tidbits cross time
Feb. 4th, 2015 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliIn the Soviet Union, enterprises often made their own specialized equipment, even while factories to make it worked under capacity. You just couldn't rely on them.
The number of horses in Great Britain increased through the 19th century. all those train meant a lot more commerce, and you needed the horses to lug things.
Puritans approved of only two sorts of religious days besides Sunday: fasts, or days of humiliation, and thanksgiving feasts. They could be held by a family, a congregation, or a region, but their essence was to be irregular, only after special chastisements, or special mercies, events out of the ordinary. Even having a thanksgiving after a long period of general prosperity without any interruptions of bad might not be appropriate and was fiercely debated. Certainly regular annual ones were right out. At first, at least. After a few generations, colonial New England settled down to a general pattern of having a fast day in the spring -- when things were growing but not yet edible -- and a thanksgiving day in the fall.
When, under Communism, Chinese prisoners were escorted on trains by guard, they were strictly forbidden to hang their heads and ordered to smoke and talk so that it would not be clear that they were prisoners.
After the Franco-Prussian War, many "Emperor's Oaks" were planted in Germany in thanksgiving.
Nautical twilight is officially defined by how many degrees the sun is below the horizon, but the purpose of it is to indicate the period that sailors can make good navigational checks because they can see both stars and the horizon.
A Hungarian freedom fighter observed that the difference between being arrested by the Communists and the Nazis was that the Nazis wanted to find out what you did; the Communists had already decided and just wanted to torture you into confession.
The Pilgrims once held a fast day after six weeks' drought and came out of the meeting to see it had clouded over, and enjoyed two weeks of intermittent showers. A local chief had sent to find out why they were having another religious event three days after the last, and was quite impressed at how well it worked.
A Korean legend tells how a brother and sister became the moon and the sun. The original proposal was the other way 'round, but the sister objected she feared the dark. And then, when she found everyone looking at her, out of modesty she grew brighter and brighter until it was impossible.
Lenin gets asked why it's "The People's Commissariat on Justice" when "The People's Commissariat on Social Extermination" was more truthful. Lenin wishes they could name it that honestly, but it's not possible.
After WWI, Germany military cemeteries were often a "Heroes' Forest", and statues of dying young Siegfried were common, particularly because they looked striking against the dark.
Under the Khmer Rogue, Pol Pot's immediate family members realized who he was only after seeing a picture of the leader. Wisely, they kept their mouths shut.
In Ceylon, it was a topic of fierce debate of whether untouchables could be allowed to wear shoes.
The Great Leap Forward caused the most famine deaths in those regions where the leaders were the most fanatically Marxist. That is, those were the regions that systemically tortured to get peasants to give up the secret hoards of grain
Thanksgiving celebrations only took on historical connotations in the late 19th century. Prior to that, they merely revolved about the religious aspects, the food, and the family.
The Soviet Union massacred the inhabitants of camps that it couldn't evacuate before the German invasion. Providing convenient propaganda matter for the Nazis.
Africa has the shortest coastline of every continent, despite its size. This produces a great dearth of suitable harbors for ports.
The Cultural Revolution changed the name of so many shops in Shanghai to "The East is Red" that people had trouble finding their way around.
The number of horses in Great Britain increased through the 19th century. all those train meant a lot more commerce, and you needed the horses to lug things.
Puritans approved of only two sorts of religious days besides Sunday: fasts, or days of humiliation, and thanksgiving feasts. They could be held by a family, a congregation, or a region, but their essence was to be irregular, only after special chastisements, or special mercies, events out of the ordinary. Even having a thanksgiving after a long period of general prosperity without any interruptions of bad might not be appropriate and was fiercely debated. Certainly regular annual ones were right out. At first, at least. After a few generations, colonial New England settled down to a general pattern of having a fast day in the spring -- when things were growing but not yet edible -- and a thanksgiving day in the fall.
When, under Communism, Chinese prisoners were escorted on trains by guard, they were strictly forbidden to hang their heads and ordered to smoke and talk so that it would not be clear that they were prisoners.
After the Franco-Prussian War, many "Emperor's Oaks" were planted in Germany in thanksgiving.
Nautical twilight is officially defined by how many degrees the sun is below the horizon, but the purpose of it is to indicate the period that sailors can make good navigational checks because they can see both stars and the horizon.
A Hungarian freedom fighter observed that the difference between being arrested by the Communists and the Nazis was that the Nazis wanted to find out what you did; the Communists had already decided and just wanted to torture you into confession.
The Pilgrims once held a fast day after six weeks' drought and came out of the meeting to see it had clouded over, and enjoyed two weeks of intermittent showers. A local chief had sent to find out why they were having another religious event three days after the last, and was quite impressed at how well it worked.
A Korean legend tells how a brother and sister became the moon and the sun. The original proposal was the other way 'round, but the sister objected she feared the dark. And then, when she found everyone looking at her, out of modesty she grew brighter and brighter until it was impossible.
Lenin gets asked why it's "The People's Commissariat on Justice" when "The People's Commissariat on Social Extermination" was more truthful. Lenin wishes they could name it that honestly, but it's not possible.
