Word: harem
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...most gratifying surprise of all the 150 albums Decca has released. Influenced by the melodies of Asia and North Africa, influencing the melodies of Eastern and Central Europe, Turkish music has everything from Bedouin thump to gypsy stomp. Notable in this collection is the weird and haunting Taxim, a harem dance which indicates that Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky were not faking their Moslem themes...
...sort of Oriental Decameron, Chin P'ing Mei tells the story of a rich young rakehell named Hsi Men, of whom it was said that "unless they are concubines of the Prince of Hell himself, they belong to the harem of wealthy Hsi Men." Fretful because he is not ten men, something of a sadist (though a pleasant fellow at times), Hsi is figuratively said to enjoy "spending his nights among blossoms and willows." The details are put much more plainly...
Because of the number and frequency of Hsi's seductions, they tend to grow somewhat wearisome. More diverting is the spirited account of Hsi's relations with his six wives. They comprise an amazing harem, a-seethe with complex jealousies and intrigues which mostly originate with a voluptuous, canny beauty named Gold Lotus, who knows how to lead Hsi around by the nose...
...Eunuchs' Benevolent Association is an organization of about 100 shiny old black men, remnants of Turkey's harem system which ended in 1909. (Even before the harem was abolished white eunuchs had become rare.) When the Government levied a tax on bachelors in April 1934. the association asked that its members be exempted, on the ground that their bachelorhood was involuntary. This week their petition was rejected. The tax, said the Government, was on men not supporting wives, regardless of the reason...
...wish therefore to propose . . . the obvious solution: that the University make arrangements with the Turkish government to purchase the entire stocks of black samite veils, which were seized at the time of the confiscation of the late Sultan's harem, and add them to the waitresses' uniforms...