She Said What?

Language learning is a messy business, lots of fun but makes you very prone to falling quite royally on your face, usually sprawled before a fine and rather large audience. Especially in the beginning when you’re trying your hardest to get your tongue and brain around the new sounds, wanting to recreate that which you’ve just heard or read, of course those first tries are usually dreadful, so far removed from the original that either you’re not understood, or the person or persons at whom you’re directing them burst into fits of laughter. This could be because your pronunciation is really shocking, you’ve said a completely different word due to your mispronunciation or you've got your fledgling vocabulary mixed up. One such story that has stuck in my mind was whilst teaching in Java, a teacher got the words celana and jendela mixed up. Celana means trousers and jendela means window. So there he was in front of his class, mainly teenagers and a fair few of them girls, and he decides to speak in Indonesian, not really sure why as he was teaching English and usually in our line of work we don’t use the native language in class, anyhow he asks in his most polite Indonesian whether he could open his trousers. I can see now the looks on his students’ faces, and the laughter that would have echoed throughout. Possibly a great example of how to get your students not to care if they make mistakes and just have a go. 

My own even more embarrassing story was when I had first arrived and I mean had just got off the plane in Java and arrived at my shared house. The first person that I met was our maid, she was tiny with the most beautiful features and sixteen years old. As a teacher over there you make enough by local standards to afford a live-in housekeeper. Desperate to make a good impression and horribly uncomfortable with the idea of having a maid, I wanted to be as kind as possible to her and show her respect. I had no knowledge of Indonesian at all when I arrived, so there I was meeting this adorable girl, a lot more humane than some of the teachers I was about to encounter and I asked her name in English at which she replied Apa.  Gosh I thought that’s an easy name to remember. That weekend I tried my best to communicate with young Apa when she wasn’t tied up with her work which some of my housemates unashamedly abused, I spent time with her and the dictionary. It was going along swimmingly, throwing about Apa this and Apa that, the only odd thing was every time I said her name she repeated it back to me but I just thought I must be pronouncing it incorrectly so I would conscientiously repeat it back to her, sometimes this exchange could go on for a while. 

I decided to do a little sight seeing but the guide book didn’t offer up much in the way of places, however the zoo certainly popped up and a friend of mine back in the UK had suggested I go. I managed to get across to Apa where I wanted to go and got her to understand that I’d like her to go with me. We got into a rust eaten, sweltering, rank Zebra taxi, and off we went to Surabaya Zoo. The first thing that hit was that it was heaving and everyone stopped to stare and I mean everyone.  What is important to tell here is that in Surabaya foreigners are a rare breed, and are a source of much entertainment. Forget the animals Apa and I were the main attraction. We did our best to move through the gawping crowds but smiling or saying hello in response to all the calls of “Hello mister!” was pretty exhausting. Finally we stopped in front of the monkey cage, the poor beasts, well all the poor animals, the zoo itself was one of the most distressing places I’ve ever been, most of the animals showed extreme signs of stress but that is another story for a different day. There we were in front of the monkey cage, me with my nose in the dictionary trying to piece together a sentence or two to speak to Apa, when some of the intrigued masses were brave enough to come over and speak to us. They asked us our names, of course they asked Apa in Indonesian and she replied Liz, I did a double take as I thought maybe I’d misunderstood their question. The group we were talking to spoke a little English so I said that her name was Apa, where they duly all started laughing but kindly informed me that her name was Liz and that apa means ‘What” in Indonesian. At that point the embarrassment rushed straight to my already red and sweaty face and flowed through every part of my body. No wonder we were having these ridiculous exchanges of me shouting “Apa” and Liz replying “apa” and me saying “Apa” and her retorting, well you get the picture. What on earth she thought I hate to think but of course she was nothing but lovely to me. 

Nan's Pick n' Mix

An old friend, if that is the right description, of whom I was very fond, who made me feel safe many years ago when I probably needed looking after but didn’t think I did due to youthful naivety, recently came back into my life via Facebook. So an old friend, in the most literal of descriptions is probably the best, asked me where I was currently living, he knows Manchester, used to live here but didn’t know Levenshulme, it wasn’t the area we used to hang out in at all and well those of you who know it will know it’s not the kind of place you go for a visit if you’re from out of town.  Not because there is anything wrong with it, there just isn’t a lot to see. During our correspondence he asked if it had been gentrified, such a wonderful question I thought and of course open to a piss take.  I want to make something clear before I go on I love where I live, am happy and comfortable but I do tell things as I find them, gets me into all kinds of trouble but some traits are hard to control.

