Blogs

Culture_project_Notes.docx

Farsi_words.docx

Sources.docx

These two documents are supplements to the Culture Project I posted a few weeks ago.  I didn't want to add them back to the same post because I was afraid they would be overlooked.  These are the notes I used to compile my presentation and the notes I used to elaborate on specific headings within the presentation. 

The Farsi words document contains the words I used in the presentation minus the Farsi names of people that I used.

Summary of my cultural project:

My culture project was on minority religions in Iran, specifically Christianity.  I started out by laying out the history and framework of the Iranian government which is a theocratic republic based on sharia law.  Sharia law, however, is not completely coded into the Iranian constitution.  This causes confusion because Article 23 of the Iranian constitution actually protects minority religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism.  Sharia law though, which as occasionally been used in court decisions, does not protect the practice of these religions.  In fact, under Sharia law, the penalty for apostasy for men over the age of puberty is death.  Because of this distinction between the Iranian constitution and Sharia law, there exists a gap between what is constitutionally permissible behavior on the part of the government, and what is religiously  permissible behavior on the part of the government. 

In order to surmount this gap and unify Sharia law with the Iranian constitution, there was a motion in 2008 to codify the death penalty of Sharia law for apostasy into the constitution.  I was not actually able to find out from a substantial news source whether or not this passed. 

This project also focused on recent events such as the capture of Christians toward the end of 2010.  This is because the government sees Christianity, and attempts to spread it such as web broadcasts, as means by which western culture could undermine the theocratic Iranian state.  Fear of such roundups or penalty of death under a Sharia law court decision has led many Iranian Christians to live double life.  This double life is defined by the "zaher" and "baten" aspects of Iranian society in which people think of themselves as having two identities.  One identity (baten) is their private identity which they display around their family and good friends.  The other identity (zaher) is the public persona that they display.  This applies to Christians, and those practicing minority religions in Iran because at home they are comfortable with their own beliefs.  In public though, they must put their beliefs aside and conform to the Islamic society in order to avoid stigmatization and social repercussions.  An example of this is Illyas who is a young man that is Christian in Iran.  At home he reads his bible and wears a cross around his neck.  In public though, he engages in Muslim prayer times.  The social repercussions of not being Muslim in Iran though are demonstrated by Mona, a young woman who wanted a job with an Iranian state-run airline.  She was turned down because she had never read the Koran. 

In conclusion, this project was not meant to portray the Islamic societies as wholly hostile to Christianity, or to paint Christians as victims in any way.  I simply wanted to study the Iranian government and Muslim society through the lens of religion.

This past week during our group session we went more in depth into Iranian culture and food.  We especially talked about typical foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Maroof asked us what words we wanted to learn so we went through every meal and learned the Farsi vocabulary for typical dishes in Iran and Afghanistan.  Some of these foods were omlets, fried eggs, kebab, rice, and macaroni.  We also learned how to ask for specific foods at resturants and the typical manner in which food is ordered.  Normally in the US we have a kind of cordial encounter with our servers.  We say please and thank you a lot.  In Afghanistan though, the dialogue is much more direct without many pleases and thank yous.  Maroof also taught us how to ask for the check and andy utensils we might need.

I will be spending my time over the next week reviewing for the final exam. We have covered a lot of vocabulary and now it's just a matter of me practicing the usage of these words in sentences.  I plan on focusing on sentence structure, on-sight-recognition of vocabulary words, writing and speaking.  Basically I'm going over everything again.  I also hope to focus on specific areas of Rosetta Stone to help me with these tasks.

Now might be a very formative time for the future of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the L.A. Times, Israel is under increased pressure to resume peace talks and subsequently come up with a plan for peace. If they fail to do so, the "Middle East Quartet" (the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations) has warned that it will attempt to "jump-start the process by formally endorsing, for the first time, the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital."

