Ryan's Blog

Simple questions can have complicated answers. For me it’s not always easy to answer the question, “What do you do?” In the U.S., where the idea of a post-graduate service program is not quite so unusual, it’s not difficult. I say it’s something like the Peace Corp. with the Catholic church and then give a laundry list of the places I work. Here in Chile being a full-time volunteer is unknown and explaining myself can be tricky.

That said, there’s no worse time for complicated answers than when the police are asking the questions. After I received my latest visa I had to re-register my current details with the police. I went to the central office in Santiago, waited two hours, and finally got to sit down at one of the officers’ workstations. He reviewed my triple-copied pile of paperwork. He asked my name, birthday, address, and then the dreaded question: what are you doing here?

I gave the concise version, “I’m a volunteer with the Catholic church, working in social services.” “Oh. Are you studying at Universidad Catolica?” No. “Are you an exchange student?” No, I already graduated from college. “So what did you receive your degree in?” Philosophy. A pause. “What did you say you do again?” I gave a slightly longer version, with the names of the places I work. Silence.

I sat uncomfortably for five minutes as the officer pecked away at his computer. Finally he printed out my white card and sent me on my way. I was so relieved to be done that I only looked at the card after I had left the building. It read, “ACTIVITY IN CHILE: NONE.” To worsen the blow, the back side told me that I had to inform the police if I ever changed my work. Together with my present status it meant, “Let us know if you start doing anything.”

What do I do? Well, according to the Chilean police, nothing.

Posted by Ryan at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last week I wrote about pervasive English in Chilean Spanish. Here are a few more comical examples.

On the road from my apartment to the parish church there is a payphone. It is labeled “Peyfon,” which is pronounced “payphone” in Spanish.

“Zapping” is the name of this newspaper’s TV listings section. The word zapping has been appropriated by Chilean Spanish to mean channel surfing. Hacer zapping = to channel surf.

A program that details the making of something is a “making off.” This page from the same Zapping guide informs the reader that the Making Off of the Heroes series is soon. This isn’t an isolated incident either. A quick Google search shows there are marketing companies that specialize in “making offs” and plenty of “making offs” different movies.

Posted by Ryan at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Gender agreement in Spanish is a giant pain in the butt. We English-speakers mostly ignore gender. A select group of nouns are masculine or feminine—mostly people and animals—and the rest are lumped into the neuter category. In Spanish, all nouns have gender, which is mirrored in the adjectives, articles, and pronouns you use with them. There is a masculine and a feminine version of “the,” which needs to match the gender of the noun. You shouldn’t say el bebida or la teléfono; you need la bebida and el teléfono, respectively for the drink and the telephone. To complicate matters further, some words can take either article (el or la), but with a change in meaning. La papa is the potato, but el papa is the pope. (And you need to get the accents and stress right too, because el papá means father, not pope or potato.)

There are rules to help you remember which words are which, but Spanish is not unlike English in that it is a system based more on exceptions than rules. Take the following set:

1. Words ending in -a are feminine, e.g. la casa
2. But words ending in -ma are masculine, e.g. el problema
3. But some words ending in -ma don’t follow rule two and are feminine, e.g. la palma

People for whom Spanish is a second language still make gender-agreement mistakes even after years of practice. This is exacerbated by the fact that no native speaker makes gender mistakes. Just like all the other aspects of language, gender intuition is written into the mind at a young age. One Chilean offered me a helpful suggestion for telling the difference between masculine and feminine nouns: “The words that sound masculine are masculine, and the ones that sound feminine are feminine.” I told him that wouldn’t work for me and he was flummoxed.

There are some benefits to the Spanish gendered system, however. It’s easier to remember related words because you just need to switch the ending from masculine to feminine or vice-versa. In English knowing “brother,” isn’t going to help you remember the word “sister.” In Spanish, knowing hermano is just one letter away from knowing hermana. Plus you get more information from a single word. If someone talks about his cat in English, you don’t know whether it’s male or female without more information. But someone talking about her gato has already told you that the cat is male because she used the masculine verb ending.

Trying to remember all these gender rules while composing sentences on-the-fly isn’t easy. Non-native speakers are often just not used to thinking about the gender of the objects they are talking about, so it throws a wrench in the mental machinery. I try, but I still fail occasionally, although never with such disastrous consequences as last week.

Ramón and I work together in Br. Donald’s kitchen. Last Thursday we were talking about how we finally got the elderly women who work with us to use our system for storing dishes. Often we arrive to find thermos #1 connected to #23, #5 with #19, and so on, all mixed up. Thursday everything was just as it should be, #1 with #2, all the way down the line. “Well,” I said in one of my typical there’s-no-need-to-say-anything-but-I’ll-just-talk-anyway comments, “it looks like we taught those old dogs a new trick, huh?” Since I was talking about women, I thought I’d swap the word ending on “dogs” to make it feminine. The result? Looks like we taught those old bitches a new trick, huh?