After WWI, Germany military cemeteries were often a "Heroes' Forest", and statues of dying young Siegfried were common, particularly because they looked striking against the dark.
Under the Khmer Rogue, Pol Pot's immediate family members realized who he was only after seeing a picture of the leader. Wisely, they kept their mouths shut.
In Ceylon, it was a topic of fierce debate of whether untouchables could be allowed to wear shoes.
The Great Leap Forward caused the most famine deaths in those regions where the leaders were the most fanatically Marxist. That is, those were the regions that systemically tortured to get peasants to give up the secret hoards of grain
Thanksgiving celebrations only took on historical connotations in the late 19th century. Prior to that, they merely revolved about the religious aspects, the food, and the family.
The Soviet Union massacred the inhabitants of camps that it couldn't evacuate before the German invasion. Providing convenient propaganda matter for the Nazis.
Africa has the shortest coastline of every continent, despite its size. This produces a great dearth of suitable harbors for ports.
The Cultural Revolution changed the name of so many shops in Shanghai to "The East is Red" that people had trouble finding their way around.
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Re: “Hero's Forest”
Date: 2015-02-05 11:35 am (UTC)Re: “Hero's Forest”
Date: 2015-02-05 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 11:41 am (UTC)sister became the moon and the sun
I've read a Chinese version of that also - two beautiful sisters who lived in the Moon could be seen at their sewing, and they were distressed that they were becoming public spectacles, so they persuaded their brother in the Sun to trade places. Thus we have the Man in the Moon, and no one can see the sisters.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 01:19 pm (UTC)I happened across a 1937 printing of Frances Carpenter's Tales of a Chinese Grandmother: 30 Traditional Tales from China, and it is a delight. There's a story of a little girl who was hit by a thrown rock that gashed and scarred her eyebrow, and when she grew to maidenhood she was shamed and terrified that her gapped eyebrow so ruined her appearance, but the handsome young man who'd climbed the garden wall and seen her and had bespoken her bride-price turned out to be the boy who'd thrown that long-ago rock, and he was very sorry for it, had been all his life, and he bade the servant bring his inkpot and brush… and he carefully inked in a perfect eyebrow! So he did every day from then on, in loving devotion, and people forgot there'd ever been anything wrong with her appearance!
no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 01:38 pm (UTC)prisonerdaughter was still there! Okay, obviously this was Meant to Be, so they threw up their hands and the wedding was arranged. Problem was, there were two 'daughters' present! Well, that's when the fox fairy unmasked; I'm a thousand years old, she said, and my work here is done, you'll not see me again, and she split. So the two young people were married, and they lived hap-- and I said, “Wait a minute.” The girl he'd met in the garden and courted, and then lived with, was a fun-loving convention-defying spirit who'd lived and travelled and learned for a thousand years, NOT this sensory-deprivation-doorstop who'd been “properly” immured within the four walls of one room all of her life! She wasn't what he wanted, and he wasn't what she desperately needed! Resentment, regret vs terror and madness - This was going to be a disaster!
O well. That's a fairy tale for you.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 01:52 pm (UTC)though it's astounding how often heroes and heroines live happily ever after with brides or bridegrooms who are nonentities in the story.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-06 08:29 am (UTC)- which eventually gave rise to trendy, toxic feminist “deconstruction” by women with real and obvious psychological problems.
The only two examples I can think of where this really worked, apart from T Stoppard's Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which might be called the first exploration of the idea, are G Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and Tangled, which Wikipedia says “reportedly” had its name changed from the original Rapunzel “to market the film as gender-neutral.” Having thus appeased the commissars, it went on to tell a completely heteronormative story - and indeed the authors of both were men, which may explain a bit. In both cases, Tangled particularly, we're simply given more of the story, what could have been told but wasn't, rather than the plusgoodthinkful Ever After-style “a real princess rescues herself” neurotic propaganda.
I like it when this is done well.
In the case of the fox fairy story, it could be retold from the fairy's viewpoint, or from the doorstop's - though that might read more like “Flowers for Algernon,” as in a world without radio or TV, where she was probably illiterate as well (and nothing to read anyway), she might have been barely able to speak, let alone function socially. The real-world examples of this “decent proper upbringing” must have been unimaginable horror stories, beyond the worst Christian aberrations of East and West - for the wife's only purpose is to bear children, yet she herself would have no idea what was going on, why she was getting intimately assaulted by this horrible monster or what was now happening to her body…
It would have been a very rare young man indeed (particularly in China) who would have had the understanding and taken the time to attempt damage control, to teach her something of the world, instead of blasting her into madness or suicide.
no subject
Date: 2015-02-06 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 02:50 am (UTC)That would be useful, if accurate. [I remember a 1950s SF story where the newlywed couple were assigned a government-issued toddlerbot that turned the Terrible Twos up to eleven, until the couple swore they'd NEVER have kids! At which point the 'toddler' stopped ripping up the furniture or whatever and thanked them for participating in their government's population control program of negative conditioning…]
no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-07 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 01:42 pm (UTC)