----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Szpakowski <
szpako@yahoo.com>
> I think you're being a tad curmudgeonly here.
> It hardly takes a massive intellectual effort to
> relate to US cultural events/traditions,
> certainly less than to read Levi, or Dickens or
> Shakespeare and it strikes me as philistinism to boast
> of one's ignorance of any field ( even national
> holidays, traditions or currency - don't you read
> American literature? - it's more interesting and far
> less smug and parochial than anything being produced
> on our side of the Atlantic)
> I worry about this UK/USA, us & them tone that
> occasionally creeps into posts
Well, for sure I am a professional curmudgeon.
But that aside, I was just trying to point out that Thanksgiving day only
occurs in the US, so to relate what is surely a much wider concept to that
day leaves a lot of us cold ... what, we've just passed the busyest buying
day in the year, how could I have worked through it.
I mean, I am going to a Thanksgiving meal on Friday that is held every two
years by a good american friend of mine. But, I have to admit that I
approach it much as a muslim in the west must approach Xmas: I'm
enthusiastic for the general friendly event and it is good fun, but beyond
that it leaves me cold. It's not coded into my culture gene. What is the
national holiday in Egypt? What date is Liberation day in China? When is Yom
Kippur?
Anyway, my aim is not to make big points or to hurt anyone, but to niggle at
the interstices of communication.
Cheers,
Ivan