My Profound Love for the Unlovable Giant
by alterismus
When we genuinely, truly Love something, can we always explain why exactly we feel this way? When that love is conditional, does it somehow make it more valid, more true, more deserving in the eyes of the rest out there? Is that feeling supposed to be objective? Do you always need to justify it? If what you hold so close to your heart is, by all commonly accepted notions, unworthy of praise or affection, entirely unlovable – are you wrong then? Does that go to show your feelings have no ground for existence?
I don’t know what the answers are to any of these questions, but something I read this morning made me feel like my deep, sincere affection for Russia is just that – unfounded. By all definitions of a ‘good country’, it is ungood; it doesn’t deserve a heartbeat of mine.
Except it does. If only an unconditional heartbeat at that, there will always be one in my chest cherished for my awkward Giant.
I actually like the author of Decoller, I do. I, unfortunately, don’t know her name, but I think if we knew each other in real life, we, possibly, would get along. I like the way she writes, she is obviously very intelligent, and most likely a very nice person too. Her post, Another Glass of Wine, made me twist into a pretzel in pain, but I respect her nonetheless – she has lived through everything she is writing about, she is/was an insider, the Giant made her too, even if she denies it: “everything I am today, everything I know, everything I own, every opportunity I’ve had in life only happened thanks to the United States. Had this country not invited my parents to work here, I shudder to think what my life would have been like.” Allow me, this being my blog, to say that I honestly don’t think this can be true, certainly some good qualities she possesses had to have been conceived in the Land of the Miserable somehow. She writes without insults, without arrogance, mostly, which I appreciate, the experiences she describes are personal, things that her family struggled or is still struggling with. Many of them I can relate to with every single inch of my being. Like this one:
“My grandfather is 78 years old, kept alive and well only through my mother’s constant battle for the best medical care (American) money can buy. He retired in the rank of colonel, having spent his entire career in the Soviet military. He receives a state pension of the equivalent of $450/month. The medication he has to take daily amounts to approximately $250/month, and that’s just his medication. If my mom hadn’t had a job as a doctor in the United States, my grandfather would be dead. It’s really that simple.”
She is right.
What I am about to share is one of the most difficult things my family had to live through. I am not at all sure if I can do it well, but I want to try.
***
My grandmother, Nina, passed away on the 20th of September, 2005. She was 66. She died of a brain tumor.
Nothing I can ever write about her can possibly match the inherent Godliness she was blessed with. Of all the people I have met, of all the people I have yet to meet, I will hold no one higher. Her kindness, her crystal clear conscience, her absolute, unvarnished honesty, endless, selfless love for everyone around her, burning desire to help everyone in need – all that and so much more I will carry in my heart and soul through my entire life. She needed so little to be genuinely happy. I think I made her happiest – nobody ever looked at me quite like she did, with that much love in their eyes. For my parents, for me, for our family she would give away her own heart without hesitating even a fraction of a second. She was beautiful, really, really beautiful. I can never stop loving her, I can never stop missing her and I can never stop wishing she was in my life always.
Thankfully, we have always been a family who knew what we had when we had each other. I can’t say that there are things I wish I had told her before she died. I did tell her, always. On her 65th birthday, because I was studying in the US at the time, I wrote her a letter. Among other things, I wrote how much I admire her, how proud I am that she is my family, how the best things in me are only there because I am part of this family. She cried. She said she didn’t deserve me thinking that highly of her, me loving her so. Her humility amazes me still. She was always very shy because she was not educated. She had to start working, peeling bark off tree trunks at a factory, when she was 12 years old because they had nothing to eat. She was always afraid that her simplicity was embarrassing somehow. It wasn’t, it wasn’t at all.
She is the best person that ever happened to me. She is now my angel and no one can persuade me otherwise.
On the morning of August 22nd, 2005 she fainted, suddenly, nothing had bothered her before. Ambulance, hospital. Then the next hospital. For nearly a month that followed we were watching her life abandon her – one body part at a time. First one of her arms was paralyzed, then half of her body, then she stopped talking and then she could barely move at all.
