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Today is August 3rd — the last full weekend that we have left here in Hakodate. It’s almost been a full two months, but I’m not yet ready to leave. I’d love to see my friends and family back home, but this experience has been too fun and fulfilling for me to want to leave so soon. However, I was able to make the most out of this past weekend.

Last week was Hakodate’s festival week, where there was a special event each day, Monday – Friday. Because of class and homework, I was too busy to contribute to the city’s goings until Thursday. Thursday was the 花火祭り, or the fireworks festival. For this, I went to a restaurant with my host family, where they performed their gospel songs, and we ate and watched the fireworks afterwards. It was a really fun time because I was able to talk to a lot of the choir members in a more casual setting. It was also nice to be able to use all of the new grammar and vocabulary that I’ve learned throughout the program.

Friday was Hakodate’s main event: the イカ踊り, or squid dance. It was a parade of sorts that everyone in the city was allowed to partake in. However unlike a normal American style parade, it was more of a big dance, where everyone walked through the town dancing and there were no big floats or attractions. It was a super fun and surreal experience for a number of reasons. First, we got to meet the famous musician Post Malone. For one reason or another, he was actually visiting Hakodate that same week, and by chance an intern at the school had ran into him the night before. He also invited Post Malone to come and dance in the parade with us, and we were able to talk to him and take photos. Secondly, the parade itself was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Dancing to a Japanese song in the middle of the street with friends from all over the world that I had just met two months prior was certainly a unique experience, and something that I will never forget.

Across these two days I definitely had some of my best experiences here in Japan. It has been such and amazing and enlightening experience, but I am really sad that it’s almost coming to an end.

At the end of the fourth week, I finally succeeded to have a decent conversation with an Iranian person in Yerevan. As I went to a popular touristic destination, the Cascade, last Thursday, I figured out in short that there is plenty of Iranian tourist around, which would give me an opportunity to talk with a native speaker of Persian. Finally, although I was aware that my Persian speaking skills might not be enough to keep a conversation, I managed to build up my courage to start a conversation in Persian. After a brief introduction in English with an Iranian lady, I started talking in Persian and continued to talk three or four more minutes in this language. At the end of the conversation, she asked me “why do you need to learn Persian” and my answer was precise: “I am working on the thirteenth and fourteenth-century western Anatolian political structure and interfaith relationships between Christianity and Islam. Since the official language of the Seljuks of Rum was Persian, I need to have a decent level of reading in Persian to be able to reach the necessary primary sources from this period of time.” After this question, she asked the second question about my Persian learning process and its necessities. “Why don’t you learn Persian in an Iranian speaking country?” Indeed, this was a really good question and I did not have a ready answer for this. I just stated that because of some political problems, I did not want to go to Iran. In spite of my answer, she suggested me several summer school in Iran if I would decide to go there for a summer school in the future. Also, I am told by her that the official language in the country called Tajikistan is also quite close to Persian. So one would also be able to learn Persian there by attending several summer schools. However, since I need to learn Persian with Arabic Alphabet, and the Tajik language is with Cyrillic alphabet, that option would not probably the best one for me for now.

The title of this post refers back to July 28th, when myself and five other students decided we’d make the trek out to Leitir Mealláin, a village/ island near Carraroe. Incidentally Leitir Mealláin is where my Notre Dame Irish professor, Tara, is from, as well as my bean an tí, Báirbre.

The original purpose of our journey (a turas, as Gaeilge) was to see the currach and hooker races. The Galway hookers are sail boats with three sails and need a certain amount of wind to race efficiently; unfortunately there wasn’t enough that day to hold the hooker races, though they did have them out and about in the water.

The currach is another type of boat native to the west of Ireland, traditionally made from tarred canvas stretched over a wooden frame. They’re propelled by paddle, much like a canoe, so the wind was less of a factor in determining if they would race. While it was nice to be able to see some traditional watercraft, the race itself was fairly short.

