Issue 8 - SRCF

polyglossia
cambridge university modern languages journal
issue eight - january 2012
inside issue eight
media control, soviet-style
pre-hispanic culture in mexico
thoughts from the bekaa valley
the search for happiness
Contents and Welcome
Contents and Welcome
Arts and Culture
Bull-Fighting: a Political Pawn?
La Piel que Habito
Pre-Hispanic Culture’s Last Gasp
Photo Competition: Runners-Up
| 02
| 03
| 04
| 05
| 07
Creative
La Vita è Bella?
| 08
Avant| 08
La búsqueda de felicidad
| 09
El sol y yo
| 10
Frühlingsgedanken | 11
Tongue-tied| 11
El mojado| 12
Октябрь| 12
Travel
Recollections of Vanuatu
Steering clear of Clichés
The Bekaa Valley
Suomi: or, Finland for Beginners
News and Comment
Media Control, Soviet-Style
Latin American Leadership
A Taste of... Italia
Cricket goes Continental
The Architecture of Nostalgia
Photo Credits
| 14
| 15
| 16
| 18
| 20
| 22
| 23
| 24
| 25
We would like to thank the following individuals,
all of whom have given permission for their work
to be reproduced under a Creative Commons
license. Images are sourced from flickr.com.
• pasotraspaso (image on p. 3);
• eneas (image on p. 5);
• lunae (image on p. 9);
• Overduebook (images on p. 10);
• Judy ** (image on p. 11);
• the|G|™ (top image on p. 12);
• Nacho Merlo (bottom image on p. 12);
• PhillipC (image on p. 14);
• Lolinka (image on p. 16);
• gehad83 (image on p. 17);
• Leo-setä (image on p. 18);
• gwire (image on p. 20);
• mapsof.net (images on pp. 22 & 23);
• barryskeates (image on p. 24);
• wikipedia.org (image on p. 25).
Welcome to the 8th issue of Polyglossia!
The journal has undergone some radical changes this
year. Most significantly, due to popular demand for a
more accessible read, much of the content will now be
written in English. As such it will continue to cover
matters of foreign culture, but ought to make for a
more enjoyable reading experience! In addition, the
Creative Writing section is still written in an array
of different languages, so for those of you keen to put
your linguistic skills to the test, that’s the section for
you. Also new to this edition are the photography
competition, film reviews, and the first in a series
of explorations of national cuisines. With all these
exciting developments, there’s room for everyone to
contribute to future issues in some shape or form.
Congratulations goes to Sonum Sumaria for the
winning photo for this issue’s competition, ‘Strange
Encounters’, which is on the magazine cover. The
three runner-up’s photos can also be seen inside the
magazine. The theme for the next issue’s photography
competition is ‘Reflections’. If you think you’ve
got something that fits the bill then send it to
polyglossiamagazine@gmail.com before 9 February
and you might see your photo on the cover next term!
Polyglossia society is also organising some exciting
events for this term, including a night for all fourth
year linguists at B bar on 8 February. We’ve booked
out the entire top floor and have a private staffed
bar up there just for us. It’s strictly over 21s so remember your IDs!
Happy reading!
Polyglossia Editorial Team
Bull-Fighting: a Political Pawn?
Danielle Guy considers the various uses (and abuses) of bullfighting in Catalonia, which have
become particularly topical in light of the recent ban.
Although bullfighting remains
popular in many countries around
the world including Mexico,
Ecuador and Peru, las corridas
de toros are synonymous with
Spanish culture. The opposition to
bullfighting is by no means a new
phenomenon, but the recent ban of
the fiesta nacional in Barcelona has
once again brought the controversial
sport into the international spotlight.
From January 2012, las corridas de
toros will be banned in Catalonia.
Amidst growing tensions between
Catalonia, who are continually
fighting for more autonomy, and
the rest of Spain, the motivations
behind the ban of bullfighting
are questionable. Is the Catalan
capital truly against the killing of
bulls as a form of entertainment
or do they perceive bullfighting
as the sport of their Castilian
neighbours and see the ban as an
opportunity to further distance
themselves from the Spanish state?
Over the summer of 2010, the issue
of the ban featured heavily in both
the national and international press.
The Economist described the ban as
‘a decision as much about Catalan
identity as about animal rights’
and stated it is ‘part of a political
game that resembles a bullfight.’
The Spanish news website, Qorreo,
published an article about the
ban, claiming that it is ‘a reflection
of Spain’s conflicting regional
identities.’ Even the bullfighters
can see the political pressure behind
the decision. In an interview with
reporter Gerry Hadden, the young
bullfighter Serafin Marin said
‘tensions between Catalonia and the
rest of Spain are high. Catalans want
more autonomy, and for some, the
bullfight is a symbol of a Spain they
want to leave behind.’ As a political
issue, Catalans oppose the bullfight
for several reasons; some see the
bull as a symbol of the centrist
Spanish state, others see the sport as
a legacy of Franco’s dictatorship – a
legacy of suppression of the Catalan
identity and the abolition of their
autonomous rights. Then there are
those who oppose the sport purely
in the interest of animal rights.
However, the main flaw in the
Catalan plan to ban las corridas
under the pretenses of animal rights
is their simultaneous movement
to protect the Catalan correbous.
Whilst las corridas have been
condemned as a tortuous practice of
the Castilians, there are other fiestas
that involve bulls in the region of
Catalonia that continue without
question. Their most famous sport
is the correbous, which occurs in the
south of the region. The difference
between las corridas and los correbous
is that in los correbous the bull is not
killed during the demonstration.
However, PACMA, an animal rights
group, describes los correbous as a
sport that ‘pretends to do them less
cruelties´ because the spectacle only
involves setting the horns of the bulls
on fire. Yet there is no doubt that
this sport involves a considerable
level of cruelty towards the bulls.
The Catalan government’s apparent
unconditional support for the
correbous amidst their public
condemnation of the traditional
corridas de toros can only be
interpreted as a political tactic
to show others that Catalonia is
different, more developed and less
barbaric than the rest of Spain.
However, their hypocrisy is evident.
Catalan separatists are constantly
looking for opportunities to
distance Catalonia from the rest of
Spain and they have used the sport
to create a cultural divide between
the region which is against las
corridas and the rest of the country.
Arts and Culture | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 03
La Piel que Habito
Pre-Hispanic Culture’s Last Gasp
William Spencer reviews Pedro Almodóvar’s recent work La Piel que Habito (The Skin I Live In).
In spite of the disturbing topic, he considers it a devoted and detailed study of the human psyche.
de Pasiones (Labyrinth of Passion).
Though the film could be loosely
termed a thriller, it is not typical
of the genre; it is a multifaceted,
psychological thriller, constantly
challenging the viewer. To his credit,
Almodóvar takes what appears to
be a tired subject matter, that of
human creativity, and presents
it in a new and vibrant light. Dr
Ledgard’s exact motives are never
completely revealed, but merely
implied; the film’s tone, which could
be didactic, is instead suggestive.
Everything about La Piel que Habito,
Almodóvar’s eighteenth feature
film suggests a return from his
more mature and calculated recent
work to the exuberant controversy
of his early films. For a start, the
film sees him reunited with former
male muse Antonio Banderas for
the first time in over twenty years,
and with another former regular in
the shape of Marisa Paredes. Above
all, however, it is the daring nature
this film which brings to mind his
youthful invention, so palpably
lacking in his previous film Los
Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces).
The film chillingly explores the boundaries
of human invention.
The film’s plot, loosely based on
Thierry Jonquet’s novel Tarantula,
is suitably fanciful. In 2012, years
after his wife committed suicide
due to the deforming burns she
sustained in a freak car accident
which rendered her unrecognisable,
Dr Robert Ledgard attempts to
produce a new human skin resistant
to burns. Mixed up in this deeply
disturbing saga is the mysterious
Vera, who lives a solitary life in the
confines of Dr Ledgard’s mansion
in Toledo, and is constantly
monitored on screens around the
house. The number of twists and
turns that follow is astounding,
but what is particularly remarkable
is that despite such an imaginative
storyline, so much about the film
appears entirely credible. This is
largely due to the performance
of Banderas, who captures the
extreme narcissistic ambition of
Dr Ledgard to perfection. Here
is a man completely consumed by
his work, the closest we can get to
a modern-day Victor Frankenstein,
without the tiresome hyperbole.