The night before she died I was sitting next to her bed, telling her about my day, telling her about my plan for the day after, holding her hand, touching her face, her hair, I knew she could hear me, I was looking into her eyes and I knew she could. Then before I went home, I leaned in and buried my face in her pillow, hugging her, whispered that I love her and that I don’t know how, but it’s going to be okay.
It wasn’t. She died the next day.
That was the day I swore, shaking in my agony, that nobody, nobody I love will ever see the insides of a Russian hospital again. That I will do whatever it takes, I will go anywhere, I will work, I’ll pave streets with my bones if I have to – but this will never happen to my family again.
***
We never had money. My mother always jokes that we are poor, but proud. The only reason we always had food is the dacha where my mom and dad grow potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and such, and my mom grows the most amazing strawberries in town!
They wouldn’t even talk to us in the hospital. Most days we struggled to find a doctor who knew what was happening to our grandma. We had nothing to give them, we couldn’t pay and it was obvious, so, we got no attention. They gave up on her the minute she was admitted. No human being deserves to die in that room and I certainly will never forget it, it’s a tattoo in my brain.
My parents are not 50 yet, they are young, they are together. We love each other, we have the most amazing dog, Bosya, and a lovely apartment, small, but very cute. I know that when they retire, I will take care of them. I will make sure they never feel what it’s like living on a retirement pension in Russia. I can do that. I’m already there. I know just as clearly that if I lived at home, I wouldn’t be able to promise them this security.
So, what the Hell is the matter with me? Why? Why am I, being of sound mind and body, so passionately in love with the land of hardships and sorrow?
Because I am.
A lot of people could easily throw this into my face: “If you are so crazy about Russia, why don’t you live there, huh?! It’s easy to love a country like that once or twice a year, isn’t it?”
No, it is not. It is not easy to talk to people you love more than anything in the entire world once a week on a computer screen. It is not easy to be by yourself, return to an empty house every night, knowing that you are all you’ve got in this immediate presence. It is not easy to hear that the boy you grew up with, who was like a brother to you all your life, is getting married and you can’t be there because you have to be on a flight somewhere above the Atlantic that day. It is not easy to be so remote from your own essence, from your nature, from what’s in your blood. But I’m doing it. Willingly. Was my choice. At this point in my life I have my reasons, I am looking for something, whether I find it or not, and where, is another story.
I am not denying the problems, the difficulties, the things that are being done wrong. I am not claiming that we have it all covered, on the contrary, yes, some things are bad, some things are really, really bad… I don’t know how to make them better, but I will also never agree that nobody is trying and people living there are sheep and scum. I will never agree that we don’t have values or that we are not intelligent. Quite the opposite actually…
As I am writing this, still keep asking myself, why? The best I can try for right now is – because it is a part of who I am. God forbid the day comes when I abhor my own blood, but if it does, I am afraid I will be ashamed of myself. I am afraid I will be very, very ashamed. Left lost, without a core, without anything to hold on to…
I love my awkward Giant. Unconditionally. It made me who I am today, and I know I’m pretty proud of that girl!
Your words strongly resonate with my own feelings, I simply don’t understand why if there are so many problems in Russia I’m supposed to hate it. To me, it’s just an additional incentive to work harder to solve them, at least for myself and those who are close to me. As for Decoller, she seems to be a typical émigré, blaming her departure on Russia and compensating it with extra hatred for her former country and extra love for the new-found one. This type is so common and all of them are practically look-alikes, reciting the myth about “one rifle per three soldiers”. Sometimes I’m very glad that they left Russia.
I won’t profess my love for Russia further, Yesenin put it best:
Если крикнет рать святая:
“Кинь ты Русь, живи в раю!” -
Я скажу: “Не надо рая,
Дайте родину мою”.
