Scott will receive a $75 Visa gift card for his story “Finding My Voice in a Chinese Choir.”

Honorable mentions go to Naomi Weeks ’13 for her story “Host Mother” and Anna G. Richardson ’13 for “Paris and PDA“.

Thanks to all of the participants for sharing their study-abroad experiences with us. View the spring 2012 entries below.

The finger pointed in my direction and motioned for me to stand.

I knew there was no one behind me in this corner of the classroom, but I looked behind me anyway. There was nothing: only dusty tables and empty chairs. I turned back to the finger, now a whole hand, still urging me up. There was no doubt in the world: our teacher wanted me to stand up and sing, alone.

“Does she really want me to stand up and sing, alone?” I said, incredulous, to my friend sitting next to me, an elderly Chinese lady. But she spoke no English either, and only answered by motioning me up herself. As she did so, a small ovation burst from the choir, all women. None of them knew a word of English; this was the only way they could encourage me. But encouragement was not what I wanted. What I wanted was a stern condemnation that would chain me to my seat.

But the cheering rolled on and on. I launched into a small fit of terror, raising my hands as a shield and unhinging my head so it lolled about like a dying gyroscope. The Chinese are fiercely bashful, though, and they mistook my panic for modesty.

Hoping the clamor might last long enough to disguise my solo, I finally stood. But the second I did everyone immediately hushed, and I was left by myself. The teacher sat down at the piano and began playing the intro to the piece, a revolutionary song called “Russia Has My Love.” I stared into space, trying to imagine I was alone in my apartment.

The first lyrics approaching like a freight train. Impossible, I thought, and quickly stepped aside as they whooshed by. But this was no escape. The women murmured reassuring things and smiled at me, and the teacher began again. When the words came again, I started in quietly, no louder than a whisper. “大，大！” “Big, big!” the teacher cried, but my voice could not be controlled. What volume it gained was gained on its own, like the rising whine of a balloon as it loses more and more air.

Halfway through the song I finally arrived at my full potential, a frightening bass-tenor mutant, and clung to it through the remaining sections. A minute later it was over and I sank down ten-thousand miles to my chair. “You sing well, we liked it!” all the women told me, or something congratulatory that I couldn’t understand. I knew they didn’t mean it, but just then I didn’t care. I was simply glad to be through.

At each of the choir’s weekly rehearsals during the next two months, I was inevitably called on to sing a solo. Each time I quaked with lack of nerves, feeling less like I was singing than clinging to the bottom of a cable car as it slowly made its way across a canyon. But always waiting on the other end, tugging the line along and waiting to catch me, were the twenty Chinese women of the choir.

They certainly knew what an oddity I was: I was American, tall, lanky, young, and a man; each of them was distinctly the opposite. To long-time members of the choir, my appearance this year must have been startlingly strange, like a husky who is suddenly born into a long line of poodles. But more than that, they must guessed what it felt like to be such an oddity. In joining the choir, I had wanted nothing more than to grab a seat in the back and blend in. Every time I stood up to sing this became clear, and they rushed to support and encourage me. I don’t think they ever heard me sing a bad note.

At a rehearsal two weeks ago, I sat and sang with the group as usual, nervously waiting for the moment that I knew was coming when my teacher would point to me to sing. After half an hour, it came: my teacher turned away from the piano and pointed her finger in my direction. This was it. I took a deep breath and silently steadied myself. I shook my shoulders and straightened the pile of music on my desk. Beneath the chair I braced my feet, preparing to heave myself up.

But the teacher’s finger was not pointing at me any longer. For a second it had lingered, considering, and then the teacher had made a slight gesture to herself, as if mercifully saying, “No, no,” and moved her finger so that it pointed instead at a lady in the front of the room, one of our best singers. Finally, she had recognized my agitation, and spared me.

Relief surged through me. Freedom! Anonymity! An observer once more! I sank back in my seat and sighed profoundly. I watched as our new solo singer got ready to stand up. She was nervous and unwilling, but not as much as me. The eyes of the nineteen other women moved away from the back of the room, where I was sitting, and settled on the front. She did not need as much encouraging, and they were quiet as they waited for the song to begin. The teacher waited for her to get ready, and turned back to the piano to search for the first bar.

Abruptly a voice called from the back. It was in English, and sounded desperate. “Wait, wait! I want to sing!” All heads swiveled back again. I was as surprised as them to discover that I was the one who had just yelled this.

“I want to sing, please,” I said again, this time quietly and in careful Chinese. I looked around. Already I was happy to see all their silently applauding faces again. With a look I asked the lady in front for permission to take the song. She was happy to give it to me.

