I was driving to the gym yesterday: shades on, sunshine outside, radio tuned in to my favourite channel XFM if you wish to know, only I am in mourning now that Alex Zane no longer presents the breakfast show According to a local mummy friend of mine, she pulled in a lay-by to give way to my car, and was frantically waving to get my attention.
I am used to being called a Russian or more often to be honest, a "mad Russian" by friends and other locals. I used to try to explain that: a No, I am not used to the cold winter because of where I am from, b No, we don"t have bears walking around the streets, and as a matter of fact, neither do the Russians.
But she made me think: I know precisely what she meant. I always recognize us, ex-soviets by this stern Eastern-European facial expression that a lot of us do indeed, have. I of course, can not speak for the whole Eastern Europe. But I have an idea why it happens to Azeri girls.
I have been trying to figure out how, after just two years or so of living in the UK, every time I went back, taxi drivers in Baku immediately saw me as a foreigner. Funny, isn"t it? Foreign here; foreign back home. Basically, foreign everywhere I kept wondering what it was. And I think it comes from an overall body language, including facial expression.
Western women are ready to smile. It can be a polite smile, a bored smile, or I -am- just- about- to- kill you smile. But they still smile, nevertheless. Bumped into each other"s shopping trolleys- smile away. Smile to waiters and shop assistants, bin men and joggers. Wave and smile to passing cars and adolescent girls on horses, who block the road and ride ever so bloody slowly. So really, my life here requires some regular facial exercise. But it is not the skill I always had.
