France and the UK for the HK and JP
This entry is mostly for the benefit of chashiineriiya and otana but it might be interesting to people.
Kind of in response to what Margaret posted on her blog. Got this off the Psychologies magazine I bought yesterday.
From the opening blast of punk music as a carriage jolts its way through a forest, it is clear that director Sofia Coppola, in her portrayal of the infamous 18-th century queen, is attempting to inject some 21-st century attitude into the period drama. Teen movie stalward Kirsten Dunst makes an adequate Marie Antoinette, playing her as an adolescent brat caught up in a gilded world of parties, puppies and pampering, but never brings much depth to a role crying out for an actress truly capable of bringing out the humanity in one of history's most loathed characters. And, interesting as the film is for its depiction of the polictical minefiled of life at Vesailles, the real star of Marie Antoinette is the cinematography, beautifully capturing the decadence of the Ancie Regime in a heady whirl of bright pinks and luscious greens. But after two hours of watching Cmtes, Ducs, and Marquises flounce from masked ball to midnight picnic as the rest of France starves, you'll be tempted to take up arms and storm the palace, too. A poor execution of what could have been a fascinating story.
What do you think Margaret?
Next up, . Again, from the same source. It's a good mag, kinda like a pseudo-smart women's magazine.
As we are constantly reminded, immigration to the UK has reached record levels, so too have the numbers of short-term visitors and tourists. So what do these new arrivals make of British Culture? I've interviewed countless immigrants and visitors in an attempt to discover which of our habits and customs they found most puzzling, amusing or just plain weird. Ironically, the most perplexing of our social conventions turned out to be the one of which we are most patriotically proud: our sense of humour.
The main problem, from an outsider's perspective, is the sheer pervasiveness and overwhelming importance of humour in British life. In other countries, there is a time and a place for humour, it is a separate, special kind of talk. Among the British, there is always an undercurrent of humour - it permeates every conversation. We can barely manage to say 'hello' or comment on the weather without somehow contriving to make a joke out of it. It all comes back to our social awkwardness. Humour is the best antidote that we have to the British epidemic of 'social dis-ease' - it's a form of social glue.
Take irony, for example. It is not that foreigners don't get irony (as we sometimes like to claim) but that irony, for the British, is endemic - an element of ordinary, everyday conversation. When we ask someone a straightforward question, such as 'How are the children?', we are equally prepared for either a straightforward response - 'Fine thanks' - or an ironnic one: 'Oh they're delightful - charming, helpful, tidy'. Confusingly, for other people, we Brits are disinclined to say what we mean or mean what we say. Our conversation is littered with polite euphemisms, deceptions, and denials.
We're just not very good at being what the Americans call 'upfront' about anything. Particularly not our own passions, excitements, or achievements. Heaven forbid we are seen to be showing off. Which explains our fondness for understatement - a form of irony, and another speciality of British humour. An outstanding achievement is usually described as 'not bad', an act of abominable cruelty is 'not very friendly', an unforgivably stupid misjudgement is 'not very clever' - any exceptionally delightful object, person or event, which in other cultures would warrant reams of superlatives (like in Italian! - Mew's quip), is pretty much covered by 'nice', or, if we wish to express more ardent approval, 'very nice'.
It's what I refer to as the 'modesty rule'. It's not that we actually are more modest than other nations, but we have social rules that include maintaining a form of modesty at all times. Our famous self-deprecation is also a kind of code : everyone knows that a self-deprecating statement probably means roughly the opposite of what is said :
Oh that's all a bit over my head, I'm afraid = I have a PhD
I do a bit of sport = I've just won an Olympic medal.
But when we try to play this convoluted bluffing game with non-Brits, they take our remarks at face value and are duly unimpressed - so the whol thing backfires on us. And, frankly, it serves us right.
I hope you read that, Reverend.
Kind of in response to what Margaret posted on her blog. Got this off the Psychologies magazine I bought yesterday.
From the opening blast of punk music as a carriage jolts its way through a forest, it is clear that director Sofia Coppola, in her portrayal of the infamous 18-th century queen, is attempting to inject some 21-st century attitude into the period drama. Teen movie stalward Kirsten Dunst makes an adequate Marie Antoinette, playing her as an adolescent brat caught up in a gilded world of parties, puppies and pampering, but never brings much depth to a role crying out for an actress truly capable of bringing out the humanity in one of history's most loathed characters. And, interesting as the film is for its depiction of the polictical minefiled of life at Vesailles, the real star of Marie Antoinette is the cinematography, beautifully capturing the decadence of the Ancie Regime in a heady whirl of bright pinks and luscious greens. But after two hours of watching Cmtes, Ducs, and Marquises flounce from masked ball to midnight picnic as the rest of France starves, you'll be tempted to take up arms and storm the palace, too. A poor execution of what could have been a fascinating story.
What do you think Margaret?
Next up, . Again, from the same source. It's a good mag, kinda like a pseudo-smart women's magazine.
As we are constantly reminded, immigration to the UK has reached record levels, so too have the numbers of short-term visitors and tourists. So what do these new arrivals make of British Culture? I've interviewed countless immigrants and visitors in an attempt to discover which of our habits and customs they found most puzzling, amusing or just plain weird. Ironically, the most perplexing of our social conventions turned out to be the one of which we are most patriotically proud: our sense of humour.
The main problem, from an outsider's perspective, is the sheer pervasiveness and overwhelming importance of humour in British life. In other countries, there is a time and a place for humour, it is a separate, special kind of talk. Among the British, there is always an undercurrent of humour - it permeates every conversation. We can barely manage to say 'hello' or comment on the weather without somehow contriving to make a joke out of it. It all comes back to our social awkwardness. Humour is the best antidote that we have to the British epidemic of 'social dis-ease' - it's a form of social glue.
Take irony, for example. It is not that foreigners don't get irony (as we sometimes like to claim) but that irony, for the British, is endemic - an element of ordinary, everyday conversation. When we ask someone a straightforward question, such as 'How are the children?', we are equally prepared for either a straightforward response - 'Fine thanks' - or an ironnic one: 'Oh they're delightful - charming, helpful, tidy'. Confusingly, for other people, we Brits are disinclined to say what we mean or mean what we say. Our conversation is littered with polite euphemisms, deceptions, and denials.
We're just not very good at being what the Americans call 'upfront' about anything. Particularly not our own passions, excitements, or achievements. Heaven forbid we are seen to be showing off. Which explains our fondness for understatement - a form of irony, and another speciality of British humour. An outstanding achievement is usually described as 'not bad', an act of abominable cruelty is 'not very friendly', an unforgivably stupid misjudgement is 'not very clever' - any exceptionally delightful object, person or event, which in other cultures would warrant reams of superlatives (like in Italian! - Mew's quip), is pretty much covered by 'nice', or, if we wish to express more ardent approval, 'very nice'.
It's what I refer to as the 'modesty rule'. It's not that we actually are more modest than other nations, but we have social rules that include maintaining a form of modesty at all times. Our famous self-deprecation is also a kind of code : everyone knows that a self-deprecating statement probably means roughly the opposite of what is said :
Oh that's all a bit over my head, I'm afraid = I have a PhD
I do a bit of sport = I've just won an Olympic medal.
But when we try to play this convoluted bluffing game with non-Brits, they take our remarks at face value and are duly unimpressed - so the whol thing backfires on us. And, frankly, it serves us right.
I hope you read that, Reverend.