I straightened myself into proper singing posture, and the teacher started in on the intro.

My host mother and I don’t say much to each other. “Olá.” “Tudo bem?” “Tchau.” She can’t speak much English, and I only know how to smile and nod in Portuguese. But sometimes, when her son is at work, and her grandson off in the city, when she’s not on the computer, and I’m not with my American friends, we try to connect.

With her body language, and the little English she knows, she can ask me if I’ve been at the beach, show me where my breakfast bread is, tell me it is hot in Centro where she works, explain the different types of bananas, tell me to wash my underwear in the shower, and confide in me that her favorite uncle has died, so she is too sad to go out and celebrate Carnaval. Grief is the one emotion that can never get lost in translation. I don’t know how to say I’m sorry, but I graze her arm with my hand, and she understands that I understand.

And today, after ten hours at school and feeling self-conscious for the first time while in this country, as I reheat my spaghetti and wash the lettuce, hoping my stomach can out wit the bacteria in the water, she asks: “Do she like it here?” Her hair is pulled back in a way the reminds me of my own mother, there is sweat on her brow, and her silk night gown looks far too glamorous for her to go to sleep alone. But her eyes are concerned, and when I finally realize she wants me to like it here, in her home, I smile wide, and say: “Sim… Sim. Sim.” Then she shows me the paintings she is hanging up on the walls; art that her son made and gave to her dead uncle. They are so beautiful, and so is she as she hammers away, with love for her family. I don’t know to tell her this moment is special, so I just smile and nod, smile and nod.

Paris is the city of love, the “most romantic city in the world.”

Or so they say, anyway. I, however, am not so sure. Perhaps this is because I have grown tired of the ubiquitous couples, attractive, well-dressed, giggling, who prop themselves up against walls, subway cars, benches, sidewalks, anywhere really, to whisper flirtatiously, touch each other intimately, and make out with enthusiasm. I don’t just mean teenagers either, I’m talking couples of all ages. They are by no means shy, Parisian couples. Their PDA would make one assume they desperately desire the attention, but they never seem to take any notice when people (me) watch them curiously, to see just how far they will go (it ranges). Older couples tend to do more hand holding, fond shoulder squeezing, or firm leg grabbing. Younger couples will sit on each others laps, kiss, etc. The most extreme I’ve seen lately was on a bridge the other night, le Pont des Arts, where a couple directly next to me was really getting into it, to the point that I wondered if this was what they considered foreplay to be.

I am a rare case in that I have never really minded PDA before. Whenever my friends would make a snide remark or complain about PDA, I was always the first (and only) to chime in that I thought it was cute, or sweet, or that it’s always nice to see people happy and in love. Of course there’s a line to be crossed—women straddling their boyfriends on public benches in the middle of the day is maybe a little much—but for the most part I have always appreciated PDA, either for the contentment it brings me to see happy people, or for mere amusement.

But now I live in Paris, where if not certain about it being the most romantic city in the world, I am 99% sure it is the most openly touchy feely city in the world. Many times have I wondered how this is the case. Although I have not found the stereotypes about Parisians being rude and anti-American to be true at all, they are not particularly friendly on a regular on-the-metro basis. Hugs are rare here in Paris, and smiling at people on the street never happens (unless you’re me, and you do it anyway). So how did it become the norm here to flaunt your significant other’s kissing abilities at any given moment, all over the city?

It might be that Paris truly is exquisite. It’s jam-packed with opportunities to be romantic and cutesy: the stunning view of the city at night from the Sacred Heart cathedral in Montmartre, any of the luscious public gardens and parks, a café on any given street, and of course, the Eiffel tower. Even beyond all the monuments, museums, and famous areas, the picturesque design and architecture of Paris alone is lovely—just stroll down a little back street and take in the people relaxing on a terrace, sipping wine, and laughing, or walk alongside the Seine at night.

The French love beauty, love love, and love savoring everything that is good. One of my favorite aspects of the culture here is that the French are world-class appreciators. They take the time to taste, to relish, to delight in, to praise, to exalt, to digest all the pleasures of life. No matter how hard someone may work, they stop to eat lunch and, believe me, really enjoy it. No one eats on the run here, and the only to-go cups you ever see are from Starbucks and McDonald’s, and those are rare. It is part of everyday life to sit down, order a drink, and enjoy it, not rush around downing your coffee while you yak on your phone sans acknowledging or noticing the rich flavors in the coffee beans, the dark sharpness of good, French espresso. That would just be wrong.

