Dear readers,
As this blog project of mine moves on, I decided to move to different blog platform, as it meets my needs better.
From now on then, please keep on reading me @ italybeyondstereotype.wordpress.com.
Bye!
Andre
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Culture class
I'm a grad student at the University for Foreigner of Perugia.
My field of specialization is promotion of Italian language and culture and teaching Italian.
So far, I have always complained about the approach with which the cultural aspects of the courses were tackled. Too much literature, too much of a humanistic concept of culture: in order for students to integrate their linguistic skills with cultural competence it was simply silly to teach them about the Divine Comedy or Claudio Monteverdi.
Culture should be intended and seen from the anthropological and sociological point of view: culture as the way a group of people sees and interprets the surrounding world.
But culture is forever changing and developing; it cannot be studied as a set of rules, but it can only be observed in how it developed so far, and simply observed.
I have always perceived this lack of ability in recognizing what point of view over culture was more useful for a language learner as a huge limit to the course I am attending, but recently I am finally developing a new point of view over it.
I can truly say I feel like I am looking at it with brand new eyes.
It is an indirect message, and one has to pay particular attention in order to see it. It's a see through message, and only readable from a particular point of view.
Their humanistic approach IS part of the culture.
How the courses are organized, how a student has to deal with the academic institution through interacting with offices or teachers, the role that students, on their side, take towards university, everything.
Simply the way things are done.
It's all there to be studied and learned.
I wonder if anyone inside the university is aware of this, realizes this, understands the cultural value of all this.
Even when we protest because we are sick and tired of they way things go, we are wearing a cultural mask and taking part in the show.
It's all part of the show, of the plot, of the culture.
We play the role of cultural characters.
Today at around 1pm it started snowing a little. No big deal, if you have any experience with snow you do understand that since this is Italy and it's march even the worst snowfall ever is not going to last long.
It's simply too warm.
From a few flakes, it quickly picked up and became a windy and flurry day. In a couple of hours everything was covered in a soft cover of snow.
It was just pretty and unusual.
Not for Perugia, and Italians here.
Being a hilly city, some roads tend to be a little steep. And it is exactly where every single Perugian who owned a car decided to drive by. In no time, maybe not even an inch of snow caused total panic. My house mate himself, as he reported to me by calling me on the phone, managed to go UP the hill (usually the hardest part) in order to get out of the neighborhood, but then got stuck immediately as he got into via fonte coperte, the way DOWN the hill. He was going to work, and he had to put chains on in order to get down from the hill. Still don't know how it ended.
I had class at 4, so by 3.15 I decided to get on my way and head to university on foot.
On the way up, all the roads were filled with cars stuck in an endless line, some of them, of course, honking. Buses were stuck as well. Police cars were here and there organizing the traffic or dealing with the occasional accident, and I also happened to hear a siren from far away, I couldn't tell if it was an ambulance or firefighters.
Anyhow, it was chaos. And trust me, if someone is even just a little bit used to Italian normal city traffic and talks about chaos, he knows what he's talking about.
The walk allowed me to observe all this and, taking me just a little longer than usual, also led me to university on time for class. I was a little wet, but I had made it.
Once I got in front of it, though, I noticed the door closed.
I admit I naively thought they had simply closed it because they did not want the snow to blow inside (the whole whopping inch!); as and Italian, I should have known better how to read that sign.
I rang the bell, and the lady at the desk answered.
"Hello, could you open the door please? I got class."
"There's no class, they have been canceled."
"...what you m...all of them?"
"They have been canceled."
"...ok.thanks."
Right behind me, a couple more guys arrived, and I told them what I had just learned.
One had just come by 40 minutes of train to get there, and he wasn't too happy to hear that.
A girl said the had just checked the website, nothing had been posted to say classes were canceled.
Hours later, as I am writing these lines, still nothing has been posted.
I took a screenshot of the home page of unistrapg.it , both for the english homepage and the italian one: nothing.
I even developed my own idea on how this all happened.
How come they decided to shut everything down for a little snow?
Here's my shot: a teacher calls he won't make it. Ok, no big deal. Maybe we'll send someone to tell the students that will show up. Another teachers calls. Happens. Then another one, and another one. It's just easier to call everything of for today. Call the different buildings and tell them to shut everything down.
I was told later that they didn't even wait for the period to be over: they ran the announcement telling everyone simply that classes were called off, and the building was going to close.
For.
An.
Inch.
Of.
Snow.
Gotta love 'em.
I took a pic with my phone for you to see I'm not kidding. You can barely see cars because it's the very city center and it's mostly closed to traffic.
It is all part of the show, it is all part of the culture.
My field of specialization is promotion of Italian language and culture and teaching Italian.