Although a thriller, the
film is not typical of
the genre.
The topic, plastic surgery, is a
disturbing one, and commendably,
no attempt is made to evade this
fact; both the audience and the
film’s characters are forced to
endure this uncomfortable reality.
This film won’t leave you with a
sense of warm satisfaction, nor will
it brighten your outlook on life;
there is humour to enliven the grim
subject matter, but of a decidedly
dark variety. As a completely
absorbing study of the boundaries
of life and emotions, however, it
could hardly be more effective.
Antonia Eklundf is currently on her year abroad in Mexico. Here she looks at what may be the
last generations of an ancient culture.
Mexico is a country rich with a
diversity of cultures and traditions,
languages, food and design; it
celebrates a fascinating syncretism
between many cultural influences.
However, of the cultures of pure
indigenous tradition original to
Mexico, very few survive today,
and only in a few disparate
pockets around the Republic. One
of these pockets is Cuetzalan, a
jungle region in the Sierra Norte
of the state of Puebla, where
these communities are fighting
against the loss of their culture.
Communities are
fighting against the
loss of their culture.
Particularly important to the
communities of Cuetzalan are the
pre-hispanic ceremonial dances.
One of these dances is La danza de
los Quetzales, in which locals wear
huge crowns adorned with bright
colours and white feathers, imitating
the Quetzal bird, native to regions
throughout Mexico and Guatemala
that were occupied by the Mayas.
Nowadays, the communities go
searching for the whitest feathers
they can find from their chickens
in order to make the crowns. To
the rhythm of a wooden flute and
a drum, the dancers mark out the
shape of a cross with their feet. But
this is not the cross of Jesus Christ
that one sees throughout Mexico
in churches, on cars, on the side of
the road, in tattoos or in religious
memorabilia shops. The steps of the
Quetzales mark out the four cardinal
points, and the sweeping turns of
the dancers represent the rotation of
time. In fact, like much pre-hispanic
culture, ceremony and science,
this dance is born out of ideas of
agriculture and astronomy, centred
around and dedicated to the sun.
Historically the danzantes de los
Queztales formed the centre of the
Feria and the town celebrations of
Cuetzalan - originally ‘Quetzallan’,
land of the Quetzals. The authorities
always financed the transportation,
allowing the communities to travel
up to the centre, and paid for their
food on the days of the celebrations.
This year however, during the Feria
on the 4th October, the day of their
patron saint, they did not pay. Instead
they paid thousands of pesos for
the commercial singer Paty Cantu,
and for a beauty contest amongst
the mestiza community. Then, as
a token gesture, they paid for the
travel of two groups of traditional
indigenous dancers, out of fortyfive, which gave the impression
that in these modern times, the
dancers of the Quetzales are treated
like a tourist attraction amongst the
Mestiza population in their own
‘Quetzallan’. This lack of support,
together with the loss of expertise,
since the masters of the music and
dancers are few and aging (some
do not even speak Spanish), means
that it is not only the Quetzal birds
which have become endangered.
A similar lack of support threatens
the dance of the Voladores. In
the centre of Cuetzalan stands a
large wooden pole which reaches
the height of the Church. In this
dance, four men scale the pole and,
similarly, to the rhythm of the flute
and the drum, spin around the
pole hung by their waists, slowly
lowering towards the ground. This
also symbolises the four cardinal
points, as well as the equilibration
of the universe and rites of fertility.
(The leader of the Queztales in the
The film chillingly explores the
boundaries of human invention.
Many aspects of this film are destined
to alarm the audience, but shock is
not used for its own sake as it is in
some of Almodovar’s earlier films,
perhaps most ostensibly Laberinto
04 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Arts and Culture
Arts and Culture | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 05
community Cuauhtamazaco told
us recently that it used to be typical
for the Voladores to mount the
pole drunk, spinning to the ground
in great euphoria. But apparently
they had had a change of heart…)
This lack of support
means not only the
birds are endangered.
There have been various petitions
in support of the Voladores in
recent years but to little avail.
Many dancers are now hesitant to
take part since their full outfit costs
2,500 pesos (circa £125). Without
support, most dancers cannot cover
this cost alongside their everyday
expenses and the costs of supporting
a family. The National Commission
for the Development of Indigenous
Communities refused to consider
giving any support without
receiving the documentation, birth
certificates and identification of
each person, which many people
living in indigenous communities
in fairly primitive circumstances
do not have. The local government,
again as a token gesture, has been
supplying the Voladores with shoes,
but really this has minimal impact
in the preservation of the tradition.
There have been photographic
exhibitions of the Voladores in
France and Germany in recent years,
but, with no support going back to
the dancers themselves in Cuetzalan,
this threatens to turn the tradition
into a mere anthropological artefact.
We are currently working on an
independent project of cultural
rescue with the dancers in Cuetzalan.
We are producing a documentary
about the traditions and about
their situation, and running a series
of photography workshops with
the children of the community of
Cuauhtamazaco who are learning
the dance of the Queztales. These
photographs will register their
culture as it is today, from the
vision of the child – he or she who
inherits the culture and really owns
the power to either preserve it or
lose it forever. We are also going to
hold an exhibition and sell photos,
cards and ceremonial pieces in
order to raise funds to invest in
the community and the dances.
Please email aj_eklund@hotmail.
com if you would like to be involved
in donating either an old camera to
the project or any modest funds to
the community. With these efforts
we hope to revive these extraordinary
pre-hispanic traditions, and help
preserve these pockets of indigenous
culture still alive in Mexico today.
Issue 8 Photo Competition
Strange Encounters
Runners-Up
Think you can do better? The theme for the
next issue’s competition is ‘Reflections’. Remember - no interpretation is too obscure!
Nick Rutter
As two girls stare up into the
night sky, the light that casts their
shadows takes on an unearthly
colour, direction and intensity.
Why has it made them stop still
in the middle of the street, both
in exactly the same pose? What
have they seen?
Mark Brinkley
Motor tour of Hormoz island, one of Iran's
real hidden gems, in late March 2011. Little
known by Iranians, and avoided by many locals for the jenn or evil spirits believed to inhabit it, it makes the perfect holiday get away.
Even the Lonely Planet claims the island's
not worth half a day, suggesting they've never
been, or don't want it ruined by tourists.
La Vita
è Bella
Cosa succede
Se
Il mio elogio
Dice
Semplicemente
Cazzo?
David Bagnall
Avant
by Rhiannon Fuller
Avant,
avant ce cercle étrange
de bruits briseurs
qui poussent sur l’horizon
comme des ténèbres,
d’un froid sueur
et de peur quasi-pur,
où rien ne change
et rien ne reste
et les saisons, sans cesse,
font le tour des vies
des milliers de petites vies
et de rêves et d’envies
et d’espoirs qui ne blessent
point les cieux
et qui se trouvent sur les murs
qui se trouvent dans des villes
qui se trouvent partout
qui se trouve je ne sais où,
Avant,
j’étais assise sur l’herbe
qui luisait de je ne sais quelle lumière
08 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Creative
et le soleil dans l’air
tombait lentement
entre mes doigts
et suivait mes empreintes de pied
et toutes les étoiles étaient liées
les uns aux autres
les grandes aux petites
les vieilles aux nouvelles
et on voyait passer
de temps en temps
les pas lents
des univers denses
et alourdis par des horizons
qu’alors je n’en connaissais pas un
les cieux étaient partout
et maintenant j’ai le goût
des cieux encore sur mes lèvres
et quand je ne m’aperçois pas
je m’en souviens
je crois
qu’il y a eu
un Avant.
?
