Beauty and Culture

Over the years, each community measured the beauty on their own vision, culture, beliefs and location. Because of, technology, traveling and immigration we can recognize the overlap of one culture to another, and the similarities.

In the earliest years, each group of people has their own beliefs of woman beauty and the way that woman dress herself. For example; the Arabian gulf culture and Indian culture. Both of them, they prefer women with long black hair, white skin and big black eyes. Kohl is a black substance, commonly used by the women of the Arabian Gulf as eyeliner and eye shadow. Apart from making the eye look bigger, it was also believed that kohl eyeliner could prevent eye diseases. In desert areas, kohl is used by both men and women, as it controls the suns glare from the desert, and thus is of huge practical use. Henna is commonly used in these cultures to stain nails, skin and hair to enhance beauty by creating decorative henna designs. Black henna is used on the feet and hands, while red henna is typically used on the tips of the fingers and toes. But, Arabian woman their traditional dress is (Abaya) which covered the whole body. Where, the Indian woman wears (Sari) which appears the beauty of the body. Sari is a strip cloth ranging from four to nine meters that is draped over the body. There are many similarities between Indian and Arabian Gulf culture, but when we compare the Arabian and Indian culture with Westerns aspect of beauty we will find a lot of differences. In Westerns they prefer the tallness and caring about it so much as an important measure of beauty. Then, followed by long blonde hair, in spite of they are thrilled by the black hair, clear brown skin with sporty skinny body, wide shoulders, fully thick lips and green or blue eyes. And these standers are related to typical look of European woman.

In our generation, the media affects the culture in different sides where we can figure the overlap between different cultures. In one hand, in Arabian Gulf nowadays, the girls dye their hairs into blond, wear a light eye contact lenses and their dress become as Westerns fashions. In the other, the Westerns like the Eastern beauty which depends on black eyes and black hair.

Finely, I believed that; (Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.) Kahlil Gibran.

Acculturation & Assimilation

A Study Case of Sean Redmond

Introduction:

What is CULTURE:

The word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

1- Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture

2- An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

3- The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

What is ACCULTURATION:

Acculturation is the exchange of cultural features that results when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. (Kottak 2007)

What is Assimilation:

Assimilation is the more extreme process of acculturation. It comes from the realization that one will never return to the society of origin, so one takes on the entire lifestyle of the new culture.

How would learning a second-language effect on our culture:

Psycholinguist John Schumann (1976a; b) developed a typology for explaining the linguistic acculturation of a second-language-learning group (2LL) to a target-language group (TL):

"In terms of cultural patterns involving life-style and values, there are three general integration strategies which the 2LL group might adopt:

-Assimilation, Acculturation, or Preservation.

If the 2LL group decides to assimilate, then it gives up its own life-style and values and adopts those of the TL group.

If it chooses to acculturate, then its members adapt to the life-style and values of the TL group, but at the same time maintain their own cultural patterns for use in intragroup relations.

Preservation, as defined here, is a strategy in which the 2LL group completely rejects the life-

style and values of the TL group and attempts to maintain its own cultural pattern as much as possible" (Schumann, 1976a, pp. 136-137).

Schumann used the following factors when describing the social distance in relation between the target language group (TL) and the second language learning group (2LL):

Dominance of the TL group politically, culturally, technically, or economically.

Integration pattern of the 2LL group the degree to which the learner wishes to integrate/assimilate himself to the TG

Cohesiveness of the 2LL group; how close is the learner’s social group?

Enclosure degree of the 2LL group from the TL group, i.e. sharing social facilities

Congruence of the both groups; how close are the two cultures?

Attitudes toward each other are they favorable, neutral, or hostile?

Size of the 2LL

Length of residence that 2LL group intended in the TL area

In our case of study we notice that the social distance between Sean and the Target Language group, Saudi Arabia, is very low, and that's why he succeeded in assimilation the culture and dialects.

Sean Redmond A Case of Study:

· Society of Origin: Brittan, his father's origin is Irish and his mother originally from Malta. · Language: English ·

Religion: Converted to Islam in 1993 at the age of 19 years old after years of questioning the Christianities' believes. ·

Education: Graduated from Manchester University in Modern European Languages and Middle Eastern Studies He studied Arabic Language for two years (one year was in Egypt) ·

Arabic Cultural Contact:

1- One year in Egypt as a student of Arabic Language.

2- Six years in Kuwait as an English Teacher (1996).

3- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he settled since 2003, he work as a trainer in Saudi's National Guardians, also he is working in 2nd channel of KSA. T.V as an announcer in English Language. He got married to a Saudi Lady in a traditional way. ·

The Changes in Lifestyle:

- He changes his name to an Arabic name Yaħya, but in passport it remains Sean because of the difficult procedures in Brittan.

- Most of his friends are from KSA and some from Kuwait.

- He loves to wear the traditional Deshdasha and ShmmaƔ.

- He is fascinated with Saudi's cuisine; he even presented a show about traditional meals and cloths of the different areas of KSA.

- He admires the Arabic poetry and wants to be a poet himself after he succeeded in learning the different dialects of KSA.

- He treasures the Arabic habits and values as hospitality and sees it as rare in other world cultures.

- He is so comfortable with the Saudi's lifestyle so he decided to settle down in Riyadh.

- He aim from his T.V shows to introduce the Arabic and Saudi's culture to foreigners and to correct the wrong ideas about the culture and people.

You can watch the interview with Sean Redmond by clicking on the links in the references

____________________________________________________________________

References:

- Valdes, Joyce Merrill. (1986). Culture Bound. Cambridge language teaching library.39

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acculturation

- http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~culture/rudmin.htm

- Video clips from YOUTUBE of the interview with Sean Redmond

1- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0aHRjwUQmc&feature=related

2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDeAu13bDio&feature=related

3- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rJ6lxfJwr4&feature=related

4- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yiy1yOapSc4&feature=related

5- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h89F0Nqy8gU&feature=related

6- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOK8Kxg9zS8&feature=related

Thank you all

Hellow everybody, I want to talk about something related to body language or how your body is speaking। The thing that makes me bring this issue, is the amazing thing that the experts of the body language in USA do. They try to read every movements of the body or gestures of any famous one, whether he is a politics , an actor or anything else. For me, the first time I notice this thing, when I watched a discussion on TV between Bill Clinton and Georg Bosh the father. Wow it was amazing, those experts start to read their body gestures to know whether they are honest or not. One of the readings that I do not forget it was , when Bill Clinton asked George Bosh the father a question, Bosh try to answer the question but while he was answering he put his hand inside his pocket . this reaction was meaning a lot for the experts. It means that George Bosh the father doesn't have an answer for Clinton, which means that Bosh wasn't ready for the question. This gives a negative impression to the experts about George Bosh the father. The conclusion is , you can understand others from their body movements and gestures without expecting any verbal talks. And here I have two videos about body language. The first one is about how your body is speaking ,and the second one is how the experts in the USA are reading the body language of the famous people.
13-5-2010. Doriya Sayed Hashim.

Language death

Language death occurs in unstable bilingual or multilingual speech communities as a result of language shift from a regressive minority language to a dominant majority language."

(Wolfgang Dressler, "Language Death." 1988) "A language is said to be dead when no one speaks it any more. It may continue to have existence in recorded form, of course--traditionally in writing, more recently as part of a sound or video archive (and it does in a sense 'live on' in this way)--but unless it has fluent speakers one would not talk of it as a 'living language.' . . .

"The effects of a dominant language vary markedly in different parts of the world, as do attitudes towards it. In Australia, the presence of English has, directly or indirectly, caused great linguistic devastation, with 90% of languages moribund. But English is not the language which is dominant throughout Latin America: if languages are dying there, it is not through any 'fault' of English. Moreover, the presence of a dominant language does not automatically result in a 90% extinction rate. Russian has long been dominant in the countries of the former USSR, but there the total destruction of local languages has been estimated to be only (sic) 50%."
(David Crystal, Language Death. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002)

Here in Kuwait we find that the youngest generations don't understand most of the old Kuwaiti idioms and words not just because it's not used anymore (because there still old people trying to pass them to the new generations but it is still not affective enough for remaining the language as it is), but because the new generation is replacing these idioms with other idioms mostly from the English language because of many reasons that includes the new wave of enrolling the children in English schools, and that is why we find our language is containing more word from English.

