Things my students say: You have something socialist on your face...no, the other side.

My student and I were chatting today about names. Unlike in America, in Germany, there are rules. You can't just name your child anything and hope they aren't permanently scarred by it. I mean, somebody named their child Hashtag. Seriously. #crazybabynames. In Germany the name has to be approved by the Standesamt, and basically, the name has to meet two criteria. 1) It has to reflect the sex of the child. No, Sam, is that short for Samantha? 2) It can't endanger the "well-being" of the child. Essentially, the Germans like to protect their children against hippie parents.

Anyways, my student originally hails from Italy and when we were talking about crazy names he said, or what I heard was, "My aunt had a communist face."

Needless to say, after that I sort of tuned out.

Immediately, I pictured Stalin. Was his aunt short with a hairy mustache? I hear that can happen in Eastern countries.Was her face a particular shade of red? Was she super plain, no makeup, greasy, missing teeth? Did she have a face that said, I farm on a commune? I pictured Tzeitel from Fiddler on the Roof. Was his Italian aunt really a Russian Jew? Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match...

Auntie Maria?

I was at a loss trying to envision what a 'communist face' was. Had I listened more closely, I would have realized he had said a "communist PHASE" and named her Italian born son Ivan.

Upon further reflection of this incident, I realized, obviously, I'm very American, and as so, I had obviously formed strong opinions on what communism literally looks like. It would be like asking Germans what freedom looks like and they say, David Hasselhoff!

But it brings up an interesting thought. In your opinion, if you heard the expression, 'communist face', what doyou envision?