I caught this on Michael Yon‘s Facebook page last week but forgot to post it…

Friday Cultural Lesson: Calling a Woman “Pig” Tonight in Thailand, I was over at the home of a Thai family. The woman of the house was rather…stout. Her nickname is “Moo,” and when I heard the nickname I asked quietly, “Why did you call her pig!?” After a flurry of conversation I was informed that pigs are cute and pink and it’s g…ood to call a stout woman Moo. I said, whoa whoa, whoa. Please never call an American woman pig! Which was met with equal disbelief. What? American women don’t like to be called pig if they are heavy? No, no, please never do! 🙂

A great example of how we carry our cultural truisms around with us and how quickly they might get us into strife before we even realise…at one level we might tend to associate democracy with something both good and useful which still gives us little right to inflict upon societies with other ideas…and at another level, the personification of an animal can be good or bad…

This is a great example of Michael Yon doing what he does so very well, illustrating the human level of the contemporary environment, maybe decomplexing it just a little…certainly providing food for thought for those who have to work in it….