Fear and Loathing in Salamanca

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So folks I figured now was about the time to write about some of the issues I've been having in Spain. I'd like to blame all my problems on my mother, in fact I'm under the impression that's what most people do in times of crisis: I'm feeling a bit nauseous, clearly my mother didn't hug me enough when I was a baby, The IRS is auditing me, obviously this is mother's doing, and that whole pesky flood thing in Alicante took place just when mother refused to turn off the tap.

No my problems just like most others can be traced back to one source at this point. Being a foriegner. You see in Japan being a foriegner carries some kind of stigma. It doesn't matter where you come from or what you do, if you are a gaijin (foriegn person) you are condemned to a life of public appreciation and private vilivication. Don't even think about buying a house, living among decent Japanese people, not going to happen. This does not hold true for Spain and I supposed this had me coddled for a while, the idea that I could fit in here. Maybe I can, but I'm not sure now.

Learning the language in Spain is essential, while in Japan it's not. You can live in Japan for ten years and only know how to order beer, but after ten years in Spain you will have a pretty decent control of your castellano. This is what led me to think that doing a masters in salamanca should not be a big deal, I speak the langauge after all, it's just a matter of study to improve my translation abilities.

This was how I felt before I spent three hours the other day on a translation, which later I was told was almost incomprehensible. That's a real kick in the butt. There's also the fact that my biomedical translations teacher can not pronounce my name. I'm sorry, I don't care if you can translate a medical encylopedia from Spanish to English, if you do not know that R.a.c.h.e.l is pronounced rei-chell and not rah-chell (try to roll the R to make it sound worse please) you need to brush up on your basic language skills. I would even prefer Raquel, ra-chel sounds like some sort of liver parasite.

It's not just in the masters, its also the fact that Salamanca is full of paletos (country bumpkins, best translated) who have never even been to Madrid (two hours away) and therefore can not understand you if you pronounce a word even slightly differently than they do. I'm serious, someone from Barcelona could come here and have a very difficult time being understood. The other day I had a problem getting a croissant because I still pronounce the word like it is in French instead of the hideous sounding Kurowassant they use in Spanish. The girl behind the bar told me that it's very hard to speak a language that's not you own, I wanted to ask her "for example French?!

No everything here has to be said a certain way. The Spanish are extremely spoiled by the fact that ALL of their television and cinema is dubbed into castellano. This allows them the privledge of being exposed to Hollywood movies without having to listen to pesky words in another langauge. Therefore we have Eh-speederman instead of Spiderman. This makes me want to embark on a campaign to pronounce the word tortilla (which in english is pronounced the correct way, tort-i-ya) the english way: Tortilla, ryhmes with Godzilla.

I guess it just boils down to the fact being a stranger in a strangeland is hard no matter where you are. My friends in France, Italy, South Africa, Japan, Malaysia etc etc have all said the same. Anyway dear readers more next week when hopefully my spirits have lifted a bit.

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