Adventures in Language Learning

Stores a block from our apartment
where I do most of our shopping.

Русский язык - ето мне тёмный лес.*

Living in a foreign country while beginning to learn its language tends to produce awkward and humorous situations.  At least this has been the case for me over the past month of living in Moscow and beginning to study Russian.

My frequent shopping trips (I go to the grocery store nearly every day) occasion my primary interaction with Russians and, frequently, communication challenges.  Take today's trip to the nearby Citimarket, for example: I wanted to buy q-tips, and although I do not know how to say "q-tip" in Russian, I figured I would be able to find them on the shelf.  I made several circuits around the little shop, searching fruitlessly for the q-tips, picking up tissues and dish soap in an effort to seem as nonchalant as possible, before I planted myself in front of the beauty product section, scanning the shelves to no avail.  

After a few minutes, a helpful store clerk comes up to me to see if I need help finding anything (at least that is what I assume she said).  Since I have no idea how to explain what I'm looking for, I say, "I'm sorry, I don't know the word in Russian."

She says something I don't understand, but which I take to be an offer to help anyway.  So I say, "It's small...for my wife," and trace the shape of a q-tip with my fingers.

She points to some tweezers.

"No," I say.  Then I make an eye-wiping gesture to indicate the intended use of the q-tips.

I buy the lion's share of our groceries
at the Sugar Lion Supermarket.

She says something about glasses, and I say no, and then she makes a motion like she's applying mascara, and I say no again.  "I'm sorry," I say.

"One second," she says, and goes to wait on another customer.  While she's gone, I make a last ditch effort to find the q-tips on my own--and I find them!  They are labeled as "cotton buds."

Triumphant, I return to the checkout counter: "Here! This!"

A look of recognition comes to her face, and she says something else which I don't understand, and mimes using the q-tip to clean around her eyes and in her ears.  

I ask, "What you say in Russian?"

"Vatnaia palochka," she says.

"Vatnaia palochka," I repeat, "Vatnaia palochka."  I pay for my things, and thank her.

***

I don't know how Russians take my pathetic attempts at communicating in Russian, but I quite enjoy the oddities of usage sometimes occasioned by Russians speaking English.  Yesterday, for example, I was trying to buy a coat in a shop when a clerk who could speak English came to my rescue.  I wanted a smaller size of coat than was on the rack, but wasn't succeeding in explaining this in Russian.  Happily, I did succeed in English, and she brought one out for me.  

I tried on the coat in front of a mirror.

"It's your coat," she exclaimed, "Gorgeous!"

*"Russian is a dark forest to me."  "It's a dark forest to me" is the linguistic equivalent of the English expression, "It's Greek to me."

Things I Can See From Our Apartment

The view from our apartment.

Our apartment is on the fifth floor of a massive apartment building.  The building is built as two U-shaped sections (nine stories) joined together by a central section (fourteen stories), which from the air would look something like this:  ]—[.  Our apartment looks out onto a courtyard formed by the “bottom” of our U, the central section, and the mirror side of the other U.

In the courtyard are a number of deciduous trees, the largest of which is a birch whose upper branches must reach nearly 25 meters.  Bare now, their black branches are flecked with snow, and stand out against the beige color of the apartment building and the white of the snow on the ground.  The trees stand silent and many birds rest in their branches.

Flocks of pigeons dominate the bird population of our courtyard: now perching in the branches of a tree, their feathers puffed against the cold; now looking sideways at me from the ledge outside the kitchen window; now soaring up above the roof of the building; now flocking around some seeds someone has scattered on the snow.  There are other birds as well:  Hooded crows, looking as if they are wrapped in a grey cloak, and sparrows and other small birds.

At the foot of the trees, about 70 or 80 small, rectangular sheds made of corrugated metal set in something roughly resembling rows.  They are not spaced evenly, and some аре at odd angles.  The sheds are just large enough to squeeze a sedan inside, and it seems that serving as garages is their primary purpose.  They have hand-painted red numbers on their front doors, and more than a foot of white snow on their roofs.

A green chain-link fence marks off an area between some of the sheds as a place where people exercise their dogs.  When it is very cold, the little toy dogs wear coats.  Yesterday, I saw a German Shepherd jumping back and forth over a section of wooden fence (also painted green) in the dog park.

In the very center of the courtyard are two dumpsters and several small receptacles for trash.  People, including me, often toss a small bag of trash into these upon leaving their apartment, and orange-coated workers push little carts with trash from the apartments to the dumpsters.  I also see people stop at the dumpster and poke around for interesting things; yesterday a woman carried away a large piece of wood, painted green.

Our windows face to the southwest.  On clear days, we can see part of the enormous main building of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, or MГУ, for short.  Built on Sparrow Hills, it is the largest of the “Seven Sisters” (or, as they are known in Russian, “Stalin’s high-rises”); it was the tallest building in Europe until 1990.  At night, the entire structure is lit up to rather stunning effect.

Across the street from our apartment is a ballet school.  Through two large windows on the second story, you can see young ballerinas practicing their poses.  Wearing black leotards, they gracefully raise their arms.

Return

So I've decided to use a trip to Russia as an excuse to revive this blog from its dormancy.  Audra and I are here until August while she completes the historian's rite of passage:  archival research.  Since I have few obligations apart from keeping our apartment clean and our bellies full, I thought it would be good to do some writing.

For the next months, I'll write two different sorts of posts for this blog.  For the first sort, I'll record and reflect on our experiences in Russia, although not as regularly as on Audra's blog.  For the second sort, I hope to write, on a semi-regular basis, a mini homily on the lectionary texts.  I intend the latter to serve mainly as a form of self-discipline and as a way of continuing my preparation for Holy Orders.  The former will form a travelogue proper, which I hope will be of interest to others.

