Interracial / Intercultural relationships

[Chris]

I couldn't really find a thread to fit this topic into, so I'm putting this into a new thread. I have always been fascinated by relationships (dating, marriage as well as friendship) that run across cultural and racial lines. Nothing interests me more than the similarities and differences between different cultures and how people bridge those divides that will inevitably separate them to find their common humanity, through the vehicle of love. Such relationships aren't always easy, I know that from personal experience, but they can be immensely rewarding and are the best way to learn about other cultures and people.

These two videos about Japanese views on Western men and women are particularly revealing. It is interesting, that all of the Japanese women interviewed were open to dating Westerners, but none of the Japanese men were. I wonder if this is culturally specific to Japan or is a universal phenomenon that results from evolutionary pressures? When you live in Asia for a while, you do notice that interracial couples tend to be of the Western Man - Asian Woman variety, though there are exceptions of course. From what my gay friends told me, Asian gay men seem to be far more open to dating Westerners, than Asian straight men. I don't know about gay women, but presumably, it's the same. I often think about where these differences in attitudes come from.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkPiEK3sqcQ&feature=youtu.be


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzvGgsT5-QE

[Dreamtimer]

There are interracial relationships in my family.

Religion is often the challenging factor (generally speaking).

[Aragorn]

There are interracial relationships in my family.

Religion is often the challenging factor (generally speaking).

I've got someone in my family — well, as an in-law, technically — who got married to a Chinese girl now about 16 years ago. I normally don't have any contact with them because they are very distant relatives, but I met his wife 16 years ago at the 50th wedding anniversary of a cousin of my mom's. At the time, the Chinese girl didn't speak Dutch yet. She only knew Chinese and English.

The guy had met her via the internet, but apparently they were serious about each other — which is not exactly common among romantic internet relationships — and after a whole series of mutual visits, they had decided to get married. They had two wedding ceremonies — they got married here in Belgium first, and then a few months later, they did it over again in China, making their marriage legal over there as well.

I met her again a few years ago when that same cousin of my mom's passed away, and by that time, the Chinese girl did speak (a somewhat broken) Dutch. I actually had a bit of a conversation with her in Dutch, but then we switched to English because she understood that better. She and her husband were running a business together, albeit that I'm not sure anymore in what — I seem to remember that it was a family business the guy took over from his dad, and that it had something to do with construction, but I could be wrong about that.

[Emil El Zapato]

Simple answer...Western men like Asian women because they make excellent fantasy sex partners. Asian women like Western men because their fantasy is the big ding dong that they don't get from their Asian partners...it's pretty straightforward really.

[Chris]

Simple answer...Western men like Asian women because they make excellent fantasy sex partners. Asian women like Western men because their fantasy is the big ding dong that they don't get from their Asian partners...it's pretty straightforward really.

It's a bit more complicated than that. There are many factors at play. I think the Western media and entertainment machine, which essentially promotes a form of white supremacy, however covertly, has a large part to play in all this. There is clearly a racial hierarchy that is promoted by Hollywood and people of other racial backgrounds often feel underrepresented or marginalised. This is not so much true of black people any more, but it is certainly the case with Asians. You can see this with the Brouhaha that was created around the movie Crazy Rich Asians, probably the first Hollywood Movie where white actors only appear as extras. It is a terrible movie by the way, which I only watched halfway through, because it is set in Singapore (shouldn't have bothered). It is extremely rare to see Asians presented in any sort of positive way, if they do appear, it is usually as unpopular geeks or martial artists. That betrays a deep insecurity I think.

[Emil El Zapato]

It's a bit more complicated than that. There are many factors at play.

In the U.S. Asians aren't doing that bad on the hierarchy, in a left-handed fashion they are considered 'intelligent'. Harvard University has been embroiled in a lawsuit alleging that Asians are discriminated against in admissions because they are too good.

Here are comments that have been quoted by the 'intelligentsia':
"If we allowed admission based solely on academic qualifications there would only be Asians attending here (Harvard)"
"No, we admit non-Asians over 'some' Asians because in general the non-Asians have better personalities" ...