This, of course, is a controversial and divisive topic both in Israel and internationally. Even the prime minister's cabinet, according to the article, is divided. Most of my family seems to just want the conflict to be resolved, and if that involves a Palestinian state then that is an idea they could handle. My opinion on the subject is conflicted, however I imagine that a Palestinian state is a necessary outcome of a successful solution to the conflict. I also feel that the sovereignty of a Palestinian state is going to be a complex debate, because Israel and the international community will want to keep a close eye on its formation, which means ceding some control. Also, Israel is going to be against the militarization of a Palestinian state which is contradictory to a modern definition of state sovereignty.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-peace-plan-20110419,0,2928506.story

Well, I just did my presentation on Meyhane but I figured I would but up a short blog post just in case anyone wanted to refresh their memories.

Meyhane is what a traditional Turkish restaurant is.  You usually pay a flat rate that gets you unlimited drinks and food all night.  It starts out with Ekmek (bread), yogurt, Kavun and Beyaz Peynir (Melon and white cheese, which go excellent together).  It is very similar to Tapas, in Turkish, Meze (appetizers).  Basically you're surrounded by different appetizers the whole time.  Stuffed vine leaves, Dolma, which is basically any stuffed vegetable dish. Like green peppers stuffed with rice), and aubergine salad (Patlıcan salat) are typical dishes you would see.  At the end they bring out a main appetizer which is usually some fish or a type of chicken dish but could really be anything. 

All the while, you will most likely be drinking Rakı which is the traditional Turkish drink.  Rakı is made from suma is the solid remains of grapes, olives, or other fruit after pressing for juice or oil. It contains the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of the fruit.  Aniseed gives it its licorice flavor. Atatürk loved this stuff. One of the first buildings reopened after the 1923 revolution was a Rakı distillery.  Usually 45% but there must be something else in it. Other variants include Rakia in the Balkans region, Ouzo in Greece, and Arak or araki in the middle east.  The two most popular brands in Turkey are Yeni Raki and Tekirdağ. 

Usually only traditional Turkish music is played.  The three most common instruments used are the Oud, which is similar to the lute. The Darbuka, also known as the “goblet drum” has a much different sound than, say, a djembe. Very Crisp and loud. Usually made of metal. The kemence is a three-stringed bowed instrument. Not played like a violin but like a cello.  As the night goes on and the Rakı continues to flow, people tend to get a little wild and after about two hours into any Meyhane, everyone is dancing on the tables.  It is really a long event which can start anywhere between 6-8 and last till 3 in the morning. If you go to Turkey, Meyhane is an absolute must.

The Nargile (Waterpipe) is a very important cultural element in Turkey.  I remember before I even went there, people told me that I absolutely have to try it. I've smoked hookah in the States before but it was never really that good except for one time in New York where I went to, you guessed it, a Turkish hookah bar.  If you go out for Nargile (or invite your friends over to smoke one in your house), it can last up to 2 hours.  It's a great way to kick back, relax and spend time with some great company.  The Turks love Nargile, guys and girls.  Although you can get pure tobacco for it, typically you choose a flavored tobacco to smoke: Elma (apple), Mango, Şeftalı (Peach), Üzüm (grape) as well as many others were available.  The Nargile itself looks like this (sorry for the long link):

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.factini.com/uploads/hookah-diagram-1275695035&imgrefurl=http://www.factini.com/hookah.html&usg=__izsU675jP6MSBYyBo-94a3IL6LI=&h=600&w=400&sz=43&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=saoD7i8U8a1t_M:&tbnh=152&tbnw=101&ei=q4-vTcOUNpGWtwe_1ZykBQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhookah%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1004%26bih%3D619%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=529&vpy=97&dur=1983&hovh=275&hovw=183&tx=97&ty=122&oei=q4-vTcOUNpGWtwe_1ZykBQ&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

We were offered an opportunity in MLC 105 to teach the class something in our target language. I chose to focus on a difficult pronunciation not found in English, the "ng" sound at the beginning of a word. For example, "ngaan" means work and "ngun" means money.

