Japanese Tourists to the Rescue!

Early last Saturday afternoon I took a jaunt into St. George’s, Bermuda’s onetime capital (before losing that distinction to Hamilton in 1815) and found myself in a scrum of tourists near the harbor. The attraction was a 17^th century reenactment of an outside trial, with men and women dressed in the garb of the time, and one costumed lady walked the plank for public drunkenness and foul language, bellowing in the dialect of that time. She was “guilty,” of course, but eight Japanese visitors didn’t quite understand what was happening, and just as the town shrew was about to drop in the drink, they helped her out by interfering with the fellows carrying out the charade. It was a hilarious scene: while dozens of people were recording iPhone videos of the proceedings, the Historical Society actors were trying to scoot the interlopers off to the side, breaking into contemporary English to express their profound ire. I’d be cheesed off, too, in their shoes: probably volunteering or working for peanuts, and sleep-walking through the skit for the 1000^th time, who needed an intrusion that would keep them from a well-earned pint?