Memorially Different

One of the effects of being an expatriate is perspective on how certain occasions are marked and celebrated.  A good example is Memorial Day, however it is called.  Universally, it is intended to remember the soldiers, sailors and pilots that died for the country.  In practice, it is marked by distinctly different customs.

In Israel, the date of remembrance of fallen soldiers is symbolically the day before Independence Day. It is clearly a day of mourning with all the incumbent symbols.  People visit cemeteries where ceremonies are conducted. Starting from eve before, the name of each fallen warrior is recited as well as his/her date of death.  The TV broadcasts programs about various brave young men and women that gave their lives for their country.  The radio plays “quiet” (and beautiful) music. There is a siren and moment of standing silence on the eve and in the morning of the Israeli Remembrance Day.  Then, rather peculiarly or maybe poetically, as the end of the day approaches, the TV broadcasts the exchanging of the flags at the Knesset (annual changing of the guards from military unit to military unit). At the end of this ceremony, there are suddenly fireworks: Independence Day has begun.  Everybody can be happy now.  Of course, for some, that is not such an easy task, but Israel, in following its Jewish roots, imposes joy as an antidote for endless mourning.  Israeli Remembrance Day is truly a day of remembering.

By contrast, in most of the United States, it mainly marks the beginning of the summer. In military towns in the United States, such as San Diego and Norfolk to name just two, Memorial Days is marked by official military ceremonies.  However, for most people, it is a long weekend.  (By law, it must fall on either a Friday or Monday, which says something about the United States).  People go on trips, to baseball games or shopping. People smile and laugh, but not necessarily from disrespect. The number of WWII vets is very small today.  The Korean conflict was more than 65 years ago.  Even the Vietnam War is already a distant time some 40 years ago.  Several thousand American soldiers have died in the latest batch of Middle Eastern operations but, alas, it only directly affects a small number of families.  My feeling that most of the United States has little sense of loss, leaving most Americans with the feeling that Memorial Day is a fun holiday.  Have a good time.

Lest you think that I find that entirely wrong, Israeli would be a happier, albeit different, place if there were no names to recite on Remembrance Day.  Yet, like a resident of any small town in Europe looking at the long list of fallen soldiers from World War I located in the corner of every church, it reinforces for me how terrible but sometimes necessary war can be.

I would be interested in hearing on how Memorial Days is marked in other countries.

More Salad

My daughter’s first sentence was “I want more salad.” This begs the question of the actual contents of the salad since every country has a different default definition for a salad. In other words, certain ingredients are used unless specified otherwise.  That choice is dictated by the land and history of the region to a certain degree.

In Israel, salad generally implies some mixture of tomatoes and cucumbers.  Not native to the region, the warm weather and advanced agricultural techniques guarantees a yearlong supply of them.  The actual proportion depends on the relative price of those two components; a heavy proportion of cucumbers hints that tomato prices are high at the moment. Personal choice affects the choice of any additional ingredients, such as peppers and onions, and dressing. With the internationalization of food, some restaurants call this “chopped salad.”  So generally you won’t get lettuce unless it is specified in the description.

By contrast, an American salad is generally lettuce, most often iceberg, with a few token tomatoes. To be fair, lettuce in the United States is generally inexpensive and of good quality.  For the eater, the typical dinner salad does present good volume, giving the impression of value for the money.  Impressions can be much important than reality.  I have to admit that I strongly prefer my “adopted” salad over that of my birthplace mainly because of taste.

The French, strangely enough, have no particular salad but instead local specialties.  In small cafés, les crudités (a plate of raw vegetables, not foul language) is often served. Nicer restaurants may offer slices of tomatoes with mozzarella cheese.  In the south of France, a salade Niçoise, containing lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, green beans and tuna, is available everywhere.  As is the French tendency, why make it simple if you can make more it fancy (and complicated)? 

In northern Europe, due to the cold weather, cabbage is much more economical than lettuce.  There are countless cabbage dishes, coleslaw for example, served with meals.  Besides being hardier than lettuce, cabbage has much more taste, albeit a bit bitter.  The use of various dressings, such as mayonnaise and vinegar-based pickling, adds a variety to the cabbage experience.

In Asia, the norm is pickled salads.  China, Japan and Korea all suffer from a lack of agricultural land relative to their population.  Also, China traditionally used “night soil” (human waste) as a fertilizer.  Thus, vegetables are generally good but expensive relative to income.  I have heard the Japanese market prices are quite “wild” from a Western perspective.  So, the salads come in small pickled dishes with choice vegetables.  Examples include Korean kimshee, Japanese pickled daikon and Chinese pickled vegetables.  These are smaller but much tastier than their Western equivalents.

So, a salad is what the land gives to the people in plenty.  I would like to hear about your local salad.

Language Interference

Immigrants all over the world suffer from it: they can no longer speak a pure sentence in their native tongue.  Over time, bits and pieces of the local language invade their speech until it becomes a hybrid language only understandable to their children and fellow immigrants, a personal “Creole.”