I will write some of the old Kuwaiti's words in Arabic and it's meaning and you can write more examples:

الجندل (الشندل) = خشب يستخدم لسقف الغرفة
خـّري مـّري = الدخول والخروج من غير إستئذان أو نظام
سِـنيار = مرافقة بعض بالمراكب ، وعادة تستخدم بالسفر أو الطريق الطويل بحري كان أو بري
عقر بقر = تقال هذه الكلمه للانسان المريض واللذي يريدون ممازحته مثال اشفيك طاقك عقر بقر يعني اشفيك حاشك مرض البقرة اللى انكسرت ريلها او امرضت وما قامت تقدر تقوم
كيري ميري = وهو لفظ يقوله القدماء يعنون به اللف والدوران فيقول البعض مثال انا ما عندي كيري ميري
بربس = صفة تطلق على الكلام عديم الفائدة وعلى العمل الذي لا فائدة ترجي من ورائه وعلى الشخص الذي لا اعتماد عليه مثال شغلكم بربس

World's Weirdest Weddings

The Wedding is the fairytale every girl dreams about. In your wedding, you must look like a princess, with your glamourous white dress, your make up and hair done, your loved ones gathered around you celebrating the begining of the rest of your life and your prince charming is what makes the story complete.

To some people that's not the case at all. I recieved an email the other day about the funniest and weirdest wedding customs around the world. It's amazing to see how the most demeaning, disgusting and hurtful actions to you, represent joy and happiness to other people!

In India, In a tribe called 'Toda', The bride to be must show loyalty, humiliation and total devotion to her future husband and that is by crawling on her hands and knees until she reaches him kneeling (while people are looking at her), then he puts his foot on her head to give her his blessing! (I'd rather live single forever if you ask me :)

Another tribe that lives South the Pacific Ocean has a weird wedding custom. On the wedding day, the bride and groom go the head of the tribe; who holds their heads and bangs them against eachother as hard as he can. And this makes the marriage official! (OuCH!)

The last tribe that I was shocked by is located in an island in the Pacific Ocean. In this tribe, the groom gives his wife a dowry based on her beauty. The more beautiful you are, the higher dowry you'll recieve. But the trick is that the dowry is 'a huge number of mice'. The prettier you are, the more mice you'll recieve! (Poor Ladies)

These are 3 examples out of many of the weirdest wedding customs that i read about.

At the end I just want to thank god for our beautiful, fun, elegant weddings and thanks to Islam that preserves women their dignity and honor and protects them from being subjected to such humiliation.

Hellow , How are you?
I want to talk about culture lecture and the question that Dr.Tayba asked us. She asked, whether the culture is learned or inherited? Defining culture is no easy task because it means many different things to many people. There are easily as many definitions of " culture " as there are cultures in the world. This is what it said in the hand out of Dr.Tayba about defining the culture. So, if there is no specific definition for the culture, how come we just say it is learned. I tried to give my opinion in percentage; of course, it is not accurate 100% because I did not make any studies about it. But, still I think it is the most logical answer for me. When I said my opinion to Dr. Tayba and my friends in the class, some agree with me and some are not. My answer was that culture is 80% learned and 20% inherited .Dr.Tayba's opinion was that culture is learned, because it acquired from the nature and she remind us from previous lecture, how the nature influence people. In this point I agree with her. But, still I insist that there is a little effect of inheritance in the culture. When Dr.Tayba asked me, what is your proof. I mentioned " Dr.Taha Husain " and how he was living in a countryside of Egypt and all his family around him were less education, not to mention his blindness. All these reasons gives me a conception that there is a part of inheritance on our life. By coincidence, while I was writing this paragraph, suddenly Kuwait TV on channel one shows in " Almoraselloon " program a short story about " Taha Husain " they talked about his house and his daily life it was marvelous. Finally, I want to say if culture is just leaned. What about people who have a willingness to create their own and others culture. Someone like " Taha Husain " or even the "profits".

Culture and Respect

The term culture refers to a state of intellectual development or manners. The social and political forces that influence the growth of a human being are defined as culture.
Each country in the world has its own culture, where there are a people in some land diffidently there is a culture, lifestyle, beliefs and values. The way we communicate with other people and treat them is one of the important elements in our culture. Even if we are changed our lifestyle, clothes, way of eating and living, we can't change our value and tradition of our culture.

While am searching in ''google'' I had read some impressive examples of respecting people in different countries, and it is reflect of their culture. Indian culture treats guests as god and serves them and takes care of them as if they are a part and parcel of the family itself. Even if they do not have something to eat, they do not leave their guests with hunger. The books of Indian culture contain a lessons which taught the respecting one another. According to Indians, elders are the blessing of any family and the bless come by touching their feet.

Another example of elders respect we can recognize it from Filipino culture. The younger members of family give a lot of respect to those who are older, even though if they are older than them in weeks or months. Also, the family to them the most important thing in life and they always support their family by working hard and send for them money.

In the end, as a human we have to respect all nationalities because we may find on them amazing values that we can learn through it, and be proud of our culture as the way it is.