From Russia with Love

Problems

The other night, I was sitting at the dinner table as Tatiana Nikolaevna served my favorite meal of pel'meny (Russian dumplings). I was sharing with her some of the strange rituals that today's anthropology lecture covered, namely the ritual of 'perepekenie' or rebaking/finish baking. This is performed on small children when they get sick and are seen as not 'baked' all the way through. Basically, country folk will put their child in an oven to heal him. During the lecture, I could not fathom such a thing, since the professor seemed to insinuate that the child could sometimes die in the flames. Tatiana assured me that this ritual is most likely performed in the warm but not flaming chamber of the oven, although she had never heard of such a ritual.
Sensing that I had disturbed her with this backward, possibly ancient ritual of her own culture, I tried to change the subject and began talking about a classic of Soviet cinema that I saw early that day, "Letiat Zhuravly" (The Cranes are Flying). I refered to an engaged couple as 'lovers' (liubovniki), not knowing the subtle and negative undertones of this particular word. Tatiana proceeded to lecture me for a good twenty minutes on the difference between those in love (like Romeo and Juliet, married couples, etc) and lovers - liubovniki (those who have sex out of lust and treat it like a handshake). She had some very strong feelings on the subject and through the course of her monologue began to nearly yell at me. She also asked some questions that made me feel very uncomfortable ("When you marry a woman, would you want to know that she's been with Lord knows how many other men, or would you want her to be yours and only yours?"). Such a question is quite complicated for someone like me: the very thought of marrying a woman is a very foreign concept, but out of respect for my hostess, I set out to give a diplomatic answer without getting into too many details of my own sexual life. I told her that "It would be nice if she were a virgin, I guess, but I also know that in the world we live in, women like that are few and far between."
This answer didn't provide her with much satisfaction and she continued accosting me until I admitted that I would only marry a virgin (woman). She began citing great authors' views on the matter, namely Theodore Dreiser, of whom I had never heard. Tatiana was flabbergasted at this realization. "Teodor Dreizer (with a thick Russian accent)! He's a classic of American Literature! How can you not know your own classics?!" I consider myself well read and educated even by international standards (as my I.B. Diploma can prove), but not once in my life have I come across the name Theodore Dreiser. She started explaining what 'a classic' is (as though I didn't understand what she meant by this expression) and basically implied that I was uneducated and culturally illiterate for not know who this Dreiser fellow was. It would be one thing if Dreiser were a Russian author, rarely read in the West, but Tatiana was taking it upon herself to tell me who the classics of my own culture were, and using all my self-control to not tell her off for presuming to teach me about my own cultural heritage, I smiled and nodded and let her finish.
Despite hanging out with my American friends (out of which only one had ever heard the Dreiser's name and was unable to name one of his supposedly famous compositions), I spent the remainder of my night in a bad mood. My life with Tatiana is often filled with similar conversations that center around conflicts between the older generation's concept of the world and what constitutes a 'correct' lifestyle and that of the younger generation's. This schizm is complicated by our different cultural backgrounds, and although reminiscent of interactions I've had with my grandparents and older people in the States, my 'discussions' with Tatiana tend to upset me more since I'm forced to defend my generation in a foreign language.
I fell asleep agreeing with Tatiana's assessment that 'Mish, today just isn't your day'.

posted by Misha Molodoi @ 1:31 PM