I attempted to use the descriptions of the mouth and the tongue from our text to describe how to make this difficult sound. Unfortunately, except for a few of my peers this method largely failed. I then did what my Thai language partner does with me, continuous repetition. This was a much more successful method because my peers were able to continuously practice and hear themselves getting closer.

I have decided to respond to Andrew's presentation on Bangladesh because of my interest in that area of the world and that nation in particular. Initially, I planned to learn Bengali because I had plans to complete a Fulbright Research Grant in Bangladesh. My plans fell through but not before I learned a great deal about life in Bangladesh. It is interesting to draw comparisons to the traditional dress that Andrew was wearing during his presentation (Sarong, light shirt) and the outfits of people other countries in Asia I have traveled. There are some similarities to Thai dress but I have noticed that the closer the country is to Central Asia, the more alike it is to Bangladesh and India customs. For example, the tendency to wear long sarongs and drink tea is very similar to what I witnessed while traveling in Myanmar (Burma). It was also interesting to witness the similarities in script. The Bengali script is very similar to Burmese and to the script presented during the presentation on India.

I can also connect to the slow-paced lifestyle which Andrew described. He explained how men sit around their tea shops all day, working more than willing to have a long conversation. This is one of the more appealing aspects of the Asian life style that i experienced. Although, the long work days sounded extremely draining and stressful as many of the shop vendors make just enough to feed themselves for the next day.

Cultural Presentation: Thai Culture in Bangkok vs. Isaan

Slide 1: Map representing geographic separation between the two regions

Slide 2: Language Differences with a few examples

Slide 3: Food: Sticky Rice and Fish vs. Beautiful Rice

Slide 4: Livelihoods: Farmers vs. Businessman

Slide 5: Politics: Red-Shirts vs. Yellow-Shirts

Slide 6: Skin Color: Dark Skin vs. Beautiful Fair Skin

Slide 7: Personality Traits: Communal vs. Individualistic

Slide 8: Music: Country vs. Pop

Slide 9: Isaan Culture and Life style as seen in Bangkok

Slide 10: Bibliography

The opportunity to focus my culture project on the differences between the urban culture in Bangkok and the rural culture in Northeast Thailand was especially helpful in organizing many of my thoughts from my time in Thailand. It was especially helpful to ground these cultural differences in the lingual differences by working closely with my language partner to figure out the connections between the two.

It is important to note that this is only one way of perceiving Thai society as a whole. Other views highlight many of the positive aspects of the growing westernized urban culture, of which there are many. But from my experience in Thailand, where I was located and the people I interacted with, I can't help but generate an opposing view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFgSYtZydiw

This video explains the violent conflict on the border between Thailand and Malaysia. This is a very unique case in Thailand because the country is 98% Buddhist contributing to a very homogeneous communal society. However, the largely Malay Muslim region is within Thai national borders causing serious disagreements and extreme violence.

Weekly Logs since February 21^st:

Overall, I am very pleased with the way my Thai language partner, Game, and I have worked collaboratively this semester. Despite some early confusion, we have been able to get on the same page and adopt an effective procedure for making the most of our two meetings per week. We got in the habit of adapting my language learning to relevant issues to our lives and current issues/cultural intricacies of Thailand. For example, before I left for a hockey tournament I learned the Thai vocabulary pertaining to Sports and Competition. And when Thai forces engaged in violent conflict with Cambodian forces over a border dispute, we learned the Thai vocabulary pertaining to the military and conflict.

One of my favorite activities was watching numerous Thai movies, sometimes with and sometimes without English subtitles. I would watch the movies on my own time then return to discuss specific phrases and/or cultural aspects that I did not entirely understand. As a result, I was able to better understand native Thai speakers and learn numerous new Thai phrases. Here is a list of movies I watched and reviewed with Game throughout the semester: OngBak 1 The Thai Warrior, OngBak 2 The Beginning, The Overture, Shutter, and Fan Chan. A perk to reviewing these movies is that many of them reveal the historical context in which they took place. For example, OngBak 2 helped me learn a lot more about the ancient Thai Kingdoms of Sukhoythai and Ayyuhtaya.

