Laurie Meets the Delegation from China

Today we had a delegation of Chinese businessmen and businesswomen visit the Planetarium. They had not told us what show they wanted to see, but we had a Christmas party here last night, and our holiday show was already set up, so we decided to just set it back to the beginning and show them that, thinking that it would be visually interesting even if some of them couldn't understand the words.

Dr. White did his usual introduction, telling a little about the show, while their guide translated: it shows the wintertime sky and points out several constellations, tells about the cause of the seasons and the meaning of the solstice, tells about several winter holidays and customs, and finally tells a bit about the Star of Bethlehem and the Christmas Story.

At the mention of the Christmas Story, the interpreter got a very puzzled look on his face. "What do you mean by 'The Christmas Story,'" he asked.

At this point, I'm thinking. Okay, there are several possibilities, here. Does he really not know what we're talking about? Has he never heard of the Christmas Story? Is that actually possible? Or is he unsure how to translate it? Or is he unwilling to tranlate it, and starting to worry that he's brought his countrymen to the enemy to be subjected to crazy Christian American propaganda??

So Dr. White says, very calmly, "It's the story of the birth of baby Jesus. There was a special star seen in the sky at that time."

He still seemed slightly puzzled, but he did seem to be able to translate this. And they seemed to enjoy the show. But I'm still burning with curiosity about what was actually going through his head.

And I'd really love to know what he actually said to them in Chinese...