Cultural Engagement and Interaction in Venice

Written 3/12/18

In Venice,we have interacted with a lot of history, and we have also engaged with the locals we’ve met. Between new cultural customs and a language barrier, I’ve found interacting with the local Venetians challenging. This morning, I went to the mesa to check out the breakfast situation. I was talking to the woman at the counter and she said something about two euros for one option and seven euros for another, and I didn’t quite understand. I began to walk towards the food and she said “No, over here”, or something like that in Italian, and led me over somewhere but really nowhere and left me standing confused in the middle of the mesa. I didn’t understand what she was saying and I didn’t know what do, so I just left the mesa. It was not my finest moment when attempting to interact with locals.

While communicating effectively across the language barrier maybe isn’t my strong suit, giving up was not an option because I did not want to continue to be hungry and confused. One strategy we have begun to use is to use Spanish. While neither English nor Italian, it can serve as a starting point for getting our message somewhat across the language barrier.

An experience I had that stands out happened one night at a restaurant. I was waiting for the restroom and a waiter began to start clearing dishes and cleaning the tables. He needed to get around me, but rather than saying “permisso” or asking me to move, he just physically moved me and went about his job. I was startled by the interaction as it was very unfamiliar. While this experience may point me towards a sweeping generalization that Venetians are rude, I have to acknowledge my own biases. From Irma Richter’s selections of Da Vinci’s notebooks, the quote “All knowledge has its origin in our perceptions (6)” is relevant here. I am accustomed to Midwestern American mannerisms and way of thinking about which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. Whereas I perceive being moved with no verbal communication to be startling, that could be perfectly acceptable in Venetian culture.

If I perceive Venetians in a certain way based on limited interactions, I wonder in turn how they perceive me. Maybe not in the most positive light. Words that could be used to describe tourists usually fall on the negative side of the spectrum, such as clumsy and oblivious. I meet those stereotypes often, for example when I accidentally stop in the middle of a thoroughfare or trip over my own feet. If I lived in a city that saw as many tourists as Venice, I might be a little prickly as well.

Venetians also have unique customs that do not exist in Indiana or even anywhere else in Italy. Last night while walking, a loud alarm went off. We had no idea what was happening. We figured out pretty quickly that it was a warning for the approaching Acqua Alta, but it was initially disorienting nonetheless. When the alarm first started blaring, I looked at the behaviors of the locals for clues about what to do. They didn’t seem worried and continued to wait outside for their restaurant tables to open up. Because they seemed composed and unbothered, it didn’t seem like there was an impending catastrophe and we behaved accordingly.

One of the unique things about Venice that I have been fascinated by is the unofficial motto of the city. Once back at the dorms that night I made use of it in my own life. I was facetiming two good friends and one of them mentioned “Ally, you have spinach in your teeth”. I explained to her the mentality of “Com ‘era, dov ‘era”, which translates to “where it was, as it was”, and how while in Venice I should do as the Venetians do. It was there, it was green, and there it was going to stay until I brushed my teeth or wanted to go socialize.

--Ally

Sources

Da Vinci, Leonardo. Leonardo Da Vinci Notebooks. Selected by Irma A. Richter. Edited by Thereza Wells. Preface by Martin Kemp. Oxford University Press, 2008, Pp.1-11.