La búsqueda de felicidad
by Sherwin Loh
Desde tiempos inmemoriales, el ser humano se esfuerza
por alcanzar un estado de felicidad inquebrantable,
como está haciendo este caminante, el protagonista de
nuestro cuento ficticio. “¡Oh, qué desgraciado soy!”,
lamenta. A la merced de su autor, el pobrecito viajerito
se ve obligado caminar sin detenerse hasta el fin de este
cuento, buscando la felicidad en su mundo virtual. Y
tú, mi querido lector, que descanses de tu larga marcha riéndote del caminante desgraciado:
El caminante está caminando, haciendo camino al
andar, porque en realidad no hay camino y al andar
se hace camino. Y con la misma ilusión que tenía Machado, avanza con plena certeza de poder estar feliz. Al ver la senda que nunca se ha
de volver a pisar, el autor encuentra una cierta puerilidad así como una nostalgia en el
viajerito que tal vez también creyera en un momento de su vida.
Y llueve. Y sigue lloviendo. Empapado y hecho polvo, nuestro protagonista pierde su
pasión poco a poco. “¡Oh, qué desgraciado soy!” deplora el caminante desanimado.
Tiritando de frío y hundido en la desesperación, se convence de que ya no puede
caminar adelante. Entonces reza, reza por la felicidad, para que no necesite caminar,
para que alguien lo salve de su estado patético. Pero no para la precipitación copiosa.
Tampoco viene Noé con su arca de animales. Pero sorprendentemente, todavía no
olvida el objeto de su existencia que le ha concedido su autor a pesar de su aflicción
miserable. Y tiritando de frío y hundido en la desesperación, sigue caminando, haciéndose camino al andar, pese a la precipitación despiadada.
Y finalmente hace sol. Y en el rostro acuchillado por el transcurso de tiempo y de
lluvia de nuestro viajero, vemos una sonrisa. “¡Qué feliz soy! ¡Ya he encontrado la
felicidad!” Justo cuando pensamos que ya ha terminado el cuento puesto que nuestro
viajero está finalmente feliz, escuchamos un gemido débil y familiar, “¡Oh, qué desgraciado soy!” Es que mientras contemplábamos si ya ha acabado el cuento, mucho
tiempo ha pasado en el mundo virtual de nuestro caminante y ha seguido haciendo
mucho calor, sin una gota de lluvia. Deshidratado e impotente, el caminante cae otra
vez en la desesperación. Agotado y débil, el hombre marchito vuelve a rezar por la felicidad y también la lluvia.
Y esta vez, llueve, como si sus plegarias fueran atendidas. Y sigue lloviendo……
Creative | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 09
El sol y yo
by Gabi Rutherford
Veo las nubes en el horizonte,
lóbregas, tenebrosas.
Intento ignorarlas
pero están, y me desconciertan.
El sol lucha constantemente
para mostrar su cara iluminante
pero sus rayos no brillan como antes.
Quiero fugarme, tomar refugio
y no ver jamás las sombras de las nubes
corriendo encima de los pastos
persiguiéndome.
Un vendaval inmenso surge de la nada.
Los pájaros paran su frívolo parloteo
y se esconden.
Todo a mí alrededor me dice
huye.
Protégete.
Me tapo los ojos para no ver las nubes
y canto fuerte para ahogar el silencio de los pájaros.
Acciones fútiles:
entre las grietas de las manos
entra el viento
y mi canto sólo amortigua sus murmullos de alerta.
No los puedo silenciar.
¿Quién sabe si volverá el sol?
¿Quizás me dejará sola en mi pasto de nubes
mirando un pasto ajeno encandilada?
El sol no puede estar para todos, para siempre.
La espera será terrible.
Mas ¿qué puedo hacer sino esperar?
Pero si no vuelve el sol
la espera sólo me habrá dado esperanza
y por último, me desesperará.
Mejor correr.
Mejor seguir con mi camino.
Aún si no quiero,
daré la espalda a mi querido sol
para no cortarle las alas.
Prefiero dejarlo libre para encontrar su felicidad.
Quién soy yo para mandar al sol.
10 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Creative
Frühlingsgedanken
by Eleanora Cabuk
Er sprach nie vom Frühling,
Das Wort Frühling war ihm fremd;
Er saß da in seinem schwarzen Hemd,
Und wir tranken aus blauen Tassen.
Seit zehn Tagen sind Worte mir abhanden gekommen,
Ich denke nun in Tönen;
Ich habe ein ungeborenes Kind lieben gelernt,
Will den Tag mit der Nacht versöhnen.
In Gedanken habe ich die graue Stadt bunt angestrichen,
Den Regenhimmel der Tränen entleert,
Habe den Kindern Gedichtbände und Stifte geschenkt,
Und den Kranken ein neues Leben.
In Gedanken habe ich mit Krieg und Armut gerungen
Und die Natur so lang besungen,
Bis es überall grünte—
Nicht erwachen am Fenster
Der weiße Vorhang
Straßenverkehr
Verquer,
Dass du nie vom Frühling sprachst.
Tongue-tied
I speak to express my feeling of love, of fear, of woe
Hablo para decir a la gente lo que yo pienso
И когда мне надо я говорю чтобы спорить
And maybe even sometimes to lie, deceive and cheat.
Pero cuantas lenguas hayan en mi boca?
Not one, not two, but three: what a shocker!
Три языка борются друг с другом
And one day I fear that I may lose one.
Mi язык is tied ya no puedo hablar
Но они говорят что у меня дар
So who am I now с тремя языками?
And what would happen if one were to leave me?
Mой мозг en un lío, qué puedo hacer?
My thoughts so disjointed, my comfort rare
Слишком информации, contiene la red
Слишком грамматики crammed in my head.
Alex Norris
Creative | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 11
El mojado
Pienso en mi familia, en el hogar que acabo de dejar, tal vez por
siempre, todavía tan lejano de mí. No podía imaginar, jamás de los
by Jamie Hyde
jamases, la angustia que siento. Crece aún mas con cada paso que
me aleja de ellos. Sigo recordando que emprendo este viaje para el bien de ellos, mis queridos.
Puedo ayudarles. Voy a mejorar sus vidas y su mundo. Todavía les extraño inexpresablemente.
Las circunstancias que me han llevado hasta aquí son lejos de ser sencillas. Hasta el día de ayer todo
estaba envuelto de misterio y incertidumbre. No tengo pasaporte oficial, tampoco los documentes
necesarios. Nadie conoce bien el hombre que me ayudó a organizar mi fugo a la tierra de la igualdad, aunque que sea mi deber seguirle. Allí me espera un futuro mejor, así como para mi familia.
Naturalmente no es un viaje fácil. Me dijeron lo horrible que puede ser pero sus consejos no me
prepararon para el estado inimaginable en el cual me hallo ahora mismo. No es posible describir
cuan helado y agotado me siento. Tras treinta seis horas de pesadilla nos encontramos ahora en
unas pulgadas de agua estancada en el túnel debajo del río. Pronto estaremos. Pronto estaremos.
Pero que nos espera allí? Todos dejamos nuestros países natales en busca de un futuro mejor,
aunque nada no sea segura. Lo que nos espera allí son rostros desconocidos e impersonales,
un bienvenido inevitablemente inhóspito y la soledad. Quizá hasta el hambre y la muerte.
Por qué debo yo emprender tal viaje? Por qué me veo obligado huir de mi país? El solo crimen qué cometí consiste en haber nacido al sur de esa línea, trazada por los hombres. Al
otro lado de la línea muchos languidecen en la pobreza, relegados al olvido y sin escapatoria.
Ojalá vuelva un día a ver a mi familia.
Октябрь
Свет заходящего солнца
Тронул вечерные тени
И серо-синее небо
Отражалось на мокрых крышах.
Пробили часы
Мой образ в зеркале исчез
Виделась луна и все вокруг серебрело:
Не знала я тогда, что тебя я ждала.
Тайное забытие
Летело над городом
И старое пианино
Вздохнуло в тишине.
Eleanora Cabuk
Я сидела одна
В комнате на темном этаже
И слышала издалека
Голоса веселых людей.