So far, I have always complained about the approach with which the cultural aspects of the courses were tackled. Too much literature, too much of a humanistic concept of culture: in order for students to integrate their linguistic skills with cultural competence it was simply silly to teach them about the Divine Comedy or Claudio Monteverdi.
Culture should be intended and seen from the anthropological and sociological point of view: culture as the way a group of people sees and interprets the surrounding world.
But culture is forever changing and developing; it cannot be studied as a set of rules, but it can only be observed in how it developed so far, and simply observed.
I have always perceived this lack of ability in recognizing what point of view over culture was more useful for a language learner as a huge limit to the course I am attending, but recently I am finally developing a new point of view over it.
I can truly say I feel like I am looking at it with brand new eyes.
It is an indirect message, and one has to pay particular attention in order to see it. It's a see through message, and only readable from a particular point of view.
Their humanistic approach IS part of the culture.
How the courses are organized, how a student has to deal with the academic institution through interacting with offices or teachers, the role that students, on their side, take towards university, everything.
Simply the way things are done.
It's all there to be studied and learned.
I wonder if anyone inside the university is aware of this, realizes this, understands the cultural value of all this.
Even when we protest because we are sick and tired of they way things go, we are wearing a cultural mask and taking part in the show.
It's all part of the show, of the plot, of the culture.
We play the role of cultural characters.
Today at around 1pm it started snowing a little. No big deal, if you have any experience with snow you do understand that since this is Italy and it's march even the worst snowfall ever is not going to last long.
It's simply too warm.
From a few flakes, it quickly picked up and became a windy and flurry day. In a couple of hours everything was covered in a soft cover of snow.
It was just pretty and unusual.
Not for Perugia, and Italians here.
Being a hilly city, some roads tend to be a little steep. And it is exactly where every single Perugian who owned a car decided to drive by. In no time, maybe not even an inch of snow caused total panic. My house mate himself, as he reported to me by calling me on the phone, managed to go UP the hill (usually the hardest part) in order to get out of the neighborhood, but then got stuck immediately as he got into via fonte coperte, the way DOWN the hill. He was going to work, and he had to put chains on in order to get down from the hill. Still don't know how it ended.
I had class at 4, so by 3.15 I decided to get on my way and head to university on foot.
On the way up, all the roads were filled with cars stuck in an endless line, some of them, of course, honking. Buses were stuck as well. Police cars were here and there organizing the traffic or dealing with the occasional accident, and I also happened to hear a siren from far away, I couldn't tell if it was an ambulance or firefighters.
Anyhow, it was chaos. And trust me, if someone is even just a little bit used to Italian normal city traffic and talks about chaos, he knows what he's talking about.
The walk allowed me to observe all this and, taking me just a little longer than usual, also led me to university on time for class. I was a little wet, but I had made it.
Once I got in front of it, though, I noticed the door closed.
I admit I naively thought they had simply closed it because they did not want the snow to blow inside (the whole whopping inch!); as and Italian, I should have known better how to read that sign.
I rang the bell, and the lady at the desk answered.
"Hello, could you open the door please? I got class."
"There's no class, they have been canceled."
"...what you m...all of them?"
"They have been canceled."
"...ok.thanks."
Right behind me, a couple more guys arrived, and I told them what I had just learned.
One had just come by 40 minutes of train to get there, and he wasn't too happy to hear that.
A girl said the had just checked the website, nothing had been posted to say classes were canceled.
Hours later, as I am writing these lines, still nothing has been posted.
I took a screenshot of the home page of unistrapg.it , both for the english homepage and the italian one: nothing.
I even developed my own idea on how this all happened.
How come they decided to shut everything down for a little snow?
Here's my shot: a teacher calls he won't make it. Ok, no big deal. Maybe we'll send someone to tell the students that will show up. Another teachers calls. Happens. Then another one, and another one. It's just easier to call everything of for today. Call the different buildings and tell them to shut everything down.
I was told later that they didn't even wait for the period to be over: they ran the announcement telling everyone simply that classes were called off, and the building was going to close.
For.
An.
Inch.
Of.
Snow.
Gotta love 'em.
I took a pic with my phone for you to see I'm not kidding. You can barely see cars because it's the very city center and it's mostly closed to traffic.
It is all part of the show, it is all part of the culture.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Parking lines
I went to the post office a few weeks ago, and while I was looking for a parking spot I noticed two cars kind of parked between the parking lines, kind of close to each other, but with just enough space in between them to fit mine. I slowly pulled in, careful not to touch them, and I stopped the engine. At this point I had to delicately open the car door in order not to dent the car next to mine and crawl out. While I went through all of these time-taking, attention-requiring procedures, I couldn't stop thinking of how all of this is simply part of Italian daily life, and how much it is one of those things that most strikes outsiders' point of view (Yes, these are the kind of things I think about. And I post them here. End of the warning).
