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Pakistani Marriage Customs

Pakistan has a great culture with rich customs. A Pakistani wedding is a great feast of fun, wearing fancy cloths,  merriments, and celebrations. It is celebrated with great fervor. A Pakistani wedding is followed by several pre-wedding customs and rituals. There are two important occasions that need to be done before marriage and they are as follows: 

Mangni is the engagement ceremony that marks the formal engagement of couple. The small ceremony takes place in the presence of a few important members of would-be bride & groom’s family. Prayer and blessings for the couple are recited and the wedding date is decided in Mangni.

Mayun is custom of the bride entering into the state of seclusion eight to fifteen days before the wedding. She’s made free of all the chores and errands around the house. The bride and groom are not allowed to see each other after the Mayun; bride is not allowed to leave her house. The beautification rituals begin during this time.

The following video is showing a beautiful and common wedding ceremony in Pakistan. :) 

http://youtu.be/WBxeGPaxIg0

Microfinance%20in%20Pakistan.pptx

Fourth Cultural Post: Corporate Hierarchy 

For my fourth Cultural Post I decided to discuss about the importance of the concept of hierarchy in the South Korean corporate world.
It is known that in South Korea, companies are strictly hierarchical, meaning that the important decisions are taken by the top executives and delegated down for their implementation. In fact the largest conglomerates (the "Chaebols") are family run companies where all the power and ownership resides within the family.

Besides that written hierarchy, another form that dominates is the hierarchy based upon personal relationships and loyalties. Koreans tend to do business and consider people they already know that are "secure", in this way, people who are well connected are considered as very powerful and valuable.

In respect to the confucian traditions, managers, who are respected just because they have the title, are expected to take care of the well being of their staff, which includes an interest in their personal life. In fact, the quality of relationship is the number one element to consider when doing business/working with someone. It is the most important  factor that can determine a successful partnership/business deal; which means that one has to be patient and maintain a healthy and positive relationship to be able to, one day, collect the benefits.

In the last two weeks, I have been practicing my speaking skills. I tried to listen to many short teaching videos in order to correct my pronunciation and get a bit more fluent by listening to them. It was a good  experiment thought, it helped me alot with my pronunciation.  I will be putting the links at the end of my post because i am sure it will be very helpful to Urdu learners. In addition, I have done some interesting readings. I read some news on Urdu BBC and i was really glad that i could figure out many things that i have even studied. So it was a good practice as well to improve my understand of Urdu. 

The sites : 

http://youtu.be/FnxR89KddqU

http://youtu.be/CQUwsCAKnY0

http://youtu.be/aghUk-XZZoU

http://youtu.be/N-OUQAbw8l8

http://youtu.be/tQKh2Ml0bEg

Anyone who wants to learn Urdu, i highly recommend to watch these videos, it its very helpful for speaking skills, pronunciation, and learn Urdu correctly. :) 

This is an artifact of me eating Swedish fish with Chokladbollar. Louise brought the Chokladbollar for us from Ikea. We talked about how it used to have a different name until the term became outdated. This then lead into the conversation of what Swedish foods we enjoyed and which ones we didn't.

Today ladies and gents, you get to learn about Eco-tourism in Sweden. Now doesn't that tickle your fancy? Basically Swedes are pretty amazing when it comes to being environmentally aware. The are the second country it the world to introduce an Eco-tourism charter. Which essentially is just tourism that is focused on the land and wildlife. They also set up Nature's best which is Europe's first Eco-certified tour operators around the country. There are about 147 tours run by 87 Eco-certified tour operators. You can do anything from dog sledding to timber-rafting, to sea kayaking with this group. Allemansrätt  is a very important part of why the Swedes love nature so much, it is written in their constitution. The word translated into English talks of every man's right to walk freely in nature. Basically as long as no one or anything is harmed anyone has the right to walk, ski, or cycle anywhere the please (minus private property). It gives a lot of freedoms to enjoy nature at its fullest but it also creates a lot of responsibility for protecting the land.

http://prezi.com/5cfmtplopbyy/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

In Afghanistan family is the most important social bond and a primary identity source for most people. Family and extended family and kinship ties hold higher value in Afghanistan than they do in many countries. While practices and views of family differ somewhat across Afghanistan due to ethnic differences. The defense of familial honor is important therefore honor-killings, vendettas and warring clans is common in Afghanistan, particularly in rural regions. Afghan families often intermarry parallel or cross-cousins. Families are rooted in male identity, that is, families are patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal. Though polygyny is allowed it is not commonly practiced. Most families marry within kinship groups or at least ethnic groups. It is rare for a couple to intermarry across racial, ethnic or religious divisions. Elders and parents are to be honored by parents. Families are usually large, by Western standards. This is even more impressive considering that Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality rate and the second highest under 5 years old child mortality rate. 