Say What!

Anyway, what anybody might claim, love is sex, then it is ennui... :)


Coincidentally, my daughter speaks Mandarin...I've suggested she go to China as a tech student to get free tuition...she's not much interested given that she's a fine arts major.

[Chris]

In the U.S. Asians aren't doing that bad on the hierarchy, in a left-handed fashion they are considered 'intelligent'. Harvard University has been embroiled in a lawsuit alleging that Asians are discriminated against in admissions because they are too good.

Here are comments that have been quoted by the 'intelligentsia':
"If we allowed admission based solely on academic qualifications there would only be Asians attending here (Harvard)"
"No, we admit non-Asians over 'some' Asians because in general the non-Asians have better personalities" ...

Say What!

Anyway, what anybody might claim, love is sex, then it is ennui... :)


Coincidentally, my daughter speaks Mandarin...I've suggested she go to China as a tech student to get free tuition...she's not much interested given that she's a fine arts major.

That's a great idea, though in terms of education, Singapore's even better. I do have European friends who live in Beijing and they love it there, despite the air pollution and inedible food. They survive on imported vegetables and the occasional Mongolian barbecue (with imported meat). You can't eat anything that's produced in China, it's deadly.

Singapore on the other hand is pretty much like living in London, except it's a lot more modern and advanced. They have a programme, where they'll pay for your tuition if you promise to stay in Singapore afterwards and work there for up to five years. My Chinese ex-girlfriend did that, she studied art. Although English is the first language of most Singaporeans, it is still a pretty good place to learn and practice Mandarin.

[Emil El Zapato]

I had a friend that lived and taught English in China...during the Cold War...he said it was a pretty paranoid part of his life. His background might have made him suspect, though. His dad was military intelligence during WWII. He had majored in Chinese history in college and later became an attorney. He traveled the East after graduating college, had a Japanese girlfriend (a former extra in Godzilla movies) and the rest of the 'thing'. For all I know he may have been CIA. He eventually was disbarred because of a rape conviction. It seems he had a cleaning girl...Hispanic immigrant...that accused him of rape. In our hometown he was toast. It is a very conservative community and his dad had been a 'liberal' judge and state senator with very few friends in the community. They threw the book at my friend...A quarter of a million dollars paid to the victim and a few years in prison. Not a very pretty picture.

[Dreamtimer]

In my family it's black/white and they adopted a little girl from China.

Asians apparently are very strong in math compared to American students. All students admitted to Harvard will have stellar academics, they need to stand out in some way. They need something special/unique in their portfolio. Test scores aren't really central to admittance.

Personally, I can't see why asians wouldn't have interesting and unique applications, just like white kids. It'll be interesting to see how this works out.

The best bet these days is to go wherever you can get a scholarship, avoiding the student debt.

[Emil El Zapato]

Amen to that, DT...

I worry about my daughter, though...I tried to academically motivate her starting when she was a toddler. She went through school without ever studying...thanks to her mother..."She has to be well-rounded!". I gave her an I.Q. test designed for 10-year olds when she was 8. She maxed it out in half the time allotted. Seriously, she was doing geometry at 3 years old. In high school, she breezed through math courses that many other students simply scratched their heads at....but she has never been an academic standout...simply no interest, if not an active aversion to it (very much like her daddy unfortunately, and that is what I worry about...her genetics). I hope she gets past the anger her mother endowed her with. Her only realy interest is Art and is currently doing prepatory courses before she starts attending the very expensive Art school she was accepted into with some scholarship money. But she is dissatisfied with the very respectable University she is attending, the quality of her art classes, the quality of her fellow art students, and apparently the quality of her father...oboy...I hope things smooth out.

[Dreamtimer]

I've spent a lot of time wishing life was perfect. It isn't. I think I wasted that time. I don't do that now.

[Emil El Zapato]

lol, ain't that the truth...

