quote

There is one way to understand another culture.  Living it.  Move into it, ask to be tolerated as a guest, learn the language.  At some point understanding may come.  It will always be wordless.  The moment you grasp what is foreign, you will lose the urge to explain it.  To explain a phenomenon is to distance yourself from it.  When I start talking about Qaanaaq, to myself or to others, I again start to lose what has never been truly mine.

 

-Hoeg, Peter.  Smilla's Sense of Snow.  Translated by Tiina Nunnally. Dell Publishing, New York, 1993.