Time in Afghanistan is a more flexible concept. There are many reasons for this, but two of them have to do with religion. Muslims in Afghanistan pray five times a day. These times regulate days, when people rise in the morning and when they must pause from their work. While not everyone follows this standard many people do. Additionally, religious holidays change every year because they are based on the cycles of the moon as "read" by Islamic religious leaders. Thus planning and scheduling of time must be flexible inasmuch as one's meeting may conflict with this years feast or fast or prayers. Thus time is a shiftable concept. For example, an afternoon meeting or appointment is general...somewhere between 12-3, but not 1:30pm on the dot. While in cities where there is a lot of Western influence is more prevalent meeting times are more strictly adhered to as an expression of cultural diffusion and necessity, but in Afghanistan as a whole time is a more flexible concept. 

My cultural presentation is going to be about women's clothing in Afghanistan. I am going to talk about the differences between women's clothing in Kabul, the capital city and women's clothing in rural Afghanistan. Westernization, modernization and ethnic/religious clothing choices all play a role in the division between the way one dresses in the city and the way one dresses in the countryside. I will explain the differences and my learning goal will be to learn vocab words for the various articles of clothing that women wear. 

The majority of people in Afghanistan are Muslim. This however, was not always the case. It took hundreds of years for the majority of Afghans (who, it should be pointed out are a mixture of many people groups, many of whom have unique ethno-linguistic identities that are not Persian) to come to believe in Islam. Islam is inherently an Arab religion in the sense that the Muslim holy book, the Quran, is written in Arabic. The Bible or the Torah, which, though originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, when translated (well) maintains its validity as Christian or Hebrew scriptures. Muslims however, believe that unless the Quran is in Arabic it is not actually the word of god. Thus when Islam enters into a society there is an Islamization and to some extent an Arabization of the culture. Here are a few words that are examples of how people in Afghanistan who speak Dari use Arab words in their lives. 

Arab/Persian: 

initiating Hello- Salam (Arabic for "Peace (to you)") 

responsive Hello- Wa alekum salam (Arabic for "Peace be with you as well") 

title for a sultan meaning Refuge of the Universe- alempenah

one who carries favors- avatifber

incomparable or unequalled- bi-misil

immediately- derhal

prosperous or flourishing- feyziyab

god- allah 

prayer- salat

alms- zakhat

pilgrimage to Mecca- hajj

head scarf- hijab

There are more overlaps. Many of the overlaps come from religiously affiliated words and were carried over into Afghanistan throughout the centuries as conversion to Islam necessitated new vocabulary. 

Dari, like many languages, has tenses and pronouns to differentiate between the formal and the informal. They however, unlike Spanish, do not differentiate between genders, but often sentences can be completely gender neutral even in pronouns and the listener must rely on context. Greetings are a great example of how the formal and informal tenses work. 

Younger Speaker (YS)- Salam (Hello or peace) 

Older/More Reverenced Speaker (OS)- Wa' aleukum salam. (Responsive hello or and peace to you also) 

YS- Shuma chator astem? (How are you? <with respect/formal>) 

OS- Man khub astam. Tu chator asti? (I am well. How are you? <informal>) 

YS- Man khub astam. Takashore. (I am well, thank you.) 

It is important in Persian culture that puts a great deal of emphasis on "face" and honor that one respects the different societal positions that people hold due to status, age, or relation to the speaker. To disrespect this is far more offensive in a hierarchical society like that of Afghanistan than it would be in an egalitarian society like America. 

I did not want to focus much on the writing system because I felt that listening and having more oral communication skills would be a better initial foundation. I think about the way infants learn and see that they learn to speak long before they read and write. I know that is for a multitude of reasons, but I'd rather be able to understand a little of what is said than be able to read phonetically, but not be able to understand.