Ramón laughed. I went into an interior monologue. “Do you always have to say something? Couldn’t we have left well enough alone?” I guess not. Stupid gender.

Posted by Ryan at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

An ad suggests you change your “look” in Buenos Aires.

In 20 years, I swear Chile will be speaking English. To be honest, I’m not sure that they have that far to go. Already people amend their requests with please and excuse themselves with sorry. You go shopping with your gay friend if you want to buy some new blue jeans or shorts to change your look (perhaps to be more sexy?). If you need some tape, either scotch or masking, you can get it at Easy or Homecenter, the two home improvement stores. When you go out to dinner your restaurant may have a happy hour when you can buy a cheap pitcher.

This is just scraping the surface. In the business realm, the Anglo-infiltration is even more profound. After some feedback about the new outsourcing proposal—no one within the company has the know-how—you take a coffee break. There you snack on sandwiches, sip light soda, and talk about Chile’s economic boom. Back at the computer, you send a mail to your boss. On the Internet you click with your mouse. You save your files to your disk, or a pendrive, or a CD, or even a DVD if you upgrade your software and hardware.

A package of Coffee Break sweetener, named for the coffee breaks that Chileans take at work.

Are you still with me? Once on my way home from work I bought the Friday paper which includes the magazine Wikén. That’s not a witchcraft publication—which would be Wicca—but the Spanish rendering of “weekend.” On the subway one day I bumped into another passenger. I excused myself, and to my relief he told me it was, “No problem.” Another occasion I overheard one high schooler explaining her woes to a companion, “Money, money, money! No tengo money!” It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?

When I was studying Spanish in Bolivia, where English penetration isn’t nearly as prevalent as in Chile, there was a time that I found English words in Spanish infuriating. Why was I exerting such effort to learn a language that was abandoning its own words in favor of ones I already knew? Here’s a typical (and real) conversation with my Bolivian host mother from this period. Keep in mind that this takes places in Spanish.

JUANA. What are you doing tonight?
ME. I’m going to a party for a woman who is pregnant.
JUANA. What for?
ME. Well, we’re going to give her gifts. I don’t know what you call it…we call it a “ducha de bebé” because the people kind of “shower” the mother with gifts.
JUANA. Oh, I know! You don’t know the word for that. It’s a baby shower.
ME. Aaaaaaahhhh!

At the campgrounds Los Manantiales in Manquehue there are picnic zones and camping zones.

Worse, people often mess up the English. Sometimes the words are English, but not actually ones we would use. Mistaking “heavy” for the broader Spanish-equivalent “pesado,” people say things like, “Don’t be so heavy,” which isn’t common English (unless you lived in the 60’s when he wasn’t heavy, he was your brother). People use the wrong part of English words. A sleeping is a sleeping bag, masking is masking tape, and a power is a PowerPoint presentation. Words get mispronounced. I had no idea what coal-gah-tay was until I saw it written: Colgate. And because English is taught in schools here, just about everybody has six or seven words to throw around in nonsensical expressions when they find out you’re a gringo. If you’re a good-looking woman (though merely being female will suffice), you’re sure to hear, “I love you thank you please,” as you walk through the streets of Santiago. It’s enough to make you scream, “This is a Spanish-speaking country. Let’s speak Spanish. Aaaaahhh!”

Most of my fury arose because I was in that certain point in cultural transition when everything is infuriating. People in this phase are insufferable and I recommend you avoid them. Looking back, my struggles with Spanish were the real cause of my frustration. Borrowed English words were just the outlet for my rage. Despite the smattering of English you hear, you need to speak Spanish to live in Chile or Bolivia happily.

I’ve managed my anger; these days I’m amused by English here instead of enraged. Now more mature in cultural and language experience, I also notice the irony of my frustration. When it comes to word stealing, English is absolutely shameless. From French we have fiancé, naive, coup d’etat, crème brulée, RSVP, petite, genre, chic, and an estimated 10,000 others. From German: hamburger, dachshund, blitz, kindergarten, aspirin, lager, and strudel. Japanese gives us bonsai, sushi, teriyaki, karate, ramen, and futon, indicating that college students in particular owe a special debt to Japan. We also borrow reciprocally from Spanish, which gives us rodeo, guitar, cilantro, and marijuana, not to mention the obvious tortilla, taco, burrito, enchilada, margarita, and piña colada. Browsing lists of borrowed words is a fascinating trip through the history of English. But we certainly don’t get the meaning right all the time. In English, for example, salsa is a specific sauce of Mexican origin; in Spanish, salsa just means sauce. When you ask for it, people will offer ketchup, mustard, and any others they have on hand.

