Author: wang.12741

Wüsten blume: Different Cultures

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“Wüsten blume” is about the heroine Waris Dirie, who is unwilling to marry an older herder, secretly ran out at night without her mother, walked a lot of roads, experienced a lot of risks along the way, and finally wandered to the United States; Because of her good conditions, she was discovered as a model. But deep down in the heroine’s heart, she is puzzled by the traditional customs of her own nation. She wants to appeal to the tortured women: abolish the tradition of circumcision. Standing on the podium, she was the first person in the world to stand up and speak about the “tradition of female circumcision.”

Waris Dirie, the first half of her life was full of tragedy, she was raped by her father’s friend when she was four, and when she was five she was forced to undergo the female circumcision that had taken the life of her sister a few years ago. At the age of twelve, she was cheated by her father to marry a sixty-year-old old man for five camels. She escaped barefoot in the desert and almost became food in the mouth of a lion. After she arrived in the United States, she worked as a Filipino domestic helper. At that time, she didn’t speak English. This caused great trouble to her life and work, but fortunately, her good friends helped.

After watching “Wüsten blume”, in the beginning, I felt infinite sympathy for the protagonist, sympathized with her tragic fate, the mother with unbreakable traditional thinking; when she ran wildly in the cracked desert, the dry air-dried her When I lip, I have endless admiration for her. She is a fighter who has the courage to resist oppression and is so determined. In an unaccompanied foreign country, penniless, she must have experienced unimaginable hardships. Although her success does have great opportunities, her persistence, courage, and diligence cannot be ignored. After becoming famous, in the face of such ugly etiquette and customs, in order to prevent more African women from being tortured in this way, she bravely stood up to tell the story of her circumcision. This call has saved how many African women have been persecuted by rituals.

But what is most worthy of introspection in the whole drama is the cruel traditional culture of Africa. When modern civilization is surging and irrigating the world, it is hard to imagine that there is such a cruel etiquette in another corner of the world, but I believe that with With society’s emphasis on human rights, people will surely be able to escape this cruel sea of ​​suffering.

The flower of the desert, with bravery, wisdom, and perseverance, allows us to see the hope in the desert！

Week 14 Presentation: A Small Place

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We have not experienced war, but also no stranger to colonialism. Colonialism is an aggressive policy by which powerful countries use various aggressive means to turn backward countries into their colonies. “A Small Place” is political narrative prose published by Kincaid in 1988 that accused colonialism and rebuked the Antigua government.

Antigua is a small island nation in the West Indies that has been under British colonial rule for a long time, and it has gained independence after breaking away from colonialism but continues to be poisoned by neocolonialism. Neo-colonialism is an indirect and concealed method of colonial aggression adopted by Western powers after World War II. Due to the vigorous rise of the national liberation movement, imperialism could not continue the old colonial policy and instead used economic advantages to carry out economic and political actions against non-Western countries, continue to control the country that has gained political independence. The new colonists are the continuation of the old colonists, and “tourism” is one of the forms of neo-colonialism. Tourism, as the pillar industry of Antigua, is actually still controlled by the United States, Britain, and other countries. The Antigua government continued to cooperate with colonial rulers for personal gain, forming a class basis for the continuation of tourism colonialism. Kincaid pointed out that although Antigua has become independent on the surface, the colonists continue to exist under the name of “tourism”, the local people are still suffering.

In the face of the lingering legacy of the old colonial and the trauma of the new colonial, Kincaid did not suppress her inner anger, or adopted a gentle and euphemistic tone like other writers of her generation, but used her “cursive” style. As a “descendant of the colonized” who immigrated to Europe and America for many years. She angrily exposed the illusion created by the colonists, presented to the world the real history and current situation of the colony, and expressed her hatred of colonialism and hatred of the incompetent Antigua government. In today’s globalization with the theme of peaceful development, there are still many places controlled by colonial countries like Antigua described in “A Small Place”. The independence and prosperity of those areas and the equality and well-being of the people are nowhere in sight. Kincaid wrote history and reality, truth and illusion with its extremely tense, frank, and unique language charm, which made me fall into deep thinking.

 

Kincaid, Jamaica, et al. “A Small Place Section I Summary and Analysis.” GradeSaver, www.gradesaver.com/a-small-place/study-guide/summary-section-i.

Published by E. M And View all posts by E. M And, et al. “Jamaica Kincaid: A Small Place; Literary Analysis and Review.” Things of Interest, 31 Mar. 2018, thingsofinterestweb.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/jamaica-kincaid-a-small-place-literary-analysis-and-review/.

Smith, Haley, et al. “A Critical Analysis of ‘A Small Place’ by Jamaica Kincaid.” The Odyssey Online, 15 Oct. 2019, www.theodysseyonline.com/critical-analysis-of-small-place-by-jamaica-kincaid.

Systemic Injustice of Tattoo in Asia

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We often hear such voices in Asian countries. In the hot summer, when people see a tattooed person walking on the street, they will cast strange eyes on him, and even talk about a good person. Why do you want to get a tattoo? When we open the webpage and enter “tattoos”, what we see is “the disadvantages of tattoos” and “will it affect job hunting?” This series of questions is undoubtedly for people who like this kind of culture. It is an extremely unfair phenomenon. Tattooing can actually be regarded as one of the oldest art. The tattoo, as an art, has been developed from totem worship through the process of penalty tattooing and has a history of more than 3,000 years. As early as primitive humans, the ancients used white clay or fuel to paint their faces and bodies to draw lines. In addition to beautifying and decorating, they can also deter the enemy. The ancient Egyptians even used tattoos to divide social status. In Victorian England, women’s tattoos were popular in red on their lips, similar to modern eyebrow tattoos, lip tattoos, and other permanent makeup and beauty methods. The ancient tattoo method is to use charcoal and water to make ink, and then use a hammer and thorns to penetrate the skin, which is dozens of times more painful than modern techniques. Tattooing is one of the reactions of primitive society advocating totem and decorative arts. In the 15th century, European pilgrims marked where they were going, their hometown, and their spouse. In this way, if they died during the journey, these tattoos could help identify their bodies.

In Asia, tattooed people are discriminated against because the tolerance of society is still limited, and many people have not learned to respect the unique lifestyle of others. Many of us are used to using our own subjective will to evaluate others positively or negatively. In fact, in the case of your own independent personality, these are normal behaviors. You don’t need to like or accept them, but there is no need to give negative comments. In any case, it is not correct to evaluate a person by appearance rather than by actual actions. In fact, in my opinion, if someone ignores the essence of a person and has a prejudice because of the tattoo, then that person may have a prejudice against everything. At the same time, I do not have a prejudice against those who have a prejudice against tattoos, because prejudice against prejudice is another kind of prejudice itself. In Asia, most people with tattoos are subject to irresponsible remarks or even personal attacks. Many people choose to judge people based on their appearance when they don’t understand the inside of a person. It is not comprehensive to use social morality to comment on a person, let alone just a tattoo. I always feel that the quality of this world cannot be judged by the naked eye alone. There is no shortage of good people in this world. What we lack is faith.

https://japantoday.com/category/national/japanese-lawyer-comments-on-legality-of-tattoo-ban-at-hot-springs

https://authoritytattoo.com/history-of-tattoos/#:~:text=Tattoos%20date%20back%20many%20thousands%20of%20years.%20In,Otzi%20the%20Iceman%20was%20discovered%20in%20September%201991.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tattoos-144038580/