{"id":152,"date":"2008-01-04T16:47:13","date_gmt":"2008-01-04T21:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/angel\/blog\/?p=152"},"modified":"2008-03-16T14:39:21","modified_gmt":"2008-03-16T19:39:21","slug":"an-american-goes-to-the-panto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/?p=152","title":{"rendered":"An American goes to the Panto"},"content":{"rendered":"

I take a lot of pictures of the children sleeping with their father.
\nIt’s not that I plan to take so many pictures of my family sleeping together;
\nit’s just that they are so cute<\/em> when they are all snuggled together.
\n
\nThe family waking up.
\nLily is still asleep, and that is a pacifier in Matt’s mouth.
\n30 December 2007<\/p>\n


\nWhen the baby is restless and not sleeping well,
\nMatt puts him on his chest, and he falls fast asleep.
\n04 January 2008<\/p>\n

There is a very common, yet very incorrect, assumption made between the American and English cultures: we share the English language, so therefore we must have similar cultures.\u00c2\u00a0 These two cultures are very different.\u00c2\u00a0 There are the immediate obvious differences such as the road system, the housing, and the food… very very different between the two countries.\u00c2\u00a0 Then there is the less obvious social differences.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, these days, most Americans send Christmas cards that include pictures of their family on the card, whereas sending a photo Christmas card in England is considered as “putting yourself forward;” it’s just not done.<\/p>\n

This is my sixth visit to England, and I have become reasonably accustomed to both the obvious and subtle differences between mine and my husband’s cultures.\u00c2\u00a0 I enjoy the differences actually; they make the trip really enjoyable and sometimes I even long to live here because there are several things I like better about English culture.<\/p>\n

Every now and then though, I am still taken by surprise.\u00c2\u00a0 That happened at the Panto today.\u00c2\u00a0 Off we go for what is children’s Christmas entertainment.\u00c2\u00a0 Parents, grandparents, and loads of children stream into this lovely Victorian theatre in Lincoln.\u00c2\u00a0 We settle into our seats with the sound of children’s voices filling the theatre.\u00c2\u00a0 The lights go down, and the Panto version of Peter Pan begins.\u00c2\u00a0 It starts with a great song and dance number set in London in which we are introduced to the Darling family.<\/p>\n

And then the high-kicking starts.\u00c2\u00a0 Beautiful ladies in their full skirts kick way into the sky… wearing nothing underneath but little white panties and sheer stockings over those.\u00c2\u00a0 The high-kicking and panty shots continue through the entire production of Peter Pan.\u00c2\u00a0 I haven’t seen so much fan service<\/a> since I read the Video Girl Ai<\/a> manga.<\/p>\n

When we got home, Lily and I sat down for dinner with Matt’s mum and dad (Matt went to play badminton with his brother), and we began discussing the Panto.\u00c2\u00a0 I mentioned how surprised I was by the panty shots, and they didn’t even really notice!\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently the high kicking and twirling\u00c2\u00a0is a traditional part of that style of dancing and it is considered athletic.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet another interesting and entertaining difference between the cultures.<\/p>\n

One more fun and trippy thing about the Panto:\u00c2\u00a0 I was starting to get the hang of the rhythm of the Panto.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a straight-forward musical version of Peter Pan except they would do silly, interactive things with the children in the audience during set changes.\u00c2\u00a0 The first scene after the intermission begins like all the others with Tigerlily telling Capt Hook that she has many friends to help her.\u00c2\u00a0 She has the children in the audience count down from ten to introduce her friends, and who should be her friends, entering from stage right and stage left,\u00c2\u00a0but Mr Man, Little Miss<\/a>, a monkey, and a bear.\u00c2\u00a0 Then they all start singing and dancing.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the only truly surreal part of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, other than the constant panty shots.<\/p>\n

I did really enjoy it, as did Lily and Damian.\u00c2\u00a0 And I have to say,\u00c2\u00a0the beautiful high-kicking ladies and their knickers\u00c2\u00a0actually added to overall enjoyment.\u00c2\u00a0 As a travelling connoisseur of cultures, I can tell you the differences are almost always trippy at first and then fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I take a lot of pictures of the children sleeping with their father. It’s not that I plan to take so many pictures of my family sleeping together; it’s just that they are so cute when they are all snuggled together. The family waking up. Lily is still asleep, and that is a pacifier in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-england"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.angelsdesk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}