[Chris]

The accent might be a bit hard to penetrate at first, but it's worth the effort. Here's a Malaysian comedian (Half Malay, Half English) talking about the absurdity of racial and ethnic categories. As a background, you should know that in both Singapore and Malaysia, one must choose from one of the officially defined races in all official documents (Chinese, Malay, Indian and "Other" which usually means some sort of mixed-race category (such as Eurasian) or Caucasian) and this will be permanently recorded for quota purposes. The Chinese (like Jews in some other countries) tend to dominate business and academia, so ethnic quotas are upheld to ensure all races get a fair shot in various areas of life. In Malaysia, this quota system is used to discriminate against the Chinese minority (much like Numerus Clausus laws did in Hungary in the the 1920s and 1930s, against Jews) and is a hotbed of corruption. In any case, the video below gives a good overview of the absurdity of such racial categories in general.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZy4ARoyWT0

[Dreamtimer]

In America miscegeny was illegal up until 1967 in some states. That was after my birth. For those who don't know, it's a word which describes 'mixing' races and originated with a pamphlet from the 1800s.

It was often an excuse to beat/hang black men. Their sin was to look at a white woman the wrong way, or talk to her the wrong way.

I haven't grown up in a family that has a history of its members being dragged, beaten and hung. And houses burnt to the ground. And crosses burned on lawns.

But many Americans have.

There is a principal which is usually associated with Jews and the holocaust. The idea is that if you ignore those deaths because they don't affect your family or your neighborhood or your religion or your race, who will be left to help you when you're targeted?

To ignore the historic abuse and waste of black lives in America would be to invite the same upon oneself.

BLM started after the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman way back in 2013. Three women started it, Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullors, and Opal Tometi.

Trayvon's death struck me hard because he looked so much like my nephew. It's hard to imagine people saying the things about my nephew I heard said about Trayvon. People who didn't know the boy at all but were so quick to judge.

If all lives really do matter, then there is no excuse for turning a blind eye to the extermination of so many black lives in America, over a glance at a woman, or a walk through a neighborhood.

I worry about all of my family members who are not white. For some reason, folks just don't think they matter as much.

But they do.

This is a short piece (https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1757&context=nlj) with footnotes from the Nevada Law Journal about the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement.


Garza’s feelings were echoed around the country by others who would eventually call for social reform. At a vigil held for Trayvon Martin in New York on July 21, 2013, just over one week after the verdict was released, people came from all over the country to show their discontent with what had happened. In various interviews, people referred to the jury verdict as “an abomination,” and remarked that they “weren’t surprised but were very, very angry.” One person in particular, Kai M. Green, an activist without direct ties to the Black Lives Matter movement, captured this feeling. When asked about his first thought after hearing the verdict, Green commented that he felt the need to “use this moment to build a movement.... It’s about change, it’s about justice.... And it’s about black lives and black bodies, but it’s not just about black people. It’s about all people. Right? Because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.” Matthew Knight, in a July 22, 2013 article in The New Yorker, echoed these feelings.

Note that black people have been including all people, all along. This supposed response saying all lives matter is way behind the curve and obviously being spoken by folks who just don't understand.



Within days after the Zimmerman verdict, Garza, Cullors, and Tometi had created small but powerful cohesion in #BlackLivesMatter as a means to bring the community, and the nation, together to directly address what racism meant in the new millennium

Eric Garner and Michael Brown were next.


The deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown sparked widespread demon-strations in cities all over the country. Even after the initial rioting in Ferguson had subsided, demonstrations continued across America. Throughout the weeks and months that followed, through the fall of 2014, the discussion of police violence and racial injustice resonated around the nation in social media and traditional media outlets, alike. More and more, people were including #BlackLivesMatter in their personal posts and in publicized discussion. Other hashtags emerged during this time as well, such as #HandsUpDontShoot, and Eric Garner’s last words, #ICantBreathe. But none of these phrases fully captured the heart and complexity of the issue in the same way that “Black Lives Matter” did.

Demonstrations began happening during football games and in Boston. Then Oakland, CA.


