(no subject)

[ariadnem]

I don't even know why I'm writing this here today.  *sigh*  Last Monday, one of my students called me an 'antipatriotic'.  I couldn't have laughed more...or felt more offended.  The thing is, she's learning English and calls me that because I teach English.  puff....Dunno how I could hold myself back and not hit her.

It got me thinking, I remember a while ago, cygny asked about prejudices, specifically aghainst Belgians.  It got me thinkling at that time, and it does again.

Well world, guess what?!  I'm Colombian!!!! and from Medellín.  Ohh yes, Pablo Escobar lived and died here, so did the Cartel.  Yes, it was my city the one in March's issue of the National Geographic Magazine, in which many horrible things were said about my country.  It is people like me, who's always stopped in the airports because we're allegedely charged with drugs....and so on and on and on...it's an everlasting list.

*sigh....again*

It's so easy to judge.  Maybe that's why I don't judge people.  I hate to be the one on trial.  I hate to be the foreigner.  Some months ago, a friend from Chile was telling me about how horrible it was to live in my country with all the terrorism and stuff.  People have no idea what it was like to live in Colombia 'till say 10 years ago.  Things are different now.´

There are a lot of good people still living in this country.

Some people, rant against those who say bad things of us, Colombians. I don't give a damn.  I know my country.  I know the people around me.  I can see the good in them.  If the rest of the world can't...well...what a pity.  You're missing incredible people, incredible places...bad things do happen, but my country is not the only one with problems, where the most well known, which is different.

I guess that's why it pissed me off to be called antipatriotic.  I love my country.  Very.  But it doesn't mean I can't like other stuff, like English.  Even Naty has called me names beacuse of English.

Why don't you just get to a language schooo, learn what you haven't wanted to learn and stop talking about what you don't know.  You're so frustrated because others can do what you can't, that you don't even pay attention to what is said. 

If being antipatriotic is loving languages, then I'm guilty at charge.

I better stop here....

Comments

[luxshine.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the club, Ari. Mexicans don't have it as bad as Colombians in the "Look, drug lords" fame, but apparently, we're the worst of the worst in every other aspect.

I'm about to go to my visa application this year to go to San Diego, which of course, in the eyes of many, makes me antipatriotic. Because, if you speak English, realize that yes, there are many bad things in your country, but there are also some good, and don't want to play the "Rebel" and join the forces against "The man", well, you're bad.

Just don't pay attention to those people. We anglospeakers of latin america know that learning english is part of love for languages, and the rest of the world can go fuck themselves if they don't understand that.

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

I don't really pay attention to that, I told her "then what're you doing here?"

I've learnt that a lot of people are just envious for what they can't or don't know how to do. They can screw themseleves if that's what they want. I was just...mad that day. I guess that's why I waited this long to write about it.

My country *deep breath* is the best, not because it's better than any other, but because it's home.

People...God...

[sagakure.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on managing to not to hit your student, I'd have had trouble not doing so too, in your position. @_@;

How can people so incredibly stupid as to call someone antipatriotic because of learning other langages? >_<;;
The only good side is that people who think that kind of thing are so stupid that they don't deserve us wasting our time with them. ^^/
A pity you still have to teach that kid, though. >_<; Eek.

I'm from two different cultures, and that makes that people from both countries see me as an outsider...which is very sad because I love them both. -_-;; So I know how you feel. ^^;

Good luck with refraining from kicking the student's ass. ;)

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on managing to not to hit your student, I'd have had trouble not doing so too, in your position.

hehehehe, what can I say, after having taught for so many years, I've learnt how to handle these situations. But I did answer with words. Thank God I'll see her only for three weeks (abnd she ain't do it well, so far) *plop*

People can be so intolerant, that they don't care about others...damn 'em. As I've said so many times, people like that missed the opportunity of getting to know wonderful things.

Their loss, my gain.

Let's see for how long I can refrain myself from flunking her....

