three wise monkeys

New research into inter-ethnic unions suggests we’re reverting to a less romantic idea of marriage

Mar 15, 2008 04:30 AM
Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter

I grew up in a traditional Chinese household, where I was taught my future life partner must have an equal, if not better, upbringing than mine. That mentality is embedded in the ancient saying, “A bamboo door should match a bamboo door; a wood door should match a wood door.” Essentially, what it means is you have to marry someone in the same social class if you want the relationship to last.

The Chinese are not alone in this worldview. Many Indians are still bound by caste and the arranged unions that flow from it. And acute class-consciousness is a persistent feature of British identity.
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MARK SCHATZKER
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
February 9, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST

The Globe and Mail

TOKYO —

Not a single grain of wheat flour goes into the noodles at the Tokyo soba shrine — I mean restaurant — called Kikouchitei. The noodles are hand-cut from freshly rolled dough containing buckwheat and only buckwheat.

If that doesn’t strike you as unusual, then there’s something you should know about buckwheat dough: It is the world’s most temperamental substance. Without the glutinous binding properties of wheat, the dough becomes so prone to shredding that learning how to make it takes a staggering three years of training — after which one attains the status of “soba master.”
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Buffalo’s odd rite of spring

Once a year, pussy willows and water get their very own festival, writes Francine Kopun
April 08, 2007

In Buffalo, N.Y., the mad, last-minute rush to prepare for Easter includes two items that don’t make many shopping lists: pussy willows and squirt guns.

That’s because the city is home to the largest celebration of an ancient Polish rite of spring – Dyngus Day, traditionally held on Easter Monday. That’s when thousands of residents and visitors will gather in community halls and neighbourhood pubs around Buffalo and its suburbs to eat and drink and polka, and – oh yes – sprinkle each other with water and tap each other with pussy willows.
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Female intuition key to correct weather prognostications by Michigan groundhog
Canadian Press
HOWELL, Mich. (AP) - Woody has something most other prognosticating groundhogs don’t.

Female intuition.
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Don’t stone women to death, burn them or circumcise them, immigrants wishing to live in the town of Herouxville in Quebec, Canada, have been told.

The rules come in a new town council declaration on culture that Muslims have branded shocking and insulting.
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January 15, 2007
Associated Press

LONDON – Would France have been better off under the Queen?

The revelation that the French government proposed a union of Britain and France in 1956, even offering to accept the sovereignty of the British Queen, has left scholars on both sides of the Channel puzzled.
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‘Paris Syndrome’ strikes Japanese
By Caroline Wyatt
BBC News, Paris

A dozen or so Japanese tourists a year have to be repatriated from the French capital, after falling prey to what’s become known as “Paris syndrome”.

That is what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations.

The experience can apparently be too stressful for some and they suffer a psychiatric breakdown.
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Visit Good Gifts for some great ideas.

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Gifts of aid to developing world becoming new Christmas tradition

December 20, 2006
Stuart Laidlaw
Faith and Ethics Reporter

Three years ago, Tim Abellera and his co-workers realized that by the end of the staff Christmas exchange, they all had too many coffee mugs they didn’t want and – if they were honest with themselves – too many chocolates they didn’t need.

So they decided to do something different.
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Globe and Mail Update

Can Muslims be true to their faith and loyal citizens in a Western country such as Canada?

Tariq Ramadan says yes. This public intellectual’s struggle to integrate Muslim thought with modern life has made him one of the most controversial and influential Islamic scholars in Europe.
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from Toronto Star, Tuesday Dec. 19

The holidays are expensive. Least of all for those who celebrate them.

The real loser of the season is the Earth.
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