Friday, January 06, 2006

Greek children learn strange things

As part of my study of the Greek language, my mother-in-law and I thought it would be a good idea to start from the Greek books the children use in schools here, mainly for vocabulary absorption. Each page has some new words in a silly little story, and the other day I got to read about an old man who gets drunk and his wife gets angry with him. I know these things happen in reality, but do first graders really need to learn the concept of getting drunk? It hardly seems appropriate, but then again, this is a different culture.

I heard that in the second grade book you learn the words for penis envy, oral fixation, and fetish, along with two very important words all Greek children should learn - bribery and corruption.

I guess it could have been worse, after the wife got angry at the old man, he could have beat the crap out and told the bitch to shut up. Alas, not all stories have happy endings.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow...those were never in my Lil' Greek Daily Reader in Greek School.

Of course I'm sure all the Americanized parents sanitized the books before we got them :-)