"Personal space isn't hard so hard for people to learn,' Bechtold adds, ' What is really much harder is the business of dinner being served at midnight."
2006-09-17 12:38:21 · 3 answers · asked by Avatari 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Quotations
This sounds like someone talking about adapting to another culture. Personal space refers to how far away from one another people are comfortable being, and it is known that this varies by culture. If you are from a country which requires very little personal space like, say, in the middle East, where people stand very close to one another, and you move somewhere like, oh, Finland, you will make people nervous by entering their personal space, and you will feel that everyone is unfriendly because they keep backing away from you, until you get used to it. In a country like some in Latin America, where people take siestas after lunch and then stay up very late, you might find that standard dinner invitations are for 11 p.m. So if you are used to eating dinner at 6 or 7 every night, that will take adjustment. Bechtold, in the quote, seems to be saying that changing one's entire schedule is harder for most people than is changing the distance they stand or sit from other people.
2006-09-17 12:46:14 · answer #1 · answered by neniaf 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It means just what it says. It's basically a comparison between learning one's own personal space and serving dinner at midnight, and saying which one of the two is harder to do. Bechtold seems to think that serving dinner at midnight is much harder, although there isn't any connection between these two things, so why he'd compare them is questionable.
2006-09-17 12:51:13 · answer #2 · answered by kalco 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This sentence is crying out for context. I'm thinking that it might be set on an aircraft (personal space issues, dinner at midnight) in which case it is self-explanatory.
2006-09-17 12:45:24 · answer #3 · answered by Bethany 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