Thank you, kovane, for reminding me of this beautiful verse, and for the support too. Speaking of Decoller, perhaps you are right, I actually then later on, re-reading her post, noticed she says that LR is worth a read, hmmm, I thought, okay, maybe we wouldn’t get along after all :) But regardless, she does possess the decency, at least, to write about it well, without poisonous spit, like LR. I was actually surprised Mark has not yet commented on that entry of hers, I believe there are already a couple of posts devoted to The Kremlin Stooge – she finds it fascinating because Mr. Chapman is not actually Russian (I haven’t told her that you guys are both to blame for that Russia-loving hub ;)
Лирическое отступление: there is a poem by Yesenin that was the first poem I ever experienced, I believe, I was about 6 or 7 and I opened a random book from one of the shelves, and there it was – I read it, and somehow it shook me to such an extent that my kiddie brain instantly memorized it, and I have never forgotten it since. It is called “Что прошло – не вернуть никогда”…
Perhaps not as poetic, but easily as philosophical, is this from Mr. Putin during the G8 Summit in 2006: “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain”.
Oh, sorry, that was my message, not Mark’s, could you delete it?
Well, to be honest, can you even imagine something more fanatical, bigoted and outright crazy than LR? :) So saying that someone is more decent than her is not that much of a compliment.
My understanding that you have a linguistic education, so you must have read a lot of literature. Alas, I have always been more comfortable with numbers than words, but some pieces, like that of Yesenin, are just too beautiful and emotive.
Just did;
You are right, actually, what was I thinking? Nothing can be worse than that nonsense :) And being better than their little caravan only takes a very small amount of common sense!
Yeah, I was a book wormie for as long as I can remember, went to our local library every Saturday, always at the same time, for years, all through primary and middle school. And then in high school I discovered boys! My mom and dad still thought I was at the library, when in fact… well, you know how it goes :)
Numbers, huh? I think you are being modest again, the way you are in English – you have to have a knack for languages too somehow, otherwise I am confused as to where the proficiency came from?
I’m pretty sure boys welcomed your discovery, but the local library must have been weeping crocodile tears ever since :)
Nope, no special knack, I think. I just happen to have a rather good memory. Several years ago I had to read a lot of books in English as part of my job and I picked up more than a few words in the process.
I remember that linguists study two languages obligatorily, does that mean that you know some other language apart from English, Russian and Chinese?
ha ha! boys did, and I think you may be right about the library too, they did love me over there, I was, like, their most devoted fan!
I’d say you picked up a lot more than just a few words, it’s really impressive!
Ahhh, yes, German it was, my 2nd major, but it’s all in my ‘passive knowledge’ box right now – I haven’t spoken it since graduation, but I can still read it and get the general idea. And then there was Spanish, when I was in the States, I hung out with guys from Latin America so much I was near perfect. Same as German now – in the trunk. Although I think if I’m in either of those places for, say, 6 months, it’ll all come back just fine. So, at the moment just using the 3 I really need, we’ll see where life takes me next!
I won’t lie, it’s really flattering that you call my English “impressive”, but I wonder what word do you have in mind to describe your own achievements? :)
I’m simply speechless and my hat is off to you. Knowing what it takes to learn one language fairly well, I’ amazed at both your talent and diligence. Too bad that the Chinese use them now, not Russia.
No, no word whatsoever and I’m not just saying this to seem humble and all ;) I think about it usually as this gift that I was born with, and what actually happened is I was lucky enough to discover it in time, and to care for it, to make it flourish. But I’ve had a lot of support along the way – my mother, the most amazing woman ever, took me from one кружок to another, I changed hobbies every other month until I started learning English. And then, very soon, I announced that language is now my hobby, and I’m not interested in anything else. They supported me every single day, used the last money to buy English books and pay for additional classes. They are the ones I thank for most of what I’ve got every day, I just was using what came pre-installed :) And in my head language is very transparent somehow, its inner workings are so logical and uncomplicated, it’s just I see all that without even trying.
My diligence still needs a lot of work too, in all honesty my Chinese could be perfect now if I actually invested all my capacity into it, for real. But what happened there was a bit of disillusionment in the culture, disappointment got in the way and I lost focus.
I’ve got to try harder :)
And get this, I just typed all this out of bed on my iPhone 4, this gadget brings me childish joy! I’m so one of those morons with a bitten apple in each eyeball, he, well, whatchya gonna do!