   

When we all had told Báirbre that we wanted to go to Leitir Mealláin she made a call to her brother, John Baba Jack, and told us that we needed to meet him at the Leitir Mealláin heritage center at 3:00 so he could show us the place; it was a Sunday and generally wasn’t open, so this was a rare opportunity for us. So after the races finished we began the trek out to the village center and met with John.

John is an interesting character: he had a real love of history, particularly local history and folklore and it really shone through as he talked about this artifact or that one that he’d managed to collect over the years for the Heritage Center, all in Irish of course. He had been a fisherman for most of his life and knew the traditions of that life inside and out; he was fairly disappointed that so few young men pursued that life anymore as he saw that knowledge as dying out. There’s a particular jargon that accompanies fishing, and many of those names and words were being lost over the years; John particularly dwelt on his knowledge of the names of nine types of breakers, and how that knowledge would be gone forever when he was gone.

We all implored John to write this information down or at least get in touch with a folklorist to record it. This is the very reason the Irish Folklore Commission was founded, after all. John refused to write it, saying it was information that needed to be passed on orally. Later when we relayed this information to Báirbre she told us that John had been interviewed by TG4– the Irish language channel– several times already and that we shouldn’t be feeding his ego. We all had a good laugh at that one, reassured that at least John was talking to someone about what he knew.

During the past week I visited the War Memorial of Korea. Our professor had recommended the museum to us, so my friend and I decided to go. I definitely learned a lot from the museum, especially because the history of Korea is not taught in depth in America. I had recently gained an interest in the Korean War, so I was very excited to go. Our professor, however, had advertised the memorial as the Korean War Memorial so I thought it was only about the Korean War, but it was actually the War Memorial of Korea and had wars starting from 100 AD. Honestly the wars from all the way back then were not too interesting to me just because I tend to find more recent wars more interesting. But starting from the Japanese occupation, I learned a lot.

The statue below is located outside of the War Memorial, right when you walk in. It was interesting to see how the North Korean soldier and the South Korean soldier are portrayed. The South Korean soldier is the one posed taller, whereas the North Korean soldier is crouching into the other soldier’s arms. 

It shocked me when I saw how huge Korea once was. However, after the country started getting invaded by China and Japan, it got smaller and smaller. Of course, the division of North and South Korea also decreased the land of each countries.

It was very interesting to me because during the culture part of our lesson, our professor asked us to make sure we read the rhetoric the museum used. Although the U.S. made plenty of mistakes during the war and contributed to the deaths of many, they were still written in as heroes. None of the words used to describe America’s actions used any negative terms, whereas North Korea was depicted as evil.

This is a reenactment of the war scene during the war. My grandfather was 17 years old, a high school senior, when the war started and was drafted into the war at his young age. This reenactment brought to mind how scary and traumatizing it must have been for my grandfather to have been a part of this horrific war.

I was also surprised to find out that it was such a large war fought between many different countries, however, is left out of most of our history classes. The U.S. played a large role in the war and the division of North and South Korea, but we rarely ever talk about the Korean War. I hope that soon we will start to include the Korean War in our history classes.

As I try to improve my Persian reading level to the desired level in order to be able to reach related primary sources, I start figuring out crucial similarities between the Persian and one of the necessary languages, for my research, Ottoman Turkish.

The Ottoman Turkish is a variety of Turkish language that was used in the Ottoman Empire between the 14th and 20th centuries. Although the language structure was indeed Turkish, it borrowed many loanwords, up to eighty-five per cent, especially from Arabic and Persian languages. The modern Turkish that is now spoken in Turkey was originated from “Vulgar Turkish” which was used by relatively unintelligent and less-educated people in the Ottoman Empire.

Although modern Turkish has fewer loanwords from Arabic and Persian languages compared to Ottoman Turkish, a Turkish-speaking person could easily understand many common words between these two languages. Further, as a person who studied Ottoman language before, I realised that being able to read the Ottoman language definitely helps me to learn Persian. First of all, the Ottoman Turkish and Persian has the same alphabet. Even after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the newly established state of Turkey had continued to use the Arabic alphabet up until the 1920s. Therefore, I thought that having full knowledge of the Arabic alphabet would be no doubt helpful in learning Persian. Secondly, beside the Persian loanwords in Turkish, the Persian language also has a considerable number of Turkic loanwords such as “otaq” -اتاق- which is called “oda” in Turkish and means “the room”, which in my opinion, another advantage that an Ottoman Turkish reader would be able to have.