[sagakure.livejournal.com]

Let's see for how long I can refrain myself from flunking her....

HAhahahahahaha!!! Ah the joys & compensations of being teacher! :DDDD
(I'd have so much trouble refraining from flunking some people!!!*lol*)

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

I don't like being mean as a teacher, but yes...some times it's so much fun when you can make your students pay back for what they do or say to you *evil grin*

muajajajajajajajajajajajaja

[cygny.livejournal.com]

I guess many of us are antipatriotic then. And in our case, whether you speak French in the French part of the country or refuse it because you think they should learn to speak Flemish, you're antipatriotic in both cases. It's a dead end. People who react like that are just so narrow minded. It's not because you're interested or even love what's outside your country, that you can't love what's in it and feel that's where your roots are. Even for the people who move to another country. That's like saying you can only have one friend, because it would be cheating on them to have another.

Don't listen to them girl, you know who you are and what you stand for and so do your friends and in the end it's all that matters. Hang in there! *hugs*

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

Amen!

I'm guilty I love languages. I'm guilty I'm Colombian. I'm guilty I am who I am. Take me or leave.

People are...human beings. I wish some were different, more open minded, more willing to learn from the others, but I gues it's a very Buddhist way of seeing things...

I wanted to move to another country once, you know? I wanted to go to the States and study for a while, and then return here and keep teaching; when I visited Peru, a couple of years ago, I felt as if by being Colombian I was commiting sin. I got to know people from so many different countries and all of them had such a wrogn idea of us, Colombians, and then of hubby and I because we spoke English...damn...sterotypes...I hate them.

I wish people could come here and got to know the side of my country that I know. Or my students and the bunch of losers who think I'm antipatriotic, to know all the things that i know just because of languages...but again, this isn ot a perfect world.

^^ hugs

[scorpioyue.livejournal.com]

Your student... really... Oh, how many times I have wanted to hit someone in the head for her/his stupidity. On the other hand, this people give us free entertainment, so how could I complain about it? *evil grin*

In my case, I don't take patriotism too seriously. Yes, I love my country and I think it has many wonderful things, but that's it. And I really don't care if someone calls me 'anti-patriotic'. I would laugh at her/him. Then again, I do that most of the times with different subjects, hehehe. ^^U

Peruvians don't have the best image in the world, either... :S If only people could see things different. *shakes head*

As for Colombians, I don't have a bad opinion about you guys. Yes, terrorism and drugs are a constant in the news, but it's not like every single person made their living of that. Plus, we have had/still have problems like that. No big deal.

Another thing is rivalry between countries. But personally, I don't make judgments basing myself in nationalities. That's irrelevant when it comes to know someone. ;)

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

That student...puff and it's not even good at it. besides she's got this know-it-all attitude which pisses me off, but I really give a damn about it. It just...I hated it precisely 'coz she's an English student. Coming from another person, I would've cared much less, but she's almost finished her course...¬¬...anyhow...

I love my country. I'm not a freak about it, I have to say. besides, here in Colombia, we're more from our regions than from the country itself. I'm from Medellín, therefore I'm paisa. That counts more for us than saying, I'm Colombian. It's a matter of, I don't know...pride.

*sigh*

I have no rivalries with other countries, although I did experience it when I visited your country two years ago. It happened in the frontier with Bolivia, when we were going to Puno...I always find these things...nonesense

As I said before, I wish people would get to know the other side of my country, but I guess it takes a lot of courage to do so. hhehehehehe, it's ok I guess...

Yeah...it's always great to get to know people :)

[muinteor.livejournal.com]

About language teaching... I’m Irish, and we have our own language, which sadly I am not fluent in. I was born in Dublin, and the Gaelic we learned at school when I was a kid was just that, a school subject, an exam to pass, nobody spoke it at home, everything in English. Just like English literature was an exam and not something enjoyable, and those old books were a chore to read. Thankfully I discovered later in life the joys of literature.

