Sorry I've been gone so long. Just got a bit too unplugged this summer. But I'm officially back with a good story and a question.
Last Friday my husband and I participated in a special anniversary event organized by the Italian Ferrovie dello Stato (national train company) to celebrate the 170 years of its first train from Naples to Portici. The participants met at the Rome termini, took the new superfast train to Naples followed by a short ride to the Pietrarsa train museum for a guided tour and dinner before returning to Rome.
The museum was fantastic, a little jewel overlooking the bay of Naples -- complete with a working steam-engine train! The dinner for 600 was catered in the one of the old padiglioni (warehouse spaces) among over 40 historic trains -- a sit-down affair with three glass and three fork settings around white-clothed tables of 12. The mandatory speeches by the autorità came before, lots of traditional music and dancing during and fireworks with a brindisi finished off the evening.
The organizer (and friend of my husband) was duly frazzled as she made sure that the various authorities and VIPS were properly seated at the first eight tables. She confided that about 100 confirmed people had not shown up and another 100 had come with same day confirmations (many of whom needed to be seated with their VIP peers). She simply shrugged, "At least the numbers balance out for the caterers" and after discretely and efficiently shifting places around, everyone had a proper seat. In the shuffle and in true Zelig style, we ended up filling out one of the reserved tables (but that is another story).
A memory bell went off from my event organizing days in Rome. Somehow back then I always magically hit my numbers for restaurants or caterers, but NEVER with the same people who had originally confirmed. 10-15% didn't show and another 10-15% just showed up. When I finally figured this out, I let go of all the worry and learned to count on the universe to take care of the final numbers.
and it always worked!
So why is it that the American organizations here in Rome keep driving themselves nuts by insisting on non-refundable reservations. How many times would I have just shown up at an event at the last minute to magically take the place of a last minute no-show. Things happen and then you are suddenly free to attend, or suddenly not.
How simple it all could be if we could reach an Italian comfort level with just letting things happen as they will.
a presto (I promise)
E
Showing posts with label fate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fate. Show all posts
October 7, 2009
May 10, 2008
Porta fortuna
Siamo i campioni d'Italia!
Itas Diatec Trentino Volley won the playoff finals and are the Italian Volleyball champions -- for the first time in its eight-year history. We were there at the PalaTrento along with another 4.500 fans and our son was on the floor, the second "libero" and youngest team member. The city went crazy and the festivities are just settling down three days later. Quite an emotional time and now some big decisions are on the plate as our son has been confirmed for next year.
During the three game finals against Piacenza, there was lots of talk about what would constitute a porta fortuna, versus a porta sfiga. Waiting for the first final match to begin on May 1, we opened up the local paper to an interview with the club president. The title read, "We will surely win." My husband and I exchanged glances, "He couldn't have possibly said that, it would portare sfiga." We decided that the journalist must have made it up, and relaxed. Then my husband did his usual counterclockwise walk to the other side to shake the president's hand while saying only, "Presidente"-- it is their porta fortuna ritual. We won 3-0.
Then there was the return game at Piacenza on May 4. We lost at the tie-break 16-14.
"la bella" or final match took place on Wednesday May 7 in Trento. It crossed my mind that I should wear the same shirt and necklace as I had at the first match, my husband did his counterclockwise / handshake routine and we won 3-0.
Coaches are beginning to notice that wherever our son goes, teams win -- even if he never even enters the court. Last year's Brazilian coach said he needed him on the bench as a porta fortuna. As the last playoff match started, I was sure they would win (although I would NEVER have said so out loud -- porta sfiga) -- Andrea was down there, and where he goes, teams win!
Or as we would say, "he is just always in the right place at the right time."
Two sides of the same coin, one emphasizes the role of the individual and the other the forces of destiny.
Congratulations to Trentino Volley! As the team captain, Nikola Grbic said, "Whatever the result, we knew that we gave it all that we could, 100%. But it is still better to win."
a domani back in Rome,
E
Itas Diatec Trentino Volley won the playoff finals and are the Italian Volleyball champions -- for the first time in its eight-year history. We were there at the PalaTrento along with another 4.500 fans and our son was on the floor, the second "libero" and youngest team member. The city went crazy and the festivities are just settling down three days later. Quite an emotional time and now some big decisions are on the plate as our son has been confirmed for next year.
