let me relate something interesting, but first I need to give you a bit of context....
Jair and I were asked by the prison here to find a rehabilitation course for sexual offenders. Well, we asked friends and a friend of some friends was working on a course for sexual offenders in a different prison in a different country. So anyway, we're working with him to develop it for use here. But of course, we need to understand the cultural context in order for it to be meaningful. So we've been asking people about Solomon Island culture, in particular family values, what is and isn't appropriate relationships etc.
It's been very enlightening.
And here's the part I wanted to relate to you - concerning the word darling and honey and words like that. This guy, let's call him... Guy, was saying how in this culture, the only person you can call darling is your husband or wife. It's not really appropriate in any other context, apart from maybe, to your young children.
Now Jair and I don't really go around calling other people such terms of endearment. But we said that well, in our culture, an old lady might call a young person darling or such, and it possibly might be ok vice versa, and we might batter an eyelid but generally a very old man could do the same to a young person and it would probably be ok. Probably, but even then sometimes it's considered... well... you know. But we're a bit more loosey goosey with the term.Australians on the other hand, seem to use the terms much more flippantly across age and gender barriers.
So then some locals pick up on that and say it, not understanding the ideas of other people in their culture, not understanding that they are actually causing problems, calling older married men darling, just because they've heard white people say it.
He gave an example of how his church was having a big conference and they had an expat speaker. He asked if there was someone who could read a passage from the Bible and a young woman put her hand up and went to the stage to read the text.
He replied, "thanks darling".
Gasp. The locals are wondering.... why is this Christian man, who has come to lead us in preaching the Word of God to us, who is married,
hitting on this young girl in front of all of us at church!!Yeouwch.
It's just another example of what a different world we're in and how you've got to be so careful with what you say and do, because, you might just be offending someone and putting up a major block to the gospel.