At the end of the third week in Persian language summer program in Armenia, I feel that I managed to have a good spell of Persian. I started reading lower intermediate texts and my speaking level is getting better every passing day. I hope that at the end of the sixth week, I will start reading the upper intermediate level Persian text and further improve my speaking skills in the targeted language.

Last weekend, I traveled with the Goethe Institute to Leipzig, located about an hour and a half east of Dresden by train. Like Dresden, Leipzig is home to several museums, monuments, churches, and even a zoo, which houses the world’s largest primate facility. Though we unfortunately didn’t have enough time to visit the zoo, a highlight for me was visiting das Völkerschlachtdenkmal, or the Monument to the Battle of Nations. Completed in 1913, this monument was constructed to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon at the 1813 Battle of Leipzig, and later served as the location where the defenders of Leipzig made their last stand against U.S. troops in WWII. If you haven’t already noticed from my blog posts, anything history related is bound to capture my attention, so this monument – an architectural anomaly compared to the rest of the city – was high on my list.

However, before visiting this monument, we also toured das Zeitgeschichtliche Forum, or the Forum of Contemporary History. Within this museum, which focuses on the history of Germany since the end of the Second World War, the history of die Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)was significantly featured. For me this was interesting not only because it is a part of a history about which we don’t learn very much in the American education system, but also because my au pair and her family lived and worked in Dresden during the existence of the DDR. As such, this topic has generated a great deal of discussion between myself and my German family.

To give these conversations some context, I’ll provide a brief history of Germany within the last 70 years. At the end of WWII, the Allies agreed to divide Germany and its capital, Berlin, into four zones of occupation – American, British, French, and Soviet. However, a few years after this agreement, the American, British, and French zones in the west were unified into die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (the Federal Republic of Germany) and granted sovereignty. Thus by 1949, only two zones divided Germany and Berlin, die Bundesrepublik Deutschlandmonitored by the United States and die Deutsche Demokratische Republikcontrolled by the Soviet Union. If you remember anything from your high school history classes, you will recognize that these two zones represented the two clashing powers and economic philosophies of the Cold War, which dominated the politics of the late 20th century. As West Germany reconstructed itself along capitalistic principles, East Germany rebuilt under communistic ideology – an episode whose effects are arguably still present within the cultures and economies of eastern and western Germany.

As part of an educational system still particularly influenced by the politics and fear surrounding communism in the United States throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union was portrayed to myself and my fellow classmates in a rather unfriendly light. Thus, with my likely heavily biased understanding of the Soviet Union and life in East Germany, it was initially somewhat difficult to comprehend the feelings of “Ostalgie” – or nostalgia for East Germany under the DDR – expressed by my German family and others whom I met. However, after talking with my family about this at great length, I feel as if I have a better understanding of these sentiments, and I even empathize with them in many ways – but keep reading before you label me as a millennial product of the left “fake news” propaganda!

As a political science major, I’ll keep this discussion as diplomatic as possible. To claim that the governmental and economic policies of the Soviet Union were successful would be uninformed, especially considering its ultimate dissolution in 1991. Nevertheless, for some people, life under the DDR was often preferable to life under today’s unified Germany. How is this possible? Wouldn’t one prefer to live in a society with greater choice and opportunity – even down to the variety of items in a grocery store or number of channels on a television?

As products of the American capitalist society, freedom of choice is ingrained into our culture, and it is hard to imagine a life without it. A cereal aisle with only four or five different cereal choices rather than 70 or more? Unthinkable!

