SLA – Page 5 – SLA Profiles (2018)

Semester Break

Before the second half of the program began, students were able to enjoy themselves on a mini four-day semester break. I went to Sapporo, a much bigger city compared to Hakodate, and visited a lot of places that gladly accepted my monies.

Before coming to Japan, I have heard of the famous cat cafés. Of course, America has some as well but only in certain cities. The café itself was a bit different than I had imagined. I thought the cats would come to us because they would be used to human contact, but they all fled from our vicinity. One even bit my hand! It probably reacted in this manner because I touched it while it was still tense. I can’t blame them though. They weren’t familiar with us.

There were also a variety of books on the shelves so that you can relax and enjoy your time with the cats. However, we were all busy trying to pet them or take cute pictures.

They were all so fluffy and big and adorable, that’s why.

But the highlight of my trip was definitely riding the ferris wheel. Isn’t that the anime trope? Confessing to your crush while the sun sets perfectly, casting a warm hue across the cityscape. Well, that was not necessarily the case. I’m deathly afraid of heights, but I’ve always wanted to try riding a ferris wheel. However, once I sat down, I immediately regretted my decision.

Luckily, one of my good friends rode alongside with me, and I held her hand the entire time while going up. Once we reached the top and started lowering, I finally looked out to see the brightly lit buildings filling up the night sky. It was absolutely beautiful.

Interactions

The law of adoption ban in Russia

As a person adopted from Ukraine, this relatively recent issue has been of substantial interest to me. In essence, Putin has made it impossible for American citizens to adopt children from Russia, which now includes Simferopol, the city from which I was adopted. When I tell people that I’m adopted from Simferopol, the issue does tend to come up.

The first person I spoke about it with was my professor Svetlana nikolayevna, who asked me if I had heard about the law. In her opinion, it’s not very good because children are denied a potentially good home. Hers is an opinion with which I agree.

The next person I spoke to about this was my language partner, and she told me an interesting story. When the law was being decided in the country, rumors were spread around about a child who was adopted from Russia to go live in America who had died in a car crash. It was decided then, by the country, that it was too dangerous for children to go to America. People were frantic and worried that kids were going to die.

The last person I spoke to was a woman who I’ve become friends with over the course of my stay here. She said much the same thing as my conversation partner, if a little more broadly. She is under the impression that it’s common for bad people with incorrect motives to adopt children from Russia. That there is no screening of individuals from America who wish to take on Russian children.

I approached this issue, inwardly, with a fair amount of skepticism. I find it hard to believe that there truly was any intention to hurt children from Russia. What I believe happened was the use of a few terrible instances, freak accidents, to reach a political end. This issue is an easy one to scare a population about, children are involved. It’s very easy to look at a terrible instance that my have happens one time and convince a population that it’s reoccurrence is imminent and inevitable and that children should be protected. As one of the aforementioned children, however, I can say I turned out fine. Yes there are a few things I like to complain about, but my parents love me extraordinarily much and I would be much worse off without them. In an attempt to stray away from a sample size of one, I can say that I have connections with others who came out of similar circumstances, some of them great friends. I’ve never heard of something bad happening to a child whose parents wanted them so badly, that they travelled all around the world to get them.

The danger in this kind of misinformation and fear spreading, is that children are denied homes with perfectly willing, capable, loving parents. If this law had been enacted before my time, I would be living a much more difficult, probably tragic life. That I know for sure.

I suppose the takeaway here is that it’s easy to scare people, and fear has consequences. It could be a lesson to us, to be wary of scare tactics of our own politicians, and to always keep an eye out for the political gain to be had, like a fight back on American sanctions against Russia.

Attitudes toward the US

To start with the most positive, I had lunch with a new aquantaince of mine and we spent a lot of time talking about literature and the books we read. This woman is about 27. Her favorite authors are Steinbeck and Fitzgerald and she mentioned something to me I thought was interesting. She said that she felt much closer to these books, that she feels like in a past life she was American and really wants to live in America. It was a little strange to see that kind of fascination with my country from someone else. It’s almost akin to the fascination I’ve had my entire life for Russia and Ukraine. She likes the openness and frankness of American literature, and the energy of the country. It was overwhelmingly positive

The second person I’ve spoken to about this is my friend Mikhailo, about 19. His view of the country is that there is more opportunity for being entrepreneurial. He’s a very forward thinking and forward minded person and craves the business opportunity in our country, and laments the relative lack of opportunity her feels in his

The final person is my dear friend Baba Natasha. She thinks that America must be a cool place to live but has very little concept of what’s in America. She once asked me if ice cream is the same. What I get from her is the notion that it must be a good place but little else. She asked me what kind of food we eat and how I spend my time, questions about the university system and is it common to live so far from your parents?

