Un cuento chino or 'Chinese whispers'

It's always a pleasure to hear a new story that is going round the British 'community' here. I don't mean  'who's shagging who  stories'  but those that could be of general public inerest and are worth passing on. You could call them rumours and I started a few of them myself just to see how they developed. The English  call this process  'Chinese whispers' . The Spanish expression 'Un cuento chino.' ( a chinese tale) carries a similar meaning.  Sometimes these tales have some basis in fact but tracking down their origins is usually impossible especially if you come up against 'A Spanish person told me'.

My favourite in recent years was when the Plaza Baja was given a facelift. The four big shade-giving Indian Laurel trees (Ficus Nitida) were uprooted from the raised central area, depriving hundreds of birds of their roosting perches  (and the local residents of summer shade) and replaced with four palm tees which give little or no shade at all and do not attract birds.

 The story was that the roots of the trees were damaging the buildings round the square. No  evidence of this was visible and the residents were mystified. The square was then enclosed by netting for most of the year before it was needed for the annual 'Despedia' ceremony  and work recommenced.  The new surface consists largely of patterns made from black and white pebbles which are used extensively in Spain and resemble mosaic patterns.

Un Cuento Chino or Chinese Whispers

 

 

 

 The story went round that the ayuntiamento had imported all these pebbles from China. This struck me as rather implausible until I realised that the word in Spanish for a pebble is 'una china'.  Lost in translation?

Other past favourites include the new road which was to be built right through the town, the new road up to the castle, the shutting down of the train line to Málaga, the gay bar on La Rampa, the new Lidl supermarket.

Some stories do turn out to be true at least in essence. The tragic story of the Alora woman who died in the recent floods was distressing enough but one version had her husband `deperately clinging to her hand from the steel bridge which was ripped in two by the swollen river.

The story of the rescue of a flooded out young couple found clinging déshabillés to the branches of a lemon tree appears to be true.

Today our neighbour Isabela brought us a tortilla, still warm from the pan. It was delicious of course but instead of onions she had used chopped garlic. There was pàrsley in it too. I asked her why she didn't use onions. 'I don't like onions' was her reply. Fair enough!

19/10/2012