| Sunday, September 5, 2004 |
16:16 - Just a note on multiculturalism
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1247801,00.html
|
(top)  |
Via LGF, this one's worth reading.
But it's just an excuse for me to note: when I was in Toronto, the guy driving me to the airport on the last day (in a conversation where I talked about my 1991 trip to Russia, where the only language that we and our host family shared was Spanish, between me and their oldest daughter, making me the interpreter) issued a curious statement:
"My workplace," he said, "is so diverse that I can walk from one end of the office to the other and hear English, French, Hindi, Gujarat, Arabic .... and I'm like, all I speak is English! It's the only way we can communicate... I suck!"
And what I didn't say was: No, you don't suck. If you were, say, to move to another country where you didn't speak the prevailing language, and you didn't bother to LEARN the prevailing language, THEN you would suck.
Maybe I was in a weird mood after being heckled on the sidewalk by Arabic-speaking youths on the way back to my host's apartment, leading to dreams that night wherein old acquaintances of mine had turned out to have converted to Islam and joined al Qaeda, and were now waylaying travelers in mountain passes and mimicking their speech and mocking their clothes from horseback.
Or maybe I shouldn't let strange dreams affect my waking thoughts.
UPDATE: And for God's sake, the word is spelled HAMSTER, not HAMPSTER! Aarrgh! Not even Disney can grasp this. What is so hard about this?!
Damn kids! Get offa my lawn!
|
|
Brian Tiemann