12 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Creative
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Recollections of Vanuatu
Spending her gap year working in New Zealand, Emma Troop
took advantage of cheap flights to this country she’d barely heard
of, in the name of adventure. The Republic of Vanuatu is an archipelago of volcanic islands scattered across 860,000 square kilometres in the South Pacific Ocean. Its unique history is one of
plantations, missionaries, joint British and French colonisation,
American visitation during World War II, grass-roots democracy and political independence in 1980. The population of the
islands is a little over 200,000, and the strong, still largely tribal,
village social structure and traditional culture mean that everybody has a sense of belonging – unemployment and homelessness are unheard of. Thanks to fertile volcanic soil, agriculture
provides the majority of Vanuatu’s income, and since Vanuatu
was declared the happiest country on Earth in 2007, tourism is
blossoming. The South Pacific islands are to New Zealand what
the Mediterranean is to the UK, but as she and Luke were to
discover, two weeks in this amazing country provided a very different experience to 14 days all inclusive on the Costa del Sol.
The ground began to tremble again
and I hid behind my friend Luke.
With an almighty boom, orange
fireworks lit up the sky. The molten
rocks seemed to hang for an eternity
amongst the stars before heading
straight for us. I wanted to run.
‘Don’t move’ said our guide,
‘you’ll trip, and the lava rocks
are sharp.’ I whimpered as the
growing rocks burned holes
in my retina. I considered the
fact that I’d prefer a cut knee to
taking a molten rock on the head.
‘Okay, move right a bit. A bit
more.’ And with a colossal
thump and hiss, the lava landed
somewhere to our left in the dark.
We were on top of Mt Yasur, a
volcano in the Vanuatu archipelago.
I was beginning to question
the sanity of somebody who
would choose an active volcano
as a holiday destination. Luke
reminded me that it was my idea.
14 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Travel
The ground rumbled again, the crater
burned brighter against the night’s
sky. ‘Can we go back down now?’ I
asked anxiously. Kelson laughed and
looked at me, still crouched behind
Luke. He considered Luke’s 6ft4
frame. ‘That lava is 1000 degrees, if
lands on him, you’ll still get hurt.’
Luke was mesmerised, occupied
with trying to capture the eruptions
on his camera. I tried to distract
myself by asking about the
Steering Clear of Clichés
importance of the volcano to local
villages. Kelson began to conjure
up a story of Gods, creation and
shamans, before his words were
lost in a second blast. We heard
small lava rocks stud the ground
behind us. ‘Okay, we can go now.’
A few minutes later I was stood in
the back of a pick-up truck as we
bumped and rolled over the ashy
track back to our ‘Jungle Oasis’. We
had soon ceased to marvel that these
beefy trucks were the only form
of transport on the island – there
were pot holes in the dirt roads
that could drown a man. Kelson’s
truck was decorated with a light
dusting of ash, and the shattered
front windscreen was definitely
more sticky tape than glass.
As we arrived back at our bungalow,
the red glow in the sky reminded us
that we were still only a couple of
kilometres away from old man Yasur.
We both paused as Yasur boomed
in the near-distance, shaking our
bamboo walls and gently blowing
our curtains inwards. ‘What is
there to do tomorrow?’ Luke asked.
‘How about a village tour?
Or there’s this beach called
Shark’s Bay, looks interesting…’
Mt. Yasur: even when not
in full flow of eruption, it
dominates the skyline.
When people think of taking a
year out, a certain YouTube clip
comes to mind, where a privileged
teenager apologises to his friend for
not being able to come shopping
on the King’s Road, because he
is in Burma on his ‘gap yah’. The
much-quoted monologue which
follows recounts the adventures of
said young teenager, who divides
his time between waxing lyrical
about how his experiences have
been ‘like, soooo spiritual and
cultural’ and ‘chuuuundering
everywhere’. This may go some way
towards explaining the declining
popularity of the gap year, often
marketed as a rite of passage by
companies whose brochures come
complete with pictures of shinyhaired, grinning bright young
things who have just finished
building a shelter for abandoned
puppies using only their teeth.
My initial introduction to that little
piece of wisdom came with a stern
warning: ‘Little cousin, promise me
you won’t turn out like this?!’ And
so, at the risk of being disowned
by the majority of my friends and
family, I set off to La Belle France
adamant that my time abroad
would not somehow morph into
the dreaded ‘gap yah’. Reassuringly,
my experience of teaching English
in a French school turned out to
be very different, although it was
not without its awkward moments;
one time I seriously considered a
foray into mime (complete with
stripy shirt, dramatic make-up
and beret) in order to make myself
understood in a class, as my French
was pitifully non-existent. Then
there was the thrilling moment
of being locked in a battle of wills
with a class of eleven-year-olds who
had suddenly decided to clear up
any misunderstandings that I may
have had about the pronunciation
Emily Handley recounts her experience of a gap year
spent teaching English in France, with not a single online
video clip in sight. It was a fantastic experience, albeit
one that consisted to a great extent of mispronouncing
“Lady Gaga” in French, plenty of potential for resorting
to mime, and creating some- thing of a scene on a bicycle.
of Lady Gaga’s name. Upon saying
‘Lay-dee Gaa-Gaa’, I was met with
laughter and a chorus of ‘Non! Non!
Non!’ I have now learnt that ‘Laydee Gah-Gah’ is the way forward. I
am satisfied, however, to say that I
left France having sprinkled a little
bit of Englishness on Les Herbiers
- even if it was only to introduce
its poor townspeople to the ageold stereotype of the bumbling
English fool. Many a lesson was
wasted by me running around like
a headless chicken tripping over
various technological contraptions
and swearing profusely whilst
looking for an errant memory stick
/ projector lead / laptop cable.
Many a lesson was
wasted by me running
around like a headless
chicken.
Other truly surreal moments
occurred on a cycling holiday,
when, after not having ridden a
bike properly for about ten years, I
was expected by one of my French
host families to master the art of
cycling before our visit to the Ile de
Ré. Mon Dieu. My attempts were
embarrassing to say the least, when
compared with my host family’s
ridiculous,
semi-professional
cycling skills. They found my
frantic attempts to control my
bicycle punctuated with shouts
of ‘I’m going to die!’ endlessly
amusing. My host father even
thought it would be side-splittingly
hilarious every time I turned a
corner on one of the cycle paths to
ring his bicycle bell and shout: ‘Les
anglais viennent!’ or ‘The British are
coming!’, to forewarn those who
were blissfully unaware of a vision in
blonde screeching at the top of her
voice and careering towards them.
Traumatic experiences
aside, I had some really enjoyable times on
my gap year.
Traumatic experiences aside, I had
some really enjoyable times on
my gap year. I stayed with three
different host families, making it
much easier than it would have
been if I had been left to my own
devices to find accommodation,
which admittedly would probably
have seen me in the throes of a
nervous breakdown nursing a
bottomless tankard of absinthe and
chain-smoking Gauloises whilst
asking myself where it all went
wrong. Luckily, this didn’t turn out
to be the case; my year in the land of
camemberts, croissants and kouign
ammans was chouette, as our French
cousins say, complete with my
solemn promise, dear reader, that it
was as un-gap yah-like as possible.
Travel | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 15
The Bekaa Valley
Isobel Scott-Barrett tells us how she was won over by this valley’s picturesque setting, welcoming
inhabitants, and wine on-tap.
Lebanon’s ‘dusty corner’, ‘full of
savages’ and currently infamous for
skirmishes on the Syrian border and
a rash of kidnappings; Lebanon’s
interior; a beautiful sweep of land
cradled between the mountains and
home to some of the kindest people
I have ever met, in contradiction
with itself in a way only Lebanon
seems to be able to produce.
Bekaa is the dwelling
place of 30 of Lebanon’s 36 wineries.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give
you the Bekaa valley; home to the
largest Catholic city in the Middle
East. Also the homeland and
stronghold of the Shi’a political
party
Hezbollah,
legitimate
resistance force to some, designated
a terrorist organisation by others.
Home to the largest Roman ruins
in existence and a homage to
Dionysus, the staggering Baalbek.