I never seriously thought that English would replace Spanish in Chile, just as I don’t think Spanish will replace English in the U.S. In 20 years—in 50 years—Chileans will speak Spanish, though not the same Spanish they speak today. There will be more crossover English words, especially given the infiltration of U.S. culture worldwide. But as languages interact, one cannot completely dominate the other. They mix, fuse, and combine. Words weave together to form a fabric where it’s not clear which threads came from where. Language change is as old as civilization itself. It has been fun to witness some modern-day changes in Spanish. Gracias, Chile.

If you have other examples of English words borrowed by Spanish, whether in Chile or elsewhere, feel free to add them in the comments.

Posted by Ryan at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

In the U.S. would you ever see a 12-year-old buy a bottle of wine for his mother at the corner store? How about this drive-thru liquor store in Bolivia? Note that this drive-thru is not merely drive-up, like many so-called “drive-thrus” in America; you actually drive through the store.

What about a wine tasting in your local Walmart? This one is at the Lider down the block from our apartment.

These were a few sights that called my attention here. They made me think, “You’d never see this in the States.” Then again, you have to realize, I’m from Utah.

Posted by Ryan at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When you get on a bus in Chile, you’re not just going for a ride; you’re going shopping. Roaming vendors board and exit buses at every corner offering their wares. Last week I was riding the 505 when a man stood up front and made his pitch:

A very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Pardon the interruption. Today we are offering a special on rulers in assorted colors that have your children’s favorite cartoon characters on the back. You may ask what could be so special about a normal ruler. These are no ordinary rulers, but rulers that are also bracelets. Just slap it on your wrist and carry it with you. You might ordinarily expect to pay 300 or 400 pesos for a ruler like this, but today we are offering them for just 100 pesos [$0.20].

Perhaps you are thinking, “Who would buy crap like that?” If so, then you haven’t been to Chile because the answer is everyone. The ruler man sold five or six in the 30 seconds between his pitch and getting off at the next street corner. If you get on a bus and sell it, the people will buy it. On the other hand, if you’re thinking, “Hey, where can I get one of those?” then catch the next plane to Santiago because that’s not all they’ve got.

On the Santiago city buses I’ve been offered gum, cough drops, Super 8 chocolate bars, ice cream, key chains, Mother’s Day cards, herbal body-purifying powder, and lanyards for the new subway smart cards, to name a few items. Once Roy, Patrick, and I watched a particularly impressive demonstration of a multi-use tool that also cut through glass and could have been ours for just 800 pesos—$1.50. In fact, it almost was because Roy is a sucker for bus merchandise and was reaching for his wallet when the fast-moving salesman exited the bus. Although the merchandise moves itself, you have to act fast or you’ll miss out.

Even if you think you know the hard sell, you probably haven’t seen the favored technique of an especially pushy group of vendors. They hand one of whatever they are selling to every passenger on the bus. Then they make a second pass where you have to return the item you’re holding if you don’t want to keep it, or fork over some dough if you do. It’s supposed to make you feel guilty. Sometimes it does. When you do buy something, you stop to wonder how many people held it before you.

Other vendors prefer to sell their talent instead of merchandise, and there’s a market for that as well. Singers and musicians play a few songs, ranging from rap and bongo drums to traditional Chilean folk music, then collect their tips. Those who can’t sing recite poetry or pass out their writing using the aforementioned extra-hard sell; the literary vendors have the least success in my experience.

When Santiago transitioned from their old transportation system to the new Transantiago, they said roaming vendors would not be permitted on buses any longer. For a brief period, moving salesmen were on the outs. In the end it was mere rhetoric; the vendors are back. Once again the phrase “go shopping” is redundant. In Chile, just go and the shopping will come to you.

Posted by Ryan at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When you lose things, it can be frustrating. Doubly so when people ask you, “Well, where did you last see it?” Presumably that’s the first place I would look. If the lost something happens to be important, the experience can be embarrassing as well. Like when NASA announced last year that it had lost the tapes with the first video of man walking on the moon. Wonder where they last saw it.

In any event, NASA can relinquish the most-stunning-loss title for now; moon-walk video tapes aren’t the only thing missing. According to a recent BBC article, Chile has gone and lost a lake. It was there in January, but when scientists returned for a checkup in May, the lake was gone. The work of master thief Carmen Sandiego? Initial speculation was only slightly less dramatic: some scientists posited that an earthquake had opened a fissure in the lake floor, draining all the water away. The latest report, which came out today, blames global warming. The ice wall that dammed the lake’s water succumbed to pressure from melting glaciers, opening an exit to the sea.

Photo by Associated Press

There’s some perspective for you the next time you misplace a pen.

Tip courtesy of Jon Lesser.

Posted by Ryan at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)