00:00In the Soviet era, a word emerged in the Russian language, blood, which meant useful connections.
00:08If you had blood, you vacationed in Crimea, ate sprouts on New Year's Eve and washed your hair
00:15with Latvian shampoo, not that brown soap everyone else used. My parents, bless their hearts,
00:23didn't know how to work the system, so we didn't have blood. I didn't even know what it was.
00:30But I vividly remember the day my school friend Olya enlightened me on the fundamentals of the Soviet economy.
00:39The first time I visited her home, I felt like I stepped into a museum.
00:45In the big living room, a luxurious rug hung on the wall. Not one of those synthetic things with
00:52tacky patterns like everyone else's, but a real woolen tapestry depicting deers by a watering hole.
01:00In a polished cabinet, crystal white glasses glimmed. And on the side table sat a brand new phone.
01:10Not a rotary one, but with buttons. We didn't have a phone at all, and I had to go to
01:17the neighbors
01:17just to make a call. If you don't have blood, you live like a sucker, she said.
01:23For example, say you want a gold tooth. You go to the dental technician and he tells you,
01:31I don't have the material for a crown. Bring your own. What would you do?
01:35Well, I have my great-grandfather's gold watch, I said. I could melt it down for a tooth.
01:42If you bring your watch, the technician will keep it and use cheap alloy for the crown instead.
01:48But if you come in with blood and say, I'm a friend of so-and-so's, it's a whole different
01:54story.
01:55I hesitated. But what if I don't know any so-and-so's? Be a useful person and then so-and
02:03-so's will come to you.
02:06Oda gave me an example. Her mother, who worked as a flight attendant on international routes.
02:12She'd bring back fancy things like colorful hair ties and something even lace underwear.
02:20Everyone wanted to be friends with Oda's mom and they'd bring her gifts to secure the relationship.
02:28If she needed anything, a rug, crystal glasses or a gold tooth,
02:34she could always ask around and find the right person.
02:38I wish I had blood too, I admitted. Olya looked skeptically at my homemade school uniform.
02:46What can your parents bring home from work?
02:50I sighed. My mom was a technologist at a car factory.
02:55The best she could bring home was a cutting from the office ficus.
02:59My dad was even worse. He was an engineer-inventor who was into philosophy.
03:06He could bring home a quote from Hegel.
03:10I realized fate probably wasn't going to smile on me with golden teeth.
03:14But in a way, I did get a bit of blood.
03:17I helped Olya with her homework.
03:19And in return, she'd invite me over where we'd secretly use her mom's makeup.
03:25Who is the problem at home with a billion thousand feet?
03:27順次の道理、モンクルッズ時間
03:29禁止令人与GHT
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