Monday, August 22, 2011

Cultural Learnings

This weekend, I grit my teeth and bore the brunt of the hideous hit called Borat. Although I had an honest try at watching when the movie came out, I felt as if I should be more motivated and informed about the controversy. If this is the one piece of information known about the place where I am going and if folks are apt to make endless jokes related to this character, I should at least be aware of the reference, right? It was not so awful and so much more awful at the same time. Perhaps I just don't have the right kind of sense of humor.

I was a bit happier to see the damage well mitigated by the following piece of glittering tourism advertisement I came across this morning:



What more enticement do you need to visit us in this "glorious nation"?

*For yet another perspective, the 2008 film Tulpan about a sailor's return to the steppe is well worth watching.

What is that noise encircling our home?

Screeching around our home, the cicadas that come with the onset of the rainy season sound like an army of broken hard drives droning in fr...