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 Spanish courses in Salamanca, Spain Acredited by Instituto Cervantes All classrooms air conditioned Fourteen different Spanish courses throughout the year from two weeks intensive course to a semester programme Maximum of 9 students in each classroom Accommodation options: family, apartment, residence… Extensive range of extra academic, cultural and sports activities Free ADSL Internet and wifi Avda. Italia, 21 • 37007 Salamanca (Spain) • Tfno.: +34 923 12 04 60 • Fax: +34 923 12 04 89 www.colegiodelibes.com • delibes@colegiodelibes.com 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! Live Spanish tin America in Spain and La – 12 schools in Spain and 24 throughout Mexico & Latin America – More than 25 courses: including general intensive Spanish, Spanish & Internships, Spanish & Business courses, 1 - 40 weeks, all levels, all year, small groups – Home stay, student flats and residence accommodation in-country Spanish language courses For more information: dquk@donquijote.org www.donquijote.org don Quijote UK 2/4 Stoneleigh Park Road Epsom KT19 0QR t. 020 8786 8081 .it Italian language courses on the Amalfi Coast 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 1 01/09/2009 11:47 Page 1 Total immersion course in French Bergerac, Dordogne • Total immersion courses for all levels. • Three hours of tuition every morning in small groups (less than 8) with qualified French national teachers • 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 Bergerac (Flybe and Ryanair or TGV) Contact: Jane Hanslip Le Bourdil Blanc 24520 Saint Sauveur de Bergerac, Dordogne Tel: 07768 747610 or 0033 5 5322 7608 Email: jhanslip@aol.com Web: www.frenchinthedordogne.com 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 polyglossiamagazine@gmail.com 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 Design 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.