Public Profanities

Living in Santiago will forever redefine how I experience conversing in public. A lot of the time I am comforted by the knowledge that 97% of people have no idea what I am talking about (refer to my February post about English fluency in Chile). When you are in this situation a whole lot of liberties are taken.

Each of us picking up on spoken English in Chile is like a blood-hound picking up on a scent (it's similar to that scene in Ghost when Vincent Schiavelli attacks Patrick Swayze on the train as he recognizes immediately that he is also a ghost). Scott has been eager to jump into conversation with gringos whenever he hears our native language. He's already drawn the hand out to shake, having also already offered his name in an introduction. I personally feel he enjoys hearing his name echoed back to him correctly "Ahh Scott, nice to meet you." All of us English-speakers do feel a sense of comraderie of overhearing English on a crowded train, in a store, on the street. Yesterday we met an American fellow named Justin and before the introduction Scott said he noticed something out of the corner of his eye with this Justin fellow... What you say? Well we were taking "the liberties" as previously mentioned (talking about finances and travel pretty loudly, not really monitoring the conversation at all) on the metro. Apparently Scott saw Justin watching (or at least reacting) pretty much from the moment we got onto the train; he finally approached and Scott offered his traditional warm welcome.

No I don't know if this is good or bad but I tend to take out any language and general barrier frustrations out on the train as well. The night of the electricity meltdown I had a string of bad words flow from my mouth when I saw we had missed the call from our landlord. Scott was embarassed because he was sure they "knew THAT word" yet I didn't see anyone flinch.

It went kind of like this:

me: %@#!, (#$!, &*^%
scott: cait?
me: what!!! they can't understand me anyway.
[each of us looking at people, no one looking at us]
scott: i think they know that word...

You might argue, no one would flinch if you yelled the f-word on the subway in nyc... Perhaps this is true but even if someone understood me here they probably wouldn't have enough English to tell me I was rude :) Which I completely, without a doubt was.

I sound a little bit rough, it's true. But sometimes it is rough. I completely do not expect to have the comfort of speaking English with strangers here but not being able to convey exactly what you want to when you want to can be pretty stressful.
Try buying a bicycle from a vendor who makes his own bikes and sells them (aka you need to ask for an adjustment) when it's a particularly bad day of speaking for you and the only "bicycle parts" words that come to mind are "seat" and... "bicycle"

Really though, it's going to be hard to actually monitor myself whenever I get back in English-speaking territory. I take comfort knowing I am not the only gringo to speak out loud freely, as if I am perpertually in my apartment bathroom... Coming back from Radiohead last night I saw three Americans discussing a rather risky maneuver a Chilean on foot had just pulled in traffic while trying to get on a bus (while he was relatively right next to them). "Whoah don't do what that guy just did, you'll be screwed." (Ok so that was boiled down but their actual verb was a little offensive so I shan't write it here).

And so I'll leave you with this little tidbit.
* Last night at Radiohead Thom Yorke (lead singer) said "buenas noches" as his opening comment to the crowd which technically would be incorrect because he was just starting the night, not intending "good night" but "good evening" instead (which would be "buenas tardes"). Regardless, the crowd went crazy. He then says audibly into the microphone "crazy" and the gringos laughed while the Chilenos kept cheering...