“I came across an observation made in a pocket journal I used to carry–it was last year, last June, past midway, approaching the summer solstice. I must have ben eating sushi, where I do not know . . . sushi chefs talking crazy talk to my ears not understanding Chinese. What is it about languages we do not understand, sometimes sounding like gibberish, other times sounding eloquent, marvelous, mellifluous, or so we say to ourselves, imagining we feel something in the other language, about this other’s words.
“It is also interesting to note that just when something sounds like gibberish, a person may be saying how beautiful you are, and when it sounds mellifluous, a person could be saying, you look like a monkey, maybe you sleep outside with the cats. What is, is in the world of understanding or misunderstanding. Too much of misunderstanding is really dis-understanding. How much we dis-allow ourselves from comprehending could bury us, and often it does.
“Of course–I do not know how this is a matter of course–but, of course. Do we really pay attention to what is or is not strident in a language we do not understand?
“I am perfectly okay with someone thinking or trying to say I look like a monkey. There are 7 billion people in the world; I cannot be good-looking to everyone, although I think I’m more than fairly good-looking,” he said.
The Falling Leaf Review 