During the three game finals against Piacenza, there was lots of talk about what would constitute a porta fortuna, versus a porta sfiga. Waiting for the first final match to begin on May 1, we opened up the local paper to an interview with the club president. The title read, "We will surely win." My husband and I exchanged glances, "He couldn't have possibly said that, it would portare sfiga." We decided that the journalist must have made it up, and relaxed. Then my husband did his usual counterclockwise walk to the other side to shake the president's hand while saying only, "Presidente"-- it is their porta fortuna ritual. We won 3-0.
Then there was the return game at Piacenza on May 4. We lost at the tie-break 16-14.
"la bella" or final match took place on Wednesday May 7 in Trento. It crossed my mind that I should wear the same shirt and necklace as I had at the first match, my husband did his counterclockwise / handshake routine and we won 3-0.
Coaches are beginning to notice that wherever our son goes, teams win -- even if he never even enters the court. Last year's Brazilian coach said he needed him on the bench as a porta fortuna. As the last playoff match started, I was sure they would win (although I would NEVER have said so out loud -- porta sfiga) -- Andrea was down there, and where he goes, teams win!
Or as we would say, "he is just always in the right place at the right time."
Two sides of the same coin, one emphasizes the role of the individual and the other the forces of destiny.
Congratulations to Trentino Volley! As the team captain, Nikola Grbic said, "Whatever the result, we knew that we gave it all that we could, 100%. But it is still better to win."
a domani back in Rome,
E
November 29, 2007
Strike's on
Tomorrow there is an eight hour transport strike: buses, trams, metro, trains and taxis starting at 8:30 (9:00 for trains). Everyone seems to have a plan to work around it, many are going into work early to have a coffee with a friend, while others have made arrangements to stay near work until 4:30 when the buses start back up again. The rest are staying close to home and putting off to tomorrow what could have been done today. The ZTL has been lifted to let cars into the historic center (abandoned by the buses) and the traffic will be unbearable.
No one seems particularly excited about yet another transport strike, and treat it as a mere nuisance, like a whining two-year old that you have to live with. What can you do about it anyway? Write to your local politician? Have a demonstration about being tired of strikes and create more havoc? Go on "Porta a Porta"? Write a letter to Corrado Augias? Or make do, grumble a bit over your morning cappuccino at the local bar, and get on with the day the best you can.
I had planned to take the 9:05 eurostar to Trento, instead I am on the 7:42 intercity train. Oh well, 45 minutes longer trip and not quite as nice a ride. What can you do? Boh.
a dopo-domani from Trento,
E
No one seems particularly excited about yet another transport strike, and treat it as a mere nuisance, like a whining two-year old that you have to live with. What can you do about it anyway? Write to your local politician? Have a demonstration about being tired of strikes and create more havoc? Go on "Porta a Porta"? Write a letter to Corrado Augias? Or make do, grumble a bit over your morning cappuccino at the local bar, and get on with the day the best you can.
I had planned to take the 9:05 eurostar to Trento, instead I am on the 7:42 intercity train. Oh well, 45 minutes longer trip and not quite as nice a ride. What can you do? Boh.
a dopo-domani from Trento,
E
October 25, 2007
Paternalistic medicine
What happens when an Italian doctor becomes a patient? It happened to Gynecologist Carlo Flamigni in Bologna last year and now he knows both sides of the Italian health system. In an interview, he talks about the experience.
He passed from reanimation to long months of rehabilitation while knowing the mechanisms of the medical profession, the jargon and the tricks of the trade. He could see through the facade and, from a patient's point of view, he didn't like what he recognized. In particular, he found the very Italian tendency of not telling the patient the whole truth about his or her condition to be very annoying. He only found out that he had no sensibility in half of his body when he asked the nurses why they hadn't washed his left side -- but they had. He calls it the "Paternal model of assistance." He also noticed how doctors get easily bothered by patients' questions and brush them off with, "guardi che il medico sono io." (look, I am the doctor). What he wanted most was compassion and instead he found doctors that glanced at their watches while visiting his bedside.
It all sounds pretty familiar, except for the paternalism. We like "straight talking", directness, no "beating around the bush", to "tell it like it is". We do not believe that mentioning the possibility of bad things happening will attract the evil eye's attention and actually make them happen (like d..th, disa...l.ty, ca.c.r and t.m.r, those things that Italians never name directly and always speak of in a whisper). We "can take it." We are pragmatic. We make wills and take out life insurance.
