Communication

Daily life here has become pretty smooth, but thankfully it is still far from boring. I am at Shema (the after school center for deaf and hard of hearing students) on Sundays with the 8 and 9 year olds and on Thursdays with the teenagers. The other days you can find me at the Sign Language Research Lab, or at one of my half-a-dozen regular coffee shops bent over my laptop, coding, reading, writing, etc. In the evenings I retire home for life administrative chores (almost finished with my taxes ;-)), or out with friends for movie nights, dinner, dancing, etc. It has all become pretty routine, but still each day is necessarily a bit unique (and an adventure whenever I try to read a new menu or have a new conversation).

Last Sunday at Shema there was a person in the lobby/general hang-out area that I'd never seen before, so I asked some of the other teacher's aides who he was. They didn't know and told me to go ask. So I considered what vocabulary I had at my disposal for such an action, and feeling underqualified, turned back to my friends for a quick lesson, "What do I say?" They laughed and told me that I know how to ask someone who they are, and there I realized that I have indeed experienced the famous "Israeli directness".

Before coming abroad, multiple people had been sure to let myself and other fellows know that Israeli culture is generally more direct than American culture. I even happened to read it in a book about politeness in ASL ("It's not What you sign, it's How you sign it" by Jack Hoza). He describes directness on a continuum, with Japanese culture toward the end of typically indirect, American hearing culture further in the curve, American Deaf culture more direct, and Israeli culture toward the very direct end. I prepared myself to feel offended and hurt, and to make a conscious effort to not take it personally. And hoped I would find it a relief -- I tend to be more direct than most hearing Americans and hoped I would relish the new culture. But I have noticed very little of it in the seven months I've been here. I have heard the other researchers' stories, and a few of them have sounded a bit uncomfortable, but for the most part, I think I may have absorbed enough of American Deaf culture, that the directness seems normal to me now.

However. ;-) Not all of it does. This idea of simply walking up to a stranger and saying, "Hey, who are you?" had my politeness meter hitting the red, and I searched my brain for how to not come across so aggressive or brash, or . . .whatever the appropriate adjective would be. And then I remembered my first day at Shema, and sure enough, that's how it's done! I'm sure in different settings there are ways to soften the inquiry, but multiple people of different gender, age, and languages did ask me the exact same question, and every time I was a little flustered at the directness. Who am I? Well, isn't that philosophical! Where would you like me to start? Who am I? . . . (It especially threw me off, as it is a simple two syllables in Hebrew, "Mi at?", and yet takes my brain an extra second to even understand the words, let alone interpret their meaning, and formulate an answer!) I would kind of stutter out my name and nation of origin, explaining that I'm studying at the University to research ASL and ISL, and I am still learning Hebrew/ISL, and I'm at Shema acting as a kind of teacher's aide...(I tend to babble when I'm flustered)...or, that's what I was going for. Which words came out and in what order varied, but they got the idea of who I was, and definitely grasped the concept that neither Hebrew nor ISL is my first language, and that I'm certainly not Israeli!

So, when my friends encouraged me to ask who this unknown person was, rather than walking up and beginning with something like, "Hi, my name is Christina, I don't believe we've met." Or "Hi, can I help you?/Are you a new teacher here?/etc.", which would have been a linguistic challenge to me in itself (let alone understanding the response), I tried to calm my heart rate that was rebelling against the "rude" thing I was about to do, and turned to him, "Shalom, mi ata?" "Hi, who are you?", and then looked back at my friends, who smiled and nodded, "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?" Well, I still didn't really understand his answer, but they overheard it and explained to me after he walked away. And they laughed at me for beginning my inquiry with "hello". So American over-polite of me!


The teenagers are working on producing a short film in the same genre of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, etc., so half of them were downstairs learning a dance (there will be two groups of dancers: a modern group and a hip-hop group, and a girl from one group will fall in love with a boy from the other. . .). Something of a serious nature happened upstairs, and the guy that's in charge on Thursdays called a meeting with everyone to meet downstairs on the stage. Most Thursdays end with a meeting of all the students, and it's invariably a (I must admit fun) challenge every week to get them to settle down, pay attention, stop talking, etc.. While it makes the meeting run long every time, it's a lot of fun, filled with teasing and laughter, and I am usually pretty good at following the conversations, as they're conducted in both Hebrew and ISL, and there is so much body language that goes into it all, I can grasp at least the general jokes.

