A Culture Clings to Its Reflection in a Cleaned-Up Soap Opera (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

TIHOSUCO JOURNAL

*A Culture Clings to Its Reflection in a Cleaned-Up Soap Opera*

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: August 1, 2013

TIHOSUCO, Mexico — It might be the cleanest Mexican soap opera around.

The screening was held near the ruins of a temple in Tihosuco.

The passionate love scenes that are a staple of the genre were reduced,
bowing to conservative local sensibilities, to a few pecks on the cheek and
hand-holding as innocent as junior high schoolers on a first date.

It was not the only accommodation made by producers of what is considered
the first “telenovela,” as soap operas are known here, entirely in an
indigenous language, Maya, and with a story line rooted in the community.

For starters, María, the love interest, cannot bring herself to say “I am
falling in love with you” when her beau-to-be, Jacinto, finally gets his
act together. Because while phrases of desire like “I love you” are roughly
translatable into Maya, it is trickier to express being “in love” in the
language.

“It’s more like ‘the heart of my heart is happy,’ ” said Hilario Chi Canul,
a professor of Mayan language and culture. He also helped write the script
and also plays the leading man in the telenovela, called “Baktun,” which
makes its debut this month on Quintana Roo State public television.

Access full article below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/world/americas/a-culture-clings-to-its-reflection-in-a-cleaned-up-soap-opera.html?_r=0
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