Fifteen years ago, while spending nearly three weeks with my then three year old under observation in the pediatric neurosurgery unit of a large public hospital, the head neurosurgeon waltzed in one day with an entourage of foreign doctors at his heels to whom he spoke English. When he got to our bedside, he flipped out my son's various exams and proceeded to "tell it like it was" -- which, of course, I had not heard in quite such clear and direct terms. It never crossed his mind that I might understand English, but before I had absorbed what he had said and could manage a question, he had turned on his heels and left.
a domani,
E
p.s. no fear, it all worked out in the end.
p.p.s and with no hospital bill. Only about 10,000 lire (5 euros) for a copy of the "cartella clinica".
He passed from reanimation to long months of rehabilitation while knowing the mechanisms of the medical profession, the jargon and the tricks of the trade. He could see through the facade and, from a patient's point of view, he didn't like what he recognized. In particular, he found the very Italian tendency of not telling the patient the whole truth about his or her condition to be very annoying. He only found out that he had no sensibility in half of his body when he asked the nurses why they hadn't washed his left side -- but they had. He calls it the "Paternal model of assistance." He also noticed how doctors get easily bothered by patients' questions and brush them off with, "guardi che il medico sono io." (look, I am the doctor). What he wanted most was compassion and instead he found doctors that glanced at their watches while visiting his bedside.
It all sounds pretty familiar, except for the paternalism. We like "straight talking", directness, no "beating around the bush", to "tell it like it is". We do not believe that mentioning the possibility of bad things happening will attract the evil eye's attention and actually make them happen (like d..th, disa...l.ty, ca.c.r and t.m.r, those things that Italians never name directly and always speak of in a whisper). We "can take it." We are pragmatic. We make wills and take out life insurance.
Fifteen years ago, while spending nearly three weeks with my then three year old under observation in the pediatric neurosurgery unit of a large public hospital, the head neurosurgeon waltzed in one day with an entourage of foreign doctors at his heels to whom he spoke English. When he got to our bedside, he flipped out my son's various exams and proceeded to "tell it like it was" -- which, of course, I had not heard in quite such clear and direct terms. It never crossed his mind that I might understand English, but before I had absorbed what he had said and could manage a question, he had turned on his heels and left.
a domani,
E
p.s. no fear, it all worked out in the end.
p.p.s and with no hospital bill. Only about 10,000 lire (5 euros) for a copy of the "cartella clinica".
October 16, 2007
win some, lose some
When things just don't seem to ever work out for someone, we call them a "loser". The equivalent in Italian is "sfigato" or unlucky.
The first is part of the win/lose paradigm, the second acknowledges the role of fate.
a domani,
E
The first is part of the win/lose paradigm, the second acknowledges the role of fate.
a domani,
E
September 8, 2007
La notte bianca
Big night ahead. La notte bianca. From the historic center to the parks, EUR, San Lorenzo, the Flaminia -- the city will be awake and alive with music, light shows, art, theater, dance, poetry readings and more until dawn. Museums will be open and ministerial offices will flaunt their secret treasures. Piazzas will serve as stages alongside the auditorium. Over 2 million people of all ages are expected to participate.
It is magical -- masses of people strolling along, arm in arm just admiring the city, the lights, the sounds, the experience.
What is striking, for an American, is the lack of control, fear, containment. No barricades, the police are discrete, no gangs, no violence. Just a special evening for all to enjoy. A salute to the summer. A grand welcome back to the city before the grit and traffic wears on the spirit.
In its first edition, five years ago, the white night became black as the largest country wide power black-out just happened to take place at 2:30 am that night. Masses of people were stranded on the city streets in the dark. The buses couldn't run, nor the trams. But no one panicked, no shops were sacked, no violence occurred. The Romans walked home, or enjoyed the rest of the night in company and waited until dawn. The Italian, "che si puo fare" resignation sometimes works wonders.
a domani,
E
La Notte Bianca web site for information
It is magical -- masses of people strolling along, arm in arm just admiring the city, the lights, the sounds, the experience.
What is striking, for an American, is the lack of control, fear, containment. No barricades, the police are discrete, no gangs, no violence. Just a special evening for all to enjoy. A salute to the summer. A grand welcome back to the city before the grit and traffic wears on the spirit.
