Living far away from homeland is difficult for everyone, but I believe it is always extra challenging once that place has no records of your huge and magnificent culture and history.
If Armenians in Europe can say "Charles Aznavour" or in USA can mention "Serj Tankian" and receive immediate response then the picture is quite different for Armenians living in China. Past 10 years of non stop story telling has been hard but at the same time rewarding and inspiring as I have got this wonderful chance of representing Armenia to Chinese people and start it from scratch. It has been a long journey of sharing with them my culture be it through music or just casual stories about Armenia.
"From Motherland to Fatherland" - is a 4 episode video series that is going to introduce Armenia to Chinese people (and vice versa). It will introduce our wonderful culture including music, traditional dances, food etc.
First Episode is Back To Basics - it has a simple goal of finding out what's the percentage of Chinese people that knows about Armenia and it's geographical location....and as you'll see from the video - it was not an easy journey!
So after a long and tiring questions - the only thing I could do was to tell them "Thank you" but as an Armenian I should do it in an "Armenian Traditional Way" which is saying "Thank you" in Armenian շնորհակալություն - Shnorhakalutyun - one of the longest words in Armenian! It is always more fun to teach this word to a non Armenian. And as one Chinese man asked me
- Why do Armenians need to use such a complicated word for a simple thank you ?
Hmm...I didn't really know what to reply...!
Astrid Poghosyan