Saturday, August 21, 2010

Learning to Live in England, Part 29: Amish Teens

We have been watching a fascinating and educational mini-series here entitled World's Squarest Teenagers about 5 Amish teens on Rumspringa in England.  That's Pennsylvania Dutch, doubtless a variant of the German herumspringen, literally, jumping around.  It's when Amish young people, before deciding whether to be baptized Amish, are allowed to go out into the rest of the world and explore, and experience other cultures and do pretty much as they like.



The first thing to which these teens were exposed was rock music.  One of the girls very astutely observed, 'It does something to my body I don't like.'  Right!  It stimulates the body, and if that stimulation is either unaccustomed or unwelcome, it can be annoying or even maddening. 

Then they were taken to a beach and saw bikinis for the first time.  One of the girls said she couldn't understand why girls would dress that way; surely it must cause unnecessary struggling for the boys.  I thought, 'Oh, you poor dear.  These boys don't struggle!  They don't even give in.  They go out in active search of it!'

The next thing they encountered was dancing, considered by the Amish the work of the devil; and of course it must be admitted that much dancing is.  An Amish girl asked her hostess why people did it, and the reply was, 'To make us feel good!'  this was totally incomprehensible to the Amish girl.  She gave an answer equally incomprehensible to her hostess:  'When I want to feel good, I go pray.'

You can watch the episodes at the like above, and I highly recommend doing it.  They illustrate, very graphically, the difference between a hedonistic, shallow, even meaningless life and a strict but meaningful one.  They illustrate the difference between true joy and 'fun' and how easy it is to be seduced away from the one in order to give oneself to the other.  They show what true beauty is; for these girls, covered up and innocent of any make-up, are nevertheless truly beautiful, true precious gems. 


6 comments:

Anam Cara said...

I was all excited about this, and went to the links, but we can't see them here - apparently only the UK can watch! : (

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

that's really a pity! I am going to check if there is any way to embed one or more of those videos...

Anastasia Theodoridis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anastasia Theodoridis said...

Anam, the embed code for the video has been 'deleted by request' but here is a Youtube URL, in case it works from there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyHO--yBvFI

Good luck, and please let me know the result.

Anam Cara said...

Sorry, it doesn't work. Got this message:

"This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

I guess there's no way I can make my computer think I'm in another country....

I'll keep looking for it. It's bound to turn up somewhere sooner or later....

Anam Cara said...

I did find this:

http://tv.sky.com/amish-worlds-squarest-teenagers-interview

Great interview! Loved the answer to the last question:

"Did anything on this trip make you question any aspect of Amish life?"

Thanks so much for sharing this.