In its first edition, five years ago, the white night became black as the largest country wide power black-out just happened to take place at 2:30 am that night. Masses of people were stranded on the city streets in the dark. The buses couldn't run, nor the trams. But no one panicked, no shops were sacked, no violence occurred. The Romans walked home, or enjoyed the rest of the night in company and waited until dawn. The Italian, "che si puo fare" resignation sometimes works wonders.
a domani,
E
La Notte Bianca web site for information
July 31, 2007
Rules and beyond
I started packing today and during a break I found some interesting information for our trip on my sister's business blog:
July 30th, 2007
This is priceless: Security expert Bruce Schneier interviews TSA Administrator Kip Hawley. And he asks some of the questions I’d like to ask, including:
Bruce Schneier: By today’s rules, I can carry on liquids in quantities of three ounces or less, unless they’re in larger bottles. But I can carry on multiple three-ounce bottles. Or a single larger bottle with a non-prescription medicine label, like contact lens fluid. It all has to fit inside a one-quart plastic bag, except for that large bottle of contact lens fluid. And if you confiscate my liquids, you’re going to toss them into a large pile right next to the screening station — which you would never do if anyone thought they were actually dangerous.
Can you please convince me there’s not an Office for Annoying Air Travelers making this sort of stuff up?
Kip Hawley: Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled.
Then he takes his tongue out of his cheek and explains how TSA arrived at its current goo rules. No specifics, of course, due to security concerns, but Hawley gives it a good try.
To avoid hassles, we will embark on a 20-hour flight with small, liquid-free carry-on bags -- a sweater, shirt, book, documents to hand deliver and a toothbrush should be safe enough. I am daring fate with a mini tube of face cream and a box off melatonina (first time try). Let's hope our luggage arrives at destination.
The idea at the bottom of all this craziness is: if you analyze every possibility and make enough rules, you can control the future. Rules, in this context, equal controlling fate and destiny.
Then the tour packet arrived with a flyer containing "Important Guest Information" from the Department of Homeland Security. I will let you imagine. We will not be fingerprinted, but nearly, and we are going to the high risk wilderness of Alaska! Luggage must be tagged and can be searched at any time and our passport information had to be sent in 60 days before departure.
And I was worried about the bears!
To top it off, can you imagine my Italian family actually wearing those little whale buttons and name tags. Have you ever seen an Italian wear a name tag, anywhere, in any circumstance? It is against everything they believe in and have been taught since birth -- good taste, discretion and keeping distance from strangers. No first name basis on introduction. That privilege must be earned over a few days on a personal, not mass, basis.
Reverse culture shock is coming on, and I haven't even hit the airport yet.
Still a couple of hot and sunny days in Rome pulling down winter clothes from the upper rafters where they were exiled under the "cambio stagione" regime a few months back.
a domani,
E
July 30th, 2007
This is priceless: Security expert Bruce Schneier interviews TSA Administrator Kip Hawley. And he asks some of the questions I’d like to ask, including:
Bruce Schneier: By today’s rules, I can carry on liquids in quantities of three ounces or less, unless they’re in larger bottles. But I can carry on multiple three-ounce bottles. Or a single larger bottle with a non-prescription medicine label, like contact lens fluid. It all has to fit inside a one-quart plastic bag, except for that large bottle of contact lens fluid. And if you confiscate my liquids, you’re going to toss them into a large pile right next to the screening station — which you would never do if anyone thought they were actually dangerous.
Can you please convince me there’s not an Office for Annoying Air Travelers making this sort of stuff up?
Kip Hawley: Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled.
Then he takes his tongue out of his cheek and explains how TSA arrived at its current goo rules. No specifics, of course, due to security concerns, but Hawley gives it a good try.
To avoid hassles, we will embark on a 20-hour flight with small, liquid-free carry-on bags -- a sweater, shirt, book, documents to hand deliver and a toothbrush should be safe enough. I am daring fate with a mini tube of face cream and a box off melatonina (first time try). Let's hope our luggage arrives at destination.
The idea at the bottom of all this craziness is: if you analyze every possibility and make enough rules, you can control the future. Rules, in this context, equal controlling fate and destiny.
Then the tour packet arrived with a flyer containing "Important Guest Information" from the Department of Homeland Security. I will let you imagine. We will not be fingerprinted, but nearly, and we are going to the high risk wilderness of Alaska! Luggage must be tagged and can be searched at any time and our passport information had to be sent in 60 days before departure.
And I was worried about the bears!
To top it off, can you imagine my Italian family actually wearing those little whale buttons and name tags. Have you ever seen an Italian wear a name tag, anywhere, in any circumstance? It is against everything they believe in and have been taught since birth -- good taste, discretion and keeping distance from strangers. No first name basis on introduction. That privilege must be earned over a few days on a personal, not mass, basis.
Reverse culture shock is coming on, and I haven't even hit the airport yet.