But also home to sprawling masses
of ruined houses and rural poverty;
a legacy of the 2006 war with Israel,
not to mention of a civil war that
only ended in 1990 and which
tore the country apart, limb from
limb in the most brutal fashion.
16 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Travel
Renowned
for
its
hashish
production, Bekaa is now the
dwelling place of 30 of Lebanon’s
36 wineries. Wedged between
the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon
mountain ranges it is a swathe of
fertile land, which appears out of
the dusky purple mist that swaddles
it in the early mornings and
twilight hours; a plateau of lights
laid out before you as you swoop
(clutching your seat and cursing
Lebanese roads and questionable
driving) down the mountain.
I was greeted by an undiluted glass of
arak liquor and the question which
aptly epitomises my experiences for
the best part of three months: ‘Are
you hungry?’ I was soon to learn
that matters of the appetite are of
vital daily importance. Food is
proffered, encouraged and positively
forced upon unsuspecting but
innately fairly greedy strangers (call
it a meeting of minds when cake is
breakfast). It took me several weeks
and the consumption of untold
numbers of sweets and coffee to
wise up; ‘No, thank you very much
but I am not hungry, I couldn’t
be hungry even if I tried really,
really hard. I have eaten and eaten
and it was all delicious but really I
couldn’t. No, really. Thank you’.
What exactly was I doing there?
Syria was in flames, and Iran wasn’t
looking too rosy; by mid-August
my year abroad plans were not
exactly in good shape. The same
could be said for my Arabic in
fact, but that bit was down to me.
In fairly short order and in a fairly
roundabout way I found myself
living and working as a stagiaire in
a winery during harvest time. ‘Do
you like early mornings?’ ‘Umm,
yes-ish, I mean I’m sure I could get
to like early mornings…’ I replied.
Work started at 7 am and I was on
the factory floor, wellies at the ready
and lack of Arabic blatantly obvious
to my fellow grape sorters from the
start. The grapes, still warm and
musty from their dawn harvest,
were tipped onto an enormous
conveyor belt where they were
hand sorted by seven of us then
fed into an enormous pneumatic
press which turned for hours on
end while the juice was pumped
into tanks two storey’s high. I may
have forgotten my Cambridge
Arabic and may no longer be able
to give you PC political opinions
and talk to you about literature
but I know my Cabernet from my
Merlot and wait until I whip out
‘conveyor belt’, ‘pneumatic press’,
and
‘malolactic
fermentation’
in my oral exam. Oh yeah.
One day saw me attached to that
conveyor belt from 7am until 10
pm. Grapes swam before my eyes
and I was quite ready to fall asleep
on the nearest bit of floor space while
muttering about slave drivers and
smelling like mouldering grapes.
But I can safely say a schwarma wrap
and cold beer have never, ever tasted
as good as they did when we all sat
under the vines in exhausted silence
that night. Worth it, just about.
The guys who work in the factory
only spoke Arabic so in theory this
was prime-time language practice
but we came up against a bit of a
brick wall in the communication
stakes when both sides realised the
other was largely incomprehensible.
This made conversation stilted.
Occasionally someone volunteered
something in broken French but
since I was desperately trying
to understand any Arabic at all
the addition of heavily accented
Frebanese, usually at speed and
muttered into the grapes, threw me.
I have never been quite so aware
of my lack of practical skills; being
quite good at reading doesn’t do
a lot when you are being asked to
aid in the laboratory and set up
the remontage system- hurdles.
We eventually settled into a happy
routine which involved extensive
miming and an education in Arabic
profanity. I learnt to distrust any
new vocabulary taught to me
before checking it with a reliable
and amused source after ‘you’re
a bald donkey’ and ‘you crazy
animal’ were initially passed up as
terms of endearment. For future
reference they aren’t. ‘Ya batta’yes, ‘ya haimar’-absolutely not.
Several words for prostitute and an
exasperated ‘you are such a retarded
donkey, do you have a fever!?’ at least
prepared me for the filth directed at
fellow drivers by Beiruti bus drivers.
Home, a converted
storeroom, can only be
described as rustic.
Home was a converted storeroom
which can only really be described
as rustic; bare concrete floor and no
windows, temperamental water- let
alone hot water, and a selection of
very fine roommates; the entire local
population of mosquitoes, several
frogs and even on occasion a mangy
cat which came in through a hole in
the roof and ate all my nectarines.
Having said this my morning
commute was a sleepy walk through
the vines as the sun was rising,
clutching a marmite sandwich
(fulfilling the stereotype I know but
it gave a disproportionate amount
of comfort at 6:30 in the morning)
while doves circled overhead. Not a
lot to complain about really. I spent
all my time surrounded by more
wine than I could ever drink doing
something a million miles away
from hair-tearing in a Cambridge
library, while experiencing the
most generous and unbidden
hospitality. It was this that really
made my time there so special.
From the beginning I was treated
as one of the extended Massaya
family and was lucky enough to be
taken under the wing of a friend’s
immediate family, extended family
and extended extended family.
We ate cake in our pyjamas and drove
into the mountains late at night to
buy sweets from a summer festival.
We strolled alongside the Berdowni,
ate Arabic ice-cream (kind of gooey
stretchy and flavoured with things
like rosewater and pistachio- I still
think I like Ben and Jerry’s more
but ask me again at the end of
the year), went on dodgems and
ate popcorn from the man with
the coffee cart, all en famille. I
have been kissed and patted and
prodded and questioned, we grilled
mountain quail and stuffed 30 kilos
of aubergines, celebrated new babies
with revolting brown puddings and
new brides not with champagne but
with minced meat. I have learnt to
dance the first step of the Lebanese
dabke and have played the Arabic
equivalent of ring a ring of roses.
After two months I was beginning
to feel at home in the distinctly
tangled web of everything there
so it was a shock to be booted to
Beirut by an over-reactive foreign
office; wrenched away kicking
and screaming wouldn’t be far off.
Lebanon’s politics are rocky at the
best of times but the mutterings
and murmurings are rising in pitch
and people are jittery. A month here
in Beirut has shown me that it has
its own charms but my heart is in
the Bekaa, and not just because
they gave me cake for breakfast.
Travel | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 17
Suomi: or, Finland for Beginners
KT Bosse-Foy’s recent trip to Helsinki certainly was full of incident. Here, she tells the story of
spectacular commutes to work, ice hockey, and a bar built entirely out of ice.
Site and, aside from the turbulent
history of the islands, their rugged,
wind-swept beaches and scenic
views of Helsinki harbour also do
much to endear them to visitors.
It is a cliché, but the Finns really do
have impeccable English skills. Not
once during my trip to Helsinki
did I find myself in a situation
where I needed to resort to my
guidebook, although I picked up
the phrase ‘Kahvi Kiitos’ (coffee,
please) through sheer frequency of
use. They are mad about coffee in
Finland – somewhat surprisingly it is
the country with the world’s highest
coffee consumption per head. Yet,
back to English, there is a very
noticeable gap between generations,
with our generation being the one
earning the Finns their reputation.
My host’s parents, while wellspoken and cosmopolitan, struggled
to express themselves fluently
in English, whereas he spoke as
if he had been raised bilingual.
During my time there I met a
number of foreigners who were
living in Helsinki quite happily,
getting along in English with only
minor communication issues.
Helsinki is a rather oddly shaped
city, with a compact centre
surrounded by suburbs sprawled
across several islands. In the few
parts of town where the sea is not
18 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | Travel
visible, its fresh breeze serves as a
constant reminder of its presence. It
is this very proximity to nature that
has earned the city the accolade of
‘most liveable city 2011’ and, in my
view, rightly so; my daily commute
into the centre of town, clustered
around the harbour, involved a
spectacular collection of sea views
that made the twenty-minute
metro ride almost as enjoyable
as reaching the destination itself.
Several of the islands are only
accessible by public ferry, including
the major tourist attractions of
Helsinki zoo and the unmissable
‘sea
fortress’
Suomenlinna.
Suomenlinna condenses the political
and military history of Finland onto
six small, interconnected islands.