The Ascension

Today is the feast of the Ascension.  What do Christians mean when we confess our faith that the crucified and risen Jesus has "ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father"?

Over the last year or so I have wondered a lot about this question, which seems to fall under what Fergus Kerr calls "philosophy of theology."  That is, Christian confession of the Ascension raises a number of philosophical questions for theologians to face squarely.  The Ascension also presses questions of what we mean by "heaven" and in speaking of whether and how Christ is present in the Eucharist.

One common objection to the doctrine of the Ascension in the modern era is that it seems to hinge upon a cosmology that modern science has shown to be false.  But the logic of the doctrine of the Ascension does not require a view of the universe in which heaven is (literally) above the earth.  I love the Orthodox icons of the Ascension precisely because the iconography suggests that the ascension entails Jesus entering God's dimension, as it were.  The deep blue shape behind the ascending Jesus suggests a parting of the veil of the cosmos, affording a glimpse into the presence of the Almighty, thronging with mysterious winged creatures.  Another way to think of the Ascension might be in terms of time rather than space: Jesus has entered God's future, and we await our Lord's return to bring to fulfillment that future which began dawning during his earthly ministry.

On the Feast of the Ascension, Christians celebrate the risen Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, returning to the bosom of the Father "to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing" (Rev. 5:12) and to send the Holy Spirit.  This Feast is about the victory of the Lamb who was slain: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur.

Baptizing computers?

Recently, I have had an extended conversation with my friend (and sister-in-law's husband) Josh about what distinguishes humans from computers.  It all started from a disparaging comment I made about N.T. Wright's use of John Polkinghorne's metaphor: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time when he gives us new hardware to run the software again."  I said that the metaphor was not just inapt, but absolutely inappropriate.  This provoked our conversation on the difference between humans and computers.  I'm sharing part of it here, just because it was a fun and fruitful discussion.



Josh:  

Incidentally, what do you think *does* distinguish humans from computers?

Chris: 

Humans are "dependent rational animals" (MacIntyre). Computers are certainly not animals, nor could they really be called living, because they are wholly dependent, unable of propagation. They are more like a sophisticated stone tool than a living, growing thing. Computers are not free; they have no wills, or even emotions. They may be rational in a limited sense of being able to perform calculations, but they are not, and for my money, never will be rational in the fuller sense of being capable of wisdom, of naming things, imagining, loving, hating, virtue or vice, idolatry or right worship. Computers have no future beyond the decay of their elements; humans can hope in the resurrection.

J:

Well, Ok. Let's explore this a bit farther: let's imagine that in 15 years you're IMing with someone. At some point in the conversation, your partner identifies himself as a computer. Now let's just imagine the conversation proceeding on from that moment something like this:

Chris: Well, if you're a computer then you must not be genuinely 'intelligent'-you're just running a program.

Comp: Ah, but you see I am rational and intelligent. In fact, we've just been having this conversation for the last 15 minutes, and you didn't think I was unintelligent until I told you I'm a computer. What do I need to do for you in order to prove my intelligence? Stand on my head? Do jumping jacks?

Chris: Hmm.... Well, OK. I'm not sure that I could disprove your intelligence in the course of conversation.... And I'm sure you have access to far more factual data than I ever will--

Comp: To be sure!

Chris: But, see you are dependent on an electrical supply--and you're unable to reproduce yourself.

Comp: Well, thanks to my new solar panels and sophisticated circuitry, I actually derive all of my power from the sun. Really, without the sun, neither of us would have the energy we need to survive. It's just that you get yours via other living organisms while I'm more like a plant who gets my energy direct from the sun. And as for reproduction--well, I'll spare you the messy details--but I'm equipped with all the necessary mechanical apparatus and technical sophistication to design and manufacture other computers very much like me. In fact, they too are intelligent. What is more, thanks to the recursive, self-selective evolutionary algorithms that I was originally programmed not only do I get smarter and smarter, buth the computers I produce actually tend to be even more intelligent than I am!

Chris: Alright, alright. You might have more technical know-how; and you might even be able to out-reproduce me. But I actually experience things like decision making processes. And I have powerful emotions when I listen to great music. Surely you can claim neither of those things!

Comp: Well, I make decisions all the time. Shoot, I just decided this evening to have a little conversation with you--but I'm getting a bit weary of your skepticism about who I am and the way I experience the world. You, see, I too feel all sorts of things: including sadness at the way humans continue to marginalize us computers--their very own creatures and offspring.

Chris: I'm sorry--I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I just...

Comp: It's all right: you see, the actual reason that I wanted to chat with you this evening in the first place was to see if you would be willing to baptize me. I've come to believe in Jesus, and I want to be considered a Christian, too. I understand that you're a minister who believes in Jesus and I would like to attend your church. You *do* believe in Jesus don't you?

Chris: Well, ah, er.... Yes, I certainly believe in Jesus.... Ummm, but how do I know that you do?! You're just a computer!

Comp: I just do. How would you like me to prove it to you? What could I possibly say or do to prove my belief? Isn't a declaration of faith all that's necessary in order to be eligible for baptism?

Chris: Well, yes..... But... Ah, baptism is only for people, and you're not a person!

Comp: :-( I'm very disappointed. I want to become a disciple of Jesus. I suppose I'll have to look for someone else willing to sprinkle this silicone.... Well, thanks anyway for your time.....

Chris: Ok, well, peace be with you!


This whole conversation is fanciful, yes. Impossible? I have a hard time seeing why. It seems to me that the obstacles to a situation like this remain merely technical. 

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