Still a couple of hot and sunny days in Rome pulling down winter clothes from the upper rafters where they were exiled under the "cambio stagione" regime a few months back.
a domani,
E
May 17, 2007
The doing game
I had a cultural moment this evening. In Anagni, about half way to Naples where I had accompanied my son to his B2-series volleyball game. Three grown men, in their 50-60s, were sitting on the other side of the bleachers with two drums (normal) and a "tromba" in a box-like container that made the most annoying, loud, very loud, screeching, ear-shattering noise. Not just occasionally, he hung onto this thing like a baby to a bottle for the entire game, never letting up.
I had to get up and leave during the third set (in any case, we lost), either that or walk over, pick up the box and throw it out the window.
Funny thing is that everyone I talked to after the game agreed that this noise was 1. excessive (even for a game), 2. "exasperating" 3. even damaging to their eardrums.
But no one considered taking action, or that taking action was an option. There was a certain distance from the whole issue -- pazienza e basta. What can you do about it anyway? Nothing. So why get heated up. My son agreed -- "mom, lascia stare" although it had even bothered him, while playing.
We are not very good with the "pazienza" thing. We are doers, we take action when we feel wronged. We get offended, outraged, we make reports, call lawyers, do something -- even invade another country (oops, no politics please). But in any case, we feel a compelling need to "do".
And it is hard for us to understand that this is an American cultural trait -- the doing thing -- and that not all cultures share this compulsion or, at least, not to the same extent.
A couple of years ago, I spoke on cross-cultural communications at a meeting of the International Women's Forum of Bologna. Following this evening, they started a "cultural moments" forum on their website (www.iwfbologna.com). One woman wrote about an incident in her gym in which the instructor(male) made some very inappropriate comments of a sexual nature aimed at one of the women in particular during the lesson. Afterwards, the locker room was a buzz, but only she (the American) said, "but you must DO something, report this incident to the management". She said that she was the only one to get enraged and demand action. The rest of the women just shrugged their shoulders, "ma, che si puo fare." She had a cultural moment -- a "doing" vs "being" one.
Anyone else out there had a similar experience?
a domani,
E
I had to get up and leave during the third set (in any case, we lost), either that or walk over, pick up the box and throw it out the window.
Funny thing is that everyone I talked to after the game agreed that this noise was 1. excessive (even for a game), 2. "exasperating" 3. even damaging to their eardrums.
But no one considered taking action, or that taking action was an option. There was a certain distance from the whole issue -- pazienza e basta. What can you do about it anyway? Nothing. So why get heated up. My son agreed -- "mom, lascia stare" although it had even bothered him, while playing.
We are not very good with the "pazienza" thing. We are doers, we take action when we feel wronged. We get offended, outraged, we make reports, call lawyers, do something -- even invade another country (oops, no politics please). But in any case, we feel a compelling need to "do".
And it is hard for us to understand that this is an American cultural trait -- the doing thing -- and that not all cultures share this compulsion or, at least, not to the same extent.
A couple of years ago, I spoke on cross-cultural communications at a meeting of the International Women's Forum of Bologna. Following this evening, they started a "cultural moments" forum on their website (www.iwfbologna.com). One woman wrote about an incident in her gym in which the instructor(male) made some very inappropriate comments of a sexual nature aimed at one of the women in particular during the lesson. Afterwards, the locker room was a buzz, but only she (the American) said, "but you must DO something, report this incident to the management". She said that she was the only one to get enraged and demand action. The rest of the women just shrugged their shoulders, "ma, che si puo fare." She had a cultural moment -- a "doing" vs "being" one.
Anyone else out there had a similar experience?
a domani,
E
March 27, 2007
Who’s in charge here anyway?
One last set of questions for this week, then back to regular posts.
How big a role does fate play in daily life, decision making and planning ahead?
How many things in life can you control or change? Are there limits to what you can do or become?
How many things in life just have to be accepted because they cannot be controlled or changed?
Does “personal will” play a more or less important role over destiny?
Is lack of success partly a result of good/bad luck, or can you make you own luck and happiness?
Are people generally optimistic or realistic/fatalistic?
Is life what you make it or is life what happens to you?
To sum it up, do we have the power to impose control over how our lives will turn out or does that power come mainly from the outside, through external events and fate?
Italian women do not hold baby showers. Or wedding showers. Those parties we throw for our friends BEFORE the event takes place. Why not? By (arrogantly) assuming that no external event or force could intervene in the meantime, like the fiancée running off with his secretary to the Maldives or a stillborn baby, we would surely bring on the “evil eye”. I know a perfectly intelligent high level professional couple that never put their child in a baby seat or seat belt (back when this was an option), because, in any case, what will happen will happen and a seat belt could actually bring on an accident by somehow taunting fate.