In this environment, the first major demonstrations for which Black Lives Matter took credit occurred. Though Cullors, in a November 22, 2014 interview, referenced involvement of Black Lives Matter in the demonstrations in Ferguson immediately following Brown’s death, the first major Black Lives Matter demonstrations began in October of 2014. Demonstrators at an October 13, 2014, St. Louis Rams football game chanted and displayed banners reading, “Black Lives Matter.” On October 24, 2014, demonstrators identifying them-selves as Black Lives Matter Boston began the “‘Newbury Street Shutdown’” protest in Boston.

Then, on November 28, 2014, Black Friday, a particularly notable demonstration took place in Oakland, California. There, Black Lives Matter demonstrators, all wearing “#BlackLivesMatter” T-shirts, chained, locked, and otherwise affixed themselves to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) trains and station platform, in West Oakland.


The early years of the movement have revealed certain issues and potential pitfalls that are inherent in the structuring of BLM. These problems are largely the result of the “horizontal” approach to leadership, as well as the movement’s foundational ties to social media, and have already created certain issues for the movement. In particular, the founders have consistently emphasized the importance that the movement remain “decentralized,” in order to keep the movement alive and adaptive. One issue that has resulted from this structuring is rooted in discontent at the credit given to Garza, Cullors, and Tometi for founding the movement. Others involved in the movement, like Johnetta Elzie of St. Louis, feel that BLM should remain grassroots, and that crediting the movement’s inception detracts from the work and sacrifice contributed by others involved. Not only has this issue already resulted in general dissent in different chapters of Black Lives Matter, but it has even led to the cancellation of events by the founders.


Unlike civil rights movements from our nation’s past, which placed heavy emphasis on strategic legal attacks on systemic racism, Black Lives Matter has yet to incorporate any such legal strategy. This may partially be the result of the general disillusionment with the American legal system that is a foundational theme within Black Lives Matter, and its focus on responding to perceived failings of the legal system to deliver justice after the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Additionally, the absence of initiating legal actions is not entirely inconsistent with the grassroots or “horizontal” approach that the founders have often cited as an important aspect of Black Lives Matter. Yet, the failure to take an assertive approach to battles in the legal arena has left the movement susceptible to attacks, one of which was launched in July of 2016.


In Klayman v. Obama, Larry Klayman, a former prosecutor from Florida, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of “police officers and other law enforcement persons of all races and ethnicities” for threats of violence and attacks on police officers. In the amended complaint, filed in September, 2016, Black Lives Matter was named as a defendant, along with Garza, Cullors, Tometi, and others that have associations to Black Lives Matter. Other named defendants included Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder (the former Attorney General), the New Black Panthers Party, Reverend Al Sharpton, and the Nation of Islam.


[O]ne major element the media often overlooks when discussing Black Lives Matter is its deeply rooted ties to LGBTQ activism. All three of the founders have been involved in LGBTQ activist movements...


Garza states that Black Lives Matter’s purpose is to “‘organiz[e] people who are at the bottom’” and directly compares the movement to “‘what the labor movement has always done[.]’” Garza draws a parallel between the ideals behind Black Lives Matter, and the struggle for labor equality, which was a part of both the civil rights and women’s rights movements.

[Wind]

In a way I don't see race at all as I just see souls, but then again maybe I do. In terms of beauty, I mean. Now, I am right now a Scandinavian looking western male which doesn't define me at all, but the the truth is that I have tastes and preferences aquired in my past life in China, or lives in Asia and I still tend to identify strongly with them for whatever reason, so it seems that I mostly see Asian women as attractive due to their physical features, I don't find western facial features typically that attractive or interesting, but that's not always the case of course. Am I racially biased? That's just what my brain tells me... When it comes to humans I mean, as I have to be one now, even if I don't exactly fit in here. Sure women from any race can be beautiful, there's no doubt about that. However, in my case the pull to East is just exceptionally strong. The culture and everything, but I don't think I would want to live in current Japan or China. :hmm:

[Dreamtimer]

I have found that I find many sorts of people attractive. I used to think I like blond, blue-eyed guys, but by the time I was in high school that wasn't the case anymore.