My takeaway is this: regular people in Russia have regular opinions. Especially in St. Petersburg, everyone is aware that people aren’t the politics of their countries. Baba Natasha has a fierce love of her country and traditions though, visible even through her excitement in learning more about me. People are kind and good and driven and interesting everywhere, and so far, seem to be aware of that even when speaking to a person from a different country. I might be an American but I’ve so far not seen any bad connotation with that fact

Borshch, a traditional Ukrainian dish

When most people think of Russia they think of potatoes and beets. So in a restaurant one day, I ordered borshch. I asked the waiter about it and was surprised to learn that borshch is actually Ukrainian in origin. Ukraine and Russia are very close, and it’s easy to see how the dish spilled over but according to this waiter, Ukraine did it first. The special part of its presentation? A bay leaf sitting in the broth for only five minutes before the soup is ready to be served. The role of soup is very important in Russian culture, as a warm dish would be in such a famously cold country. It’s one of the easiest dishes to make in times of struggle with whatever happens to be on hand and it therefore makes sense that it would catch on. I was in a bar once speaking with the bartender and mentioned that I want to practice russian more, and his first advice to me was to go to the old “Soviet stolovayas (cafeterias) where they serve s**tty soups.” Despite the roughness of the comment, the noteworthy part is his mention of soup before any other dish. So the most well known Russian dish in the most important food group of the country, is apparently Ukrainian. I’m sure many would refute me on that, but it’s just what I heard.

New Year’s Eve

I’ve always heard that New Years in Russia is a much bigger deal than in the US. Since the country was officially non-religious for so long, it became like Christmas. To be honest I was a little surprised when I heard so little about presents. After talking to a tour guide about the holiday, I learned that a lot of people celebrate it and that there is actually a big celebration in the square of the winter palace, but that it’s more of a tourist attraction than something many natives attend. From the family that I’ve spent time with, I learned that for most, New Years is mainly a time to take a little time off work, travel, see family, and have a little fun. So not that different, except for the fact that Christmas hardly rivals it.

Tours Week 1

When I arrived in France, it welcomed me with rail strikes, about which I had received several traveling alerts. Due to “La grève SNCF” (société nationale des chemins de fer français), the two-hour train from the airport to Gare de Tours was prolonged to four hours, raising the cost to 70 euros. On the train to Tours, at first the announcement was in both French and English; but soon, it was only in French, which was incomprehensible to me at that point (though I took French for one year, the crew spoke too fast and the liaison made the announcement hard to understand). Therefore, when I transferred in a little town in southern France, I was not able to confirm whether I took the right train heading to Tours or I got on the the wrong one taking me to some placesunknown to me. Luckily, I arrived in the Gare at 5:35p.m. and my host family had already waited me there for half an hour. Before I actually lived with a French family, I thought taking the intensive courses for a year would have prepared me well at least for the daily conversation. However, when I actually facing my gentle host parents, I found myself deaf and mute. With fatigues and frustrations, I didn’t get jet lag on first night in France, but I was worried for the classes starting on the next day.

On the second day of school, I met Ana, my classmate at Notre Dame, who had been in Tours for seven weeks. Since she knew everything well in the city and the institut, I profited from her familiarity—-on the second day of school, also my third day in France, I went to La Guinguette, the bar by La Loire. It was actually chill; all we did was sitting by the shore and talking in French (though I listened and pretended I understand most of the time).

Thanks to Ana, I also befriended with a Japanese girl named “Kae” from the institute (the girl who held the camera in the picture above). It was probably due to the popularity of L’institut de Touraine in north america, I arrived with some more than a hundred english speakers from Canada and US. It was not a huge institute, so the students there were predominantly english speakers, and it was so easy to just hang out with the Americans but one did not come to France to speak English. Therefore, when I befriended with Kae, who couldn’t speak English at all, I was forced to speak French all the time (not really, sometimes people in my class talked in English), which was a great exercise for me. If I chatted with an English speaker in French, I could easily use a english word hidden in French accent (since english and french share their words), and he/she would understand, but it wasn’t because I knew the correct word in french, but because he/she knew that english word. So when I talked to a non-English speaker, I had to find another way to explicate, and there was no switch between english and french.

