On 11/6/07, Charles Haynes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > (FWIW "Jew Town" would probably be offensive to most Jews, but we will > be visiting Cochin's Jewish Quarter and synagogues for sure.)
Historically, "Jew Town" is what Cochin's Jewish Quarter (uhh ... Jewish sixty-fourth?) is called. I've noticed that words (and gestures[1]) with loaded meanings elsewhere are pretty innocuous in India (and in Kerala especially). That's probably because Indian repression has been directed mostly at lower classes rather than other races. I remember a Nigerian friend bemusedly telling me about having a pleasant conversation with an old gent at a bus stand in Trivandrum. The conversation ended with the old chap saying, "Nice talking to you. We don't get many of you Negroes around here, so it's quite a treat to talk to one." -- b [1] I recently saw some pictures of a function at my niece's school where she took an oath to be a good student, study hard and eat all her vegetables. Apparently, my brother and his wife were the only people who were bothered by the fact that all the students used a Nazi "Heil Hitler"-style salute to take the oath.