I used to think that people of other races would find me ugly. I was naive and ignorant then.

[Wind]

I always was wondering if usually opposites attract.

[Aragorn]

I always was wondering if usually opposites attract.

Not according to the LGBTQ+ community. :ttr: :ha:

[Chris]

I always was wondering if usually opposites attract.

I believe the studies show, that we find people who are close to us genetically the most attractive, as long as they are not direct relatives. Historically and on average, marriages were between third cousins. The Western world deviated from that, when the Roman Church banned cousin marriages and many researchers now think it caused an uptick in IQs and a significant reduction in genetic defects, possibly contributing to the rise of the West during the middle ages.

[Dreamtimer]

In America miscegeny was illegal up until 1967 in some states. That was after my birth. For those who don't know, it's a word which describes 'mixing' races and originated with a pamphlet from the 1800s.

It was often an excuse to beat/hang black men. Their sin was to look at a white woman the wrong way, or talk to her the wrong way.

I haven't grown up in a family that has a history of its members being dragged, beaten and hung. And houses burnt to the ground. And crosses burned on lawns.

But many Americans have.

There is a principal which is usually associated with Jews and the holocaust. The idea is that if you ignore those deaths because they don't affect your family or your neighborhood or your religion or your race, who will be left to help you when you're targeted?

To ignore the historic abuse and waste of black lives in America would be to invite the same upon oneself.

BLM started after the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman way back in 2013. Three women started it, Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullors, and Opal Tometi.

Trayvon's death struck me hard because he looked so much like my nephew. It's hard to imagine people saying the things about my nephew I heard said about Trayvon. People who didn't know the boy at all but were so quick to judge.

If all lives really do matter, then there is no excuse for turning a blind eye to the extermination of so many black lives in America, over a glance at a woman, or a walk through a neighborhood.

I worry about all of my family members who are not white. For some reason, folks just don't think they matter as much.

But they do.

This is a short piece (https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1757&context=nlj) with footnotes from the Nevada Law Journal about the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement.


Note that black people have been including all people, all along. This supposed response saying all lives matter is way behind the curve and obviously being spoken by folks who just don't understand.


:Bump:

[Emil El Zapato]

:Bump:

It's why Jack Johnson went with Kitty Hawk to Europe ... He violated the Man(n) Act. Miscegenation is a demonic practice.

Honestly, I find it surprising that people still have the nerve to say that (All Lives Matter), seriously.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XFYMjkFYPg

[Wind]

I believe the studies show, that we find people who are close to us genetically the most attractive, as long as they are not direct relatives. Historically and on average, marriages were between third cousins.

Perhaps that could explain the current low IQ problem in USA too. :rolleyes:

[Chris]

Perhaps that could explain the current low IQ problem in USA too. :rolleyes:

Appalachia would certainly be a prime example of this...

Remember the blue-skinned people of Appalachia? I think they were all siblings and first cousins marrying amongst each other and the genetic defects were pretty horrifying. Other isolated places, such as certain mountain valleys in the Alps, remote islands and desert communities also have this problem. Royalty in Europe, another victim of this. Have you ever seen a Habsburg? They look like Michael Jackson after a serious accident...

[Wind]

Appalachia would certainly be a prime example of this...

Ah, that's where our former friend and colleague, bsbray (https://jandeane81.com/member.php/1369-bsbray) Brainwash resides. Sure would explain a lot of things.

[Chris]

Ah, that's where our former friend and colleague, bsbray (https://jandeane81.com/member.php/1369-bsbray) Brainwash resides. Sure would explain a lot of things.

Is he the one with the beard?

https://dnascience.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/legacy-featured-images/TheBluePeople-16x9.jpg

[Wind]

Could be or the son behind him. Are those the real life Smurfs?

[Aragorn]

Ah, that's where our former friend and colleague, bsbray (https://jandeane81.com/member.php/1369-bsbray) Brainwash resides. Sure would explain a lot of things.

Is he the one with the beard?

