another, including such previous essentially homogenous countries of France and Denmark.  The issue is the emphasis: what is more dominant, the “species” or the “genus”. In other words, when people see different citizens of their country, what enters the mind, their shared or differentiated cultural values?

To demonstrate, I live in a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northern Israel.  The culture of origin of my neighbors is obvious from the clothes they wear, the odors coming from their kitchen, and the manner in which they say shalom.  They include Ethiopians, both immigrants and second generation, Russian, Caucasians (from the Russian Caucuses), North African Jews whose taste in music and clothes has not been radically changed by the three generations of living in Israel, and local Arabs who choose to living in a Jewish town for personal reasons, to name only a few.  A white Ashkenazi potential apartment buyer here could have at least two reactions.  On one extreme, this person could the see the differences of life style as a threat; these people are not really “Israeli” enough; “I” don’t fit or want to fit in with “them”.  The opposite attitude is to view the inhabitants as people who have chosen, for whatever the reason, to make their life in Israel and face common challenges, specifically making a living, raising a family, and enjoying life as much as possible.  The choice of keeping the Shabbat or not or the style of Friday night dinner and even the color of the skin are minor details.  When the VAT goes up, we all suffer. 

That said, some issues, often fed by opportunistic politicians, divide people by ethnic background.  Controversial trials, such as those of OJ Simpson in the US and Arie Deri in Israel, highlight ethnicity not  nationality.  International events often create a dilemma of loyalties, perceived or real, for the group in question.  These include threats to fellow members in another country, such as war in the Middle East or a massacre of group members elsewhere. Finally, actual racist behavior directed at the group specifically can separate its interests from the collective interest.  The best example is violent police behavior directed at a member of that ethnic group.  So, the ultimate melting pot is an ideal, not a reality.

Still, the key to a tolerant and non-racist society is seeing beyond obvious visual and behavior differences and noticing the common culture shared by all Israeli, Americans, and even French and Germans, to name just a few.  The excitement of parents on the first day of kindergarten of their children or fans as their team wins a World Cup games transcends individual differences as does the sadness of parents of a soldier on his final journey or frustration of commuters trapped in a traffic jam.

Bill Cosby, in an early and not very “funny” routine demonstrated the stupidity of racism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjzB_-3sRqk) as did MAD magazine several decades ago in which a racist was described as someone who loves America but hates 98% of the people who live there.   Hopefully, in the future, people will learn to drop the dash permanently.