Favorite Cultural Tidbits, A Countdown #20-#16

#20- Dangerous Playground Equipment

When I was growing up, four-square was definitely the cat's meow when it came to playground entertainment. I remember we used to "cherry bomb" each other, which amounted to chucking an inflatable ball as hard as possible at an opponent in one of the other squares, hoping that you could throw it so fast that it would hit someone before they could catch it. If they caught it, you were out. If it hit them and bounced off, they were out. You can imagine, this led to some bloody noses on more than on occasion.

But other than four-square wars, playground equipment in America is generally safe, and always was even when I was growing up. Nowadays, there are playground inspectors who go around public playgrounds and measure the stability of jungle gyms, the height and distance of a potential jump arc, and the hardness of the playground floor. I kid you not, I once watched a show on Discovery Channel where someone's job was to drop child-like dummies from the highest point of the jungle gym and measure just how soft the ground below must be in order for the child's skull to remain un-cracked.

These kinds of precautions do not occur to people in Kazakhstan when building playground equipment, or allowing children anywhere near said equipment. I feel like the general standard of safety is...well...actually there is no standard. I've seen playground equipment in Kazakhstan consisting of: a 20-foot metal ladder sticking straight out of the ground (where does one go from the top if not plummeting straight down??), wooden merry-go-rounds with massive holes in the base (imagine spinning around in that puppy and your leg falls through...), large above-ground gas and water pipes (wait, since when did they even become playground toys?), ancient Soviet swing sets not bolted to the ground, etc etc.

And let's not even talk about lead paint. What kind of paint can withstand Siberian winters AND come cheap, if not for the lead kind? America is a big anti-lead paint society but Kazakhstan seems to embrace it, especially on playground equipment like that pictured here. And nobody worries that their children will romp about, noshing on the playground equipment for an afternoon snack. Just like nobody worries that their kid will get injured in the frozen death trap that is the courtyard playground. Why? Because children in developing countries, where just walking down the street sometimes ends in the need for a tetanus shot, learn at a young age not to be a dumbass.

#19- Baby Sleds-

I'm going to piggy-back this one off the previous one, especially with the idea that parents in Kazakhstan have totally different safety standards for their children than parents in America. Winter time in Kazakhstan means many things, including frozen nose hairs, an ample amount of hot tea, and more fur than you can shake a stick at. But my most favorite (and I'm so happy I got a picture of this without being seen...creep...creep) is definitely the baby sled.

Baby sleds, like those seen here, are like the Nascar of Kazakhstan (OK maybe only to me when I see a group of them being pulled around a corner and I wonder if they will stack up and crash...). Parents can be seen dragging their children around in these (often homemade) contraptions; in the street, to the bus, to the store, around buildings, through ditches or over snow mounds, and so on. Everyone with a kid has a sled, and not a single sled has a strap of any kind with which to hold the child in place while traversing the rocky terrain that is permafrost. I mean we're talking INFANTS in some of these sleds, and not a one even has the likes of a bunjee around the mid-section.

And it's not like they try to escape, either! These kids know that there is nothing to be gained from rolling off the sled except a face full of ice. So there they sit, rooted to the wooden chassy by nothing but sheer determination. I. Love. It.

#18- Rug Cleaning:

Kazakhstan is a rug culture. Rugs are put on the walls, on the floor, and on chairs. Really, any hard surface can be rugged (read: the act of covering something with a rug, not the adjective synonymous with Russel Crowe). And because the people of Kazakhstan are meticulous with their cleanliness, the rugs must be cleaned on a fairly regular basis, which means that every weekend, I am awakened by the thump-thump-thumps of many of my quad-mates banging the dirt out of their rugs before washing them with the snow (see photo below).

This process can take upwards of 30 minutes per rug. The dirt is beat out of it, followed by a good dousing with snow, followed by sweeping the snow off, followed by more beating. At the very end, the rug is draped over playground equipment and left for several hours to "air out" as the case may be. Sometimes I wonder if any of the rugs have ever gone missing; like, you spend all of this time cleaning and preening your rugs only to leave them hanging and have them swiped. But then I remember that rugs are not a hot commodity because everyone has them, and people must be far more content with their own old rugs than their neighbor's. Ha.

#17- Ringtones-

As I've already mentioned in previous posts, cell-phones are the preferred method of communication in Kazakhstan, and are so culturally significant these days, not only for practicality but also for social status, that most people here have more than one cell-phone. This might not make any sense to you at first, so let me explain. In Kazakhstan, there is no such thing as the monthly cell-phone membership. There is no Verizon Wireless where you can go and sign up for the monthly usage you want, and then have an automatic deduction taken from your account every time the bill comes around. Here, all cell phone usage is pre-paid, and you must buy your sim card through one of the 4 largest sim card providers: Beeline, Active, KCell, or Pathword. All of these companies have different rates per minute, per text, and per region you want to call. Naturally, calling a Beeline sim card from a Beeline sim card is cheaper than calling to a competitor's sim card. Because you must constantly re-fill the balance on your cell-phone by depositing cash into a cell-phone kiosk, you want to make the most of your units while you have them. You don't want to call a Pathword number if you have Beeline. It costs a ridiculous amount of money compared to Beeline-Beeline calls.

This is why people have more than one phone- they have a "Beeline phone" and an "Active phone", for example. This way they can call both sim providers from each respective phone without running out of money in the blink of an eye. So what do you do when you have more than one cell phone? Obviously, you give each one a distinct ring-tone so you can decipher the sounds and automatically know which cell phone to dig out of the bottom of your purse (sidenote: nobody uses vibrate mode in Kazakhstan. NOBODY).

A lot of ringtones in Kazakhstan are American songs, because these short ringtone clips can be downloaded from the internet for free. But they're not the American award-winning songs that make you nostalgic for the rock and roll/classic rock days of the past. No. They're the b-list and teeny bopper pop music songs that are blasted all over the place, making you cringe to be an American. The only redeeming aspect of ringtone usage in Kazakhstan is the fact that very few people understand the lyrics they're downloading and assigning to their precious cell phone. I still find it a barrel of laughs when, for example, an older Kazakh man's phone goes off to "Loosen Up My Buttons" by the Pussycat Dolls. My head is the only one that turns in this case, and I'm definitely the only one smiling, for to everyone else it is just normal.

#16- Superstitions-

Superstitions are in an entire cultural class of their own, but for the sake of thoroughness, I must mention them on the count-down. Some of my favorite Kazakh superstitions include:

-You can't let money exchange hands after sun-down because you will have bad financial luck for the rest of your life. Instead, you must place the money on the floor and the other party must pick it up off the floor.
-Women cannot sit on the corner of a table because it is bad joo-joo.
-When someone is about to leave on a trip, everyone in the room must sit together quietly for at least 2 minutes in order to wish that person's spirit safety en-route.
-Using the air-conditioner will make your spine hurt.
-Sitting on the ground will make you infertile.
-When you empty a bottle, you must blow into it and never place the empty bottle back on the table.

-When someone gives a toast about love, you must make sure your glass is in your left hand, not your right.
-If you want to give a toast to love, it must be the third toast you give.
-You cannot throw away bread, you must respect bread, because without bread, life would be very hard indeed.

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