Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Magic Kingdoms and Lang Xang: The Dumbo Connection


From The Night They Burned The Mountain, by Dr. Thomas A. Dooley (1960) in the village of Muong Sing in Northwest Laos:

"Frequently at night we show a movie on the wall of our house. Some 1,000 people sit on the grass and watch in wonder. Little Guntar loves the movies. I think movies have just as much therapeutic value as antibiotics. Walt Disney gave me a 16 mm. version of Dumbo. Dumbo has enchanted North Laos, and the children watch for him every time we show this movie. They never seem to tire of it. "What a wonderful land America must be," they say. "They have huge elephants and the elephants are pink and green and blue and purple. And some of these elephants have ears so big that they can fly through the air." Dumbo is winning friends in the ten-year-old bracket for sure." 

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