Oh, please don’t tell me that you’re one of them яблочники! I have serious difficulty in determining who are more zealous, them or Jehovah’s Witnesses. :)
I suppose it’s a great blessing to find your true vocation so early and pursue it, so you’re a very lucky person in that sense. Please, don’t be too hard on yourself, I can’t even possibly imagine what would happen to my head if I tried to shove a fifth language in it :)
What do you mean by “a bit of disillusionment in the culture”? Can you explain?
“Oh, please don’t tell me that you’re one of them яблочники!” – Guilty as charged :) I am the most zealous one! Me! Me! Ha ha, no, not really, but yeah, it’s so shiny I can’t help myself. Everybody has one of those weaknesses, you know, things you can’t stop spending money on, even if you already have a million of them, you know you don’t need one, but there is nothing you can do, it’s stronger than you – I’m like that with mobile phones and shower gels. Go figure.
Disappointment / disillusionment was something that hit me very hard when I moved here, and it happened so quickly that I didn’t handle it well at all. I had this image, this impression of a culture so elevated, so special, I thought that I was moving to a country where they know something westerners don’t, where they know a little bit more about the meaning of it all. I wanted to learn their language, I wanted to understand them. I was, oh my God, so not prepared for what I actually saw. I saw a bunch of people who can’t handle themselves in public, with habits that almost caused me physical pain, people obsessed with money, with owning property. People, unfortunately, for the most part, with close to no ability for independent thought, followers, yes, but very blind ones. People, who, I was shocked to find out, have no deeper levels of understanding life. It sounds awful, I know, but I am re-building that image now. Now that I am more settled in, now that I can see them a little bit better, a lot of those impressions are mended. I have a lot of respect for them about certain things, but some things do bother me, sure. But I always try to keep those things in check, you know, I try to stay as remote as I can from passing judgement. All I can do is share what it felt like for me, and that’s it, but I’m just one person and there is a million things that I don’t see. So…
Wow; that’s an emotional story. Your writing is, as usual, intensely personal and compelling, a true pleasure to read even when the subject is so sombre.
I never read the entire Decoller piece; I noticed the pingback and dropped in for a look, but as soon as I saw my post described as a “whitewash” of Russian horrors, I stepped right back out again and never went back. I agree the language was polite and generally non-confrontational, but I don’t need anyone else to tell me sorrowfully how I’m all wrong, and just – at best – an innocent and misguided dupe of my venomous Kremlin masters. I don’t write what I write to please anyone except myself, and I’m certainly not deliberately advancing a Kremlin agenda, although I wouldn’t hesitate to say Medvedev and Putin provide the best possible government for Russia today from the choices available. Maybe there is a western-oriented reformer somewhere in Russia who could lead the country into blissful co-existence with the west without having to make the country he/she governs a whore to it, but if so, he or she has escaped the public eye thus far. A return to Communism is all the way across town from the answer to the problem, although inarguably some people were better off under that system – it had reached and passed its peak of success, and the best it could have been was not good enough. But the liberal opposition solution – well, at present there isn’t one, but if it existed I suspect it would consist largely of “bootlick to the west for putting me in the driver’s seat, and examine each national problem with a view to how its solution will most benefit the foreigners who crowned me king; if it happens to benefit the citizens of Russia as well, good enough.”
I’ve pointed out before that no country is so reviled today by the west as Russia is: not Japan, a former bloodthirsty conqueror that actually attacked the USA directly and caused many times the number of American deaths that al Qaeda ever did – but now, they’re best friends. Not Germany, who committed atrocities that would not have been out of place in Hell. Ah, but Germany apologized; that, apparently, is key, and now America and Germany love each other, while Russia stays out in the cold because it refuses to apologize for Stalin’s depradations.
It’s lovely for Decoller that America has been so good to her (I’ll take your word it’s a woman). There’s nothing wrong with singing America’s praises, and I would be remiss if I did not point out that America is also Russia’s biggest foreign supporter – it’s not all of America that loathes Russia, but an element. Unfortunately, that element seems always to be either in control of the government or immensely influential within it, so that official positions are intensely anti-Russian except when a drunken boozebag who will sell off hard-earned state property for kopecks on the ruble is running the show.