Americans are on the extreme of this spectrum as well. We really believe that we can control the future, we say, “where there is a will, there is a way”, “life is what you make it”, “tomorrow is another day”, we produce the world supply of self-help books, and this empowerment is part of what makes American’s American. If we can just get it all planned out, all the possible pitfalls worked out, be really, really optimistic and believe in the power of ourselves, we can do anything.
Wow. This is a cultural imperative and it is hard for us to see that this is not the way things are for most of the world that flows along and drops off at some point of the spectrum. Somewhere at the other end, there is a Southern Arabian proverb that says, “Caution does not avert the decree of fate”.
A domani,
E
How big a role does fate play in daily life, decision making and planning ahead?
How many things in life can you control or change? Are there limits to what you can do or become?
How many things in life just have to be accepted because they cannot be controlled or changed?
Does “personal will” play a more or less important role over destiny?
Is lack of success partly a result of good/bad luck, or can you make you own luck and happiness?
Are people generally optimistic or realistic/fatalistic?
Is life what you make it or is life what happens to you?
To sum it up, do we have the power to impose control over how our lives will turn out or does that power come mainly from the outside, through external events and fate?
Italian women do not hold baby showers. Or wedding showers. Those parties we throw for our friends BEFORE the event takes place. Why not? By (arrogantly) assuming that no external event or force could intervene in the meantime, like the fiancée running off with his secretary to the Maldives or a stillborn baby, we would surely bring on the “evil eye”. I know a perfectly intelligent high level professional couple that never put their child in a baby seat or seat belt (back when this was an option), because, in any case, what will happen will happen and a seat belt could actually bring on an accident by somehow taunting fate.
Americans are on the extreme of this spectrum as well. We really believe that we can control the future, we say, “where there is a will, there is a way”, “life is what you make it”, “tomorrow is another day”, we produce the world supply of self-help books, and this empowerment is part of what makes American’s American. If we can just get it all planned out, all the possible pitfalls worked out, be really, really optimistic and believe in the power of ourselves, we can do anything.
Wow. This is a cultural imperative and it is hard for us to see that this is not the way things are for most of the world that flows along and drops off at some point of the spectrum. Somewhere at the other end, there is a Southern Arabian proverb that says, “Caution does not avert the decree of fate”.
A domani,
E
January 30, 2007
Che sarà, sarà
I was thinking about la prof.ssa C. in the car this evening. I mentioned running into her at my son’s liceo a few weeks ago. She had been his principle teacher for the first two years covering Italian, Latin, Greek, history and geography for about 20 hours of each school week. In our cordial greetings I told her how much my son had appreciated the class trip they had taken at the end of the quinto ginnasio (2nd year at the classical studies liceo). He still has the photos of his classmates traveling around baroque Sicily on his computer screensaver and it was the highlight of his ginnasio experience. “Oh really” she answered, “I’d thought that it hadn’t been a successful trip." She looked a bit quizzical and thoughtful for a moment (in a professorial kind of way), “you just never know with kids, do you." She did concede that the class had come together and really molded as a group after that trip – and it showed in their classwork two years later.
So she began to contemplate taking this year’s quinto ginnasio on a trip, although she hadn’t planned on it so far. This had been a difficult class, but they were getting better and maybe it would be a good thing. She sighed, “but I don’t know if I really want to this year”.
I, being American, immediately thought of all that responsibility (and liability) – a group of 14-15 year olds, what a nightmare, who knows what could happen. She looked at me quite surprised, “I had never thought of that, I guess I always just think that if something is going to happen, it will happen, I never worry about the responsibility." No, she was just plain tired and these trips were exhausting to organize and run and the teachers get no extra pay to speak of for their extra effort.
I smiled. We always think first of our grand responsibility in controlling the future and what fate has in store for us. Prof.ssa C. instead sleeps soundly on school trips through Sicily. Che sarà, sarà.
A domani,
E
January 20, 2007
Hierarchy
I had an appointment at my son’s school today (yes, it is Saturday and yes, they do have school on Saturday). On my way out I happen to see his first teacher from the 4th and 5th “ginnasio” (the first two years of the Classical Studies high school). Back then, she was to be feared, not only by the students but also by the parents, and I was no exception. Today was different, she was reduced in stature by the fact that she no longer had power over my son’s life, and I had grown in stature because I no longer had reason to be terrified of our parent/teacher encounters. We were practically equals and we greeted each other fondly and with warmth – she was human!