This is how my family explained their experiences to me. Despite its flaws, the DDR was capable of providing to many people at least the facade of equality. Throughout their neighborhood, everyone had basically the exact same furniture, clothes, technology, and income as each other. As a result, it seemed as if people were less envious of one another – it’s hard to be envious of something that no one has. So, no one was envious of the new flat screen TV that their neighbors just bought or the newest iPhone that their friend has because it wasn’t really possible. Even though people may have had less, life was more satisfying. As much as we may not like to admit it, every time a new iPhone is released, our current iPhone becomes just slightly less satisfying – especially if all of your friends already have the newest model. Thus, it’s easy to become envious of others, breaking apart the bonds of community even further. Rather, the DDR provided a life of somewhat greater simplicity. Fewer options may mean less choice, but it also is often less stressful – you know what you’re going to get. Though jobs may not have been as lucrative, they were secure, and unemployment was unlikely. Even in the U.S. a desire for a more simple life is quite understandable.

Although their opinions certainly do not represent all or maybe even a majority of those who lived in the DDR, I can’t help but be fascinated by these conversations that I have with my family. And, if you remember from my first blog post, only their daughter speaks English, so to say that these conversations are a great way to practice my listening and hearing skills may be an understatement – especially considering the fact that they both speak with a relatively thick Sächsisch dialect. Though at times it may be frustrating that I can’t express myself in the ways that I want to, I enjoy every moment and look forward to having a new conversation soon!

Bis zum nächsten Mal!

Beatha teanga í a labhairt is a seanfhocal (“old saying”) meaning that the life of a language is in the speaking– a particularly important thing to keep in mind with the Irish language. It was also the starting point for my Irish class, the Ard Rang (advanced class) on the very first day of class in Carraroe.

It’s a more neutral way of saying Padraig Pearse’s famous “Tir gan teanga, tir gan anam” (a land without a language is a land without a soul) which has become a seanfhocal in its own right. Living in Carraroe and being privileged enough to go to Rosmuc and see Pearse’s cottage, that sort of credo runs deeply through the way the program here is structured, which I’ve already developed a deep appreciation for.

Pearse’s cottage in Rosmuc.

It’s somewhat simplistic, but it’s amazing how much the world changes when you can function (or rather have to function!) entirely in another language. I’ve never had the opportunity to do an immersion program, so this is all quite new and exciting for me. I might be a researcher who mainly will use Irish for my work, but I’m also deeply committed to becoming an Irish speaker as a matter of ethical practice and disciplinal decolonisation. I’m only a few days into my first week here, and I’m excited to see where I will go.

 

 

This weekend, Persian summer school, ASPIRANTUM, arranged a trip to Sevan area in central Armenia, allowing me to get acquainted with this popular touristic destination. First, the program took us to a medieval monastery called Sevanavank near Sevan Lake with an aim to introduce us to the history of the area. The monastery was founded in 874 by Princess Mariam, the daughter of Ashot I from one of the prominent Armenian dynasty, Bagratunids, in Medieval Armenia. Although the monastery has managed to survive until now, the Sevan area was a major area of military conflict between the medieval Armenian kingdoms and various factions such as the Timurids, Seljuks and the Abbasids. After all, despite the end of the Armenian rule in the region in the later periods, relatively peaceful rule of the new state organisations seems to allow the flourishing of the Christian monasteries in the region. Today, save its outer walls, the monastery is still welcoming people from different religious backgrounds.

After visiting the monastery, we start heading to one of the beaches near the lake. The beach that we decided to head had a quite traditional restaurant where I could find an opportunity to deepen my knowledge about the Armenian cuisine. At the restaurant, I ordered a kind of fish called Sevan trout without knowing that it is an endemic fish species of Sevan Lake. Later, out of my curiosity about the seafood, I began investigating it. I am told by the owner of the restaurant that, it is a salmonid fish related to brown trout. Further, I learnt that this endemic fish is one of the most popular seafood in Armenia besides the other species such as goldfish and common whitefish.

Currently, Lake Sevan provides more than eighty per cent of the fish catch of Armenia. Besides the historical and economic significance of the region, it also houses plenty of endemic species such as the Armenian gull.

I am planning to go to a city called Gyumri next week, hoping to write about this second biggest city of Armenia in my fourth blog entry.