Just the other day I was minding my own business in the teacher´s lounge when a Chilean professor-(Name Withheld)- came up behind me and announced, rather loudly, for me to get off the computer. ¨I´m sorry, what?¨I inquired politely, thinking I´d misunderstood. ¨Yes, you leave the computer now because I need to use it.¨ Taken aback by the bluntness of such a request, I gathered my belongings and moved to a nearby table, scowling all the way. Nevermind that I was as equally entitled to Gmail browsing as she was, but the unapologetic matter of factness in her deliverly left me with no option but to simply get up and move because she had said so. Now please thank you.
Fast forward a few days later to lunchtime and an order of delicious Chinese food. There I was, quietly consuming my meal when another Chilean employee- (Name Withheld)- marches up to the table, and in a fake whisper states that the odor of my food is disturbing the other working professors. I feigned confusion to buy some time against my urge to disturb her smirk with soy sauce. Moments later she returned with a bottle of disenfectant spray, which, for the record was far more odorous and irritating than any spring roll could ever hope to be. And where were the poor, disrupted professors during all this? Well, the one I presume that told on me was passively surfing the internet in the corner while two others, whom, coincidentally, happen to be close friends of mine, were snorting to themselves at their desks because the same thing had happened to them the day before.
You see, it`s not so much the occurence of these two events that bothers me, but the way in which they were addressed. Computers are full, you need to borrow one for a sec? Not a problem. Don´t want professors eating in the professor´s room? Fine. But when you´re used to dealing with professionals who use ¨Please¨ the way you learned to in grammar school, it`s a touch obnoxious to adjust to English speakers who think it`s a command.
Suddenly, phrases like ¨Will you help me?¨or¨Do you have a lighter?¨are orders, not questions. A friend of mine got an email from a non-native English speaker asking for some help with her resume, but instead of peppering the request with pleases and thank yous, the woman had opted for the following: ¨Since you and I are ¨friends,¨ you will do this for me.¨ Apparently, someone missed her class on air quotes and underlying sarcasm.
And then there was the Fork Incident.
I`ve been with my Chilean host family now for roughly 5 months and have yet to encounter any kind of drastic problem. In fact, I can pinpoint only one bleep on the radar of co-habitacion and of all the things in all the world for it to be about, it had to do with 3 forks. Or rather, the absence of such. I`d borrowed a few for lunch, (the lunch that I am not allowed to eat in the teacher´s lounge) and had exceeded my time limit for using them. That, and my host mother had noticed there were remnants of an additional fork--this one plastic--in her aji sauce. Really the latter was the cause of her furrowed brow, as she assumed I had not only broken a plastic fork, but sprinkled the pieces into the sauce so as to endanger her family's delicate esophagus'. When I told her that actually, no, it was not I who treated her homeade condiment so carelessly, she made an odd face and re-stated her declaration with all the certainty one has when responding to ¨What is your name?¨ And so there I was, middle of the afternoon, arguing with a 65 year old Chilean woman half my size about a recyclable untensil. ¨How did I get here?¨I wondered. And then later at work-- after receiving an email from my boss demanding that all the gringos ¨Confirm her PLEASE on our understanding of her message because still there is much not knowing--¨What the hell do I sound like when I try to speak proper Spanish?¨
And these days I'm only asking this: Would you rather be offensive in translation or just lost?
To this day, the only kind of aji kept in the refridgerator is from a bottle.
Suddenly, phrases like ¨Will you help me?¨or¨Do you have a lighter?¨are orders, not questions. A friend of mine got an email from a non-native English speaker asking for some help with her resume, but instead of peppering the request with pleases and thank yous, the woman had opted for the following: ¨Since you and I are ¨friends,¨ you will do this for me.¨ Apparently, someone missed her class on air quotes and underlying sarcasm.
And then there was the Fork Incident.
I`ve been with my Chilean host family now for roughly 5 months and have yet to encounter any kind of drastic problem. In fact, I can pinpoint only one bleep on the radar of co-habitacion and of all the things in all the world for it to be about, it had to do with 3 forks. Or rather, the absence of such. I`d borrowed a few for lunch, (the lunch that I am not allowed to eat in the teacher´s lounge) and had exceeded my time limit for using them. That, and my host mother had noticed there were remnants of an additional fork--this one plastic--in her aji sauce. Really the latter was the cause of her furrowed brow, as she assumed I had not only broken a plastic fork, but sprinkled the pieces into the sauce so as to endanger her family's delicate esophagus'. When I told her that actually, no, it was not I who treated her homeade condiment so carelessly, she made an odd face and re-stated her declaration with all the certainty one has when responding to ¨What is your name?¨ And so there I was, middle of the afternoon, arguing with a 65 year old Chilean woman half my size about a recyclable untensil. ¨How did I get here?¨I wondered. And then later at work-- after receiving an email from my boss demanding that all the gringos ¨Confirm her PLEASE on our understanding of her message because still there is much not knowing--¨What the hell do I sound like when I try to speak proper Spanish?¨
And these days I'm only asking this: Would you rather be offensive in translation or just lost?
To this day, the only kind of aji kept in the refridgerator is from a bottle.
