iiyamadude 6 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Quote: The golden sands and turquoise seas of the Maldives are a favourite location for couples looking to affirm their love in a location more exotic than the local register office. But an important lesson can be gleaned from one unfortunate pair who renewed their vows on a Maldivian beach: make sure you know exactly what you're saying "I do" to. The Maldivian foreign minister issued a grovelling public apology today to a Swiss couple who thought they were being blessed at an idyllic beach ceremony but were in fact being referred to as "swine" and "infidels" in the local tongue. Police are investigating after a staff member at the Vilu Reef resort substituted marriage renewal vows with a stream of extreme sexual and religious slurs in the local Dhivehi language. The public relations disaster unfolded after someone uploaded a video of the ceremony on YouTube, threatening the Muslim-majority country's reputation as one of the world's most exclusive tourist destinations. "You are swine," the unwitting couple were told. "The children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine. Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel and, we have reason to believe, an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion." After the video went viral, the Maldives government went into crisis management overdrive to protect its lucrative tourism industry. Link to post Share on other sites
klingon 10 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 I saw that earlier. Wonder how much of that goes on. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Good to see humour can cross cultural boundaries.... In one of his videos, maybe Century of the Self, Adam Curtis describes how a load of tribesmen played it up for the cameras and called each other "stinky pussy" etc. during an anthropological study. The film went onto be highly regarded in the West and interpreted as a serious study into basic human motives and behavior. Link to post Share on other sites
Mantas 3 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Damm them.... I'm going to cancel that $25 000 trip to the Maldives to re-new my wedding vowels right away. Link to post Share on other sites
Go Native 70 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Never understood the whole renewing your vows thing. Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 well sometimes your vowels get bent out of shape and you have to knock them back so that your pronunciation of A,E,I,O and U is spot on Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 that's bollocks. I before E except after C. Link to post Share on other sites
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