However, Angela and I did go over the alphabet just so that I'd have a sense of the sounds that I'd be learning. The biggest difference is the "kh" sound that is a back of the throat sound not found in English. It rises up from the back of the throat and arcs along the pallet as it comes out. It is used in many words.For example: "Man khub asti" is "I am well." There were a few other letters that sounded very similar, but Angela assured me that I could learn words and sounds and that over time I would start to hear the difference.

The Dari and Farsi alphabet or the Persian alphabet is the same. They share their letters with the Arabic alphabet with the addition of four letters پ , چ, ژ , and گ. The way the letters are written changes based on their location in the word: beginning, middle, end and stand-alone. There are 32 letters in the Persian alphabet. 

I want to learn Dari because my senior seminar paper was about midwifery and maternal mortality in Afghanistan. There are a lot of people who are leaving Afghanistan as immigrants and or refugees. I think there is a lot of use for this language and I think it sounds beautiful. In my learning plan I outlined more specifically what my goals were for learning this semester, but my general goal is to dip my toes into a very different language. I want to learn the sounds and accent. For me equally as important as vocabulary is a decent accent. I want to be able to hear Dari in my head the way I can hear Spanish or French or Italian, even though I don't speak much of the latter two. I want to have some basic vocabulary and a better understanding of the culture of Afghanistan by understanding various pieces of the language. 

Here are two resources that I found for learning Dari through listening =) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzhMsgYO-PE   

and 

http://jesusfilmmedia.org/video/1_53400-wl-0-0

and some simple phrases 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P1vTGx_VNQ#aid=P-tyNz3BZzw

My language goals for Dari are the following: 

1. I want to listen to around 15 hours of Dari this semester. I will accomplish this by listening to music and or watching films. (I learned in Dr. Grove's ESL class that listening to a language even when you don't understand what is being said actually helps your acquisition.) 

2. I want to learn the following vocab/sentences: 

basic greetings 

how to talk about my family 

how to offer someone hospitality (food/drinks/etc) 

articles of clothing 

colors 

some basic religious words

3. I want to learn about Persian culture from Angela =) 

I think this will get me to a place where I have some foundation in Dari. I took this method of learning from my first year of learning Spanish and seeing what I actually could retain and understand. Spanish was easier than Dari, but I'm hoping that my learning will be aided by this method. =) 

It would be wrong to say that I did not know any Korean when I registered for the class. I already knew how say the following:

1. 안녕하세요 (Hello)

2. 안녕 (Bye)

3. Excuse me

4. 잠깐만요 (One moment please!)

5.사랑해요 (I love/like you.)

6. 엄마 (Mom)/  아빠 (Dad)/ 언니 (Sister)/ 오빠 (brother)/ 할머니(Grandmother)/ 할아버지 (Grandfather)

7. 가자 (let’s go)

8. 감사합니다 (Thank you)

9. 죄송합니다 (Sorry)

These are the words and phrases that I had picked from the Korean dramas and TV shows that I had watched .

The first thing that I learned from my language partner, Sun Yoon,  is the alphabet. She also taught us how to read and write in Korean. While reading the letters I struggled a little with the letter ㅅwhich is the Korean equivalent of S. We also practiced dictation where she would say a word in korean and we would write down. This helped a lot in understanding the practicing the structure of written Korean. Since the letters are not written in a sequence but arranged in blocks of syllables, it took some time to remember which letters are positioned where in the block.

The difficulty I faced while reading was that the pronunciation of letters changes depending on the word and the position of the letters in the word. Nevertheless, my experience with Korean dramas helped me identify my mistakes in pronunciation and improve my reading. I also discovered that among reading, writing and speaking, speaking was the easiest for me. This was mostly because I have already familiarized myself to the Korean sounds by watching Korean TV shows.

Next, I focused on self-introductions. I learned how to introduce myself as well as ask questions about others. Among the things I learned to say includes telling my name, age, where I am from and my age. When learning the questions and answers, I noticed the structure of Korean sentences was very different from that of English. In Korean the subject comes in the beginning of the sentence, followed by the object and the verb comes in the end. At the same I realized that the Korean sentence has the same structure as Bengali sentence structure. As a result I was not very difficult to familiarize myself with Korean sentences.