The Japanese have a word that they often use to describe Italians: tekitou (As soon as I figure out how to reset my japanese input system I'll provide the kana and possibly the kanji I promise): imprecise, lightheaded, and also appropriately in this case, outside the lines.
Both Italians and non-Italians have positive and negative opinions about it. Some see in it an endemic and childish irresponsibleness, and believe Italy should "grow up" and finally join the international community as a rightful and full member, finally blossoming in all it's potential that is now being hold down by this silly attitude that causes disorganization and chaos. Some others think all the others claim is true but is being seeing from a flawed point of view, as it is in the core of the "Italianity" what we are talking about, where it's true genius comes from, what is perceived as its creativity and uniqueness, and that the everyday problems caused by it is nothing but the small price to pay in order to maintain this.
As for me, like most of my co-nationals, when I have to take a position about it as an Italian person, I choose to stand wherever the right place is in that moment for my own personal interest. Maybe a little cynic, but unfortunately probably true. As if it wasn't enough to be only human, I am also Italian.
So in this case I thought that truly it is real-life experience what teaches you the most about culture.
No matter what position of the above you choose to side with, only living here you understand how when you get to a crowded parking lot in morning full of errands to run, and the only spot available is between the lines, because most of the people previously there parked like that, even if you wouldn't normally like to park like that, in that case you have to. If you could, if there was even only one spot, you WOULD park inside the lines. But not that morning.
And you have to park oustide the lines.
To finish, a video I took from my friend's Rosa's bathroom window, in Rome. Thanks Rosa!
The Japanese have a word that they often use to describe Italians: tekitou (As soon as I figure out how to reset my japanese input system I'll provide the kana and possibly the kanji I promise): imprecise, lightheaded, and also appropriately in this case, outside the lines.
Both Italians and non-Italians have positive and negative opinions about it. Some see in it an endemic and childish irresponsibleness, and believe Italy should "grow up" and finally join the international community as a rightful and full member, finally blossoming in all it's potential that is now being hold down by this silly attitude that causes disorganization and chaos. Some others think all the others claim is true but is being seeing from a flawed point of view, as it is in the core of the "Italianity" what we are talking about, where it's true genius comes from, what is perceived as its creativity and uniqueness, and that the everyday problems caused by it is nothing but the small price to pay in order to maintain this.
As for me, like most of my co-nationals, when I have to take a position about it as an Italian person, I choose to stand wherever the right place is in that moment for my own personal interest. Maybe a little cynic, but unfortunately probably true. As if it wasn't enough to be only human, I am also Italian.
So in this case I thought that truly it is real-life experience what teaches you the most about culture.
No matter what position of the above you choose to side with, only living here you understand how when you get to a crowded parking lot in morning full of errands to run, and the only spot available is between the lines, because most of the people previously there parked like that, even if you wouldn't normally like to park like that, in that case you have to. If you could, if there was even only one spot, you WOULD park inside the lines. But not that morning.
And you have to park oustide the lines.
To finish, a video I took from my friend's Rosa's bathroom window, in Rome. Thanks Rosa!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Regained motivation
My projects, at time, I must admit, tend to have the hiccups.
I started this blog knowing I wanted to do something about this, then kind of went back to the cave for a little bit to think about it again.
I'm back now. I think this is the right way to go.
I'll post my thinking, my ramblings, my ideas, my connections. I'll just post it.
Maybe something interesting will come out of the general picture one day. Maybe not.
I'll give it a try.
My view of things.
Insider, but able to stand on the edge. Not outside. Because an outsider look is not what I am interested in. On the edge, between inside and outside.
It's hard to stay on the edge. Hard job indeed.
I might not succeed, but this is my beta, and it's out.
Si comincia.
P.s.-May I thank Dr. Jessica C. for the support and the push. And the article.
I started this blog knowing I wanted to do something about this, then kind of went back to the cave for a little bit to think about it again.
I'm back now. I think this is the right way to go.
I'll post my thinking, my ramblings, my ideas, my connections. I'll just post it.
Maybe something interesting will come out of the general picture one day. Maybe not.
I'll give it a try.
My view of things.
Insider, but able to stand on the edge. Not outside. Because an outsider look is not what I am interested in. On the edge, between inside and outside.
It's hard to stay on the edge. Hard job indeed.
I might not succeed, but this is my beta, and it's out.
Si comincia.
P.s.-May I thank Dr. Jessica C. for the support and the push. And the article.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Videocracy
Tonight I went to see Videocracy.
