The Foreign Service Journal, January 2012

F OCUS ON FS R EFLECT IONS G ETTING TO K NOW Y OU 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2 y husband and I recently completed a four-year tour in Ukraine, a country whose culture was dauntingly difficult to break into. Hav- ing grown up abroad in a variety of countries, I’ve always considered myself a veritable chameleon, able to blend in and adapt wherever I landed. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that some cultures, like the post- Soviet one I was now in, are more difficult to penetrate than others. History has taught Ukrainians to be cautious with everyone, but particularly with foreigners. The years of a merciless, free-booting brand of capitalism that followed independence only deepened the wound. The average person on the street is unsmiling, taciturn and inordinately preoccupied with the ground as they walk — which, I painfully discovered, has more to do with broken and un- even sidewalks than history. Once I had been there for a few months, I asked an older lady, who had the unfortunate duty of teaching me Russian, why my neighbors looked at me like I had three heads when I smiled and greeted them. “Because they know you’re American,” she responded. Not quite getting the connection, I pressed the point. “What do you mean, they know I’m American?” “Because you Americans are always walking around smiling at everything.” “What’s wrong with that?” “What’s there to smile about? It makes you look stu- pid!” This was not an insult, but just jarring, Eastern Eu- ropean directness. Winning the Neighbors Over So perhaps I should not have been surprised that it took three years just to get a wave from a neighbor I dubbed “Bicycle Man,” let alone a greeting. Every morning dur- ing my pre-dawn jog, I passed this septuagenarian riding his equally old “velociped” up the square, then down the square, in slow circles, for exercise. And each morning, smiling stupidly, I waved and said “good morning” in Russ- ian without eliciting any response whatsoever. Then one morning during my final year in Kyiv, he waved back! I was so startled I stopped and stared, think- ing that he was perhaps swatting at a bug. He waved again. I was so excited, I cut my run short and hurried home to my apartment to tell my husband. A MISSING CAT FORGES CLOSER BONDS BETWEEN A F OREIGN S ERVICE FAMILY AND THEIR K YIV NEIGHBORS . B Y M ARSHA P HILIPAK -C HAMBERS Marsha Philipak-Chambers, an Office Management Spe- cialist, entered the Foreign Service in 2005. She recently completed a four-year tour as OMS to the deputy chief of mission in Kyiv, and is now serving in Tallinn.