Levenshulme is a big pick and mix of a place, the kind you find when you go and visit your Nan, they're not quite the sweets you’d have chosen but there are some great ones in there with the odd minger. I’m not one for history so I won’t tell you the past movements of the place, why people came and when, though I am sure it is interesting but I will tell you of the people who are here now. We have a mix of students, teachers and other professionals priced out of better areas, immigrants from all over, Irish Catholics and general fuck ups. There are so many characters around that my daily walk is never dull, I also find people here really friendly.  Almost everyday my eyes meet those within my community, we don’t know each other, have never spoken yet we exchange smiles which range from the very shy and gentle to broad, toothless grins, the young to the old, and every race gladly joins in this much forgotten simple expression of humanity. We are a madly mixed up smorgasbord, a lovely representation of Britain today. The only group that doesn’t smile at you is the students, too young perhaps, too up their own arses at this stage of their lives to reach out, not sure but that’s just the way it is.

As far as I’m concerned the people are the best thing about the area. The facilities are rather ramshackle, there is litter everywhere, it's slightly unruly never quite doing what it's told, there is a rather unsettling trend to put plastic flowers and plants in gardens and a lot of poverty.  I mean we can’t even afford an Oxfam, but then I’m not sure if that says more about Oxfam than it does about Levenshulme. We do have a great charity shop though, that I support wholeheartedly, get all my books from there. Levenshulme is not the ideal place to go out drinking either, my ex partner and I did once or twice when we first moved in but you can smell the sulphur just ready to light up, not a good mix with all those spirits being bandied about. When I could still go out and drink, I preferred a quieter place with good music rather than dodging all that flying glass. That said it depends what takes your fancy, doesn’t it? If you like a place with edge, not fully formed, a non-conformist as I do, as I am possibly, then this may be the place for you. 

For the Love of Boyo

The huge, pulsating, cockroach festering city sprawls between volcanoes and waters occupied by the Queen of the Sea, who is only placated by the soothing nature of green. Tourists are rare, either foolhardy or wise enough to ignore the mass produced guides which herd along those not interested in misadventure, just wanting to follow each other’s footsteps and recount the same stories but making sure that theirs is so much better than the last one they heard. Tales from the same city, the same bar, the same guesthouse, the same hidden gem. But this city is not one for the fainthearted, it will engulf you and beguile you should you be so inclined. See past the slums, open sewers and ostentatious Chinese new builds and stare deep into its heart but don’t falter as it is profound.

The brightly coloured sarongs are as ubiquitous as a suit in London. When you smile at a baby or try to play peek-a-boo with a child they will cry. You are an unknown, an unusual. Adults constantly stop and stare, their countenance frowned. It is good for the soul to know how it feels to be an outsider, a real outsider. You can’t blend in here, every movement is scrutinised, followed even. However, look deep into the eyes and crack a smile at your spectators and you will receive the warmest one in return that you’ve ever encountered.

The dust is thick, the pollution black and the torridity seeps into every pore, every gland and organ, then interminably seeps out again. Slow, heavy steps accompany this sudoriferous beat. Thankfully, decrepit, elderly gentlemen wait on street corners, muscles sinewed and glistening, putting to shame physical laziness, these are not the greased biceps of peacocks but the force of necessity. They repose, stretched on their three-wheeled, battered becaks. As soon as a customer is spotted the men are on their feet, some with broadened smile, some with faint hope, some with evident disdain, all call you over, knowing this is no place to walk. In the beginning with an almost stereotypical western psyche I pushed past with nose in the air, “I am the great adventurer I can walk”, and walk I did. There are no pavements as such, walking is considered a strange past time here, and usually only happens in air-conditioned malls. A five-minute walk is considered far and ten-minute walk is far too far. I had to walk in the roadside alongside five lanes of traffic, push bikes, becaks, mopeds, motorbikes, cars, bemos, buses and lorries. It didn’t take me long to turn my head and a wise one was slowly, gently, driving his becak just behind me. I got in one for the first time and the love affair with Surabaya began.

becak - pedicab

bemo – minibus used as public transport