Stumbling into a bookstore along Av. Corrientes
At night, with the bright lights shining from the famous theatres, Corrientes is a galore of sightseeing, its wide avenue giving you ample space to mull and get lost in your own thoughts.
Yet the one thing that I love most about Corrientes other than the perfectly symmetrical view of the obelisk you get when crossing the road, is that littered along the street are its famous old and dusty bookstores. Walking to meet my friend and a friend of hers for our vegetarian dinner last night, I found myself unwittingly drawn to these numerous old bookstores along the avenue, all oozing with the musty yet alluring smell of good second-hand books waiting for an owner to claim them.
The bookstores make you feel like you’re in a completely different world, and with the towering bookshelves full of treasure and knowledge, it’s hard not to feel like a child in a large candy kingdom. There usually aren’t many English books, but there are plenty of old Glamour or design magazines from the 1990s, and it is common to find yellowed Mafalda comic books or a collection of newspaper articles from a particularly weird year, like 1978 for example.
I wanted to encounter a book in Spanish that was relatively easy to read yet interesting enough, not some 5-year old kid storybook talking about birds and trees. Guess what I found for a ridiculously cheap pricetag of 20 pesos? I found a book about beauty queens and make-up tips, all in good quality, full-colour pages! It was the perfect thing to read and learn Spanish! Without any hesitation of course, and at the risk of looking like a empty-headed bimbo, I bought it.
Now time to enjoy some bimbo-ness this upcoming long weekend!
: )
Argentine: Defined?
There is, apparently, a definition for the word “Argentine”, which is mostly a joke invented by other countries in Latin America, and also mostly true. It goes like this – “An Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and desires to be like the French.”
Doesn’t sound south-american at all. In fact this saying sounds as if it was trying to define a mix of European nationalities. But this is also where the truth lies – Argentina, one of the latin american countries with the highest percentage of its population being caucasian, since most of its people are descendents of Italians and Spanish. There are also descendents of Russian, Jewish and other races, but the majority can rightly be said to be from Italy (especially the South) and Spain. There had been a campaign organized by the people of Chile and Argentina to kill all the indigenous people in both countries many decades ago, with the objective of spreading the Spanish language and infiltrating the land with the new-found culture, resulting in a rapid diminishing of the indigenous culture and languages. Since then, Spanish has become the national language in Argentina, spoken by everyone, including the small remaining indigenous minority. In order to trade, work, get about your daily life, Spanish is essential.
Ok, now I have covered the part about Argentines speaking Spanish. Why are they called Italians then? Although the direct descendents of Italian immigrants do not make up the entire population, Argentines in general are extremely similar to Italians in terms of their gesticulations, and mannerisms of speech. They speak loudly, gesturing always with their hands, giving you little personal space, and are flambouyant in their speech. My argentine friend sometimes even makes the mistake, when he is overseas, of assuming that some Italians he sees from afar are Argentines, and the truth is only obvious to him when he hears them speak. Fine, the Italian description makes sense then.
What about the part of them wanting to be like the French? Remember that Buenos Aires is almost always referred to as the “Paris of South America”? This is mostly attributable to its very European architecture which define the city, constructed by or under the strong influence of many European designers and architects which came here to exchange ideas, learn and teach, especially because Buenos Aires was one of the cities most open to foreign culture. Don’t forget also that 100 years ago, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, because it exported alot of cattle, grain and other commodities to other countries. Up till 15-20 years ago, Argentina had always aspired to be like Europe, which just by nature of being important and one of the largest economies in the world, gave it an economic and cultural model to follow. It associated more with European culture than with South American culture, and hence, other latin american countries saw Argentina as snobbish and always trying to be out of its league. In a way, the general mentality of Argentines are that they are superior to the other South American countries, and like the French, who are synonymous with arrogance and self-assumed superiority, the Argentines behave likewise. Perhaps that is beginning to change.
Some one to two decades ago, the governement and the people in general realized that it would not do for them to constantly emmulate a culture and an economy that was not theirs. In comparison, Argentina would always be the underdog compared to an economy like Europe, and so, there started to be a shift in mindset and cultural mentality. Argentina started to realize that they wanted to pay more attention and give more value to the culture which was theirs, without the influence of any foreignors. They started focusing on things which were uniquely Argentine, like Tango, gauchos, and cumbia. It was also more recently in the 1990s when there started a widespread scale of teaching Spanish as a second language to foreignors in Argentina, and even more recently that more foreignors started discovering and realizing the beauty of both its cities and natural resources. But more than that, Argentines have been adjusting their emphasis to aligning more with South American cultures, and looking to other South American economies for guidance, such as that of Brazil and to a lesser extent, Chile.
