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Click on the picture for the complete interview.
The latest edition of fashion-magazine Gloss contains a series of short interviews with foreigners living in Slovenia, including yours truly. Fellow blogger and NYC transplant Brian also participated, helping to make me look bad by comparison.
We were each given the same questions: What don’t you understand about Slovenes, what do you miss from home, what do you envy about people here, etc…
They were difficult questions to answer, especially in just a few sentences. Even more so if you wanted to avoid the usual comments. I tried my best.
I should mention that I got a lot of help from the journalist, Alenka Kotnik, who did a splendid job of translating everything and also made some very helpful edits. For example, my original answer to "What do you think about Slovenia?" was:
"To me, you are slugs in the sun. You are privy to a great becoming but
you recognize nothing. You are ants in the afterbirth. Before me you
rightly tremble. I am not a man. I began as one, but now I am becoming more than a man, as you will witness."
… which she changed to:
"Slovenia is pretty cool and stuff."
In retrospect, that was probably a good idea.
The complete interview is here. (In Slovene only)
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I bet they published this in “modelwatch”.
Good morning
Good morning!
Oh, if only that were the case! As it is, Gloss has very strict beauty requirements and gave me two options:
1) Obscure my face, Phantom-of-the-Opera style.
2) Agree to have George Clooney’s face photoshopped over my own.
I went with the first option.
“We knew him before he became a pop icon in the chicken-shaped country…”
Heading out to get the magazine, hoping nobody asks me why I want it.
* Because I could only repeat “Good morning,” and “thank you,” in Slovene, a number of times, before running away. No other reason.
** I assume I don’t need “how much,” as the price will be in the cover. Right?
Congrats on the interview! Although I am confused about some of the things mentioned in it.
According to the census bureau, there are more than 2% of foreigners in Slovenia. Not that it really changes your observation of intolerance towards them.
I don’t speak slovene and I would love to read this interview. Could you post it in English?
Thanks!!
I don´t remember what hat I pulled the 2% figure out of. I think it was somewhere where Yugoslavs (especially those living in Slovenia pre-1991) were not included in the final tally.
Alilia: I had my original answers in English but I´m pretty sure I threw them away. If I can dig them up somewhere I´ll post them here.
Oh, I didn’t mean to nitpick, I was just surprised at the number. 2% seemed too little for all the foreigners and way to much for just the ex-pats from USA or western Europe.
Just to touch upon your observation of intolerance to foreigners in Slovenia - I think it’s not a Slovenian thing, it’s a European thing. USA has an immense advantage in this sense, with its melting pot tradition and much less historic / cultural baggage. Even the most liberal European countries such as the Netherlands or Sweden experience quite a bit of lashing out against the foreigners (see Pim Fortuyn).
crni - We could say it depends on where the foreigners come from, if we really want to get into that… I have seen for myself the difference, how I have been treated in different countries (not as a tourist, but living there) and how other people are. I’ve always been on the lucky side of the equation, but it puts things in perspective.
it’s a European thing
Couldn’t agree more. Europe seems to have a consistent habit of defining nationality in terms of blood, rather than where you were born or have lived all your life.
Perhaps one significant difference between Slovenia and the west is that non-whites are relatively rare to see here, and they can still get strange (i.e. curious) looks. Or so I’ve been told from a few non-white visitors to this country.