Our weekly meetings also helped me formulate the 5 Thai vocab words I learned each day. Game was able to provide me with certain similar word groupings that fall within the same family so I wasn’t just sporadically learning 5 random words per day. For example, there are numerous adjectives with the prefix “Key,” denoting a negative connotation. I used this understanding to learn: Key-Neo = Stingy, Key-Glua= Fearful, Key-Mao= Alcoholic, Key-Now= cold, Key-Ron = energetic, Key-Geead = Liar etc.

Game also has a background in linguistics and transliteration. Therefore, he was able to help me develop my random transliterations of Thai words into a more formulaic process.

We also took our learning past the weekly meetings by partaking in numerous language-learning activities. For example, we spent an afternoon cooking Thai Curry at my apartment. While cooking and eating I learned all of the relevant Thai vocabulary for what we were making, objects in the kitchen, etc. Game also came to a philanthropy fundraiser dunk-tank on the UR forum. He told me about a similar practice in Thai temples where young girls are dunked into the water. The phrase, “Sow Noi Thdok Nam” literally means, "young girl falls into water.” I was also introduced to other Thai students at the University of Richmond who I met with to ask about their past, tell them about my experiences in Thailand, and of course practice my speaking and listening skills.

All in all, I am very happy with my experience expanding upon my previous Thai language abilities. I feel that Game and I successfully completed all of the assignments of the class and utilized the flexibility of the course to learn a lot more.

First, I would work on the correct pronunciation of the phrases.  How are you is really straightforward: Kemon asen?  But I’m fine is “bhalo asi” and is difficult to pronounce.  The “bha” in “bhalo” is pronounced like a “ba” with a “ha” said immediately afterwards.  It essentially sounds like a lengthened “ba” sound.  To teach this, I would have the kids pronounce the “Ba” and then the “Ha” sounds separately and eventually have them say the sounds next to each other. 

The other two phrases “What’s your name” and “my name is ______ “ are “apnar nam ki?”  And is “amar nam _____.”  These are both easy to pronounce. 

In order to practice responding and asking these questions, I would have the kids sit in a circle and pass a ball among them.  The person who has the ball must pass it to another person in the circle and ask either “how are you?” or “what’s your name”.  The person who receives the ball must answer accordingly, and subsequently pass the ball and ask one of the questions. 

I have taught English to Japanese kids using this technique, and it seemed relatively successful.  I also taught Bengali phrases to people at school like “how are you”and “I’m fine” , by explaining the pronunciation as described above.  Obviously I did not use the ball technique.  Instead I just practiced asking them questions and had them ask me questions.

Splitting the pronunciation of the “ba” and “ha” really seemed to help people pronounce the word “bhalo”. By the end of the going through the questions, most people were able to ask and answer the questions successfully.

The chapter how conversation works describes the basics of conversation. The author compares conversation to the game of chess as he believes in chess people often make moves and seem to follow certain rules as the dialogue proceeds. Similarly, when people talk, they take turns to respond to each other comments and try to add some insights in what they are talking about. Similarly, they should also be aware of when to speak; when to remain silent; when to proffer information or hold it back; when to stay aloof or become involved. Although the general rule of conversation is followed uniformly throughout the world, there are differences in the some aspects of the rule. One of the aspects is “Taking conversational turns.”

In United States, people take turns while they are speaking. Often people wait for the other to stop speaking and take turns to share their thoughts. There are often explicit markers showing that a speaker is about to yield the floor, and indicating who should speak next (I think Tyler should speak now). Often signal such as finally, last but not least are used to indicate the speech is coming to an end. However, in other cultures the way people speak differs significantly. In Nepal and India, people tend to not wait for the speaker to finish and jump right in between the conversation. People often tend to speak together overshadowing the comments of the person and creating a sense of heated conversation.