The first foreign element to sneak it is vocabulary, generally local (and important) institutions.  Please note the following phrases heard in various places in Israel:

Il n’avait pas au beit merkahat.  

Пошел в купат холим.  [Poshel v kupat holim]

I spent six months at the Mercaz Klita.

For the ignorant, the beit merkahat is a pharmacy; kupat holim is the medical clinic; and the Mercaz Klita is Absorption Center.

To be fair, this invasion goes both ways. Our native language forces itself into our version of the local language.  One of the classic mistakes by English-speakers in French, one that eludes a rather surprising response especially for females, is the literal translation of the term I am full into Je suis pleine.  The French reaction may be to look at the belly and say politely “congratulations” since that phrase in French means I am pregnant.

Surprisingly, not all of the pratfalls autocorrect over time.  I still, after 25 years, cannot always recall that the English expression I ate it (meaning I paid the price) is not אכלתי את זה  [achalit et ze] but instead אכלתי אותו  achalti oto].  So, immigrants continue to mangle their new language.

Moreover, applying roots from one language and grammar from the other language, immigrants create their perfectly logical (to them anyway) vocabulary.  My father loves his creation obviousment, made up of the English root obvious and the French adverb suffix (equivalent to the English “ly”) ment.  No such French word exists in Le Petit Robert, affectionately known as “Little Bob” but actually a French dictionary, but who cares? We understand him.

All this give and take means that over time immigrants create their own personal language, fully understandable to a select few.  The process is called language interference but I would prefer to label it cross pollination since the result is a magical and unique.  On exhibit, I present one of my mother’s classic sentences to her mother, containing no less than three languages in no more than five words: pick up a bissel pain – or for those who don’t understand this Creole (English, Yiddish and French, respectively), pick up some bread. Now that is a thing of beauty!

פעמיים כי לא טוב [poamim ke lo tov] Or Twice is not good

For airplanes and shuttles, redundancy is beneficial while for languages, it is traditional and mindless.  In other words, certain expressions are used without most people even considered the meaning of their individual parts.  If they did, they would understand that the second term adds no value.

Two classic legal examples are null and void and terms and conditions.  If an attorney wrote that the terms were null since they were unconstitutional, the meaning would be crystal clear with the exact same as when using the standard pairs.  Similarly, when receiving an order to cease and desist, it makes no difference whether you cease or desist.  Finally, there is the last will and testament, but either will arrange matters after your death.

Politicians are also guilty.  The Congress has the Ways and Means Committee, the Budget Committee in other words, in which it tries to find the way (or is that the means) of paying for a budget item.  Each and every citizen should be represented when either of them would include all Americans.

Even common folk are not completely innocent.  Keeping something under lock is no different than keeping it under lock and key since without the key, well, there may be a problem. Your feel just as uncomfortable feeling pins as it would be pins and needles.   Looking in every nook and cranny to find your glasses will lead to the exact same results as searching every nook or cranny.  Finally, if everybody and his third cousin know about it, so does everybody.

Sometimes there is logic to doubling up.  You need both nuts and bolts to attach something, even if the expression means the basic elements.  Likewise, when older people talk about aches and pains, there is a difference between them, mainly in terms of the duration and strength of the unpleasant feeling.

So, as in poker, doubling up can be tempting but may not be the right decision.  Think before you use a pair of synonymous words.

I would be interested in hearing if such useless pairs also exist in other languages.  Let me know.

Disappearing garbage

In my town in Israel and most towns worldwide, ten years ago, the husband (or other family member if he was not available) took out the garbage because, obviously, the garbage was full and possibly smelly.  Today, in Israel, without carrot or stick so to speak, garbage has shrunk to the point that the garbage bin smells long before it fills up. My main garbage bag in the kitchen contains what used to collect hourly in the small bag in the “triangle” by the sink.  In other words, at least in the house (but unfortunately not on television), we produce less and less refuse.

To explain, all large plastic bottles are put in a box to be transferred to recycling bins located in every neighborhood. Plastic wrapping and other food packaging goes to a recently introduced bin in our neighborhood recycling center.  We use the few plastic bags that we bring home, mainly when buying fruits and vegetables, for our cats’ waste. Glass and plastic beverage bottles are collected and brought to the supermarket for a rebate.  All paper, which my office produces too much of, is placed in a recycle bin in that same center.  Organic material without fat is put in our compost bin in our garden.  The neighborhood cats happily consume the chicken fat or bones, no waste there.  All that is left is the tissues consumed fighting my seasonal allergies and some scraps from the plates, which eventually create an unpleasant odor and have to be dumped.

In Israel, the placement of neighborhood recycling centers has quietly made this revolution possible without financial rewards, except in the case of beverage bottles, or penalties.  Admittedly, not everybody recycles but the sheer convenience of it gradually is bringing along, even the most insular families.  The proof is that the recycling bins fill up very quickly. In Los Angeles, the city provides three garbage bins, one each for household garbage, garden waste and recyclables, with the first being the smallest. In the West, garbage reduction has become necessary and possible.  Other cities set the garbage fee based on volume.  I am happy to admit that this is one culture change that I fully support.

