Kitabı oku: «Russian She-bear in American and British Settings. A cross-cultural travelogue», sayfa 2
First surprises
In fact, there was quite a lot to discover, both about everyday life and professional issues – and it was not easy to say which was more important, at least at the beginning. No wonder our first impressions were mostly concerned with the surrounding world realities – plastic cards, taxes and tips.
Plastic cards seemed to be universal; they served not only as phone cards (which was very convenient because they were rechargeable) but also as keys to hotel rooms and elevator passes – another advantage that saved us the trouble of touching metal which was very unpleasant because of the unusual abundance of static electricity. Taxes were also a real source of confusion as arithmetic is commonly not among EL teachers’ strong points. Dealing with taxes proved rather frustrating because they should be added to prices indicated on labels and to fees; so hiring a taxi we preferred to ask in advance how much it would cost. And finally, tips, one more source of irritation which remained as such till the end of our visit since we never learnt properly whom to tip, how much and what for.
There remained still another vital element of everyday life threatening to ruin the beginning of that promising period of our professional career. What I mean here is an innocent traveller’s check. The project managers probably underestimated the effect that our complete lack of practice in dealing with it would have… The Monday morning programme began rather early but we courageously survived the first three opening speeches succeeded by two lectures and then it happened. We received quite a sum of money to be paid for our living and daily expenses in those travellers’ checks and during a ten (!) minute break we had to learn how to sign and use them properly. And if it were only that! We fell into a trap not uncommon for Russians – we began to convert the sum into roubles and computations though simple were very time consuming. Don’t lose your head, now that you’re incredibly rich – my giggling opponent eagerly prompted me. But for the lack of time I couldn’t get involved into inner dialogues.
The result of comparison was astonishing but predictable – here was a society with higher standards of living (in spite of the fact that prices were often even lower than in Moscow) and getting used to handling new currency was only a question of time. No wonder, one of the lecturers whom we happened to meet later in New York remembered us as ‘those Russian ladies who were absorbed by toying with money for the greater part of the presentation’. Luckily the professor seemed to bear us no grudge – he was well (from our point of view, of course) rewarded for his efforts. He found a good pretext for ignoring our questions after the lecture – he simply handed out summaries to review when our money-shock had gone and busied himself signing a somewhat ‘astronomic’ honorarium, a sum unheard of for a Russian teacher in those days, much exceeding an average monthly salary. For us that came as a sort of an aftershock.
College policies and regulations
Americans’ attitude to college policies and regulations also deserves attention. Russians are often criticised for dogmatic and authoritarian classroom management; our strict approach to maintaining discipline is also said to deprive students of freedom to behave naturally etc. Below are a few extracts from The ELTI Student Handbook for the readers to consider.
Attendance. The ELTI (English Language Training Institute) has a strict attendance policy: you should go to all of your classes but you must attend at least 80 % of your classes to complete them successfully. This does not mean that you can miss 17–19 % of your classes and that will be okay – your teachers will lower your grade if you miss close to 20 %. You may think, “I can miss a few classes and it will be OK.” However, if you get sick later, the classes you missed earlier will add to your absences from illness and you may fail the class. Try to schedule any appointments at times when you are not in class; this includes any trips you want to take.
Punctuality. Coming to class on time is necessary for the class to start when it should. When students arrive late, they disturb the class, and in our culture this shows disrespect for the teacher and other students. Being late for class may affect your grade; in fact, your teacher may add two or three of your tardies (being late) to equal an absence.
Assignments. You must complete all assignments on time. Each ELTI instructor will tell you the assignment policy at the beginning of each term. It’s your responsibility to follow your teacher’s policy.
Academic Honesty. Copying the words or ideas of other people is called plagiarism and is a serious offence in the ELTI. Cheating is also a very serious matter in academic work. If you plagiarise or cheat, you will fail the test or assignment.
Needless to say how much we were surprised by the ‘freedom’ of behaviour demonstrated by some ELTI students (and not only those): they could walk up to a pencil sharpening machine or even leave the classroom, they interrupted their teachers and asked us, foreign visitors, questions that had nothing to do with the subject of the lesson, not to mention ‘tardies’. If it were the norm, one could only guess what was meant by ‘disrespect for the teacher’ in the Student Handbook.
And my bear promptly remarked that students’ good manners should be searched for in Russia.
Living in a hotel
Living in a hotel could also be a problem for a newcomer in the country because you’ll never know what surprises are there in store for you. Neither you’ll be able to master all the intricacies involved – especially when you are tired after a long flight and not very keen on observation. During the first stages of living in unfamiliar premises we made up a simple list of taboos which facilitated the necessity to cope with our ignorance of different regulations.
1. Don’t toy with TV switch buttons – even quite innocent searching for a good film could lead to turning a commercial channel on to be paid for afterwards.
2. Don’t use hotel telephones unless you know which calls are free – sometimes even dialling numbers from a phone card is registered by computers, the price being further included in your bill.
3. Don’t smoke in a non-smokers room – you could set a fire alarm on or simply be fined.
4. Don’t rely on enjoying a swim in a three-four star hotel swimming pool, especially in cold weather – although most of the hotels have swimming pools they are often outside the building.
5. Don’t use fire exits unless in case of emergency; once I tried it – the elevator was out of order – and found myself locked in the back stairs; I managed to escape just by chance.
“Didn’t I warn you at home that you should always be on the alert?” I heard the long forgotten voice. I had but to agree – over-relaxation might cost dearly.
6. Don’t forget to remove don’t disturb sign when you leave the room in the morning – otherwise your room wouldn’t be cleaned.
7. Don’t put things to dry on the conditioner; one of us was once woken up at night by a nasty smell of something burning – her socks in this case – just in time to prevent the alarm being set on.
8. Don’t completely ignore reading hotel instructions; brace yourself to at least leafing through whatever papers you are given at the reception desk – sometimes they might contain useful information.
The underlying idea was just to be careful and watching. Once on arriving at Charlotte, tired though she was, my colleague made an effort to open a small envelope – to find out that our status had risen to that of VIPs’. The revelation gave us a surprise in the form of a free meal (needless to say how we welcomed it after five hours of flying) and also a free access to the lounge bar and we enjoyed an excellent supper with a selection of refreshments. That was really a fine example of Southern hospitality.
We got amused with our being raised in status and took to experimenting. In our bathroom there was a note informing us that if we’d happened to forget any toiletries we’d immediately be supplied with any items we needed. In about five minutes after we called room service there came a maid and displayed for the astonished ‘VIPs’ (‘Very Impoverished Persons’ would be a much better name under the circumstances) what I’d call a weekly supply of toothbrushes, combs, soaps, shampoos etc. all nicely wrapped and ready. My roommate was the first to come to her senses and began making signs that the girl wanted to be tipped. In fact, the maid didn’t reject her dollar but more enthusiastically she welcomed our filling a service evaluation form with compliments for her efficient work.