The following week, I worked on more grammar with my language partner. We talked about how to say I, you, they, we, he, she in Korean. Before meeting with Sun, I looked at some online resources to get an idea of Korean verb conjugation. I noticed that in different website, different forms of I, you and the other pronouns are used. Therefore, I asked Sun about it. She said that different forms of the same pronoun was used depending on the person we are talking to and also the level of formality of the situation.

Kirk Johnson’s article “Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction” was really fascinating because I had never heard of Siletz before and it was neat to find out about the ways they are trying to increase people’s exposure and awareness of it. It was surprising to hear of a language where there are only five speakers- that’s such a few amount of people! I have a lot of respect for Bud Lane and all of the others who are trying to develop the Siletz Dee-ni Talking Dictionary and keep Siletz alive. I think technology does a huge service to languages like Siletz because with the click of a button people can know about the language all across the world. Siletz is reminiscent of Hebrew because Hebrew also technically died and was revived.

The Culture Shock movie was very interesting. My first thought was that it's old and maybe a little outdated. I think it's time to make a new video to keep up with the times. While watching the movie, I couldn't help comparing what was being said to my own experience abroad. I found that there were many similarities that I could relate to. What the international students were feeling in the movie is being felt by countless international students around the world. They are never alone. It's really awesome that there was faculty and offices they could go to for support.

Unlike U of R, the academic curriculum at my abroad institution was much more relaxed. The classes were large. The personal relationship between a student and a professor was seriously lacking. Some professors only care about the money and don't feel a responsibility to the students in ensuring that they obtain a quality education. I didn't like how unenthusiastic the professors were.Contrary to what the students said about UR's academics, homework wasn't required so much abroad. Basically, either you can do the homework or you don't. The professors don't really care. I thought it was a bit odd when I first arrived in Australia, because I'm so used to passing something in and doing activities that help to solidify the knowledge I obtain. The amount of assignments for a class was both a blessing and a curse. I liked how I didn't have to do much work and get more freedom to explore and travel. However it put a ton of pressure on the few assignments there were. If I don't get a stellar grade, I'm basically screwed.

Australians' accents were a little tough to understand when I first got there. The easygoing and laid-back feel of the country fit nicely with my attitude in life when it doesn't involve school. I really enjoyed just relaxing and having a good time in Australia. However, if I was to go to Korea, it would be a whole different story. I probably wouldn't have felt as comfortable as I did in Australia. One reason is that the language isn't English or a language that I am somewhat familiar with making living in Korea more difficult.

I was actually surprised at how good the international students English were, some of them I didn't even think they were international at all. And so I commend them for their English.

I have learned about 55 new words with my language partner. But the issue is trying to remember them and be able to correlate it with the English translation.

I learned how to say greetings and introductions both informal and formal, some grammar structure, I like phrases, phrases and words associated with restaurants and dining, numbers, some food and drink words, a few traveling phrases, action words, and business related phrases.

Some of these phrases are:

1. See you later (formal) --> man na seo ban gab seub ni da
2. What's your name? (formal) --> seonghami eo ddeoh gae dwA sae yo
3. Haven't seen you in ages (informal) --> o laen man i ya
4. How are you? (informal) --> jal ji naess eo
5. how? --> eo ddeoh gae
6. I like traveling --> na neun yeo haeng haneun geol
7. doing something --> ha neun geol
8. How many people? (formal) --> myeot myeong i sae yo?
9. # people --> # myeong i yo
10. 2 people --> du myeong
11. to come --> oda
12. (measurement for people) --> myeong
13. (measurement for object) --> gae
14. 1 person --> han myeong
15. 3 people --> sae myeong
16. Bulgogi
17. Hamburger --> Haem beo geo
18. water --> mul

I have to keep practicing in remembering and recalling these phrases!!

I kind of think I have realistic goals. In the beginning, I kind of feel like I was too ambitious in trying to learn too much in one session. Therefore I have scaled it back a few notches in order to pace myself and make it easier for learning. As of right now, I still think I have ambitious goals in trying to be fluent in Korean. But I do have realistic goals as well. I'm happy that I was able to learn some important phrases related to introductions, farewells, greetings, and dining. I know that there are so many versions to say one phrase in Korean, to which I still need to learn but that would be another time.