Hard to tell, given that nobody here has ever seen him, although we did get to hear his voice (https://jandeane81.com/forumdisplay.php/63-The-One-Truth-Interviews) and his ostensible redneck accent. ;)

[Wind]

Hard to tell, given that nobody here has ever seen him, although we did get to hear his voice (https://jandeane81.com/forumdisplay.php/63-The-One-Truth-Interviews) and his ostensible redneck accent. ;)

I have, he made some Youtube videos I also saw him on some Trump rally pictures. He had no beard, looked like young Bob Dylan. :rolleyes:

[Chris]

Could be or the son behind him. Are those the real life Smurfs?

Yip this entire family became blue-skinned due to generations of inbreeding. It is quite a famous case actually. Apparently they developed some sort of rare, hereditary genetic condition.

[Aragorn]

Yip this entire family became blue-skinned due to generations of inbreeding. It is quite a famous case actually. Apparently they developed some sort of rare, hereditary genetic condition.

It could have been worse. They could have been purple with yellow polka dots. :ttr: :ha:

[Emil El Zapato]

Is he the one with the beard?

https://dnascience.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/legacy-featured-images/TheBluePeople-16x9.jpg

Off topic perhaps, but I remember reading a book by the original 'strange case' guy that included a story of two 'green' kids that dropped out of nowhere and lived the rest of their lives with their adopted family ... the presumption was that they were "Aliens". Perhaps the source of the 'Little Green Men' meme.

[Dreamtimer]

Wow, Wind. I didn't know you'd seen an image of our former Shire-mate at a Trump rally. Not surprised to hear he was there though.

[Aragorn]

Off topic perhaps, but I remember reading a book by the original 'strange case' guy that included a story of two 'green' kids that dropped out of nowhere and lived the rest of their lives with their adopted family ... the presumption was that they were "Aliens". Perhaps the source of the 'Little Green Men' meme.

It was in Woolpit in England, somewhere in the 12th century.










Story


One day at harvest time, according to William of Newburgh during the reign of King Stephen (r. 1135–1154), the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name. Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar. Ralph reports that the children were taken to the home of Richard de Calne. Ralph and William agree that the pair refused all food for several days until they came across some raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. The children gradually adapted to normal food and in time lost their green colour. The boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, became sickly and died shortly after he and his sister were baptised.

After learning to speak English, the children – Ralph says just the surviving girl – explained that they came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight. William says the children called their home St Martin's Land; Ralph adds that everything there was green. According to William, the children were unable to account for their arrival in Woolpit; they had been herding their father's cattle when they heard a loud noise (according to William, the bells of Bury St Edmunds) and suddenly found themselves by the wolf pit where they were found. Ralph says that they had become lost when they followed the cattle into a cave and, after being guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into our land.

According to Ralph, the girl was employed for many years as a servant in Richard de Calne's household, where she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". William says that she eventually married a man from King's Lynn, about 40 miles (64 km) from Woolpit, where she was still living shortly before he wrote. Based on his research into Richard de Calne's family history, the astronomer and writer Duncan Lunan has concluded that the girl was given the name "Agnes" and that she married a royal official named Richard Barre.


Explanations

Neither Ralph of Coggeshall nor William of Newburgh offer an explanation for the "strange and prodigious" event, as William calls it, and some modern historians have the same reticence: "I consider the process of worrying over the suggestive details of these wonderfully pointless miracles in an effort to find natural or psychological explanations of what 'really,' if anything, happened, to be useless to the study of William of Newburgh or, for that matter, of the Middle Ages", says Nancy Partner, author of a study of 12th-century historiography. Nonetheless, such explanations continue to be sought and two approaches have dominated explanations of the mystery of the green children.

The first is that the narrative descends from folklore, describing an imaginary encounter with the inhabitants of a "fairy Otherworld". In a few early as well as modern readings, this other world is extraterrestrial, and the green children alien beings.

