Is there something wrong with oriental ports, I wonder?
Also, that’s hardly ‘us’. None of us were alive in the 1840s. Even if you could call a port ‘us’ to begin with, which you can’t.
All this hyper-anxiety about being classed as ‘oriental’…in any case, that’s exactly what it would have looked like, except that it was a lot busier and a whole lot more ‘oriental’, with plenty of dirt, squalor, beggars, urchins in rags, men dressed like that, shouting and jostling.
Not that this kind of thing was specifically oriental – all the ports of the Mediterranean were of a piece.
It’s pointless hankering after whitewashed myths. Why would you want to anyway? The essence of ports in the maritime age, especially those of the Mediterranean, was that they teemed with all sorts from all over.
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Trust her to be the one.
Yes, dear Astrid: oriental, exotic, African, Johnny foreigners, wogs, niggers and natives. And not one bit Baroque.
It’s an awful pity that those wonderful old shops leading up to Valletta from the port – on the stairs under Bridge Bar – are all closed and dead. This is where I’d make an effort to liven things up.
In my understanding, the energy came from the port right into Valletta. It didn’t just suddenly materialise at the top.
Molto pittoresco. Where’ve you been for the last decade? They’re open and thriving. Things are lively and Valletta is full of energy. But don’t assume that energy means beauty.
Not the shops I mention, Baxxter. I keep on hoping.
You mean to tell me that the “Persian” is still closed?
In one of the relatively recent novels on the Great Siege, there is a description of one of the Maltese coming across a Turk.
That one description of the encounter with colour – of the Turk’s dress mainly – is what made the book come alive for me.
Until then, I’d found the siege, was mainly described in black and white.
Just think – apart from the art linked to this – what the colours must have been like, especially in oriental style.
Now that would be a mix.
Infusion of colour, of type, of race: that is where our make-up lies.
I can’t understand this instinctive barrier people put up, where fascination would be more productive.
And from that to the unquestioning acceptance of “orientals” that are doing their utmost to say that they’re just like us, when they’re not.
I would celebrate open difference, not concealed deceit.
Hang on a minute though. Astrid is just projecting her own cultural and sicio-economic baggage onto the rest of us, declaring us non-Oriental.
For the rest of us, it is a class struggle. But for Astrid and someone like yourself, you’re just being kind. You celebrate Orientalism because you’re not Orientals. To us on the other side, it sounds terribly patronising.
Read Edward Said. He had the misfortune to see how the other side lives. And he was disgusted by his side thereafter.
Why have sides in the first place?
I’m for celebrating difference, not ignorance.
I think Astrid’s point of view is different to mine, since her reaction is immediately defensive.
Why should that be patronising?
Why you batch us up because of perceived similarities would mean that there’s a whole lot neglected that could have been appreciated in the differences, whether applicable or not to the topic. On the surface there is the difference, but you have gone one step further and made a judgement that already colours your take.That judgement has given you the sides. In establishing the sides on the basis of similarities, the differences – irrelevant to that establishment – are discarded.
I suppose it depends on the markers and filters, and the fact that they rarely, in fact, get a regular update, except by conscious effort.
What’s kindness got to do with it? Is this an emotional take or a factual one motivated by curiosity?
The fact is, whether we like to hear it or not, we are a complete mix: Tunisian flatfoot with Persian eyes the slit to which can trail to the Steppes; Armenian flat back-of-the-heads with Roman aquiline nose, etc.
It’s fascinating: history as a live portrait.
Where the beauty is in the difference.
In Vienna there is a saying that the Viennese will die, in a coffee shop, doing what they love doing: observing people, analysing what they see. For this purpose, I’d gladly take on this Viennese trait for information/ detail gathering, not judgement.
Simply: that a scene could look Oriental should come as no surprise.
Another filter rarely applied generally is the veracity filter. How true is information given us/ supplied? Can we scale the intake?
Thank you for the recommendation, and the discussion – which I am aware could come across as pointless.
When you are cosmopolitan and sophisticated and were raised so, you look at the peasants, their backwardness and their little world with a certain fondness. Think of Caruana Dingli’s watercolours of idyllic Malta.
I do not look upon Malteseness with fondness, for it is my own Malteseness. I’m from the sticks, I spent my whole life trying to escape this cage. So when I look at the colours and the exotic mix, I see my own people, and I wince.
You are up there looking down, and the whole world is your home. I am down here among the exotic, colourful ants. I do not delight in imqarrun il-forn and ganutell, and I do not collect antique Maltese silver.
L-importanti li ‘Je suis Charlie’ to fit in. However, this so called compliance with the herd mentality is not enough to cover the sheer ignorance.
Now that the Maltese countryside is well and truly being f***ed up with the recent revision of the rural policy and the forthcoming amnesty for illegalities (including ILLEGALITIES IN THE COUNTRYSIDE), Astrid Vella spends her time sharing sweet niceties with friends on FB. Whatever happened to the street protests and the megaphones?
I think we come from a generation – you from one end of it and me from the other – where there were many of us that had a cage to get out of and did, only to find ourselves back in it. I join you in wincing, but about the futility of the return to the cage. Sticks? “Sticks” come in all sorts of packaging.
I could never look down, Baxxter, except at cage makers and cage keepers. There is another little exception: homes opting not to have books in them give me the shivers.
Oh I’m not into collecting anything, besides book reads.
Since this was becoming more of a personal discussion, we’ve had it, meanwhile.