Originally built by the occupying
Swedes in the 18th century, the
strategic military base, like the rest
of Finland, passed into Russian
hands in the early 19th century
and only became ‘Finnish’ in
the 20th century, when Finland
declared itself independent in
the power vacuum immediately
after the Russian Revolution. It
is a UNESCO World Heritage
If you have any preconceptions of
Finland, they are likely to be related
to saunas and reindeer. My host did
little to dispel these stereotypes,
taking me out for traditional
reindeer stew on my first evening
there. Served in its own juices,
accompanied with tangy red berries
and creamed potatoes, reindeer
Finnish-style has a much richer
flavour than our British venison.
And, if you can get over the thought
of eating Rudolf, it is delicious.
Saunas also featured heavily during
the trip; not merely an enjoyable
leisure activity, taking saunas
together is considered a mark of
friendship in Finnish culture.
Turning down an invitation to
someone’s sauna – and, given that
one in two Finns have their own,
it is more frequent you might
imagine – is a major faux pas. That
is how I ended up racking up four
visits in a mere ten days. And the
social etiquette of the sauna does
not end there. The complex rules
surrounding nudity are enough to
make a foreigner’s head hurt, and
lead to bizarre situations where some
members of the party will be clothed
and others not. But, etiquette aside,
the invigorating sense of health you
feel after spending half an hour
in a Finnish sauna makes it, in
my view, a much more enjoyable
experience than just heading
down the pub for a few rounds.
Talking of which, alcohol, or more
specifically its extortionate price in
Finland, is a matter of some concern
for the average student traveller.
Since the Finnish government has a
state monopoly on the alcohol retail
market (which, strictly according to
EU law, it is not supposed to do,
leading to an annual hefty fine),
prices are kept artificially high with
taxation. To get round this, I did
what many young Finns do on a
regular basis – went on one of the
daily ‘booze cruises’ to Tallinn,
Estonia. Having never taken the
British version to Calais, I was
perhaps under-prepared for just
how serious the ‘boozing’ was going
to be; the majority of my fellow
passengers were drunk by 10.30am,
dancing to the Finnish version
of ABBA. Still, with a bottle of
Estonian vodka retailing at around
€6, I could hardly blame them.
By contrast, I was paying €6 for
a beer at my first ever ice hockey
game. As the national sport of
Finland, it is taken as seriously as
football is in England, with results
affecting the mood across Helsinki.
Luckily for me, my Finnish host’s
team had just won the equivalent
of the Premier League and were
on excellent form. The thing that
impressed me most about the event,
however, was not the thrashing
that they gave the other team, but
the all-pervasive Americanisation.
When not watching the game,
which frequently stopped for
recess, we were bombarded with
adverts and dancing cheerleaders.
Everything was in English; the
only evidence that we were still in
Helsinki at all was the conversation
of my fellow HIFK fans. Still, it
did mean I could keep track of
the game, which is too fast paced
for the uninitiated to follow.
The only other time I forked out
for Finnish-priced alcohol was on a
trip to a bar that I had heard a lot
about, but needed to see to believe:
the Arctic Ice Bar. I was aware of the
general concept, of everything from
the tables to the walls to the bar
itself being made from ice, but was
unprepared for the actual experience
of standing in the middle of an
oversized ice cube. Although we
were given complimentary jackets,
it took less than five minutes for
me to get uncomfortably cold and,
needless to say, the increasinglycold drink I had did not help
much. The barkeeper, dressed like
the Michelin Man, told us that
visitors rarely, if ever, make it to
a second drink. Neither did we.
As it turns out, there is a reason
bars are not usually made of ice.
But the best thing about my trip
to Helsinki was not the tourist
attractions, reindeer stew and saunas
or even the Estonian ‘booze cruise’ –
it was the friends I went to visit. I met
them during my third year abroad,
as an Erasmus student at Universität
Leipzig. I certainly would not have
made it to Helsinki if it hadn’t been
for the scheme – and that would
have been a shame, because it is
really worth a visit. Just save up
some beer money before you go!
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Media Control, Soviet-Style
In the wake of the success of state-sponsored television channel Russia Today, Charles Lichfield
wonders whether Russian media has reverted to its Cold War tactics.
Russia Today launched in the
UK with a series of provocative
billboards, all of which exhorted
viewers to ‘question more’.
In the good old days of Cold War
bipolarity, the radio frequencies our
generation is entirely unfamiliar
with were a treasure trove of softspoken propaganda. Radio Moscow
and Radio Berlin International
would zealously tell the workers of
the world to unite while the World
Service and Radio Free Europe
desperately tried to enlighten the
misled hordes of the East. Such
facilities are redundant in our
newly uniform and unified world.
Short Wave enthusiasts may huddle
on internet forums to discuss the
appearance of new numbers stations.
FM – subject to local licensing
– rules the roost. The arrivals of
Satellite Television and the Internet
did not deliver a new space for this
state-sponsored media war. You
could argue that none was needed,
since they established themselves as
the Cold War was drawing to a close.
Radio was once a
treasure trove of softspoken propaganda.
The resurgence of that conflict on
television only came after the buildup to the Iraq war (the one we
remember). Frustrated with France’s
portrayal in the ‘Anglo-Saxon’
media, former president Jacques
Chirac rushed in the international
news channel, France 24. The
trilingual beast was quickly joined
by Deutsche Welle, a bilingual
channel under the same authority as
German radio. They have a slightly
surreal, post-national air about
them. I was once unlucky enough to
watch a Dutch journalist speaking in
English about the French elections
on what was supposedly German
television. Beyond this however,
they remain quite inoffensive,
sometimes interesting and provide
much-needed respite from the
BBC’s annoying countdown beeps
when stuck abroad on a rainy day.
Russia’s answer, Russia Today – now
euphemistically re-styled as RT –
was created in 2005 following the
same principle. Delivering a Russian
perspective on the characteristically
selective interests of 24-hour
rolling news should not make RT
20 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | News and Comment
too dissimilar from its continental
competitors. But perhaps it
is facing a greater challenge.
It is no surprise that
the channel’s editorial
line is ‘pro-Russian’.
It is no surprise that the channel’s
editorial line is ‘pro-Russian’ or
even ‘pro-Kremlin’. That’s what it’s
for. One might ask what Russia
has to say to the world. Reports on
Russian consumerism and diamond
production are predictable plugs
for various businesses and spa
towns. Religious observance of
the Kremlin’s hatred for Georgia’s
president Mikheil Saakashvili
is not entirely groundless, from
a ‘Russian perspective’. But
informed viewing leads to rather
different impressions. RT’s Press
Office failed to give Polyglossia
the chance to discover more about
their strategy, missing the chance
to correct these impressions.
From the HQ of Russia’s national
news agency, RIA Novosti, the
channel broadcasts a strange mix
of shows hosted by haranguing
loudmouths. RT also loves live
conference calls. They compensate
for their lack of offices with an
array of ‘pundits’, who often appear
live from their living rooms over
Skype. Reports don’t figure so
prominently. The live chatter has
become an international rendezvous for conspiracy theorists of
any extreme. The channel’s slogan,
‘Question More’, could be the
banner of a virtuous exercise
in investigative TV journalism.
Instead, it seeks to antagonise in
ad hoc responses to Western news
items, solely to deflect from what
really matters in Russia today.
speculation on the darker side
of their policies. Ideally, these
come with a nice write up for the
motherland. The federation’s recent
U-turn over the current Syrian
regime provides a rather telling case
in point. Up until the announcement
that foreign minister Lavrov was
meeting the opposition for ‘talks’,
the channel obstinately interviewed
every kindred spirit they could
muster. Every Western conspiracy
for Middle East domination was
touched upon. Forget about the
violent crackdowns. Now that the
Russian stance on this matter is in
limbo, RT’s editorial line is also. The
West may still be planning ‘another
Libya’, Assad’s government is
suddenly just as worthy of criticism.
Examples are easily accessible thanks
to RT’s impressive presence on
YouTube. Their responses magically
appear at the top of any topical
search. Anything and everything is
used either as a peg for anecdotal
elements of embarrassment for
Western governments or tentative
RT’s editorial line
vacillates from provocation to provocation.
