From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMB.BITNET!LOJBAN Mon Jul 6 09:07:40 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Mon, 6 Jul 92 09:07 EDT Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA16535; Mon, 6 Jul 92 08:45:22 EDT Received: from pucc.Princeton.EDU by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA28194; Mon, 6 Jul 92 08:18:44 -0400 Message-Id: <9207061218.AA28194@relay1.UU.NET> Received: from PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU by pucc.Princeton.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4939; Mon, 06 Jul 92 08:17:30 EDT Received: by PUCC (Mailer R2.08 ptf033) id 6886; Mon, 06 Jul 92 08:06:43 EDT Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1992 11:41:26 BST Reply-To: CJ FINE Sender: Lojban list From: CJ FINE Subject: More cultural misunderstandings X-To: Lojban list To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO Re Bob Slaughter's tale of Snow White, and Ivan's Bulgarian story: There are ever so many stories, fictional and real, about people not understanding what is intended by another culture's fabulation or drama. Some of my favorite examples: According to Richard Feynman, when a film was shown for the first time in a town in Tuva (Central Asia), angry patrons demanded their money back because of all the close-ups - they'd paid for a whole film, not parts of people. Several of Jack Vance's novels play with the idea, particularly the rather feeble "Space Opera" (trying to perform Fidelio to a troglodytic non-human race) and the much better "Showboat World" with plenty of examples. The version of "Romeo and Juliet" played by the players in "Nicholas Nickelby": given a happy ending. (The 'different culture' here was the same culture 250 years later) The otherwise excellent Halas and Batchelor version of Orwell's "Animal Farm", given a ghastly happy ending where the forces of motherhood-n-apple-pie, represented by good, decent animals everywhere, come and triumph over the evil empire, sorry, farm. (the 'different culture' is about fifteen years, or maybe twenty.)