Fw: Thank you, straitlacing, Watership Down

[Tabouli]

ECCKK, sorry, posted this to the main list instead of OT...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Tabouli 
To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 3:52 PM
Subject: Thank you, straitlacing, Watership Down


Awww.  Thanks and return schnoogles to Cindy, John and Mary Ann for their appreciation of my acronyms and anecdotes.  Just goes to show that Harry Potter attracts the most warm and worthy of people...

John:
> unfortunately, I dislike Tabouleh.  Tabouli, on the other hand, is well cool. ::schnoogles Tabouli:: Loved the
story about your strait-laced friend. Gave me a giggle.

There are all sorts of nasty spellings of the stuff out there.  I don't actually *dis*like the salad, if some gets served at a party I might take a small scoop, but I wouldn't buy it.  I suspect that Tabbuleh and co could well elicit closer to the actual Lebanese/Turkish pronunciation, but it looks like the name of a building or a ritual or something (tabernacle?) to me.  Romanisation - a perilous process.  "Tabouli" is rare enough that I still do a double take every time I see the word (wot?  am I on sale in this supermarket?? O yes, that's right...).

Haven't seen much of my strait-laced friend (Simon) for a year or two - he's still around, but I eventually decided he was a bit much (and he's notoriously slack about maintaining friendships with women: cute young Asian boys are different!).  Jimmy has long since departed the scene, but not before dressing Simon in *denim* and getting him to take up **jogging**... (hee hee... before Jimmy he disdained denim as a low-class fabric for mindless youth and exercise as beneath him!).

Jimmy was Singaporean Chinese, and I used to do quite a bit of informal cross-cultural counselling in their relationship.  Despite doing his Honours thesis on homosexuality in Asia, Simon could not get his head around Jimmy's refusal to come out to his parents.  How dare he?  What an insult!  What self-betrayal!  How weak, how lacking in independence!  If they reject him, they're not worth it, he should dispense with them and come to me and I'll look after him!  All this despite the fact that Simon probably knows, in a book sense, *more* about theories of Chinese culture as it relates to homosexuality than me.  I tried to explain to Simon that while I could understand his reaction from an Australian perspective, from a Chinese perspective for the only son to do this to his parents is about as bad as crimes get in Chinese society: even if his family didn't disown him, Jimmy would never forgive *himself*, that being rejected by your family is the ultimate shame and disgrace, but Simon wouldn't have it.  "So *I'm* the one who has to make all the compromises, am I?" he demanded.  Then Jimmy would ring me, full of head shaking about how "these Westerners just don't understand what it's like to be a gay Chinese, do they?" and I'd have to give him the rundown on how an individualist Australian would see the situation and speculate about how and what and whether he could tell his parents, and Simon, etc.etc.

Ah, the joys of being Eurasian.  Both sides quite happily assumed that I was (a) of his culture, and (b) on his side!  My body's full of splinters from sitting on the fence...

Nethilia:
> I got Nethilia from butchering a name in the book _Watership Down_. 

Yes, Nethilta was a feisty one, wasn't she?  Tsk, tsk, reread Watership Down (my favorite book when I was 9 or so) and marvelled at its 1970s gender roles (see also Hitch-hikers).  I suppose Richard could argue that rabbit society is like that, but then, in his dreadful "Tales of Watership Down" 1990s sequel he fell over himself trying to have Strong Female Characters in a way which clearly shows he should have left well alone.  Interesting example of how rapid shifts in cultural values can be perilous for authors...

David:
> We really do need a resident cartoonist.  First the image of Jen's 
husband sprouting from the internet, then on the main list Caius with 
a line of high-kicking Dementors.<

I'll second that!  I've *always* wished I could draw, and in particular draw cartoons, but alas.  As for husbands sprouting from the Internet, refer to aforementioned Take On Me video for inspiration...

Tabouli.


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