On My Personal Experience with Other Cultures Encountered by My ...

... Sight

Every lucky man has all five senses, perhaps he or she has also the power of predicting the future by means of of the so called "sixth sense", or intuition. We use them altogether all the time, and so one can hardly tell a story in which just one particular sense is engaged. I have spent most of my life here in Slovakia and I only communicate with other worlds by means of the Internet, by reading or by watching TV. Or I communicate with those worlds which come to my world. As far as my vision in interaction with other cultures is concerned, the most intense memory is a 16th century painting by van Brueghel Jr. called The Triumph of Death. It shows Death and all that it stands for coming in overwhelming quantity, torturing and killing masses of people in insane laughter. I saw this picture when I was 7 for the first time and since then I have been returning to it, wondering what event could have led the author to create this dreadful masterpiece. I have seen many similar and even much better artistic works since I saw The Triumph of Death for the first time, but with the help of this particular work I realized that Art is all about making an image of and perceiving different worlds inhabited by different people.

... Hearing

Music. This is the first thing that comes to my mind when hearing and other cultures are mentioned. I remember one summer night, when there were about 20 people sitting around a fire and everyone held an instrument. Most of those were people I did not know, but at that moment I felt strong mutual unity powered by tribal beats of bongos of all sizes. It was a ritual of freeing our minds to other dimensions and the music was the gate. At that time, banging a bongo, playing a didgeridoo or another "non-standard" instrument was a matter of fashion, of course, mainly within the young, now it is fading away. I do not know and I do not care how this customs of native Australians and Africans got here, but I really enjoyed that.

... Smelling

I am a man from town, no matter how big. I spent all summers of my childhood in the country, where I kept a herd of cows with my friend, where fell in love with a simple village girl, where I cut down trees, where I learnt to use chainsaw, to mowe, to milk a cow, to jump on a horse without being kicked, to drive a tractor ... and where I did all other things that can hardly be done in a town. Two months a year in a place where most of all things are not bought but made. Two months in a place where the air smells of fresh pines and fresh cow*censored*. And therefore cow*censored* does not smell to me as it does to other people. To me, it represents purity of nature and the value of human work.

... Touch

He was not mongoloid, but Mongolian, and a little bit god-forgotten boy, perfect at playing chess. All kids were afraid of him, the big ones told horrid stories about him to the litlle ones. Once, when I was sitting and building sand castles with his brother Khatam Bhatar, I did not notice him approaching and all kids running away. He came and touched me. I realized what I had to and I began to scream, as other kids used to. This was the first and the last touch done by him to me. He died several days after, with his crippled mind, unspoken words and unimaginable mathematical imagination.

... Taste

I was about a 4-year old boy. My family lived in Russia at that time, and for some reasons we all went down to Georgia. Unfortunately, sharp curves of a Caucassian road did not do well to my little stomach and so I expelled the whole of its content on the coating of our car. It was nothing else but chachapuri, the traditional food of Georgia. It was so delicious that the only thing I could ask for after realizing that my belly was empty was just another portion of chachapuri...

... Intuition

I am really very sorry, but I do not feel being endowed by this gift and from this reason I cannot supply any story. I am a rational man and what is hypothetical is not true, no matter how true it is or will turn out to be.

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