This pastThursday, I attended an organizational meeting for the Фе�тиваль �зыков (Language Festival) here in Cheboksary.There, I was joined by Sasha Blinov, one of my Chuvash teachers, my friend Anouk,a Belgian volunteer at Sodruzhestvo, Tania, a Russian student who attends theEnglish club I help out at and Olga, a Russian girl with whom I had emailedback and forth with during the summer! It really is a small town!
The LanguageFestival is very well organized – it’s the 18th year that it’s beenheld here in Cheboksary. Foreigners come out from hiding all over the city, andthe area; some even come in from Moscow. The goal of the symposium is to get asmany languages represented, and then invite the city of Cheboksary to come andinteract with each one. Tim, my new friend and the other Fulbright student herein Cheboksary, has agreed to do English/American English, so I will be doingtwo presentations, one on Californian languages and the other on Idi! Thelanguage presentations will be in Russian, (45 minutes each block), but Tim andI may do the English one half in English as well, depending on the audience.
At the meeting,Olga, a sweet Russian student of philology, asked to be my ‘kurator’, basicallymy care-taker during the festival. Every foreigner gets one J. She is very nice, and I will hopefully be able to help herwith her English as she is helping me with my Russian.
I also met ayoung Russian journalist named Artiom. He is a first year student at ChuvashState University in the Journalism program. He has a lot of initiative, andjust came up and asked me to be on his radio show – Student Village – onChuvash National Radio! I agreed, since I’m trying to get as much publicity formy research as possible, and yesterday we met again and recorded the interview.I was very nervous, obviously it was all in Russian, but he said I did reallywell. He did ask me a bit about my project, which I was happy to chat on about,but then he asked me all kinds of questions about the differences between theUS and Russia. It is of course quite common to be asked “What kind oftraditions do you have?” “How do you celebrate holidays?” “How are Americansdifferent from Russians?” But I still haven’t come up with very good answers. Itry to be diplomatic about it, usually starting off with, we really aren’t thatdifferent as you might think! But when I see the disappointment in their eyes,I know I have to come up with something. Often I tell the story about how Ismiled constantly during the first three weeks that the Scientist and I weredating, until he bravely requested that I “stop smiling (i.e. flirting) atevery man I see!” I usually mention our families tradition of exchanging newpajamas on Christmas eve every year – since that’s the only ‘tradition’ Iconsider interesting and different from normal. That is, until I realize thatsimply celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25th (as opposed to Jan 1st)is different than here in Russia. For me, it’s just like when someone asks meabout my accent. It’s very difficult to tell people what’s interesting aboutsomething you view as fundamentally normal! I guess I’ll have to keep searchingfor these answers.
Anyway, the showairs on Monday, October 15th, at 12:30 Moscow time in all ofChuvashia. I’ll try and see if I can get a recording of it. He also said thathe might want to put an article in the paper about my research. I really hopehe does! It could help me a lot with finding participants. Oh! And he let mesay the tagline for the show – in Chuvash!
«Ð«Ñ€Äƒ кун пултăр! Слушайтепрограмму СтуденчеÑ�кий городок на ЧувашÑ�ком Ð�ациональном Радио!» Literally:«Good Day! Listen to Student Village on Chuvash National Radio!»
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