Wanna hear feedback on my French culture activities yesterday? You better don't, unless you take pleasure in other person's misfortunes. I'll share my disappointment to lessen it a bit.
After 3-hour interpretation outside in rain and wind, frozen and unhappy, I longed for warmth, delight in mellow evening and emotional comfort. On the way home, with great expectations (my first mistake), I popped in a Culture center to see a Bordeaux wine exhibition. Entering the main hall, there stood big posters picturing grapes, wine regions, people harvesting etc., and descriptive notes. At first I thought it's some kind of introduction to the exhibition, but soon realized it WAS the exhibition. Disappointed, not even seeing point in reading information for each poster, I entered another hall to find out about the coming shows or concerts. Although not having heard anything before about a weekend's show, I noticed glorious reviews about it in the leaflets at the counter. Obviously I had underestimated our people's interest in French culture (my second mistake) as the only tickets left were of unreasonable price, or the price I was not ready to pay.
I usually don't grieve for too long, especially if I know how to turn things for better. It was a French movie in my mind. So I headed towards the cinema, the same I wrote some time ago. It was unusual to see so many people gathering there; it was like all the French school students in Riga have come to see the movie. The hall was totally packed. For an instant I wondered why people take headphones, for another instant I heard something about captions in Latvian or English, but until I saw the first shots of the movie I did not bother (my third mistake). It was just when I heard only French and saw neither English, nor Latvian translation, I understood what had been the headphones meant for. Good that I sat at the aisle and could return at the entrance for the last pair of headphones not disturbing anyone from watching. Bad that my cool headphones did not work! And now imagine yourselves watching a movie in a language you don’t understand. I mean, I can understand a bit of French, but not that I could follow a complete movie. Throughout the movie I made wild guesses of what the actors spoke, but somehow my guesses never corresponded to the reaction of the audience… when they laughed there must have been a funny story told…
Somehow I liked my interpretation of French food better than this culture program. How do you think?
19 April 2007
not a good start
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Interesting post, almost like being deaf. If you can't follow the conversation then it does get frustrating. When my parents talk in their native tongue when I was growing up I felt this way. They rarely spoke in a different language, it was a way to communicate without their kids knowing about a surprise. Often things like, "Go get the present under the bed". I love watching foreign films but I always expect the captions. We lose a lot when we hear it in our own language.
I think: "expect the unexpected or better expect nothing at all" ;) BTW - great, interesting story!
Thanks for your feedback and sharing the same opinion.
In fact, I also remember my parents talking in another language when they didn't want me and my sister to know about something. But this immediately made us cautious.
Indeed, great expectations usually do not justify themselves.
Post a Comment