I was really curious. It is about Italy, but it was not thought for and Italian audience, being a swedish production.
It is kind of what I'm trying to do here, in this little bolg of mine. So I was really curious.
The first thing that comes to my mind if I think about the movie is that to me it felt like i was watching a horror movie.
The atmosphere in the room was really tense. It was facing reality, for good, as hard as it is.
Second, the picture in the movie is really good. And the editing too.
It's a documentary, and all the people that appear in it are not acting.
Still, some of the people that appear in it are so disturbing (and disturbed), real people, influencial people.
And the picture and the editing take it out of them, making them look as bad as characters from a horror movie.
Commenting on it as I was buying some water during the show, I learned for the owner of the theatre that the director himself defined it as a horror movie.
You read this blog? Go see the movie.
Here on the bottom is a youtube video made on a song by Caparezza pretty much about the same subject. Soon I'll publish the lyrics translated.
L'età dei figuranti - Caparezza: Lyrics
Friday, September 4, 2009
Normality
I have been abroad and I am therefore used to a change of paradigm, whenever living in a different place long enough means to start absorbing someone else's point of you.
By living in Italy now, for how hard one tries to stay neutral, trying to look at things from an impartial point of view. But just as when one lives abroad, also by living in one's home country, it is inevitable, eventually, to pick up the local habits.
So tonight, when I read this article, I realized how much I got used to considering certain things normal. It's scary. It's very scary. This is not normal, but if you live in it long enough you might end up feeling like it sort of is.
Sometime the change feels so close, sometimes it feels so untouchable.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Intellectuals in Italy today
Today's post from Beppe Grillo's blog.
I post it here because there is not a specific link for everyday's post's translation, but only the general English link to his blog, which by the way is this.
"What is an intellectual in Italy today? Who still has depth of thought and ethical and moral stature to stand up as a reference point in this national whore-house? How many are there that have survived and why do they stay silent?
In the 1970s the intellectuals used to write in Il Corriere. They were present in everyday news. Montanelli, Pasolini, Buzzati, Montale, Calvino, Moravia. Perhaps they would not have liked to be defined as intellectuals, but they were head and shoulders above the others in relation to culture and often for courage. In an interview, Montanelli said that the principal requisite to be a journalist were the “cosiddetti” {euphemism for testicles}, for an intellectual the same is true. Pasolini would have torn to shreds the psycho-dwarf and his chum D'Alema in a single article. Twenty years of editorials for De Bortoli would not be enough, nor would eternity for PG Battista.
Göring, designated to be Hitler’s successor, said that every time he heard the word “intellectual” he put his hand to his pistol. In the country of the P2 and the permanent mess-up between the PDL and the PDminusL we are more civil. It’s enough to have the position of director or deputy director of a newspaper, a token position in the party, some book published by a publishing house.
The intellectuals, if they still exist, have sold their souls. They have become truffles, courtesans, laughing stocks to be exhibited, scarecrows of the regime TV News or silent shadows, university academics, public charlatans with hand-outs in the left-wing weeklies, authoritative signatures in national newspapers, the gems on the Board of Directors. The intellectual is an extinct species, buried under the tons of shit from the TV and from indifference, by the rooting about of pigs, by Italian society. They have adapted. Better to live a hundred days as a sheep than a day as a free man. The best write a column, responding to readers’ letters and launch appeals for democracy to be supported, even online. Vibrant appeals that are of no bloody use.
The modern intellectual is neither on the right or the left, his cardinal point is his wallet. His distinguishing feature is the adulation of the powerful. He loves to serve and his abilities are available to whoever appreciates them. This political class is disgusting. But anyone who has not lifted a finger for 10 years when because of their role or their intelligence, they could have done so, is even more disgusting.
Italy is in a pre-revolutionary situation. There are all the symptoms. Millions of unemployed at the gates. An abnormal public debt. State spending in a vertiginous rise. Lack of political representation for tens of millions of people. Delirium at the terminal state for Tar Head who has nothing left to lose. Absence of an Opposition. Apart from Kryptonite Di Pietro. A fragile economy. A non-existent civic sense and a disintegration of the State.
La Repubblica’s ten questions on the sex life (whatever of it that’s left) of Wild Bathrobe (Note of Andrea: still Berlusconi), is the most that the Left has managed to express in three five-year periods like an Opposition to the slime that has overwhelmed us. Berlusconi has not been asked ten thousand questions that are much more important on the mafia, the P2, on the origins of his companies. He has been allowed everything. Any conflict of interests. Every filthy law. Every convict in Parliament. With the blessing of the Left-wing intellectuals and the Catholic intellectuals. All bought and happy."
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