Somewhat
Kremlin’s
technique, RT’s editorial line
vacillates from provocation to
provocation, from one estranged
‘specialist’ to the next dissident
journalist or defected official.
Its expansion into all things free
(on top of YouTube, RT is now
available to every UK household on
Freeview) reflects a dated approach
to soft propaganda, which might
be making a comeback. With
more and more sister channels,
such as RT America, calling for
the media-deprived extremes to
‘Question More’ specifically in
their own spheres, this promises
to be more and more aggressive.
reminiscent
of the
7745 Hanslip 1-4:Layout
standard
defence
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01/09/2009
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Total immersion course
in French
Bergerac, Dordogne
• Total immersion courses for all levels.
• Three hours of tuition every morning in
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• Afternoon visits to well known
tourist sites, all in French
• Very comfortable 18th century manorhouse
(all ensuite bathrooms, tennis and heated pool)
• Delicious regional food and wine
• Singles, couples and groups welcome
• Easy access from the UK,10 minutes from
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The Latin American Leadership
Landscape - For Now
With elections held, protests staged and corruption scandals revealed, the fates of the continent’s
political leaders are changing. Let Laurence Tidy guide you through seven Latin American countries, explaining some of their main developments and predictions for 2012.
Argentina
The 23rd October saw Cristina
Fernández gain the vote of 54%
Argentinians – a landslide victory
for the Peronist leader. Her electoral
triumph, in which support from
young and rural voters was crucial,
gives her an unprecedented third
term in government. Public
sympathy for her late husband and
former president Nestor Kirchner
contributed to her success. Her
change in image and the inclusion
of popular figures such as Amado
Boudu (Vice President), who plays
guitar with his rock’n’roll band in
public events, in her government
also helps her appear fresh and
rejuvenated. Fernández will have
to keep an eye on the current 25%
inflation rate, but if she continues
to reduce inequality and support
cash transfer programmes, her
popularity will be unceasing.
Bolivia
Elected in 2006, re-elected with
67% of the vote in 2008, and
the passing of a constitution in
2009, Evo Morales has ridden a
strong wave of popular support.
The presidency of this socialist,
who is often seen as a defender of
indigenous rights, marked the ‘end
of the colonial state’. The United
Nations’ World Hero of the Earth
has had a less assured 2011. His
backing for the development of a
185-mile highway, which would
have cut through the Indigenous
Territory of the Isiboro Secure
National Park (Tipnis), led to
2,000 indigenous men and women
marching to La Paz. Despite
Morales’ strong attack on the UN,
who wishes to declare coca leaves
(Bolivia is the third largest producer
in the world) an illegal drug,
Morales still has to find a balance
between that time-old dichotomy:
development and preservation.
Brazil
The first female president of
Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, promised
to eliminate poverty and ‘honour
the trust’ of her people when she
was elected, in 2011, with 56% of
the vote. As for her first aim, 16.2
million people still live on 70 reais
(£27), or less, per month. But the
Brasil Sem Miseria (Brazil Without
Poverty) scheme aims to expand the
already successful Bolsa Familia and
other programmes. Their progress
will be key to Rousseff’s public
popularity. Yet tarnishing her image
recently has been an onslaught of
political corruption revelations.
Five ministers, including the sports
minister Orlando Silva, have left
or been forced to resign so far. If
2011 continues this way, Dilma
will need to reform her government.
22 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | News and Comment
Colombia
A week later, on Sunday 30th
October, 30 million Colombians
voted in local elections. The most
important win was that of Gustavo
Petro – it is the first time a former
guerrilla has become Mayor of
Bogotá. Gaining over 32%of the
vote, the conservative government’s
candidate Enrique Penalosa won
only 8%. Though the Colombian
right-wing has been popular since
the 1990s, and especially under
Alvaro Uribe’s presidency (200210), Petro’s win may be the first of
many gains for the Liberal Party. The
killing of FARC leader Alfonso Cano
however has been seen as a triumph
for the conservatives – though
confronting youth unemployment
and improving human rights will
be President Santos’ true test.
Guatemala
With the problem of organized and
violent crime looming in Guatemala
(its murder rate is 8 times that of
the US), it was no surprise that the
country voted the retired right-wing
general Otto Pérez Molina as their
president. Gaining 54.5% of the
votes in the 6 November elections,
his win signals an obvious move to
the right for the country. Though
the leftist President Álvaro Colom’s
government claimed a reduction in
the homicide rate by 9%, there have
been around 6,000 killings this year
alone. If Molina wishes to fulfil his
campaign promise (‘una Guatemala
segura y prospera’) then he needs to
take a stance that combines strategy,
moderate force and intuitiveness.
He must also seek to combat poverty
(12% of the population lived
below the poverty line in 2008),
strengthen the justice system, and
reduce violence against women.
Venezuela
Hugo Chávez remains in power,
though the 2012 elections are fastapproaching. Chávez took office in
February 1999. September 2010
saw him win again in National
Assembly elections. A recently held
TV debate included opposition
candidates who strongly criticised
the policies of the socialist president
and despite speculation about his
health, Chávez recently declared
himself free of cancer. Control over
inflation and Venezuela’s oil reserves
will feature in election campaigns.
Security will be an important
theme too: the recent kidnapping
of baseball star William Ramos is
one of 1,000 abductions to have
been reported so far this year.
A Taste of... Italia
In the first of a series exploring national cuisines, Hana Murrell suggests that France’s reputation
as the centre of culinary refinement should not go uncontested…
While the convivial scene of the
Dolmio puppet family sitting down
together for a hearty meal is still enacted throughout Italy, the idea of
a ‘Dolmio day’ is a myth, the slogan ‘When’sa your Dolmio day?’ a
deceptive advertising ploy. Every
Italian I’ve ever met has scorned
the idea of pasta sauce in a jar. It
is an invention for those of us not
fortunate enough to have an Italian mamma. Italian cooking is a
labour of love; meals are prepared
from the best quality, freshest ingredients, and several hours are not
too long to make a good lasagne.
For all of France’s reputation for
pretention in its cuisine, the Italians are surprisingly exacting. They
have shouted at me for using both
garlic and onion in my soffritto, and
laughed me out of the kitchen for
suggesting the wacky combination
of spaghetti bolognese (the pasta
can only be tagliatelle). The Italian government even regulates the
wheat content in dried pasta, to
make sure it can be cooked al dente.
Once all the hard work in the kitchen is done, Italians enjoy eating,
with family and friends, and taking two or three-hour lunch breaks.
Unsurprising then that in response
to the arrival of fast food giant McDonalds on his door step in Rome
in 1989, an Italian man, Carlo
Petrini, began the wittily entitled
‘Slow Food’ movement. Beyond
delectation, the initiative extends to
promoting eco-friendly food production, and supporting struggling
producers of worthwhile foods
not only in Italy but as far away
as Madagascar and Guatemala.
During the Renaissance, Italy was
at the forefront of elegance and
creativity in cuisine, ahead even of
France to which country Caterina
de Medici in the sixteenth century
had to introduce the use of the personal table fork (meal times were
once rather more messy affairs!).
Medieval recipes were reworked
and enriched with new ingredients
and flavours. In the 1800s, sumptuous banquets were replaced by more
economical, home based approaches to cooking. Decades of French
dominance followed, until the arrival of Angelo Paracucchi, born in
1929, widely regarded as the leader
of a revival in creative Italian cuisine.
No history of Italian cuisine however can ignore the importance of
regional diversity, something which
has long been appreciated in seminal cookbooks from the Liber de Coquina (author unknown) of the late
thirteenth century to Pellegrino Artusi’s La Scienza in cucina e l’arte di
mangiar bene of the mid-nineteenth
century. Each region boasts distinct
specialty produce and culinary traditions, sometimes influenced by
foreign nations. The Saracens introduced dried pasta and millefoglia
puff pastry to Sicily, while the Hapsburg Spanish brought rich and savoury aspects to Neapolitan cuisine.