I would be interested in hearing on how your locale is treating the issue.

House culture

A man’s (or a woman’s) house is his castle, or so they say.  It can also be his status symbol, social hall or just dormitory, all depending on the individual person and group culture.

The original expression in English means that the owner of the house may design and decorate the house as s/he pleases, of course as long it does not violate any housing codes or block any views of the neighbors.  This medieval law also allows you to refuse access to any person that you choose, especially salespersons, to the point of being able to shoot intruders in some countries and circumstances. Even the police technically have to attain a warrant to enter a house.  All that is missing is a moat.

In many countries, such as the United States and Israel, it is your statement of income.  Whether you have one bedroom or fifteen does matter in the eyes of society. It determines your social circle and basically announces your tax bracket.  Regardless of the formal price and currency, only the rich can afford a large estate with gardens and pools while only the poor stay in government housing projects, with the possible exception of the few remaining communist countries such as North Korean, where there is basically equality in poverty.

In the Mediterranean and other regions, the house is your social center.  Families and friends generally gather at their houses, not at restaurants.  In these places, houses and apartments are fairly big while restaurants are expensive relative to income.  For example, many Israeli families get together on Friday or Saturday nights around a nice meal, sun flower seeds and tea to share time together. The atmosphere and cost are truly family-friendly, better than any restaurant.

By contrast, in Paris and other large cities, where apartments are small, dark and expensive, the preferred meeting place is restaurants.  Likewise, in many parts of the United States, it is common for people not to invite people over as a matter of principle, as if your house was your castle against the world.  In this case, the house is a place to eat, sleep and watch television.  What counts is the noise level outside, distance from public transportation, available parking and proximity to shopping.  Granted, all those feature can cost quite a fortune in a city like New York, but still, the aesthetics of the location are much less important. The house is more a less an inflated dorm room, minus roommate.

So, your home is what you make of it or others make of it. Do not take it for granted.

Pesach is coming (run for your lives)

For Jews everywhere including in Israel, Pesach (Passover)  is a unifying holiday.  Jews of all strides celebrate it, from atheists to ultra-orthodox, albeit with significant differences of style and length.  As in most important events, the events with the most impact, at least emotionally, are before the actual occasion.  The week before Pesach is a curious play on the words said on Pesach eve: עבדים היינו [avadim hahnhnu] , once we were slaves:

Grocery store employees spend hours rearranging shelves and putting paper over the sections with foods that are  חמץ [hametz], forbidden to eat during Pesach.

Women spend a whole week doing a comprehensive spring cleaning of the house while trying to keep up on their other chores and of course, go to work.

Family members spend hours waiting in line in stores to buy the various items required for the Pesach meal.  The most dreaded sound is that last call on the morning of the Pesach when “she” suddenly remembers that some vital product is missing or discovers that she ran out of something. Husbands now have no excuses to postpone household repairs.  The dreaded day to tackle the long list of minor but time-consuming maintenance tasks has arrived.  Cleaning the house suddenly seems quite attractive.

The females have the standard issue of deciding and maybe purchasing new clothing for the holiday.  At least half of the population will understand how stressful that can be.  Religious Jews that can afford it buy clothes for the entire family.  Now that is an interesting family activity.

Generational arguments break out regarding the mythical quality of the grandmother’s cleaning and/or cooking, the choice to serve any of those ethnically-allowed foods such as rice and, often the most destructive, with whom the married son or daughter will spend the first night, with us or them, the in-laws (who have no idea how to properly make gefilte fish).

Everybody gets to complain about the weather.  If it is cold, it doesn’t feel like the spring.  If it rains, it makes it impossible to put the furniture in the garden when cleaning.  If it is windy, it redistributes the dust that you just supposedly cleaned.  If it is nice, you complain about what you would rather be doing on such a beautiful day.  Successful bitching is guaranteed.

The people working in retail not only put extra hours to meet the exaggerated demands of the Israeli consumer but are expected to prepare a proper Pesach and smile that evening.

Even those who are so fortunate to go to someone else’s house have the difficult task of finding an appropriate gift.  Of course, you cannot arrive with empty hands.  The pleasure begins even before you arrive because finding a parking spot at a shopping mall can be finding a needle in the haystack. Once you do, you have to think of a gift that the host does not have too many of already, would be appreciated and costs the appropriate amount. 

The fun reaches its peak in the hours before the Sedar.  The whole family gets to participate in the great shower wars, involving how much hot water each member of the family uses, obviously at the expense of the others.  Then, for those who are travelling, the whole happy family gets into the car and joins the countless others in a giant traffic jam, everybody hoping to the Sedar on time.

However, once the first cup of wine is drunk, all that is forgotten.  People smile and say חג שמח וכשר [hag sameach ve kasher], a happy and kosher holiday.  It was all worth it.