[Sca-cooks] Japanese (was: What did they..)

[Mark Calderwood]

At 15:36 8/05/02 -0700, you wrote:
>>You can't swing a cat around here without hitting a Mongol, we >recently
>>had
>>persons in High Places excuse their behaviour by saying "It's my >culture-
>>I'm a barbarian!" when what they were was rude and obnoxious and >cruel. I
>>would dearly love to again meet a gentleman who was doing his >damnedest to
>>emulate what we thought were Arthurian manners, I would love to have my
>>hand kissed in greeting instead of a meaty fist beating the chest and a
>>gutteral "I am Yarg of the Steppes, and this is my slave-girl, Igga."
>> >Right.

I think this could be a case of "A Mongol is not always a barbarian, but a
wanker is always a wanker." The Mongol cultures and tribes (there as not a
single unified "Mongol culture" anymore than a "Middle Eastern culture")
are quite complex, as evidenced by their artwork,  social structure and
distinctive cookery (food content- although I don't recommend the Tanggut
lungs). Anyone who carries on with gutteral barbarism is emulating
Hollywood, not history, and should probably be ignored. There are a lot of
people who do excellent work with non-European personae, and never use that
as an excuse to be idiots like this. (And personally, generic kilt-clad
pseudo-celts irritate me more than a genuine effort at Mongol or Middle
Eastern, but that's just me.)

Going back to lurking...

Giles
Lochac