So perhaps the French way of embracing with undivided attention all that is good around them is reflected in their relationships as well. Perhaps they are just better than I am at living in the moment and really seeing what is in front of them. Perhaps they just like making out in public, who really knows?

I’m sure I would feel differently if I had a Parisian lover to skip around holding hands with, but I do not. Thus, I will continue to ruefully observe the couples going at it on bridges, in cafés, and next to me in the metro. They just can’t get mad if I don’t look away when they notice me. I mean really, what do they expect?

Congratulations to Jack Swallow ’13, winner of the November/December 2011 study-abroad writing contest.  The contest is part of the Goucher Passport Series which was created to provide a forum for Goucher students to share their interesting study-abroad experiences.

Jack will receive a $75 Visa gift card for his story “Ganesh Chaturti.”

Honorable mentions go to Caitlin Boylan ’11, Chiara Draghi ’13, and Serena Shapero ’11.

Thanks to all of our entrants for writing about their exciting adventures abroad.  View the entries below.

India is probably one of the countries most synonymous with tradition in the world. It’s the home of some of the oldest cities in the world, the world’s oldest major religion, the infamous traditions of caste and hierarchy, et cetera.

We arrived in India on August 22, just a week after Independence Day, so the first real Indian festival I really experienced was Ganesh Chaturti, the birthday celebration of India’s famous elephant-headed god.

It’s a hugely important festival, because of Ganesh’s popularity – as the compassionate Remover of Obstacles, Ganesh is sort of like the Swiss Army Knife of gods. You could pray to Indra for rain, Lakshmi for wealth, or Durga for protection against evil, but to do so would require visits to each of their three temples. But Ganesh is applicable to all of those situations – lack of rain is an obstacle to your crops growing, while the fact that you’re poor is obviously an obstacle to getting that nice Xbox.

Even more fascinating is the gruesome story of Ganesh’s birth. He was originally a normal, human-headed baby, albeit a divine one, born to Shiva and his consort. But Shiva was unsatisfied, and ordered his wife to kill Ganesh, an order she predictably refused.

When Shiva discovered that his son wasn’t murdered, as he’d requested, he drew his sword in a fit of rage and sliced the child’s head off. The sight of the beheaded child, however, filled him with remorse, so he then ordered his servants to go and find his son’s head so it could be reattached – obviously, even baby gods are pretty durable. Unfortunately, the child’s head was nowhere to be found. The servant, not wishing to return empty-handed to the Lord Shiva, despaired, until he saw a newborn elephant, lying in a nearby field. The rest, you can probably figure out.

In comparison to the beginning of Christianity, this is pretty violent. Jesus’ birth had lambs and kings, while this one has two decapitations and a head transplant. What this made me realize, however, was that Hinduism couldn’t really be compared to Christianity, or any of the other newer religions – it was more in tune with ancient Greek mythology, if it had never died out. What at first seems alien, non-Western, is really just old.

And Hinduism’s age is evident in most every aspect of the Ganesh Chaturti celebrations. It’s a five day long festival, though only two of those were school holidays, in keeping with the American tradition of 45 required credit hours per semester. The streets were lined with idol hawkers selling hundreds of different clay statues of Ganesh, from palm-size up to what seemed like it could be life-size. These were to be kept in the home for the duration of the celebrations, and then submerged in Bangalore’s lake, symbolically returning him to the earth. We bought a smaller one, and John – one of two Brahmins in the program – blessed it and built it a shrine in our apartment.

A local temple we visited made a burnt offering of one hundred and ten coconuts, and even more bananas, and piles of rice, for a ritual puja to the god, burning the fire indoors to fill the temple with smoke. Despite this, the place was jammed with people making their own offerings, while the priests chanted mantras, beat drums, and fanned the flames. At certain points in the mantra we threw rice into the fire. Though the temple was only a few decades old, this was a ritual which had been occurring, unchanged, since its instructions were set out in the Vedas thousands of years ago.

Though the temple ritual hadn’t changed, plenty of other things had. The idols used to be brightly painted, and some still were – but a few years ago the city government banned the use of painted idols, because it turned out Ganesh Chaturti was becoming a really awesome way to put lead in your drinking water. The processions carrying the largest idols, bought by temples or neighborhoods, to the lake, backed up their brass bands and drum sections with massive loudspeaker banks mounted on the backs of trucks. People danced in the streets, and BMWs swerved to avoid them. And at the end of the procession was Ganesh, massive and serene, seated atop a bed of flowers on a wooden trailer, staring resolutely ahead.

I think we followed the procession for about an hour and a half, alternating watching and photographing with crazed dancing. Afterwards we went to Mast Kalandar, a sort of fast-food restaurant, and had the Ganesh Chaturti Special Meal. Then we had to get back to our schoolwork.