I think the definition of an Argentine might be beginning to change, but it is still only in its infancy. There are many things which Argentines still proudly retain and hold tightly as their make-up and essence. But there are also some things which they are letting go.
Spanish classes: From the viewpoints of both teacher and student
Just two weeks of Spanish classes and I have learnt so much about Argentina, the Spanish language, and also life in general.
Yesterday Debora and I spoke about the process of learning Spanish, and she related to me her own experience in teaching Spanish and Spanish literature to children just into their teens in a public secondary school, and to adults above the age of fifty who are studying the language and its literature in a school specially for people their age.
One big difference between both groups of students is their desires to learn. The former attend school because they need to fulfil an obligation to their parents who enrolled them into classes; they are at thirteen years of age lost between maturity of adults and the innocence of young children. Right at the entrance of the phase of puberty, they experience hormonal imbalances and display a rebellious streak that is sometimes difficult to keep under control. Essentially still young and attention-seeking, they shout through most of the lessons, if not speaking at the top of their voices, a mix of some deeper voices and others at higher pre-puberty frequencies. For them, it doesn’t make sense to attend language classes since after more than a decade on earth they are able to speak Spanish and use the appropriate terms and grammar. To them, it is a waste of time to sit through classes about Preteríto Imperfecto, Preteríto Pluscuamperfecto and Presente de Subjuntivo. Whether they can structure a sentence based on language rules is of little importance to them. As such, Debora spends more of her limited time in these classes teaching them to analyze a text, to critique the way a prose has been written, and simply to form sentences that are longer and much more elegant.
The problem with children of this generation is that they spend alot more time watching television programs, playing computer games, going on websites like Facebook and youtube, and texting on their handphones. They are used to instantaneous gratification, and with online chat and SMS increasingly becoming the main mode of communication between youngsters, they cut their words and use short-form for everything whenever possible. They talk alot using very little words. Like this. They speak but not converse. They like things short. And easy. Not complicated. So Debora tries to help them link more subjects together in the same sentence and to express themselves with greater variety and extent of vocabulary. One thing she especially likes about teaching teenagers is that being in contact with them enables her to understand and comprehend a little bit more about their tastes, their likes and dislikes, their behaviour and current fascinations. It keeps her feeling a bit younger she says.
The latter group, made up of older, mainly retired or just pre-retirement adults, is quite different. They are mainly Argentines who because of a particular family or economic situation, were unable to complete secondary school when they were much younger, and as such, have a strong desire now that the situation is different to attain the education they never had. They can speak perfectly well; communication per se for them may not be a problem, but perhaps they had never been taught the right way to structure sentences together; they are not able to read of write and this illiteracy has irked them enough to push them into enrolling for classes. Unlike the children still undergoing puberty, they are less impatient, more determined and less temperamental. They have, hopefully, a wiser point of view, a less miopic lens from which they see things with grander scale. These older students possess a lot of knowledge and years of experience which the former group has completely no idea about. Their lives are of course different as well; maybe they are going through menopause, maybe they just want something to enrich their lives and to start living again.
Personally, I have always thought and still think that learning a language is a completely different experience from learning to do any other thing. In language classes, you feel like you are a child all over again, learning the most basic and essential verbs or grammar to even form sentences so people can understand you. Then you have to learn vocabulary in order to expand your scope of conversations and to be able to have a decent dialogue about things other than food and the weather. A large part of language classes often include conversations with the teacher asking you what you did the day before, or to describe your own country and through conversations like these which you might not have normally, you discover so much about yourself, your knowledge of your own country, you even realize your pride for your homeland and find yourself defending the differences in culture and thinking your nation has.
In the past 2.5 years of learning Spanish, I’ve grown to love the language, not just for being foreign, but also for its romantic roots, its very particular words which give Spanish such an intense and colourful flavour, and the beauty of its constant evolution. Spanish, like all other languages, is spoken differently all over the world. Slang and words particular to a country or even province, combined with the unique intonations and accents as a result of specific and different experiences globally is what makes learning a language so interesting and captivating. “Lumfardo” used here in Buenos Aires, typically by Portenos, is similar to “Singlish” in Singapore and “Cockney” in England. You cannot say that you have really learnt a language until you can integrate with the locals and speak in their local version of the language. I can’t say I’ve actually learnt Spanish yet. Give me a few more months. I’ll tell you more then.
Spanish classes with Debora & Villa 31
Today was the second day of my Spanish classes – two hours per day, supposedly group lessons. However, because I’m the only person at my current level (Advanced C1), these group classes have shrunk and are now one-to-one classes. I’m not complaining – I’m paying the same ridiculously cheap group class rate (29 pesos/hour) for more intensive private tuition. The only thing that I feel slightly disappointed about is that I was really looking forward to making new friends with other foreignors in my Spanish group course – like the great friends that I made in Las Lilas in Singapore. Other than that however, I really like my classes so far.
