East Is East, and West is West

Posted by Harikrishnan Menon March 24, 2003In reply to East Is East, and West is West posted by James Briggs on March 24, 2003

EAST IS EAST, AND WEST IS WEST, AND NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET People of very different cultures are not ever likely to understand each other fully. The proverb was coined in 1889 by Rudyard Kipling in "The Ballad of East and West"

It's odd that Kipling also said "...the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift / And the east and the west are one" [The Gypsy Trail]. Couldn't make up his mind, perhaps?