Where is Moldova, anyway?

I don’t even need to ask if this happens, because I know it does. Mass media is the biggest venue for this cross-cultural exchange, but it can be seen in stores through products and signs, and on clothes as well. I’ve experienced it so many times. You are watching a movie or television show when you realize a song on in the background is in another language—but it doesn’t matter that much, it is, after all, background music. Or you walk by someone on the street who is wearing a shirt with a Chinese symbol on it, but you pass it off as a “style.” Or you realize, that a particular store is playing international music on their in store loop… but it just blurs into the atmosphere of the store. It happens. But here, I’m experiencing quite the opposite of it. I will be watching a telenovela in Russian with my host mother, and not understanding a work of it, but then I perk up when I hear an English song in the background. Or I smile when someone walks down the street with an article of clothing that has some English saying on it… like “born to be bad,” most recently. Or when I walk by a building and see graffiti of “Eminem.” But my absolute favorite is the radio—because it is all over—at the piata, at home and at work, especially “Radio Iasi” from Romania, that we get in Singerei, because they play a lot of English songs (and they are on average 5-9 years behind on what pop is popular). I will be struggling to find out from a Russian speaker how much money fruit is…, or squeezing into an overcrowded and hot rutiera trying to explain to the driver where I am attempting to go, or sitting at the table, eating my mamaliga, freezing my buns off when “ghetto superstar” or “I just called to say I love you” comes on the radio. You gotta laugh. The situation, everything.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 2:08 PM.