Still – what do Americans think of an American who moves to another country, and never shuts up about what a shithole America is, and how glad he/she is that he/she doesn’t live there any more? Americans, who are generally easily capable of situational transposition, have a national blind spot there. Polish-Americans generally do not rant and slobber about what a revolving dump Poland is; ditto Ukrainians, unless they’re bitching about how Yanukovych is taking it back to the stone age, the dirty Commie. Instead, they extol the virtues of their former country and lobby for its inclusion in international institutions that will help it prosper. Nobody displays such genius for twisting the knife in the back of their former country as Russian emigres do, and nothing will suit them but seeing Russia conquered or annihilated.
It seems to me the thing to do if you are tormented with discontent about the way your former country (or your parents’ former country, or whatever) treated some of you relatives, or just people you heard about, would be to advocate for its advance and try to help it improve. Any childcare worker can tell you negative reinforcement does not work, and spitting on Russia does absolutely nothing for the problem. It does, however, win you the admiration of Russophobes. Perhaps that’s the actual desired end-state.
I can sign to your every word here, Mark.
Sadly, you are absolutely right, extremely few of those of us who have moved away seem to be able to retain a healthy balance between appreciation for opportunities we have in other countries and appreciation for the good things from back home. That is what hurt me the most in what Decoller wrote. You would think any educated being would understand that no place no Earth can be all bad. No place except Russia, that is. There, no question about it, it’s all dark – come on, WTF…? No hope, she says, we’ll never recover. Well, I hope we do, and I hope we do it soon – so maybe my kids, if I ever have any, would want to return and build their lives there.
Thank you, Mark, like kovane, agree with every word, couldn’t say it better.
I seem to be most productive under these sort of emotions, when something gets to me like this, I just can’t hold it in. Thank you both guys for the support!
[...] recent posts on Russia unexpectedly spurred some interesting discussion, and I thank the participants of that discussion for their participation, but I would like to [...]
Thank you for engaging in discussion as opposed to just writing me off as “another one of THOSE PEOPLE” :) And I’m really sorry about your grandmother, I know how it feels and I absolutely understand that it’s terrible.
Your post inspired me to try to put together some sort of narrative on the one big question of who I actually am, so that might answer some questions. As for my comment that everything I am today is pretty much thanks to America, it’s hard to explain succinctly, but I look at my friends in St. Petersburg, many of whom come from very wealthy families and are wonderful people and have amazing potential, and it makes me sad to see them basically lacking the ability to build a future for themselves in whatever field they may choose. This is partially due to the fact that they don’t have the career opportunities that I do just by virtue of their physical location, and partially due to the fact that they don’t really want to utilize their potential, with many of them plainly stating they’re looking to marry up. I can’t blame them for it – that’s what they grew up with, that’s what they see going on around them now, and their girlfriends and classmates from similar social circles are doing just that, so that’s what they ultimately aspire to. If I told my mom I wanted to marry up, she’d probably chain me to a radiator in a straightjacket. Forever. With a haloperidol drip.
But it’s more than just the opportunities that I’m thankful for, and it’s more than the money that my parents made thanks to a country that didn’t have to offer them anything in the first place. Growing up kind of all over the place made me who I am, and that wouldn’t have been possible without America – I would have been a totally different person, not necessarily worse, but just totally different, and I kind of like myself the way I am now :) Of course, values and principles have nothing to do with geography, but again, I thank my family for those and not any country in particular.
Hi, A :) I try, as best I can, not to put anyone in the one-of-those-people zone, unless I have really good reasons to, and for that I have to know a person. Emotions do, however, get ahead of me every so often and I snap, but then, doesn’t everybody? Thanks for making contact, I appreciate your comments.