It is quite interesting how the reading for this week covered something I have always wondered about. In Nepal social class has a lot to do with how people speak. People in higher class often tend to speak politely and use the polite version, where as people in lower class often tend to speak the impolite version. Similarly, women are often required to use the polite version while speaking to men, where as men can speak as they wish. I always wondered how social standing creates differences in the way people speak.

The book explains how social standing plays a role in the way people speak. The author writes, “people exercise several roles: they have a particular status in their family (head of family), and another in their place of work (supervisor)… Each position will carry with it certain linguistic conventions such as distinctive mode of address… During the average lifetime, people learn many such linguistic behaviors”

In Nepal, the lower class- Vaisyas, Sudhras and Dalits are often heard talking in impolite version of the language. They use the words such as Ta instead of Hajur for you, Ja instead of Gaisyo for go while speaking. So, it was automatically assumed that people speaking in such a manner are lower class people. Children from the higher class were not allowed to play with them or even it next to them because of the fear of being corrupted. While, the higher class people – Brahmin, Chettri used words such as Sutsyo instead of Sut for Sleep, padhsyo instead of pad for study. They were automatically assumed to be higher class and were respected in the society. Although the way people speak has changed significantly over the years, the general idea of people towards the difference in speech is the same – impolite way of speaking is often associated with the lower class and polite way is associated with the higher class.

            Another important thing as the author mentions in the book is the Gender and the role it plays in the Nepali society. As a male-orientated society, Nepal still falls behind in equality between men and women and this particular aspect can clearly be seen in the tone of a person. A woman is never allowed to speak in a impolite version. She is always asked to talk in polite version especially to the family of her husband. However, the men can speak as he wishes. He can use the impolite or the polite version. Although this particular trend is changing in Nepal, it still exists in rural part of Nepal. 

The reading for this week was very compelling in the sense that it made me reflect on the history of my own language. Having spoken Nepali every since I was born, I never thought about the origins of Nepali, and how it came about to become the national language of Nepal.  However, this week reading encouraged me to do some more research on Nepali, while describing how language families work. The most common way of studying language families are through the comparative method - a way of systematically comparing a series of languages in order to prove a historical relationship between them.

The book describes the proto-indo-European language as the earlier language and explains how Sanskrit, the oldest attested language of the Indian subcontinent has been noted as early as 16^th century. He writes, “The Sanskrit language has a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar than could possibly have been produced by accident, so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps no longer exists.”

The book then explains how Indo European family is organized by comparing similar vocabulary, and draws a conclusion about the geographical origins and life styles of the people. It describes the roots and origins of various language including Albanian, Armenian, Anatolian, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic and Tocharian. It depicts the history, family and organization of various languages. Reading about the different languages made me wonder about my own language and I ended up doing research on Nepali.

Nepali mostly spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, India and Myanmar is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Spoken widely throughout Nepal, the language is regarded as the Pahari language - a language spoken across the lower elevation of the Himalaya range. The language although has similar roots with Hindi – Sanskrit, is more conservation with more Sanskrit derivations and fewer Persian or English derivations. Written in Devanagari script, Nepali became prominent language when Prithvi Narayan Shah, the ruler of Gorkha, unified divided Nepal into a single country in 1769 A.D, and announced the language of Gorkha- Nepali, to be the official language of Nepal. 

This week we read a children's story about three young boys who go exploring in a jungle.  One of the boys in this story was literally named the "dumb one".  I was frankly surprised at the seeming rudeness of the other characters toward this boy.  That being said, he was rather dumb, and at one point he thought that he became another person when his head was shaved.  I learned a lot of useful "guy talk" because of this story, and I am interested to see what the reaction will be when I try to talk like this. 

Because I was finishing the cultural project on Monday when we normally learn new grammer, we did not study grammar this week.  Overall this a good week though because of the reading.