It’s official. I’ve officially lived and worked for one year in Kazakhstan. You may be thinking, “One year? Well, by Jove, you just left yesterday.” I know my lovely, effervescent personality is deeply ingrained in your mind, but it is true that I have been gone for that long. The last few articles have just been running narratives of the summer without much analysis of what has happened (or at least according to my exacting standards). So, as long as gorgeous, scantily-clad Russian pop singers don’t distract me too much, I’ll put metaphysical pen to paper and provide random thoughts about my first year in Kazakhstan.
1 – Grills: One of the first observations involves the choice of dental accessories here. Actually, it’s not really accessories since people have them inserted in their mouths. People here have mouths filled with gold. Due to a lack of dental hygiene, people here lose teeth much more frequently in the West. It should be said that a higher proportion of women have gold teeth due to a confluence of less fluoride, less calcium in the diet and childbirth, which causes more tooth loss than normal. It’s actually kind of endearing to see mouthfuls of Fort Knox. Still, when people smile, you’re blinded.
2 – Spontaneity: It’s hard to describe but people here are spontaneous and not at the same time. Administrations are very willing to volunteer us for everything from translation to singing in front of a crowd of strangers on 5 minutes notice. The flipside of this spontaneity is that they are afraid of new things. New methods are welcomed but rarely followed through. We do teacher trainings over here over which everybody is enthusiastic but rarely put the new methods into practice.
3 – Hospitality: Kazakhs will proudly tell you that they are some of the most hospitable people on the planet. To an extent this is true. To strangers, they are more than willing to extend ample food and lodging assistance. When they invite people over to their houses, there is an ample feast with ample amounts of vodka. Even if they don’t know you, they are more than willing to have you over for tea and supper. On the reverse side, they’re less willing to help you with other various projects. They’re hospitable in simple things, but long-term friendship by Western standards are not as prevalent. This may be ethnocentrism on my part, but trust, even after a year, is fleeting. I just feel that they are selfless in superficial events but selfish in events that require more work than a pot of soup. I don’t want you getting the impression that I’m bad-mouthing these people. Their hospitality extends far beyond what I have experienced in other countries, and it’s something they should be commended for.
4 – Food: What can be said about the food. Some people like the cuisine here. I am not one of those people. The national dish is beshbarmak, something that I believe I’ve ranted on in the past. To recap, beshbarmak is boiled meat with potatoes and noodles with a few onions. Haute cuisine, this is not. I do believe that Kazakh culture is not tasty because there is not street food culture and that people do not consider eating as pleasurable, or not to the extent of in the West. I’d say gluttony is still considered a cardinal sin here but people eat a lot and drink a lot here. They just eat a lot of potatoes and the like. The best foods, Manty (Uzbek dim sum), Plof (Uzbek pilaf), Lagman (Uighur noodle stir fry) and Vareniki (Russian ravioli) all come from other cultures. I blame the nomadic proclivity in the steppe to boil everything, which is surprising since most other nomadic cultures grill food. A burger sounds really good now.
6 – Fruits and Vegetables: I felt it was important to add a little subset to the food entry. My mother will probably be proud for what I say next, along with my 6-year old self wanting to punch me in the balls: I was actually jealous of another volunteer because he had broccoli. That is a sentence I never thought I’d say or write in my life. Like I said, this is a meat and potato culture so there’s not much demand for fruits and vegetables. Other than that, seasons do matter here, which has been hard to get used to. There are wild price swings whether it’s the right season or not, even affecting whether the item is in stock or not. Thank god it’s persimmon season because after that winter pretty much means a dearth of fruits and veg.
5 – Music: Music and dance is a big thing here in Kazakhstan. Every major presentation has a music component and most of the time a dance component. This music part comes in one of two forms. Form one involves a glorified version of karaoke. This could be a girl or a boy or a combination of them singing a song, either in Kazakh or in Russian. The form usually takes the form of a bad pop song with a horrible disco beat. The crowd obligingly claps along with the beat. Honestly, I believe people here slavishly listen to this kind of music just so that they can clap along without any kind of thought process on whether the music actually has any artistic merit. For you to believe that I think this music style is crap would be an understatement. I believe there is a special level of hell reserved for whoever produces these god-awful songs. Form two involves the performance of traditional Kazakh music, which can be endearing in its own right. Usually, this involves a dombra, or a dombra with accordion or other instruments. To the uninitiated, the dombra is a two-stringed guitar-like instrument with a movable bridge. In the hands of a good dombra player, and in small quantities, it can actually be quite pleasant and relaxing. Unfortunately, longer exposure makes your mind wander away from your body. This is no fault of the musicians, it’s simply that there are only two strings and most songs sound the same. I feel qualified as an amateur jazz musician, who appreciates saxophone and trombone artists who can only play one note at a time, to say that most of the songs take the exact same formation without much variation. I wonder if I could convince some musicians to take up jazz dombra over here.
6 – Astana: I feel that a special section needs to be included on the national capital of Kazakhstan. It was only in 1998 that Astana was named the capital of Kazakhstan. Some viewed this as a dictatorial move by the president, Nazarbayev. There were some legitimate reasons to change it, but this entry isn’t about that. The building in Astana is unlike any other city in the world. Any architectural idea, no matter how crazy, has been tried in Astana. There are giant Chinese pagodas, a UFO, upside-down ice cream cones, a pyramid, a magician’s hat, a yellow tower, a dog bowl, and a larger replica of the White House with a blue dome. It’s sheer lunacy. Most of the buildings wouldn’t get past staging because they’d clash completely with the surrounding area, but they get built in Astana. Unfortunately words can only get so far, so I hope to eventually have some pictures up.
7 – Communism: It’s kind of odd talking with people in Kazakhstan about Communism. The thing to remember about Kazakhstan is that they were the last republic of the USSR to declare independence. They did not want to be independent and contained a large amount of sycophantic yes-men. So, people here have a massive amount of nostalgia for Communism, “when everyone had a job and there was no drinking.” Now, this is not true, or simply seeing the past through rosy, nostalgic eyes, but this is mostly through historical consequences. After independence, Kazakhstan went through a terrible recession. Pensions couldn’t be paid, factories closed down because of inefficiency, and shelves lay bare. Through this prism, it’s understandable that there is positive nostalgia for this time period, but it is difficult to hold my tongue when the virtues of Communism (plenty of jobs, no alcoholism, etc.) are extolled. But it is a way of life, and you simply hold your tongue.
I guess these are all the thoughts that come to mind right now. I kind of wish that I could explain a little more, but seeing as my words are inadequate and that my thoughts leave me faster than I would like, this will have to do. I hope more blogs with plenty of coherent thought come forward over the coming year. All pretentiousness aside, it should be an interesting year to come.
