--- title: "5 Unexpected things I learnt from being a foreigner in Almaty." description: "February 2016, Almaty. By a French student currently in Almaty for one semester in Kimep University ..." author: "Lucielleinkzt" published: "2016-04-27T08:46:17+00:00" modified: "2016-04-27T08:46:17+00:00" locale: "ru" canonical_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/5-unexpected-things-i-learnt-from-being-a-foreigner-in-almaty-690986" markdown_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/5-unexpected-things-i-learnt-from-being-a-foreigner-in-almaty-690986/markdown" site_name: "Yvision.kz" --- # 5 Unexpected things I learnt from being a foreigner in Almaty. > February 2016, Almaty. By a French student currently in Almaty for one semester in Kimep University ... February 2016, Almaty. *By a French student currently in Almaty for one semester in Kimep University ; spending five eventful months to discover and get suprised and amused by cultural differences and unusual things from a foreigner’s perspective.*   **ONE. Kazakh Poker face** Do not worry or be offended if someone keeps punctuating one’s speech with a « mmh mmh » while you are talking to him or her, it is not that he doesn’t care or that you are getting on his nerves, it is simply his own particular way of noding… Okay, I have to admit I miss smiles and joyfull faces sometimes in the streets or while doing (the) shopping, since I have been accustomed to this whole « smiling-and-overwhelmed by Marketing » western society, but actually these are just two extrem, opposite behaviours. Therefore that is not so bad to experience the complete opposite of our own habits, and I even got used to this kazakh poker face in some ways. Because when one kazakh guy smiles, you know you deserved it or that he meant it. I came to appreciate maybe the genuineness of that poker face.   **TWO. OHaù! , Bus & Controllers** One day, I was told « You know, you can’t take the bus and pay the 80 tenges to the driver anymore, you need to have a card ». « Ok, fine, let’s have one then » I said. But where was I supposed to get one ? « I don’t really know either, in a newspaper kiosk or by asking a controller » I was answered. Me again, « What controller ? ». For sure I had always seen before one or two guys, even three sometimes, in each bus in addition to the driver ; collecting money, helping people to get on or down of the bus –because yes, the bus starts before having closed the doors and while you are still climbing the steps-, and shouting things all of a sudden –I happened to understand later it was the names of the bus stops-, but I had never seen one controller on the bus till then. So I spent about a week or two telling the bus driver « Извинитие, я турист, я нет карта ». And finally, when I got one and charged it (that is another story), … it didn’t work. So I spent some more days using my favorite ready-made sentence « Извинитие, Я карта нет работает ». … Please, excuse me for my poor Russian.   **THREE. Taxis** In France, those last 3 years, there has been a fight between taxi drivers and the UBER mobile application, and a whole commation about the legality of this service that links users to drivers without professional taxi or chauffeur licenses. In Kazakhstan, or at least in Almaty, all you need is to raise the thumb, and « Pop ! », here appears a car, or even two, three or more « taxi drivers » waiting for you when your plane had just landed at the airport. In fact, you don’t even need to ask sometimes, taxis are coming to you ! Actually, there is even no visual distinction between cars from a cab company or from an acting-as-cab company driver. Here, going by taxi –of any kind - is a really usual thing, and for a very good reason ! : Almaty is big, spread out, just one long strip. That leads me to this fourth point about road traffic…   **FOUR. Road traffic & Driving habits** Sometimes it seems that drivers think they are in a car video game. Sleeping policemen are no longer here to make you slow down but to be walked around ; there is no such thing as right of way nor at-the-wheel courteousness. The fastest is the first. One just has to drive a car and avoid the obstacles, the sleeping policemen just as much as puddles or potholes. Furthermore, just as in France, Korea or in other countries, making phone calls while driving is banned in Kazakhstan, but that is something people do sometimes anyway, well okay, let’s even say really often around here. Still, that is not what surprised me most. Imagine, we were going down from the mountain by taxi, moving forward on a snowed-up, narrow, winding road, and guess what the driver was doing ? Filming while driving. Needless to say French cops would be busy here !   **FIVE. Linguistics** Enough with cars, let’s talk about something more poetic… About punctuation first of all… I used to receive messages from friends, whole set with « ))) » at the end, and I wondered what was wrong with this guy/girl ! Someone finally explained to me, and I asked why one would use brackets when you can draw proper smileys with punctuation marks...I mean, why typing « ))) » when you can simply type « : ) », I still don’t have the answer. Also, do not try to figure out why Russian language uses this letter « O » and pronounces it like « A » when it does actually possess a specific letter to pronounce A. It is only for the purpose of getting foreigners who learn Russian confused I guess. So I was complaining about the hardship it was for foreigners like me to learn all those words with O instead of A, and a local friend pointed out to me, and rightly so, that it was the same in French language, and not only about A and O…   Большое Спаси́бa for your attention ! … sorry, I meant большое Спаси́бо ! --- Source: [https://yvision.kz/post/5-unexpected-things-i-learnt-from-being-a-foreigner-in-almaty-690986](https://yvision.kz/post/5-unexpected-things-i-learnt-from-being-a-foreigner-in-almaty-690986)