It's hard to stop writing in this now that I'm so far along. The thing is that when things in these texts trigger memories and thoughts, I can't just turn off my brain when I walk away from the computer. So now I'm hot and heavy into it and this text is really bringing thing up for me that hit to some really serious, central issues, so it's especially hard in such times to stop my mental wheels from moving. And if I don't jot my thoughts down on paper or here then I'm likely to forget them and get in one of those "I-know-there-was-something-else-I-wanted-to-say" modes (you know what I mean, because this is a pretty common experience in one setting or another). It's there, on the tip of my tongue, so to speak, but I can't quite pull it up. So in such times I just keep coming back to the computer to try to make sure I get everything down that I should, everything that might be helpful in getting my experiences across to you.
One of the things I'd like to ask the chaplain regards what he thinks of as "culture shock" (despite his, ironically enough considering the current discussion, having shown me a journal article to back up his "culture shock" theory of my experience), is whether certain circumstances I experienced early on in Russia would be considered "culture shock":
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1) Mr. Chaplain, sir, would it have been considered culture shock when I got angry at Mr. Malinin for trying to rig a situation in which we would sleep together? Maybe I was all wrong in getting angry and I was just experiencing culture shock?
2) Or was it culture shock when one of my first classes of students (about my 2nd month of being there), which was made up of professional and management professional from a local timber industry plant (think Soviet Weyerhauser) on the side expressed wonder at my treating everyone the same, despite there being one particular high-level executive in the group? Should I have done things Russian style? Was that culture shock?
3) Or was it culture shock that I took it in stride when my classroom was moved around?
4) Or how about when the accountant for the group I was initially working for had to go to her leaders (of which said Mr. Malinin was the highest one) for me to get the pay I was due and which they were withholding for some "unwknown" reason (speaking literally here)?
5) Was it culture shock when I was able to befriend the secretary of the first place I was teaching and also several of the teachers I taught? Was it?
6) Was it culture shock when I took the initiative to ask the Intourist guides where I could find believers and they arranged for me to be on a tour of English speakers that would include a stop to an Orthodox church in about 20 miles from where I lived? And without writing anything down carefully memorized the route and landmarks to be able to return on my own later, which I did... a bunch of times?
7) Or maybe it was culture shock when I was able to buy macaroni without a ration card, at which Russians I told this story to later laughed and thought it was very clever of me to be able to do that (rather unintentionally, on my part, though, because I didn't know that macaroni was one of the things that was rationed where I was)?
Clue me in, Mr. Chaplain, sir, please explain this here culture shock to me again, because I don't think I quite understand it.
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We'll get to all of these situations more in detail as my story goes on, but I trust my anger is only very thinly veiled. I think this is a case along the lines of where Jesus might have overturned the money changers' tables. But He would have been in a lot better position than I was, not just because of His omnipotence, but also because of His omniscience: He would have understood from the get-go (if not sooner) what was going on and would have been able to address it effectively. What the response of the Vienna leaders would have been is another issue altogether though.
~ Meg