The hierarchy question. Yes, it is different. At first I didn’t understand the power teachers hold and the deferential stance one must take in their presence. They can fail your child at any time, for really any reason, or make his or her life miserable, or terrify him daily, or pretty much do what they want, and you, as a parent, are at the whims of fate, powerless. A very strange sensation for an American. You can complain to the “preside” who can listen empathetically, shrug his shoulders, and in the end, do nothing because he really does not have any power. What you have to do as a parent and what your child has to do is exactly what every Italian does and has done: be patient, flexible, learn amazing skills at tolerating ambiguity, understand and accept the forces of fate, bide your time, be clever and astute and bow to the unwritten rules of hierarchy.
Italians learn all those Italian traits at school. The process in which they do so is so subtle and so effective that culture (small “c”) is passed along together with Culture (capital “C”). More on that another time….
A domani,
E
The hierarchy question. Yes, it is different. At first I didn’t understand the power teachers hold and the deferential stance one must take in their presence. They can fail your child at any time, for really any reason, or make his or her life miserable, or terrify him daily, or pretty much do what they want, and you, as a parent, are at the whims of fate, powerless. A very strange sensation for an American. You can complain to the “preside” who can listen empathetically, shrug his shoulders, and in the end, do nothing because he really does not have any power. What you have to do as a parent and what your child has to do is exactly what every Italian does and has done: be patient, flexible, learn amazing skills at tolerating ambiguity, understand and accept the forces of fate, bide your time, be clever and astute and bow to the unwritten rules of hierarchy.
Italians learn all those Italian traits at school. The process in which they do so is so subtle and so effective that culture (small “c”) is passed along together with Culture (capital “C”). More on that another time….
A domani,
E
January 10, 2007
Write it down, continued
Yesterday I wrote about my pet cultural moment, “Please write it down”. Today I would like to explore what is it about my culture that brings on this cultural moment in the first place. Why do I feel such a need to receive information, in step by step bulleted form, in writing? Why do I feel the need for others to write down (in step by step, bulleted form) whatever information I am giving?
My children think that I am peculiar at best and tell me so. Colleagues and friends are more discrete as they side-step the issue. My husband just rolls his eyes, “what a task an American wife”.
I am the odd one out. My children have explained to me why written school calendars are simply not possible. What if something unforeseeable should happen, like a student-led occupation of the school, or the government falling and elections being called, or police closing down the center for a visit by President Bush, or even snow – it could snow for the first time in 30 years. Then what would you do with a calendar set in writing? How would you change it? Who would be responsible for the changes? “You see,” they say, “it is best not to have a calendar in writing and to just make adjustments along the way as they are necessary”.
Having grown up without school calendars, it is difficult for colleagues to deeply understand the need for five year plans and complex multiple critical paths that foresee every possible future environmental factor and plan for its neutralization – like snow days.
Snow days. That is how we calculate and plan for the unforeseeable; we program a margin of five days into the school calendar for the possible inconvenience of snowstorms. In the end it makes us feel good that we foresaw the unforeseeable and had planned what to do about it in advance. I guess we just have a deep rooted need to control or at least plan for the future and writing it down captures the present and projects it into the future. If new environmental elements should come into the picture, we just rip up the old version and write a new one (dated and initialled please). Change is not an issue; it can’t be when you plan everything out without having all the elements at hand. When change is an issue, you can live much more easily without plans and act and adjust as the environment dictates.
A domani,
E
My children think that I am peculiar at best and tell me so. Colleagues and friends are more discrete as they side-step the issue. My husband just rolls his eyes, “what a task an American wife”.
I am the odd one out. My children have explained to me why written school calendars are simply not possible. What if something unforeseeable should happen, like a student-led occupation of the school, or the government falling and elections being called, or police closing down the center for a visit by President Bush, or even snow – it could snow for the first time in 30 years. Then what would you do with a calendar set in writing? How would you change it? Who would be responsible for the changes? “You see,” they say, “it is best not to have a calendar in writing and to just make adjustments along the way as they are necessary”.
Having grown up without school calendars, it is difficult for colleagues to deeply understand the need for five year plans and complex multiple critical paths that foresee every possible future environmental factor and plan for its neutralization – like snow days.
