Back to Culture Smart! Now that I have been here a while and have talked to more Armenians and to PCVs who live in towns and villages, I can confirm that what I read about is also what I or others have experienced.
Some values and attitudes noted in the book – family, education, hospitality, and intense national pride. The typical family maintains conservative, traditional values. Women marry in their early or mid-twenties and men only slightly later (my tutor notes that women tend to have their first child nine months after marriage…). They typically have two to three children (my tutor notes that unless they have three, the population will continue to decline) and marriages tend to last for life. Divorce exists, but is somewhat taboo. Young married men often bring their wives home to live under the parental roof. “An Armenian is not supposed to be alone.” Aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives are near, and children are doted on. Sound familiar? It is like the other countries in which I have served! Well, except for family size – though in Morocco, families are now about the same size, but for economic and not cultural reasons – the generation currently having children there has many siblings. Back to Armenia - abortions are legal, and tend to be a well-used form of birth control (the pill is available, but expensive). Although birth rates have declined, Armenia is a relatively young country.
Gender roles sound familiar too – in traditional families, a boy is treated differently from his sisters. He is not expected to do chores; a female relative will clean up after him. The man of the house is responsible for the family income and for major economic decisions. Women cook, clean and raise the children. My tutor says that the man is king but the woman is queen – that she is important too, in her domain. Then again, my tutor is not married. Nor is my host mother, nor Gordon and Jeanne’s host mother – she says that due to migration, there is a generation of older unmarried women. I think I have mentioned before that many men have been forced by unemployment to leave the country and work in Russia – so there is even more of a burden on the women who remain behind. People of the same sex often hold hands or kiss, but this is considered part of tradition; gay life here is difficult – and public displays of affection between men and women is frowned upon (again, this sounds familiar). In Yerevan, though, I often see couples necking – on the Cascade, in the back corners of the non-smoking rooms in the tea salons and the gelato place. Since they live at home, they have nowhere to go….There are vast differences in wealth across the country. Yerevan, with one-third of the country’s population, produces more than half of the gross domestic product. About half of the rural population lives in poverty. An enormously wealthy class of oligarchs has made its way to the top of society and, since independence, this new elite has hampered economic reform. Influential businessmen not only control key industries but also sit in parliament. Why does some of this sound like the United States to me? In recent years, the value of the dram has grown dramatically (now about 360 to the dollar), affecting local producers who want to export goods, but benefiting the few oligarch importers. In general, it is a cash society. Armenia has socialized medicine, though quality of service is sometimes lacking. Retirees have pensions, but the money is barely enough to buy groceries. Dental services are known to have high standards, and many diaspora Armenians fly in to get high-quality dentistry for a reasonable price. I can attest to the quality of the dental care!
Armenians are affectionate (the suffix –jan is used as a term of endearment – e.g. Sharon-jan). They tend to be very inquisitive about family backgrounds and personal life (again, same in Morocco and the Philippines. But here nobody has tried to marry me off; Armenian men want Armenian brides). They are used to keeping in touch with Diaspora family. They have strong nationalistic pride; that’s part of what has enabled the culture to survive for so long.
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