The lack of healthy opportunities for growth, for fulfilling one’s potential, is definitely something I agree with, I mentioned it myself in some of the comments in other discussions – in my city, for example, it’s very difficult for people my age to find a way to build themselves up professionally. The options are limited to only a few industries/fields. But in a way, as kovane said, it is an incentive, for many of my friends at least – every time I go back I see how hard they are trying, and I know it will make them that much stronger in the end. Perhaps not having much makes you work that much harder, I know it does for me. Although, of course, I’ve seen enough of the opposite too. All of that, as I said, I’m not denying and I am not oblivious to the problems. What does get to me, and is much more difficult for me to absorb is people who, after leaving, are badmouthing the country and in their new home, wherever that might be, acting like they’ve just washed the dirtiest of dirts off of themselves. I can not even begin to tell you – it ignites such things in me that I swear someone has to hold me lest I jump. And what completely blows my roof off is that those people are very often from well off families, who didn’t even have it as hard as a lot of us do. Jesus Christ, my parents woke up one day to discover the country they thought was theirs didn’t exist any more, and they have a girl in primary school, and there is zero money and nobody understands what is going on in that chaos – like I said, lucky us always had potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers. But you ask either of my parents if they want to pack their bags and go – my dad will probably stare at you like he doesn’t understand the question, he doesn’t, I tried. “This is home” is probably all you’ll get out of him. I just, I can’t, I can’t understand – not based on any level of reason, but based on just being human – how people can spit on the ground that raised them… And if someone says it’s because it didn’t raise them well enough, now THAT is everybody’s personal choice – if my family, coming out of nothing and having been through so many difficult things in Russia, can retain their basic humanity and values that make them honest, good, hardworking people, then so can everybody. Being an asshole is a personal preference, so to speak, your country doesn’t make you one.
I need to calm down… But, you know, to sum it up, actually, remember the scene from The Terminal – Viktor Navorski, this delightful unblemished being, asked if he is afraid to go back to Krakozhia – what does he say?
My point exactly.
P.S. I try to be easy to get along with, so I’m sure we’d do just fine :)
P.P.S. Sorry to triple-post and feel free to condense these as you wish, but I just noticed your last comment and I wanted to clarify – I don’t think Russia’s all bad and I don’t believe I ever said or implied it was, and I don’t think it’s hopeless or anything of the sort. I’m just not seeing the kinds of positive trends that typically bring societies out of stagnation. There’s no meritocracy to speak of, and that’s what really bothers me.
No worries, they can just hang here like that :) One thing I forgot to mention in my little tantrum – I did read your post, but I will do so again once I get some food in me and run a couple of errands :) I find it really interesting what you write, and those questions are, in fact, insanely complicated. It’s sort of a blessing and a curse – on the one hand your picture of the world is so much broader that it’s an advantage, on the other hand – what is it that you really are… I know, I really do, I’ll reply to some of those things on your blog.
Oh, and also, none of the ‘you’ above were, like, you you, you know :) They were hypothetical ‘you’ :)
Hello alterismus
I read Decoller post and, to be honest, it reads like something written by a comfortable middle-class intellectual decrying the ‘dark uneducated masses’. I find remarkably little there that resonates with me. And it’s ironic because I it should resonate with me strongly. I was brought up in Eastern Europe, first in Russia and then in Poland. And I didn’t like living there. I run away from there as soon as I finished school. I didn’t like being from Eastern Europe, we were post-communist and poor. And people were xenophobic and reactionary, nationalist, conservative you name it. …. In addition I felt like I was surrounded by lack of opportunities, girls my age didn’t have any ambition. I am familiar with all those frustrations.
So I went on to study abroad, this was 4 years ago. But ever since I lived in the West for a while I started appreciating what I lost, so to speak. I became far less judgmental. I love my Eastern Europeans; no matter how bad or hopeless they seem sometimes, I know that they can also be great. I’ll never write them off. And Russia… Russia can be frustrating, infuriating, and insufferable. And at the same time there are millions of things about Russia I love and don’t want to live without.
Also I don’t believe our families and friends are some kind of exception to the general hopelessness. Because every single one of us could be tempted to say this. Surely we can’t all be exceptions? Russian side of my family is certainly very entrenched in the Russian life but they did everything to bring me up as a good person.
