FTYT: Cultural Exchange


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Chamoru Love Sayings

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A student from my Zoom Chamoru classes recently asked me for some suggestions for some Chamoru sayings or words of wisdom that she could use for a speech she had to give for a friend's wedding.  I get this type of request pretty frequently and so over the years I have a number of lists of ways to say "I Love You" in Chamoru. For years that was one of the my most visited pages on this blog, a simple page that had more than a dozen different ways to say "Hu Guaiya Hao" ranging from the poetic and deep, to the silly and sexy.  When I looked at many of those lists, I realized that the majority of the ways love was expressed, was indeed written in Chamoru, but not necessarily rooted in Chamoru. What I mean by this, is that alot of the sayings were simply translated from English or variants of ways that love would be expressed in English.  For me, I am definitely in support of these sorts of things, I love having our language adapt and take on new forms, especially wh...
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Jean-Michel Basquiat

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  I don't paint as much as I used to, but I'm still an artist gi korason-hu. Achokka' ti mamementa yu' kada diha, manhahasso yu' todu tiempo put pinenta yan atte.  I have been inspired by many artists over the years, especially when I was an undergraduate and graduate student at UOG. At that time, I was painting a great deal and displaying and selling my artwork around the island.  One of the biggest influences on me, and something which made me the butt of a great deal of "måtai na pepenta" na jokes, was my looking up to Jean-Michel Basquiat.  He was one of the consummate bohemian artists, who challenged artist norms in his time, was used by the artworld during his short life, and then died.  When I first created an email account for myself in 1998, I was so enamored with Basquiat, that I didn't use my name, but instead blended our names together. Rather than mlbevacqua, I instead entered mlbasquiat. ...
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Bush and flip flops

George W. Bush, the ultimate flip flopper. He is the master of flip flopping kwan. I was remembering the other day how Bush, his pitbull Cheney and their apostles went hard after Kerry for his "flip flopping." Kerry was a wishy washy guy, always changing his mind, hardly leadership material. Bush in contrast, was supposed to be stiff and stubborn, the leader who, even though the majority of the country wanted the US out of Iraq, wouldn't even bend beneath the democratic pressure of his own electorate. The funny thing though is that more and more, Bush is leaving behind that stubborness and embracing his flip flopping nature, becoming a greatly skilled and masterful artist. He is so great in fact, he makes John Kerry look like some confused, afigao, nedok novice. Bush is a pro, for reals umbee. Unlike Kerry who usually needed at least two statements to flip and flop (with the notable exception of his claim to "have voted for the funding for the Iraq war, before voting...
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