Stuart Stone
This thread has been priceless for many reasons for me...
The lady Scott Duncan likes to refer to as my 'arm candy' was born in Russia, but lived in Italy for 10 years. She is fluent in Russian and Italian & for every day purposes, in English as well. Her stepfather is Italian, a very serious 'believer', with no interest in speaking English or Russian.
My Russian is basic at best & my spoken Italian is passable...so when you add the cultural mix in with the obvious language differences, any 'discussion' about religion very quickly turns into an 'argument'...or if you take the literal translations of the words from English to Italian, an argument in Italian is a discussion & a discussion an argument.
Add the cultural differences of an Australian raised to challenge opinions, mix it with a Russian who respects everyones' right to their opinion & an Italian who refuses to acknowledge that anyone else is entitled to an opinion & any tough love encountered here is light relief :-)
When it comes to dealing with various bureaucrats, who can not or will not provide a straight or honest answer to a simple question, the need to make myself understood with very specific language becomes all the more important.
Otherwise we continue to underline the point that we really are stupid irresponsible children ill equipped and unable to manage our affairs...so thanks for the wakeup call Tara Duncan
Printed copy · Anthology Volume 1, page 808