Anyway, I could write an essay on this topic but this is not the place, maybe someday, once I have my own blog. :)
Hello grafomanka,
Thank you so much for the comment. I understand completely where you are coming from, I had those same emotions when I was a teenager – being poor, being not quite as “good” as all the other white people in the western world and such – hated it, wanted to run away somewhere where the picture will be different for me. But now that my ‘away’ is permanent – there is no place I will ever love more than my home, with everything it has and doesn’t have. Every time I go back and the plane is about to land, I get like all bubbly inside :)
How come you don’t have your own blog yet – I saw you are quite a frequent visitor to The Kremlin Stooge :)
I do visit the Stooge sometime, I enjoy the lively discussion. Tho I’m far more critical of Russian government than Mark and his commenters typically are. But I support what Mark’s doing … there are plenty of anti-Russian blogs out there, usually authored by some Americans, so I can’t see any reason whatsoever why a Canadian shouldn’t be writing a pro-Kremlin blog.
I’ll get my own blog at some point. I couldn’t commit, been too busy juggling 2 jobs and studies, you know how it is :)
Incidentally, one of my best friend, also a Russian, is working in China at the moment. I’m really jealous of you guys :) and there’s nothing wrong in leaving your home country to see the world. It widens your horizons enormously.
Really? Where is she working? Which city?
Huangshan in Anhui Province. She trains in hotel management. From what she tells me it doesn’t seem as exciting/cosmopolitan as Shanghai but it’s certainly a big adventure.
Thanks, G-Fo; if you find time weighing heavy on your hands and decide you want to start your own blog, I can recommend WordPress (super easy) and would be happy to give you a hand to get started if you like. Alternatively, you’d be welcome to do a guest post on mine, like kovane – try it out and see how you like it. Same goes for Alterismus. Just pick a subject, research it and link to facts to support your conclusions.
You sound awfully like someone else; there’s a Polish emigre who calls herself ExLibra who regularly comments at Washington Monthly, and there was another I used to see as a commenter on the Existentialist Cowboy (although I can’t recall her name) who was also an ex-Russian ex-Pole. I got the impression, though, that both were considerably older than you must be if you left to study abroad only 4 years ago. But just in case, you’re not either of those people, are you? I ask because they both write very much like you do.
Decoller backtracked considerably from her original position, and last said she never implied Russia was all bad or hopeless, but what really gets her down is that she “doesn’t see the positive trends that bring societies out of stagnation”. Really? Regular and significant increases in take-home wages, a declining inflation rate and the annihilation of the national debt are not positive signs?
Thanks Mark! Omg there are people like me out there! :) I’m neither of those, I don’t really comment on magazines, and I don’t tend to read American magazines so much, but ‘Existentialist Cowboy’ sounds awesome:p
About ‘trends that bring societies out of stagnation’, well, I tend to thing meritocracy in Europe on the whole is not great and definitely needs working on. Certainly social mobility has taken a blow. Unfortunately Russia is more extreme in this sense. But if you ask Italians or French or Brits, their elites cater to themselves. It’s relatively easy to get a decent job if you’re smart, but when it comes to getting a really goad job (or a decent job in arts/public sector) it matters who you know and what’s your background, not what you know. I’m most familiar with the situation in the UK and recently there was a scandal when British Tory part was auctioning internships in prestigious companies to raise funds. So parents could ‘buy’ an internship for their child. And now they’re talking about the possibility of ‘buying’ university places. Nice.
Thank you, Mark! I would definitely like to take you up on the offer some time, would be honored! Will research a topic worth dwelling on in line with your general focus.
Just saw your comments here today, was in Hong Kong for a while and there is no free wi-fi anywhere except Starbucks and such :)
I haven’t been back since 2008, but I LOVED Hong Kong – no way I could ever afford to live there as a resident, but it was surprisingly affordable as a tourist.
I didn’t have any occasion to use WiFi while I was there, so I wouldn’t know. I didn’t even have a cellphone until Christmas 2010, and it’s the most basic flipphone available; the only specification was that it had to be rugged. Some months I don’t ever even turn it on.