Hear/Say

It’s an assignment. Read it if you dare.

Blog Entry 1

1. Porta via è “to go”

In American culture, a lot of our consumer-culture is based on convenience. Service and hospitality culture evolve around the needs of the consumer. This includes prompt service. It seems that Italian culture, however, incorporates the laziness of time—and this is not meant to be a negative term. Time is of the essence for the American—you can sense this stereotype when people discuss different aspects of other cultures. The aspect of paid vacation for French citizens comes to mind. So does the experience of eating at restaurants in Rome. The experience of wine-and-dine during Italian dinners is obvious when we ‘stupid Americans’ enter a restaurant and each haphazardly order from different courses on the menu. A proper Italian dinner doesn’t work that way: courses play a part in enjoying cuisine, and the respect given to the experience of dining surpasses the need for prompt, immediate convenience.

Which is why the idea of “to-go” seems like such a vulgar suggestion when we haven’t finished the pizza or pasta we ordered. Boxing things up cuts out the experience the restaurant would like to offer, and abruptly cuts short the full experience and appreciation for dinner. With the exceptions of caffe—and even then, you never really see Italians sipping coffee as they navigate the cobblestoned streets. Enjoying your latte or cappuccino at the bar saves on resources (to-go cups), and also acknowledges the vendor in your patron-client relationship.

1. Potere è “to be able/can/ may”

Our apartment was looking for a wine key to open a couple of bottles of wine, and a last-resort idea was to borrow one from the café downstairs. After a session of desperately scouring our apartment (it was the first week; the idea of trying to communicate with others was freshly terrifying), I acquiesced and went downstairs to ask for the favor. In my nervousness, I tried to explain the following: “We need a winekey to open our wine bottles, and I was wondering if we could borrow your wine-opener please?” Instead, I only got so far as to say “We need—“ and the curt interruption that followed epitomized condescension and obvious dismissal: “You need? I don’t care what you need, I don’t care at all!” the peroxide-cropped man waved us away. At a loss for words because of how rude the man was (although I understand where he was coming from, it was clear he had already dismissed us as foolish Americans from the start), I smiled apologetically and asked him in English how I would say what I would like to say in Italian. Instead, he continued his arrogant demeanor: “It doesn’t matter, you said it wrong anyway!” and gave us a wine key, demanding we return it tonight or tomorrow. If I had known how to ask politely, it would have saved me a lot of grief… as it was, though, I’m pretty sure he had it out for us the moment he saw us walk in.

1. Me despiace è “I’m sorry”

In situations of mis-communication, such as the one stated above, it would have been nice to have known this phrase in order to displace the tension caused by “ignorance”. Luckily, most Italian interactions I’ve engaged in aren’t as severe and the vendors are usually gracious enough to kindly teach us how to say certain phrases. Maybe I say this too much in English, which is why I have a terrible compulsion to burst into apologetic expression, but I feel like this phrase would have (and will) allow me to approach the Italians I interact with in a more earnest manner.

1. A destra, a sinistra, andare dritto, girare è directional phrases “On the right, on the left, go straight, turn” respectively

I’m not very afraid to ask for directions; the only stigma would be the language barrier—but that is a very large stigma to overcome. When I had arranged for members of the COM program to meet at our apartment so we may traverse to the Piazza de Portese for the weekly flea-market, I thought we had a good idea of where it was. I was wrong, and half-way there we realized that no one knew where we were headed. So I asked a woman standing on the corner; I knew the flea-market was famous, and that it was somewhere within walking distance, but as she gladly and kindly gave directions, I realized I had no idea what she was saying. Her hand gestures indicated we walk a certain way, which actually did help, but as soon as we followed these vague gestures to the next block, I had to ask someone else for more directions, banking on their body language to tell me more than I could understand from their words. If I had known these directional phrases, I would have picked up on the advice more more quickly.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 6:31 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.