Small Talk in Azerbaijan
I knew the trap was about to be set yet I walked right in.
Coming to work today I took a little Soviet lada taxi driven by a man who had to be in his late 60s or early 70s. I started off speaking in Azeri and asked him to take me to work. We chatted a bit and when my Azeri vocab started to fail me we switched to Russian.
"So, young lady, are you married?"
This is the first question any woman in Azerbaijan is asked should she be traveling without a male companion.
"Yes," I replied.
The next question is inevitably, "for how long?"
"Three years," I lied. Why lie? Because I know that a woman who has been married as long me simply has no excuse, in the eyes of Azeris, for being childless. Yet I misjudged this man. I should have said "six months" to make it an impossibility.
"You have children?"
"Peka nyet." Not yet--the standard response which indicates that although you are not yet blessed with children you are giving it your best shot.
"Inshallah."
We were both silent for a few minutes.
"So how old are you?"
"Thirty," I lied again.
He looked at me in the rear view mirror. He proceeded to lecture me for a solid three minutes on the female reproductive system and scolded that it is very bad indeed to wait so long to have children.
There really is a wide cultural gap between how societies approach small talk. In the United States we tend to be somewhat sensitive about issues such as pregnancy and child birth. Especially with people we've known for, say, ten minutes. Can you imagine a New York cabbie questioning you on when exactly you are going to get on the ball and start populating the planet? Yet somehow here it is an absolutely acceptable subject of conversation.
As I sat in the back of the cab pondering this cultural divide, this seeming lack of boundaries between the public and the private, the cabbie piped up with another question:
"So, how much money do you make?"
Coming to work today I took a little Soviet lada taxi driven by a man who had to be in his late 60s or early 70s. I started off speaking in Azeri and asked him to take me to work. We chatted a bit and when my Azeri vocab started to fail me we switched to Russian.
"So, young lady, are you married?"
This is the first question any woman in Azerbaijan is asked should she be traveling without a male companion.
"Yes," I replied.
The next question is inevitably, "for how long?"
"Three years," I lied. Why lie? Because I know that a woman who has been married as long me simply has no excuse, in the eyes of Azeris, for being childless. Yet I misjudged this man. I should have said "six months" to make it an impossibility.
"You have children?"
"Peka nyet." Not yet--the standard response which indicates that although you are not yet blessed with children you are giving it your best shot.
"Inshallah."
We were both silent for a few minutes.
"So how old are you?"
"Thirty," I lied again.
He looked at me in the rear view mirror. He proceeded to lecture me for a solid three minutes on the female reproductive system and scolded that it is very bad indeed to wait so long to have children.
There really is a wide cultural gap between how societies approach small talk. In the United States we tend to be somewhat sensitive about issues such as pregnancy and child birth. Especially with people we've known for, say, ten minutes. Can you imagine a New York cabbie questioning you on when exactly you are going to get on the ball and start populating the planet? Yet somehow here it is an absolutely acceptable subject of conversation.
As I sat in the back of the cab pondering this cultural divide, this seeming lack of boundaries between the public and the private, the cabbie piped up with another question:
"So, how much money do you make?"
posted by Jessica @ 3:31 PM
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