Chinatown, BA Style

Picture to the left: whole fresh sushi rolls for 5 to 10 pesos each. Of course we bought some for lunch tomorrow!

Buenos Aires Chinatown is fantastic. It should really be called Asiatown because there are a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean stores and restaurants. It's not at all like Chinatown in San Francisco or New York - much smaller, quieter, and residential, in a really nice way. Lots of trees, cobblestone streets and elegant, old-fashioned buildings. But more important than any of that is the food. The restaurants, yes, sushi, wonton soup, miso, cha siu bao, etc etc. But the real variety is in the grocery stores where you can find tofu, whole wheat alfajores, a million different spices, genmaicha tea, Skippy peanut butter and even Newman's Own light italian salad dressing! I realize that if you're reading this from the United States none of that sounds too exciting. BUT IT IS.

The same amazing kitsch you would find in SF Chinatown. We bought paper lanterns and a hideously scary dragonfly plant ornament to act as a scarecrow for the pigeons that congregate on our balcony, but drew the line at a huge golden piggy bank (we wanted it but 35 pesos was just too much.)

Newman's Own! 23 pesos for a jar of marinara sauce, that's reasonable...

Chalk and cheese?

Aeroplane? Realise? Colour? Pleasure craft? Talk round? Spelt??

Uhhh what the #$%@?!?!

So I have a new student, Rafael, who is (sidebar) fantastically smart and funny especially considering he is only 18 years old. I am preparing him to take the IELTS (like the TOEFL, but for British universities) so he can apply to colleges in England.

In class on Monday, I was looking through an IELTS practice book while Rafael did a reading exercise, and I noticed a somewhat disturbing trend. I couldn't answer half the questions in the book correctly.

For example: Complete the following sentence with the correct phrase.

John and Mary are complete opposites; they're like _______________

a) cats and dogs
b) chalk and cheese
c) salt and pepper

Umm... cats and dogs maybe? Not that I've ever heard/said anything like that. I checked the answer in the back of the book and it was b) chalk and cheese

Another example asked for a phrasal verb that means to convince. Talk into? Nope. Talk round.

Another activity asked the students to identify words that were spelt incorrectly. Yes, spelt. Hmm, I thought, they must be really getting into the activity if they are misspelling the instructions as well.

Well, duh. The whole book and the whole test in fact are in British English, the Queen's English, something that before you become an English teacher you think means a small handful of different words and expressions...

But once you start teaching English you realize it's like a different language. One that you are expected to teach as though you speak it fluently. This poor kid is stuck with me prepping him for the IELTS and I'm giggling at the word "pleasure craft" in a listening exercise.

C'est la vie. Thank God for the answer book. And cheers to England, even though I don't speak their crazy language, it's a lovely country with many fine things to offer the world.

UPDATE: Rafael & I were both very relieved to find out today that students are not penalized (or penalised, in British) for American spelling of words on the IELTS. He also thought chalk and cheese was a pretty silly expression.

Cortázar anyone?

The Buenos Diaries goes literary!

Sorry for the lack of real posts lately, I've been pretty busy, but it's always good to learn about writers and culture and stuff, right?

Here's one of my favorite pieces of writing ever, by Julio Cortázar.

(English translation below)

Instrucciones para llorar.
Dejando de lado los motivos, atengámonos a la manera correcta de llorar, entendiendo por esto un llanto que no ingrese en el escándalo, ni que insulte a la sonrisa con su paralela y torpe semejanza. El llanto medio u ordinario consiste en una contracción general del rostro y un sonido espasmódico acompañado de lágrimas y mocos, estos últimos al final, pues el llanto se acaba en el momento en que uno se suena enérgicamente. Para llorar, dirija la imaginación hacia usted mismo, y si esto le resulta imposible por haber contraído el hábito de creer en el mundo exterior, piense en un pato cubierto de hormigas o en esos golfos del estrecho de Magallanes en los que no entra nadie, nunca. Llegado el llanto, se tapará con decoro el rostro usando ambas manos con la palma hacia adentro. Los niños llorarán con la manga del saco contra la cara, y de preferencia en un rincón del cuarto. Duración media del llanto, tres minutos.