The best part of the classes are the conversations that I have with my professor, Debora. We spend quite alot of time conversing only in Spanish – which is perfect because she can understand some English words so if I need to explain something too technical she helps me to translate it into Spanish, but other than that she doesn’t speak to me in English AT ALL. It’s great because I’ve realized when I was taking German classes in Mannheim that that is almost the best way to learn a completely new language; being forced to express and understand completely in the foreign language is the most accelerated manner of learning. So I’m really glad for that – I think I will be really fluent in a few weeks, not to kiss my own ass, but I really think so.
Today, we had a conversation for 1.5 hours before starting with grammar, but oh how much I learnt in those 90 minutes! We started talking about my day, but then later we somehow digressed and proceeded to talking about the slums (also known as shanty towns) in Argentina, called “Villas” – derived from the word “villages”- which is a paradox since the same word in English means nice grand house where the rich people stay in! The most peculiar thing about some of the slums in buenos aires are that they are situated next to some of the richest neighbourhoods in this Porteno city. For example “Villa 31″, proably the biggest slum in Buenos Aires, is situated across the railway tracks from Puerto Madero, which for me is one of my favourite places in the city. From Sheraton Hotel just across the Microcentro (the central business district if you may), you can see the shanty towns, a combination of houses made up of tin, clay and other scrap materials; a weird neighbourhood lacking in any proper street signage or infrastructure, without much electricity or safety. Apparently, 10-15 years ago, the area currently occupied by Villa 31 was worthless; the land on which those little houses sat was of no value to anyone, and since Puerto Madero had not yet been properly constructed and created to be such a beautiful place, the government didn’t give two dimes about who wanted to build a little tin house on that piece of land.
Now however, the tables have turned. With Puerto Madero being such an attractive tourist destination and place to relax and enjoy, the current Kirchner government wishes to reclaim the land on which Villa 31 sits. It wants to shift the entire shanty town to a place out of sight, out of mind, as far away as possible. The government doesn’t really care much for the poor; there are too many of them for the government to do very much; or maybe the government just would rather spend its money elsewhere more productive. The funny thing however is, from my knowledge, that it is the votes of the poor that helped the current government to be where they are today. However, excuse my limited political knowledge if you find this statement inaccurate or politically incorrect.
Debora did tell me however that there is currently quite a good project that the Kirchner government has executed thus far, to its credit, it has implemented a plan which tries to keep poor children off the streets (away from drugs, delinquency, robberies, and other crimes in general) by incentivizing their parents to enroll them into school, which is free up to a certain educational level. Parents, regardless of income level (I believe) are able to claim 200 pesos per child per month from the government as long as a current certificate of enrollment into a school is produced. This is quite a brilliant idea to me, as while education may not be the only way to keep kids out of crime and to give them a good future, it certainly is the most important and efficient methods to give them an understanding of the potential they can have; and it allows them a path to greater financial freedom. Parents with many mouths to feed (especially if they are poor) may find it hard to understand and see so much into the long term, particularly if they would rather see the benefits of their children working from a young age to ease the financial burden.
This is the part of Buenos Aires life that you get exposed to briefly when you see children lying on the subway platforms and their mothers begging for money; the man on the subway or the bus giving a speech about his unfortunate situation; or the youths that knock on your car window when you stop at a traffic light, demanding money in exchange for cleaning your windscreen. But, as a tourist, as a visitor, they are but another part of the city; you don’t actually realize or understand the lives that the slum-swellers suffer not because they don’t want to work; but because of the economic situation in their home towns in other smaller provinces that forced them to the capital to find jobs; but even with those meagre salaries, they have to live in badly constructed houses without any job security and without a tangibly potential career that most teenagers take for granted.
I’m just starting to understand and comprehend this city that I’m living in; so many many other things that I have yet to come across; so few that I can surely say I understand enough to explain. But thank god for spanish lessons; they come in quite handy to understanding this city. More updates another time. Maybe next time I will write about the many Chinese that are living in Argentina and their Chinese supermarkets (supermercados Chinos). But I’ll save that for another time.
Espanol in progress!
Called the director of a Spanish school whose professor I learnt with when I was here 2 years ago, and more of less have arranged to start spanish classes next week. Daily lessons of 2 hours each day from Monday to Friday.. Apparently I am at level Advanced C1 – sounds pretty impressive eh… I hope I learn much faster with these intensive daily lessons.