My first week had gone fast: I just got over the jet lag, made some new friends and that’s it!

Churches and Hakodate

In Hakodate, there are several historic churches in the sightseeing district of the city. Among the three or four churches, there is the Motomachi Catholic Church, which my host family and I frequent on Sunday. In Hakodate, there are three Catholic Churches, but only two priests to say Mass. As such, the priests alternate churches every week. These churches are fairly small, and lots of the members know each other very well.

In Japan, Christians are part of the religious minority, as the large majority of the Japanese population identifies as Shinto or Buddhist. As this is hugely different from the United States, I was very interested to see how this affected my host family’s identity as Japanese people and their social identity. I wanted to see how it differs from my experiences as a Catholic in the US, where the religious majority is heavily Christian. I interviewed my host family to ask them how they felt about being in the social and religious minority as a Catholic.

First, I asked how they felt about being in the religious minority. They told me that because there is freedom of religion in Japan, they feel that they are treated much the same as everyone else. They explained that when they inform other people they are Catholic, they do not get any special kind of reaction, and instead feel as if their treatment is very normal. They said that although their church is extremely small, and they know quite a lot of the people there, they still feel as if the community is not closed off from the rest of the community. They told me they are very open to the community and have both Catholic and non-Catholic friends and acquaintances.

I was interested to find out how similar their experiences theirs were to mine as a Catholic. It was interesting to see that even being largely outnumbered almost 10 to 1 they said their social identity was not particularly affected. I was very excited to find out more about Catholicism in Japan, and was really glad we had an opportunity to discuss their cultural experiences in conjunction with their religious ones.

Goodbye…For Now!

Hello again,

My program is officially over. my five weeks in Korea has truly gone by in a flash. I remember the first week seemed to go by so slowly, but now it is officially over.

Reflecting on my time spent in Korea learning the language, I have come to realize that my journey in learning Korean will not be a sprint but a marathon, I must be in it for the long haul. Coming into this trip, I expected to be placed into a level where I would be learning all new things.

Instead, I was placed at a lower level, that ended up being a combination of material I had already learned, and some new material. At first, I was a little upset about not placing as high as I thought I would, but then I realized that I needed a stronger foundation to build my Korea upon. Although I had already “learned” some of the material back at Notre Dame, I wasn’t comfortable with it. Thankfully over the course of this summer, I have grown a little closer to the language and I’ve been able to achieve the goals I set for the summer. My goals this summer were about getting more comfortable with using the language while also learning more about Korean culture and history. By being in Korea for a month, I was able to achieve this goal by learning through my friends, my teachers, and from the locals that I met.

My time abroad this summer has been a fun and productive time. I was initially a little worried about traveling to Korea for the summer. The language barrier, navigating the city, and the fact that I would be alone for the summer was scary. However, all these worries dissipated overtime once I realized that life in Korea wasn’t as hard as I thought it was, Thankfully, I fell into a good group of friends to help make my summer journey not only bearable but very memorable.

I’m thankful that I got to spend my summer in Seoul and I’m also thankful that I will be returning in the Spring semester to experience more of South Korea. Once I get back to Notre Dame, I will continue studying and applying myself in Korean and hopefully, by graduation, I will have taken multiple steps forward in my journey of learning Korean.

Until Next Time, 안녕!!

Vacaciones

I’m staring my last week in Spain in the face, and am already feeling nostalgic although I haven’t left yet. My classes are wrapping up with exams and presentations this week, but for some reason it feels like I was just arriving in Salamanca. The last week has had temperatures in the 100s every day, so I am looking forward to returning to air conditioning, something my apartment here lacks.

The last two weekends I have been lucky enough to do some exploring near Salamanca and where I’m staying. My roommates and I visited Los Batuecas, in the Sierra de Francia, and hiked the Camino de Los Rodales. The views of the mountains and surrounding pueblos were beautiful. The “road” we took to get into the mountains is an extremely loose definition of the word. After hiking, we drove a little farther, and visited una piscina natural. The water was extremely cold, but refreshing after two hours of hiking.