The second is that it is a garbled account of a real event, although it is impossible to be certain whether the story as recorded is an authentic report given by the children or an "adult invention". His study of accounts of children and servants fleeing from their masters led Charles Oman to conclude that "there is clearly some mystery behind it all [the story of the green children], some story of drugging and kidnapping". Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a literary critic, offers a different kind of historical explanation, arguing that the story is an oblique account of the racial difference between the contemporary English and the indigenous Britons.



─ continue reading here ─ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit)














Wow, Wind. I didn't know you'd seen an image of our former Shire-mate at a Trump rally. Not surprised to hear he was there though.

He himself did mention in the mod room that he had been attending Trump rallies in the run-up to the 2016 elections, so it was already known about even back then. ;)

[Chris]

It was in Woolpit in England, somewhere in the 12th century.










Story


One day at harvest time, according to William of Newburgh during the reign of King Stephen (r. 1135–1154), the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name. Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar. Ralph reports that the children were taken to the home of Richard de Calne. Ralph and William agree that the pair refused all food for several days until they came across some raw broad beans, which they consumed eagerly. The children gradually adapted to normal food and in time lost their green colour. The boy, who appeared to be the younger of the two, became sickly and died shortly after he and his sister were baptised.

After learning to speak English, the children – Ralph says just the surviving girl – explained that they came from a land where the sun never shone and the light was like twilight. William says the children called their home St Martin's Land; Ralph adds that everything there was green. According to William, the children were unable to account for their arrival in Woolpit; they had been herding their father's cattle when they heard a loud noise (according to William, the bells of Bury St Edmunds) and suddenly found themselves by the wolf pit where they were found. Ralph says that they had become lost when they followed the cattle into a cave and, after being guided by the sound of bells, eventually emerged into our land.

According to Ralph, the girl was employed for many years as a servant in Richard de Calne's household, where she was considered to be "very wanton and impudent". William says that she eventually married a man from King's Lynn, about 40 miles (64 km) from Woolpit, where she was still living shortly before he wrote. Based on his research into Richard de Calne's family history, the astronomer and writer Duncan Lunan has concluded that the girl was given the name "Agnes" and that she married a royal official named Richard Barre.


Explanations

Neither Ralph of Coggeshall nor William of Newburgh offer an explanation for the "strange and prodigious" event, as William calls it, and some modern historians have the same reticence: "I consider the process of worrying over the suggestive details of these wonderfully pointless miracles in an effort to find natural or psychological explanations of what 'really,' if anything, happened, to be useless to the study of William of Newburgh or, for that matter, of the Middle Ages", says Nancy Partner, author of a study of 12th-century historiography. Nonetheless, such explanations continue to be sought and two approaches have dominated explanations of the mystery of the green children.

The first is that the narrative descends from folklore, describing an imaginary encounter with the inhabitants of a "fairy Otherworld". In a few early as well as modern readings, this other world is extraterrestrial, and the green children alien beings.

The second is that it is a garbled account of a real event, although it is impossible to be certain whether the story as recorded is an authentic report given by the children or an "adult invention". His study of accounts of children and servants fleeing from their masters led Charles Oman to conclude that "there is clearly some mystery behind it all [the story of the green children], some story of drugging and kidnapping". Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a literary critic, offers a different kind of historical explanation, arguing that the story is an oblique account of the racial difference between the contemporary English and the indigenous Britons.



─ continue reading here ─ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit)















He himself did mention in the mod room that he had been attending Trump rallies in the run-up to the 2016 elections, so it was already known about even back then. ;)

Coming up next:

Picture of me at an Orbán rally, waving a Nazi salute and burning a rainbow flag...

:lol:

[Dreamtimer]

Lol, Chris. (I'd forgotten that bsbray had said that himself).

Chris, as long as you don't wave that flag while breaking windows, going into the Capitol, beating people, and spreading your excrement around, I'm really OK with it.

You do you, Chris. ;)

[Wind]

Wow, Wind. I didn't know you'd seen an image of our former Shire-mate at a Trump rally. Not surprised to hear he was there though.

He was also at the rally with the tiki torches (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally). Also in Charlottesville where the guy drove over people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville_car_attack).

Those kids must have been feeling quite green.

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