This week there was a completely different something in the air. I could feel the tension as sure as I could feel the stage beneath me, and I strained my eyes and ears to catch any snippits of the languages that would tell me what was going on. First I thought maybe it was all in my head (there had been a loud boom earlier, and the other night I was listening to a friend's stories about her experiences during the Second Lebanon War, and I thought maybe my imagination was running away with me), but then I noticed that not once had anyone interrupted him, let alone cracked a joke, or moved from the circle. He spoke for a long time. And I caught a word here or there, but could make no story out of them. And the words and signs continued to pour out. And the group remained still and silent. And he talked on.

Then there was a shift. I didn't hear an audible sigh, nor see the shoulders relax, but it must have happened. Somehow, the serious news was over. But still he talked on. And still not one person interrupted. And then, I missed the second shift...they all laughed. I exhaled.
Chocolate fondue was brought out, along with marshmallows, banana slices, and...bamba? With chocolate, really? (Bamba is a popular snack here -- it comes in a bag like potato chips, but are these peanut butter puff things. They don't seem like something I'd dip in chocolate. Shrug). Each person was given a stick, and some kind of directions were put on the floor with them. Then we were apparently going around the circle, and each person had to choose one of the things, dip it in chocolate, and tell some sort of story.

I was at a loss. Can you put it together better than I could?

Once people started chatting, I leaned over to one of my friends, "What is going on???" I whispered. She laughed. I think because I do well in the weekly routines, they forget how new and limited my Hebrew is, and they are often surprised when I'm lost. "Oh, next week is Purim, so we're going to play a game of clue. The king (from the Esther story) is going to be murdered and everyone will have to figure out who did it."
"What?! So, we're all pretending to be serious?? It's a game???" She laughed again, "Ha, yeah, nobody's really died. It's a game, for the Purim party next week. The counselors are each going to have a role, and it's like a mystery play." (I had seen him pointing to each of the counselors and saying something about each of them. Guess he'd explained who would be whom.)

I was shocked! How had I SO misread the feeling in the air??

I asked a few other people for their translations of what had transpired. No. It was not pretend. The second person I asked told me that there had been a fist fight upstairs and he was addressing that, the build up to it, the consequences, and future behavior. Then she proceeded to give me her account of it, her thoughts on it, etc. (I had indeed heard something about "This is not fun, but we need to talk about..." and "Look, if you don't like this or that, you can't just. . .")

I was confused again. I had two accounts of what had just transpired, but still no explanation for the fondue...were we sharing about ourselves so there would not be any more fist fights? Or were we giving our alibis for when the king was murdered, or something?

I asked a third person what was going on. She told me that you have to pick one of the three things. If you pick the Bamba, you share a funny story that happened to you this week; if you pick the marshmallow, you say what three things you would take if you would be stranded on an island; and if you take the banana, you have to share something about yourself that no one here knows. (I had actually heard something about "We have some people here that are relatively new, and maybe you don't all know each other...")

I was starting to put it all together.

The fourth person I asked told me about the fight again, and I asked, "And Purim? The play murder thing?" "Oh yes, we're going to play Clue." "And the chocolate stuff?" "Oh yeah, you have to share something about yourself." Pause. "So, they don't have anything to do with each other?" She laughed, "Haha, right. I know. We yell at them and then give them chocolate. That's a very Israeli thing to do, huh? It doesn't make much sense, but yeah, they had nothing to do with each other. That must have been confusing to you!" Naaahhhhh, not at all. ;-)

Ahh, it was a complete agenda, with three different activities: Reprimand and warn, Announce next week's activity, Execute this week's planned activity. Got it. Well, I thought my Hebrew was coming along; guess it's still quite dependent on context! But glad to know I hadn't thought it was a serious thing when they were all just play acting! Just hadn't realized each shift was a distinct event. Haha, needed to catch a few more discourse markers, I guess.