Instructions on how to cry.
Putting the reasons for crying aside for the moment, we might concentrate on the correct way to cry, which, be it understood, means a weeping that doesn’t turn into a big commotion nor proves an affront to the smile with its parallel and dull similarity. The average, everyday weeping consists of a general contraction of the face and a spasmodic sound accompanied by tears and mucus, this last toward the end, since the cry ends at the point when one energetically blows one’s nose.
In order to cry, steer the imagination toward yourself, and if this proves impossible owing to having contacted the habit of believing in the exterior world, think of a duck covered with ants or of those gulfs in the Strait of Magellan into which no one sails ever.
Coming to the weeping itself, cover the face decorously, using both hands, palms inward. Children are to cry with the sleeve of the dress or shirt pressed against the face, preferably in a corner of the room. Average duration of the cry, three minutes.

“Anyone who doesn’t read Cortazar is doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who has never tasted peaches. He would quietly become sadder… and, probably, little by little, he would lose his hair.”
-Pablo Neruda

Juno

Go see it! It's quirky and sweet and written by the amazing Diablo Cody. That's all for now!

P.S. If you're reading this outside the U.S., check out www.alluc.org for Juno & other American movies and TV shows that haven't been released internationally yet. They even have Project Runway!!

You're Hired!

What??? I just sent out my resume this morning and I already have a class to teach and 6 more job interviews in the next 48 hours. Anyone who says it's hard to find work as an English teacher in BA obviously doesn't have the good folks at EBC Madrid behind them. Within hours my email & voicemail were filled with requests for interviews - interviews that, as I learned today, are more like friendly, casual conversations that inevitably end with a job offer. My first job? Teaching English to an exec at Clarín, Argentina's largest newspaper.
Looking for jobs at home is an excruciating process of obsessive craigslisting, answering bullshit questions such as "what is your greatest strength, and what is your greatest weakness?" in job interviews, waiting and waiting for months, lowering your expectations, and secretly looking at job ads for exotic dancers.
And I'm sure that if you are Argentine, finding a job in Argentina is just as hard as for an estadounidense to find a job in the United States.
But, for an English teacher in BA, it's pretty simple - yeah, a college degree and some work experience are helpful, but your main qualification is being able to speak your own language. And of course, the TEFL certification... A degree that actually helps you get a job? That in fact, leads directly to a specific career path? I'm sorry, I majored in the Social Sciences, you'll have to explain that concept to me.
My point is, it's a very unfamiliar experience to actually turn down offers of job interviews, to breathe a sigh of relief when there are no new emails from institutes in my gmail inbox.
Not that teaching English is so glamorous - hours spent sweating it out in colectivos on the way to jobs in every corner of the city, hours of prep time and studying the mess that is English grammar, horrible pay, with no hope of a work visa...

But who am I to complain? I have a job!!! I'm going out to celebrate.

Sunday/ Domingo/ Vasánap

Back home in Yanquilandia, I never felt like Sunday was anything special. It was a day to sleep late, hang out at home, get ready for the coming week, do laundry, homework, or whatever, get over your hangover from the night before, and dread getting up for work on Monday.
Not so in Buenos Aires. Porteños take their day of rest seriously. Most shops are closed and good luck finding an ATM that has any money left in it. The streets are finally quiet and (relatively) empty. Sunday in Buenos Aires in the summer is a day to be spent outside, sipping mate in a plaza, going on a picnic in the park, making out with your novio/a, playing fútbol, working on your tan like it's a job. Above all though, it's a day for family.
So what is an expat to do? Well, there are some very nice street fairs - San Telmo, Recoleta, and especially Mataderos (folk-dancing, helado artesanal, very few tourists, Northern Argentine food...)
But this Sunday I tried something new and went to the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur in Puerto Madero. It's basically a long boardwalk, lots of sunny, grassy areas, a little crafts fair, some random carnival rides for kids, and a huge nature reserve/ bird sanctuary. For a nature reserve, yeah, it's not spectacularly pretty. But it's a lovely scene anyway, lots and lots of families, little kids running around, dogs, a parrilla stand every 10 feet and ice cream vendors on bikes.
Sophy and I made it our mission to try as much food as possible and between us ate a choripan (chorizo on bread), a homemade alfajor, and a bondiola (a sandwich made with grilled pork), all delicious and very fresh. I could tell you other nice things about Costanera Sur but really, aren't the 700 parrillas enough reason to go?