Its the second week here and ….. its really awesome so far. Juan’s family is so wonderful; especially his mum who knows I must be bored staying at home the whole day she invites me out to tea, and shopping with her and offers so willingly to show me around the city. But after being so used to waking up at 6.40am for work all the way till the evening, not having anything to do is fine and fun for the first one or two weeks, then it starts to feel like I’m not productive, and at times this feeling irks me.
So, now that I’m about to start Spanish classes, at least I feel more of a sense of purpose. One other reason why spanish classes excite me is also because I get to meet new people – other foreignors like me who are also grappling with expressing with this new language, which though gets easier each day, is still a huge limitation for me to express what I feel and want to say.
But Yay! Soon things will be different. At least, I will be able to get around more easily and feel like I’m really living here, and not just as a tourist anymore! : ) Now i will attempt to cook scrambled eggs (or eggs of some sort – I am quite a egg-fanatic) for breakfast. Yum yum yum!! Buen appetito!
It’s real..!
2010! First quarter almost over, and so many changes and new things in store!
I bought my ticket today, quit on Friday, and in one weekend, I’m starting to realize that it’s true, I’m going to be travelling again. Glancing through exchange photos from more than 2 years ago, I felt such a great desire to travel, and absorb and observe again. Now I’m actually really going to do that!
So many emotions, so much excitement, so much love. <3
Gold trimmings on the leather bound book
Bits and pieces of me all around the world; residing where my close friends and loved ones are. The world feels so much smaller now than when I was little, maybe because I desperately wish it would be. All around the globe I have people to whom bits of my heart have been given to, a gift for them to keep and take care.
Sometimes I sit at the bus-stop thinking back on times past, of memories gold, and friends of old, who I love so much. Somehow the friends who you unexpectedly find like a treasured book in a second hand book store turn up at the doorstep of your life one day and by some random order, you establish a bond with them. A bond which you would never have made with the next-door neighbour, the classmate who you see everyday, or even family. And somehow, the similarly random order throws by some odd nature of life, chances for these jems to soar the world and achieve their dreams and aspirations, in work, in life, in love. And just a quickly as the precious encounter that allowed that friendship to develop and bloom chanced upon you, an equally unexpected turn of events leaves you finding that the people you love so much are suddenly so far away.
Yet it gladdens my heart very much, to find that despite the distance and physical separation, these friendships and relationships remain, still shining regardless of time and different lives. Sometimes our workloads and busy schedules keep us from writing and skyping as much as we would like to, but each time we talk, I know that friendships dear to me matter as much to them as well. Auburn leaves started a bond that began in autumn, the season whose colours always remind me of friendship and being found. Christmas markets and the walk in the winter’s cold make me smile wistfully, at advice given and taken, and a genuine listening ear. Sitting at the desk learning another language from scratch and using hand gestures to get my point across, yes that was a chance to understand and be understood, teacher and student to friends. Dinner after work on an impromtu desire to meet up, sales sourcing for favourite brands, and make up lessons, they remind me of so many wonderful moments. Dancing across a frozen lake, chasing in the wind, hearing the children laugh and play, that reminds me of you.
The most beautiful thing about these, arent that they make great memories, but that on top of being so, they are still very much alive and remain, shining and true, like gold trimmings on the leather bound book.
Pagina del amor
Yesterday, Juan told me that his grandma told him she has two reasons to live– Sofia and me.
Today, in all my conversations and thoughts, one topic stood out particularly from the rest. Love. Never one to be a mushy person before, nor someone whose boldness exceeded that required to boldly proclaim my affection for people who hold me together, I now advocate the truth that I never beheld much before– Loving silently is almost the same as not showing your love, and thus almost the same as having the other person unaware and never allowing them the chance to experience it.
I cannot explain why I feel such an urgent need to write this, but suddenly it dawned on me that silent love is selfish love. Love freely, and you gain so much in return; no longer bounded by fears of rejection, your love opens up boundaries that held you down before. Love silently and you bury this big burden of secrecy, bound by straps of regrets which you are desperately wishing to break.
In my life, I have been blessed with family and loved ones who show me what true love is, whose unchecked shows of affection always touch me to tears. No amount of words can ever describe the gratitude that fills me everyday.
Amor, sos un de estes personas. vos tenes tanto amor para dar. Es mi gran honor que estoy la mujer tu elegiste. gracias.
” Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love, time is eternity. “
–Henry Van Dyke
Cada noche es día.
Cada noche es día.
La salida del sol es tan brillante,
las puestas del sol siempre más brillantes,
cada vez que pienso en usted,
yo piensa en usted y usted y usted.
Millones de estrellas y la luz imponente
Encenderá para arriba el camino una vez fino y obscuridad
Cada mañana que despierto los olores del aire más dulces.
Cada vez que pienso en usted, pienso en usted y usted