Italian gastronomy is essentially
home-cooking, and internationally celebrated chefs such as Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo still use recipes they learnt
from their mamme, or even nonne.
While wholesome Italian cuisine
is undeniably, universally popular,
perhaps the haughty French would
take more notice if Italy upped the
gastronomic style stakes through innovation and experimentation. Perhaps it is a fear of diverging from
mamma’s tried and tested family
recipes. I therefore challenge all Italian chefs - to defy their mothers!
News and Comment | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 23
Cricket goes Continental
Engineer Dan Bergsagel describes how he used HP sauce and cricket matches to overcome his
homesickness while at ‘Centrale’ Engineering School in Paris last year.
Pining after home comforts while
abroad is not a particularly unusual
phenomenon. During my last year
in Paris, I happily conformed to this
stereotype. Aside from crying myself
to sleep over the price of imported
peanut butter, I also enforced strict
condiment-smuggling criteria on
all guests visiting me from home,
with instructions on what to bring
depending on seasonal variations
and my current HP stock situation.
But my status as a foreigner
immersed in another culture also
exaggerated my previously modest
identity as a Brit, an Englishman,
a Londoner. I started wearing
tweed more, I defended the Royal
Family for no apparent reason, and
when I did have the opportunity
to speak English, I accentuated my
North London drawl, rendering
me incomprehensible to 98% of
the university. However, perhaps
the most ridiculous reiteration of
my identity was through cricket.
Perhaps the most
ridiculous reiteration
of my identity was
through cricket.
With their good-natured cackling
still in our ears, we vowed to birth
a cricket team at the university. We
did this in the only way we knew
how - by creating a name, a logo,
and hosting an inaugural breakfast.
From there we developed leaps and
bounds, contacting local clubs in
the Paris region (unsurprisingly
Commonwealth
dominated),
importing
cheap
equipment
from the UK, and applying for
funding from any sources available.
We had a fixture scheduled against
a members-only English sports club
for the end of the year, we just had
to field a team. Convincing people
to join was difficult, and aside from
bullying and hijacking the careers
event for UK universities by stealing
their mailing lists, the going was
tough. Lacking an actual pitch to play
on, we alternated between a rugby
pitch, the grass roof of a chemical
waste bunker, the front lawn of a
public castle, and the bizarre actual
cricket pitch of a park in Paris.
Our training partners ranged
from the South-African student
Lunchtime musings with two other
lost Englishmen threw up the idea:
to start a cricket team in Paris.
Ironically, this probably would
have remained a romantic pipe
dream forever more had we not
mentioned it to the International
Office at the university. Their
guffaws of laughter and insistence
that Cricket wasn’t an actual sport
steadied our resolve and provoked
our stubbornness. That was it.
24 | Polyglossia Issue 8 | News and Comment
international rugby 7s team, to
a flock of 12-16 year old asylum
seekers being looked after by the
Red Cross. We managed to scrape
together a hodgepodge team from
every corner of the world and
lost heroically. This was no great
surprise. The team was founded
in the late 1900s by English and
Irish labourers working on the
construction of the Eiffel Tower.
They represented France in the first
and last Olympic cricket match held
in Paris in 1900. The queen had
visited their pavilion twice. It had
been occupied by the Nazis. And
they had a clubhouse with sufficient
tea and sandwich facilities. We had
no chance. What is surprising is that
the team lives on. With our mythical
history developing as we speak, the
team continues to train and grow
in Paris under the guidance of new
students. What started as overcompensation for a loss of cultural
identity has become permanent.
And now instead of missing
home-comforts when away, I miss
my cricket team when at home.
Stadtschloss:
the Architecture of Nostalgia
Berlin’s new palace recalls Germany’s Imperial past, argues Myfanwy Lockwood-Jones.
What a cruel irony of fate it is that
Schaustelle Berlin, the company that
had found its market niche in taking
eager tourists on tours of Berlin’s
most glamorous and tantalising...
building sites, should have closed its
doors six years ago. How unfair that
a new company should have stolen
the idea and be raking in money
from a ritzy roof-top cafe where you
can sip champagne to the sound of
pneumatic drills and enjoy a glorious
view of 40,000 squared metres of
rubble, dirt and, if you’re into that
sort of thing, hard working German
men. Welcome to the HumboldtBox, the latest and most bizarre
addition to the Berlin skyline.
So what’s all the hype about? Has
the dire state of the European
economy turned even the most
prosaic manifestation of economic
prosperity into a site of pilgrimage
and high-class entertainment?
Hardly. The Humboldt-Box is,
unlike Schaustelle Berlin, not a
response to public interest, but a
ploy to inspire it. With staff ushering
visitors over to a donations-box as
prominent as the television tower
a few feet behind it, this is the
latest attempt of the self-ordained
‘Palace Construction Initiative’
to whip up enthusiasm and cash
for the reconstruction of the
former Stadtschloss (City Palace).
Buried under two breast-like mounds
in Berlin’s sprawling Friedrichshain
Park, the original palace was
swept into the dustbin of history
by the East German government
in 1950, making metaphorical
space for a new ideology free of
nationalist taints after the calamities
of Fascism, and physical space
for a vast parade ground. In one
swift egalitarian sweep, Prussian
imperialism was photoshopped out
of the Berlin cityscape, which, in
the same move, was brought in line
with the sterile and desolate urban
standard of Communist Europe.
The red-glassed Palace of the
Republic, designed finally to fill
this barren space in the 1970s, was
undeniably an eyesore, but one
which many wanted to retain as an
authentic historical relic after the
fall of the Wall. Although it was
demolished in 2008, it continues to
be remembered with tender nostalgia
by many East Germans as one of the
few truly progressive and successful
achievements of their country.
With subsidised cultural events,
theatre, exhibitions and public
dance evenings, part of this palace
was genuinely for the Republic.
And so we cannot help but be
bewildered as we see the City
Palace returning home, with all
its imperialist baggage. In view of
the plethora of highly innovative
and inspired entries submitted by
renowned architects in response
to a competition for the site’s
development, the Berlin Senate’s
decision to support and fund
the reconstruction of the old
palace is both disappointing and
disturbing. Disappointing, since it
shows that those in charge of the
city still don’t have the courage
to work with Berlin’s ‘alternative’
creative potential in supporting
experimental but socially cohesive
projects; disturbing, since the
brusque manner in which traces of
Germany’s communist past have
been purged from the cityscape
is suspiciously redolent of the
tactics used by the Communists
to a similar end in 1950.
In modern democratic Germany,
with no Kaiser to house, the City
Palace is symbolically questionable
and
functionally
superfluous.
Goethe wrote that ‘reason is cruel,
the heart is better’: if economic
woes force German politicians into
making a decision between saving
the EU and building a Prussian
Disneyland, let’s just hope their hearts
are as post-national as they claim.
News and Comment | Polyglossia Issue 8 | 25
A casual dominoes game on a Sunday afternoon is disrupted by a
curious and fascinated traveller who asks to take a photo, hoping
to capture a moment of typical Cuban life. This brief encounter is
perceived as ‘strange’ or amusing by the photo’s subjects, expressed
through the reaction of the Cuban men in the foreground. This image
by Sonum Sumaria was a third runner-up in our photo competition.
polyglossia
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www.srcf.ucam.org/polyglossia
Polyglossia is the University of
Cambridge’s student-run Modern
Languages Society. In addition to
publishing the journal, the society
runs a wide range of activities in
the aim to bring together all those
in Cambridge with an interest in
languages.
Editor
Assistant Editor
Arts
Creative
Travel
News and Comment
Sponsorship
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Louisa Long
Hana Murrell
Danielle Guy, Emily Sherwin
Helen Marsh, Kristina Bugeja
Elisabeth Walker, Rosie Sargeant
Charles Lichfield, Laurence Tidy
Harshil Arora, Naima Allcock
Edward Mills, Yining Nie
We are pleased to present this photograph by Sonum Sumaria, the winner of our Issue Eight photography competition. For more information
on our next competition, including how to enter, see inside.