Snow days. That is how we calculate and plan for the unforeseeable; we program a margin of five days into the school calendar for the possible inconvenience of snowstorms. In the end it makes us feel good that we foresaw the unforeseeable and had planned what to do about it in advance. I guess we just have a deep rooted need to control or at least plan for the future and writing it down captures the present and projects it into the future. If new environmental elements should come into the picture, we just rip up the old version and write a new one (dated and initialled please). Change is not an issue; it can’t be when you plan everything out without having all the elements at hand. When change is an issue, you can live much more easily without plans and act and adjust as the environment dictates.
A domani,
E
January 3, 2007
Signs
Today I visited the American Embassy. Just getting past security was quite a feat, but my name was on a list as I had been invited to do a presentation on American culture for a group of Italian science and engineering graduate students who are off to the Silicon valley on a six month exchange through an US Embassy/Fulbright program.
The presentation went well, the students were bright, prepared and electric with anticipation for their upcoming adventure. Before heading over for lunch, I stopped by the ladies room and, as I looked up from washing my hands, I found this note carefully taped to the mirror, “This is not a waste disposal unit. Please DO NOT throw any kind of leftovers down the sink”. I was sure back in the USA (embassy territory), being told, firmly, in writing and in my face, what to do and not do. On my last trip to the US I brought back a circular band into which you insert your paper cup of coffee. It reads “ Caution, HOT beverage”. I personally would expect a coffee to be hot. Then again, maybe I have been living abroad too long where I have acquired a sixth sense about these things. No one ever thinks to tell me the obvious, I have to figure it out myself and if I don’t, well, I can’t complain (read – sue) because I have only proved that I am just plain stupid or at least careless.
In Italy you have to be on your toes at all times, ready, wide-eyed, ears tuned-in and aware of everything that is going on around you -- no signs to help you out. When you walk into an administrative building, you can’t expect a sign telling you where to go, if there is one, it is a bonus. The lesson is, always ask (several people) and then use your intelligence and creative thinking to figure it out from whatever information you can gleen from the environment – a kind of daily urban treasure hunt. I feel like I go to sleep when I visit Connecticut, it is all so easy that I begin to lose my intuitive, jungle-survival skills. Just read the signs and do what they say. No sign? Stop in your tracks and wait for further information.
Perhaps it has to do with that touch of fatalism in Italian society. If you burn your hand on a hot cup of coffee, pazienza, it certainly wasn’t the coffee’s fault! Americans instead are convinced that they can control the future and avoid unforeseen events if only they can get the right sign put up in the right place. We can control external, future events, “where there is a will, there is a way”.
All for today. Join me in wishing that the Italian US Embassy/Fulbright students' “California dreams” come true.
A domani,
E
The presentation went well, the students were bright, prepared and electric with anticipation for their upcoming adventure. Before heading over for lunch, I stopped by the ladies room and, as I looked up from washing my hands, I found this note carefully taped to the mirror, “This is not a waste disposal unit. Please DO NOT throw any kind of leftovers down the sink”. I was sure back in the USA (embassy territory), being told, firmly, in writing and in my face, what to do and not do. On my last trip to the US I brought back a circular band into which you insert your paper cup of coffee. It reads “ Caution, HOT beverage”. I personally would expect a coffee to be hot. Then again, maybe I have been living abroad too long where I have acquired a sixth sense about these things. No one ever thinks to tell me the obvious, I have to figure it out myself and if I don’t, well, I can’t complain (read – sue) because I have only proved that I am just plain stupid or at least careless.
In Italy you have to be on your toes at all times, ready, wide-eyed, ears tuned-in and aware of everything that is going on around you -- no signs to help you out. When you walk into an administrative building, you can’t expect a sign telling you where to go, if there is one, it is a bonus. The lesson is, always ask (several people) and then use your intelligence and creative thinking to figure it out from whatever information you can gleen from the environment – a kind of daily urban treasure hunt. I feel like I go to sleep when I visit Connecticut, it is all so easy that I begin to lose my intuitive, jungle-survival skills. Just read the signs and do what they say. No sign? Stop in your tracks and wait for further information.
Perhaps it has to do with that touch of fatalism in Italian society. If you burn your hand on a hot cup of coffee, pazienza, it certainly wasn’t the coffee’s fault! Americans instead are convinced that they can control the future and avoid unforeseen events if only they can get the right sign put up in the right place. We can control external, future events, “where there is a will, there is a way”.
All for today. Join me in wishing that the Italian US Embassy/Fulbright students' “California dreams” come true.
A domani,
E
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