Two weeks later, we still had the Ganesh shrine in the apartment, never having got around to throwing him into the lake. John told us it was bad luck to keep it around any longer, and he needed to be submerged on the fifth day of something, so we waited a few more days and put him in a bucket in the corner of the living room. A little later that night we took it out into the garden and poured out the water, though we had to scrape most of the clay out of the bottom. To me, at least, it sort of felt like disposing of a corpse.

I tried to fit the episode into a greater narrative about India, like the tensions between tradition and change, or a bunch of silly Americans miming ancient rituals. But it doesn’t really – the drivers who weren’t celebrating Ganesh Chaturti didn’t really seem to mind driving around the dancers who were, and the banning of toxic painted statues looked like it went through pretty easily. And not all of us were silly Americans – one was a devout American Brahmin, who recited the relevant verses from memory.

That’s pretty much India for you – if you know enough to make any sort of accurate generalizations, you will know enough to contradict every single one. One of our professors said something about how you could get Indians to agree with each other pretty easily, but first you’d have to get them to agree with themselves. You could say that India’s oldest and greatest tradition is confusing the hell out of people.

By Serena  Shapero ’11

Click here to view essay (PDF)

One of my favourite Scottish traditions that I have been able to experience since being here has got to be a ceilidh (pronounced kaylee).  Any sort of celebration calls for a ceilidh. We had one at orientation. There were many held by various academic departments throughout the year.  Just about every student club had their own ceilidh. You get the picture. What barbeques and mixers are to us, ceilidhs are to the Scots. Now you might be wondering, what exactly is a ceilidh? Scots are known for being loud, sloppy, and drunk – oh, and wearing kilts of course. Ceilidhs highlight all of these beautiful aspects of the culture. Usually at a ceilidh there is an accordion, a fiddle, and a caller; all the men come dressed to the nines in their kilts, and the beer and whiskey flow freely. And you dance. The dancing is very similar to contra dancing or line dancing back home, the caller tells you what to do, walks you through it slowly a few times, and then you are pretty much on your own. You switch partners, you spin, you jump, you clap (a lot), you slide, you run through tunnels made by people’s arms, you run in circles, you run in place, you hold hands, you play patty-cake, you skip, and basically do all of the things the caller asks you to do that you thought you would never do again after leaving the elementary school playground.  And the drunker everyone gets the more everyone smiles and sweats and laughs. By the end of the event everyone is red in the face (from drink, exertion, merriment, or some combination of the three) and your stomach and cheeks ache from laughing so much. It is easy to see why ceilidhs are so popular. You get to meet new people, goof around, dance like a complete buffoon, and just generally have a very silly, but wonderful time.

Couscous.  Every Friday, every lunch, in almost every home is couscous. Friday is the Muslim holy day, akin to the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday for Catholicism. Friday is the day that all believing men, and some women, attend Mosque, and for Moroccans Friday Mosque only leads to one thing: couscous. As Friday prayers come to a close, the Mosque doors open and men pour out hastily throwing on their shoes and rushing home to a heaping, steaming plate of fresh, delicious couscous.

I’ve had couscous in a few different forms; sometimes sweet with caramelized onions, other times with roasted zucchinis, squash, pumpkin and potatoes, always with meat—often lamb, occasionally beef—hidden somewhere underneath huddling in its warmth and moisture so that it literally falls apart in your fingers. And yes, your fingers, despite the small grainy texture of couscous it is often eaten with your fingers. Grab a fistful and smush it together so it stays like that long enough to make it to your mouth. That is how you ought to eat couscous in Morocco.

Couscous dishes are always plentiful, in fact my household of four girls is often served a dish sufficient for at least eight grown men, but leftovers are unheard of, the food in front of us is meant to end up in our stomachs by the end of the meal and that is never an easy task! Moroccan women tsk-tsk us, gesturing to our slim figures and to the food and keep pushing until the plate is wiped clean and we can only be rolled from the table to bed for our afternoon siestas.

Something I’ve found so wonderful about couscous is its simplicity—a grain-inexpensive. And since the dish doesn’t require a meat element, that part is a luxury; it is something that even the impoverished people of Morocco can enjoy which means it is a custom, a tradition enjoyed throughout time and space by all people.

Erin will receive a $75 Visa gift card for her story “Old Street Bathroom Visit.”

Honorable mentions go to Corinne Bennett ’13, Leih Boyden ’13, Sara Weber ’13, and Caitlin Boylan ’11.

Thanks to all of our entrants for writing about their exciting adventures abroad.  View the entries below.