I’ve never been called anti-patriotic for speaking English, though in the Gaeltacht, the Gaelic-speaking regions of Ireland, I have felt out of place...

I’ve never been called anti-patriotic for Teaching English, but at times I have thought about the implications of language teaching and colonialism.

I’ve never been called patriotic or anti-patriotic, but I have been subjected to “special attention” because of my nationality.

I was in London on October 12th 1984, I was nineteen years old, it was my first solo trip abroad, and I was staying with an aunt. That day The I.R.A planted a bomb in the hotel where the then government was having it’s annual meeting.

I got stopped by the police, and got looked at strangely by people who heard my accent. I’d arrived a couple of days before the explosion, and I was going back a couple of days later... it did look kind of suspicious, I admitted that to a Special Branch officer while I was boarding the ferry to go home. Well, my bags got searched, and nothing suspicious was found, so I was let go.

The same thing happened 1990. I was due to go to London, to catch a coach that would take me to the continent. I was just a poor rucksack traveller then, and we didn’t have cheap flights then.

A few days before I left Dublin, there was an explosion in a military installation in England. This time there were deaths... so the British press were printing all sorts of horrible things about “Mad dog Irish” and stuff like that. My mum wanted me to cancel my trip, but I didn’t.

The atmosphere was tense in London, and as the coach I was on drew into Dover, the police stopped us, and a Special Branch man got on and said “All Irish, off the bus.”

There were about ten Irish people on the coach, so we were taken off, made to line up outside the coach, our bags were searched, we were interviewed. My tickets showed I’d arrived in England after the bombing, but I was still a suspect, after all, I was one of those “damned Republicans”, and I admit it, I am a Republican, and I’m a Catholic, and I’m a pacifist, and I’m a vegetarian.

So there are radical beliefs all over, there’ll always be someone ready to criticise you over something, whether it be ethnic background, political views, sexual tendency, language or whatever.

You be proud of your country, of your city, of your language skills and of everything about yourself.

Pay no attention to names like “anti-patriotic”, as Nana once told me “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

So to finish, you are absolutely right, Marggy, next time you see that girl, tell her to drop out of English class, say something like “Give it up now, otherwise you could become an anti-patriot like me...”

But never hit a student unless the school regulations permit it. As you so keenly point out, you can hit ‘em harder with the grades.

You keep working on your English and your French, and pay no attention to the narrow-minded ones who think that patriotism means rejecting everything not from your own country.

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

I'm proud of my country. More now than I was some years ago. I've seen it change, it's grown with me, and since I know its nice face, I can say not everything is bad.

Nobody has ever made e change my mind once I've put myself into something...too bad for them...hehehehe

[bloodyeye-mari.livejournal.com]

Being antipatriotic because you love languages... that's news to me. To my mind, I think that's just a lame excuse for not learning new languages.

As to prejudice, I don't think it's that easily forgotten. All places carry their stigma, and that's about the only thing newpapers advertise. Therefore, you can't blame the foreigners of knowing only bad things about the place you live in. I once exchanged letters with someone form Finland. It was very funny because she thought we Brazilians all lived on top of trees and had wild animals as pets. And I thought she lived in some sort of igloo.^^ I don't think that's something to take seriously.

My image of Colombia - remember I don't know Colombia: cocaine and great coffee.

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

I know!

When I visited Peru w/ my hubby, people from Europe asked us all the time about living in the jungle, not having phones, and stuff like that. That was funny.

Look, I can't blame people for being afraid of coming. It just...makes me sad, because due to all the bad things a bunch of people do, the rest of us have to carry the stigma...sigh...anyhow

I wish I can show you a better image of my country. Well, I hope you have one more feature to had now, "nice people" hehehehehe

[bloodyeye-mari.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, you bet.^^

[ariadnem.livejournal.com]

That's great ^^