"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (see the above link) is set in San Francisco Integrate on Earth in the Solar Commonwealth during the glory days of the Polesotechnic League. However, when this story has been reprinted in The Earth Book Of Stormgate, it is to be read on Avalon in the Domain of Ythri during the period of the early Terran Empire which has succeeded the Commonwealth after the Time of Troubles. Furthermore, the Earth Book editor, Hloch, and many of his readers, are Ythrian, not human, and one of Hloch's co-writers, Arinnian/Christopher Holm, although human, is a member of the Stormgate Choth, therefore bound by choth laws and customs, not by the laws of the Parliament of Man. Different planet, different period, different people. So, given all that, which pieces of Terrestrial terminology might be obscure to the Earth Book's Avalonian readers?
"...blessings..." (p. 177) might be an alien concept to Ythrians of either the Old or the New Faith?
"...the Brotherhood..." (ibid.)
"...Luna..." (p. 178)
"'...San Francisco Integrate...'" (p. 179)
"'...Chinese...'" (p. 181)
"'...Mongoloid...'" (p. 182)
People named Marcantonio wearing togas and Smiths painting themselves blue. (ibid.)
"'...American...'" (ibid.)
"...Chinatown..." (p. 183)
"...Lunar New Year..." (ibid.)
"...ecocenter..." (p. 184)
"...a dandified Lunarian..." (ibid.) (Not to be confused with the Lunarians in a later future history.)
"...the Golden Gate..." (ibid.)
"Her father conducted the San Francisco Opera." (ibid.)
There might be a Part II.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
With the possible exception of "Luna," I think all of these terms might be obscure to non humans like the Ythrians, living more than four centuries after the events in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson."
Sean
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