This past weekend, we drove to the cities of Segovia and Avila. Segovia is famous for its Roman Aqueduct, city wall, and castle which influenced Disney’s well-known Cinderella castle. The city was beautiful many historical cathedrals and interesting architecture. After leaving Segovia, we traveled to Avila, which is known for the historic walls that surround the city, along with having the most churches per capita in Spain. In both cities we walked around and took in the sights, checked out some of the local shops and art, and drank more cafe.

I’ve enjoyed visiting larger cities like Madrid, along with these smaller, historically-rich towns, and hiking in the Spanish countryside. The variation has allowed me to have many different experiences of Spain without having to travel far.

An bhfuil tú ceart go leor?

An bhfuil tú ceart go leor? Are you okay? This is a frequent question at the pubs in Carraroe as you approach. This question had become a topic of conversation among some of my friends as we tried to discern what the bartenders meant by “An bhfuil tú ceart go leor?” We initially assumed that by asking if we were okay, they were expressing their concern (Although with “American” tattooed across our foreheads, this could still be true). Among a young demographic of non-native speakers, this really seemed like a potentially plausible explanation.

We asked our teacher in the intermediate class, a native speaker finishing her PhD in Irish. She corrected us to say that “An bhfuil tú ceart go leor?” was almost their way of asking “How are you?” And similarly to the ubiquitous “how are you,” it is not acceptable to answer “Are you okay” by launching into a long explanation of how difficult classes are, how tired you are all the time, how confusing the Irish language is, etcetera, etcetera.

No complaints about rain when it looks like this!

Even more specifically, in the pub setting, asking “are you okay” even more specifically means “do you need anything” or “have you been helped yet.” They ask the question the same way in English; it is still “Are you okay?”. If you’re okay, you’ve been helped already, or you’re not ordering anything. Otherwise, it’s not that you are currently emotionally unstable or having a tough time, just that you haven’t been helped yet, in which case the proper response would just be to launch into your order or ask them a question. I find it fascinating to learn not only the phrases in Irish, but how they carry over to the English in Ireland as well.

This week, we visited one of the Aran Islands, Inis Óirr (Inisheer). Below are some of the pictures of our trip. The Irish name “Inis Óirr” means “River meadow Island.” It’s English place name holds no meaning. This is true of so many places in Ireland. Their Irish name holds meaning and a vivid description of the place, while the English version is a nonsensical word. This is part of the reason that preserving the language, especially in Gaeltacht regions, is so important. The Irish words hold so much more meaning and culture than their English counterparts.

Gharials, Tigers, and Conservation, oh my!

Some of us on our field trip to Namo Buddha

One of the best things about this program (other than the Nepali language instruction, of course!) is all of the amazing researchers I have been able to meet. From art historians and medical anthropologists to linguists and zoologists, I’ve been able to learn so much about Nepal that I would not have otherwise.

One zoologist currently studying at Oxford in England, Phoebe Griffith, generously offered to come speak to the fellows I volunteer with at Samaanta Foundation. My classmates and I have found Phoebe an endless resource of knowledge about animals in Nepal. Over midterm break, she even took us out into the forrest to search for Chinese pangolins, an endangered armadillo-like animal that are quite rare (and hard to find, luckily, since they are often poached) and whatever other animals we could come across. (I’m sad to say, I aborted the mission pretty quickly as I watched with horror the growing number of leeches collect on my shoes and legs. Those little suckers move so fast for things so small!) I was thrilled when she agreed to give a presentation to the fellows on gharials, an endangered crocodilian species that can be found in Nepal’s jungle region.

In preparation for her talk, I lead a discussion with the fellows on conservation – we all learned so much! Some of the fellows that study biology told us all about different conservation efforts in Nepal and what conservation means to them. Even the fellows that don’t formally study biology had read about conservation in books or in the news. I left with the impression that a significant portion of Nepali youth hold conservation to be an important part of the country’s future. I found myself wondering about these dynamics in the context of my research interests on natural disasters and civil/political participation. It will be exciting to see how Nepal’s conservation efforts evolve in the coming years.

Phoebe’s talk was as wonderful as we had hoped for. We learned about how different species of crocodilians eat different things, are different sizes, and have different habits. Gharials, for example, are of no threat to humans (they only eat fish!) and are actually great parents to their babies. They can grow to be quite big, though at the moment the population in Nepal is very small and the adults are not as big as their species can grow to be. The knob at the end of the males’ noses can be used to make sounds like big POP!s that act as forms communication. Currently, the gharial population is threatened by their being caught in fishing nets, sand mining (for concrete), and manmade dams. Education programs are underway to help people get to know what they can do to help save the Nepali gharial populations.

