Are you a foreigner, or what?
A decade ago, back when I was still living Moscow, I was arguing with an unofficial cab driver on the price to pay to get to my office one morning. After a while, the guy got upset and said to me: “Are you a foreigner, or what?”, hoping to annoy me. To which I simply replied “Da”, to his surprise. Note: I spoke good Russian then, I’d been living in Moscow for years, a significant part of which happened when I was not sober and I always found my way home. It’s the best way to learn, really.
Then, last week, I came back. Rather, I came back with my fiancée, in order to show her the old country where I spent part of my (very) formative younger years. In the 10 years since I left, I’d barely had the chance to speak Russian: whenever I met Russian speakers in Paris or elsewhere in the “West”, there would always be someone around who didn’t understand and we would inevitably switch to English or French. In other words, I started losing a language I’d spent 15 years of my life learning and grew pretty self-conscious whenever I did utter a couple of sentences in Russian.
Last Thursday, as we arrived at the airport and got ourselves a taxi, everyone would tentatively speak English to us, arguably because our backpacks kind of showed we were not from here. When we got to the hotel, the clerk asked whether she should speak English or Russian to us. We ended up switching from English to Russian: it was easier, her English was worse than my rusty Russian. After dropping our bags (and therefore the most visible proof that we were foreigners), we got back out again to a vegetarian restaurant which happened to be located right next door to our hotel (I didn’t realize that when I booked the place: that’s what they call a happy coincidence).
As we got in the restaurant, a waitress immediately greeted us with a welcoming “Good evening!”, showed us to a table, then gave us a menu in English.
Me: Honey, I think they speak English with us because you don’t look Russian…
Fiancée: That or your Russian sounds pretty foreign…
Me: Granted, could be both…
A couple of days later, we came back to the same veggie place: it was so conveniently located, and the food there was pretty decent. The waitress greeted us in Russian. And gave us a Russian menu.
Me: Honey, I think they speak Russian with us because you look more Russian now…
Fiancée: That or your Russian sounds a little better now…
Me: You’re right, I’m sure that’s the reason…
Feels good to be (almost) home…