Class trip (including some of our language partners!) to Namo Buddha

As the language program is coming to an end, I find myself reflecting on how lucky I am to have been able to get to know such a diverse group of people – the Nepali youth at Samaanta Foundation, the network of researchers learning languages at the institute, the teachers, my homestay family, and even the taxi drivers and shop keepers in and around Boudha. I am sure my research will be benefited not only from my having learned Nepali, but also from being able to learn more about this country and the culture and peoples housed within.

Grazie Sorrento!

Where did the time go? My last week in Sorrento has been a whirlwind because I didn’t want to waste a second. Any time that wasn’t spent studying for my final exams was spent seeking out my favorite food places in town, making sure to spend time with the students and faculty at my school, and overall just taking in the city and people of Sorrento.

I don’t have too much to say specifically about the last few days, to be honest, just because I was so busy trying to experience everything. That’s been one of my biggest goals for this trip as time has gone on – instead of trying to capture everything perfectly in pictures or in a journal, I’ve been simply trying to live life in Italy and embrace everything in the moment. That was definitely the theme of this past week, and I think I did well to do as much as I could in the little time that I had.

So instead of leaving you with any specific anecdotes of my cultural and language experiences that I have had in Italy this past week, here’s what I think I learned these last few days – that I’ve found a new home in Sorrento, and that life in Sorrento has found a home within me. I have grown so much during this experience, not only in my knowledge of Italian language and culture, but also in my knowledge of myself and what I am capable of. I pushed myself to explore new things and express myself the best that I could, and I’ve become a better person because of it. It wasn’t always perfect by any means, but that’s part of the growth, too. So, thank you Sorrento for helping me learn Italian, and in learning Italian also learn about myself – that’s the part of Sorrento that will always live in me.

Okay, well there’s of course all the other cool parts of Sorrento that I won’t forget – the food I have found, the friends I have made, the beautiful views, the peaceful streets, and did I mention the food? It was all a special experience, and it all contributed to helping me live my fullest life in Italy. How lucky am I?!

So one last time, I want to say thank you to all of you who have supported me in my journey to Sorrento – please know how much I have cherished this experience and how much I appreciate your support in getting me to Italy!

In the meantime, as I prepare to leave Italy this weekend, please enjoy this picture of me in a LeBron jersey and my professor – it’s a perfect representation of the life and learning that I have found while in Italy!

Ciao da Sorrento!!!

Dom

Hakodate Port Festival

This week in Hakodate, the Hakodate Minato Matsuri (“Port festival”) is held. It includes an hourlong fireworks show held in the Bay Area on Wednesday, attended by throngs of people wearing summer yukata. I watched these fireworks from my host mom’s workplace, a kindergarten with a nice view of the port. On Thursday, there is a large parade through the Bay Area and stalls for food are set up for the parade-goers. Today, Friday, there is a second parade in a different part of the city, where I will do the Ika Odori (“Squid Dance”) along with many other groups and companies.

In order to find out more about this week’s festival and holidays, I went to the local Motomachi tourism office to ask what the festival is about. At the tourism office, I received a map and information about the different parade routes through the city. The festival is a yearly one according to the office. They also informed me there would be different special events held, but did not give me very much background information on the origins of the festival or why it is held yearly. Due to the fact that it is a tourism office, their approach was primarily focused on tourism rather than history.

Later the same day, I repeated my questions to my host mother in an effort to see how someone in a non-official capacity would explain the festival. She gave me a surprisingly lengthy rundown of the history and told me almost nothing about the actual events that take place. She informed me that the festival is held due to Hakodate being one of the first places in Japan to open its port to non-Japanese ships, and so the port festival commemorates that opening and the coming of Matthew Perry, an American who contributed to its opening to other countries.

The festival has extreme cultural significance to Hakodate, as embedded in this city’s identity is the port and the goods provided by it. The largest difference between the accounts I received regarding the festival was the focus of each one. The tourism office clearly prioritized informing me about the special events that bring visitors, while my host mom wanted to tell me about the history of Hakodate, something she is proud of as someone who grew up here.