Lost in Translation
I had to watch a movie called “Lost in Translation” written and directed by Sofia Coppola.The movie was very interesting, it was about two neglected people who are married but not happy with their relationship because they don’t know what they want to do with their lives.
The movie was shot in Tokyo, Japan, I must say the place is beautiful and I would love to go their one day, to shop, enjoy the food and the atmosphere. From my perception “Lost is Translation” can mean two things; the first thing is that you are in a place or between people where you can not communicate properly because you are unable to speak or understand their language. It can also mean misunderstanding between two people, for example your having problems with someone you care a lot about because for some reason you two are not able to express their feelings or show their feelings to each other.
We all very different from each other and we all have different needs. Some people know what they want and some are just confused and unsure. There are many relationships that don’t last even though there’s love between them because of misunderstandings and miscommunication, these two words fit very well in if we were to explain someone what “Lost in Translation” means. I feel like when your not able to communicate with someone because you cant express your feelings or there’s misunderstandings it feels just the way it would feel when your in a different country where no one understands your language.
2 comments December 4, 2009
Food
Food is something that can be eaten by an animal or us humans, for nutrition or pleasure. Human beings can only survive up to four to eight weeks without food, that’s why food is a very important part in our lives and we can’t live without it.
There are many different types of food around the world. The way a meal is prepared and the types of ingredients that are adding to it, come from different cultures and country. The reason i chose to discuss about food in my blog this week is because many classmates of mine decided to do their english oral presentation on food. From all those presentations i got the chance to learn more about what they eat. What i do find interest is that in some cases we all use the same ingredients but we can prepare different dishes with it.
My mother is from India and that is why most of the times she cooks indian food. Indian food can be very spicy since its made with all kinds off spices. Indian food has a large amount of dishes that are vegetarian, because india has a huge amount of population that does not eat any kind of meat. I love indian food not because i have been eating it all my life, i love it because it’s just so good.
5 comments November 27, 2009
Hijab
Hijab? 
Hijab is a is a type of clothing which is traditionally worn by Muslim women to cover their head. The word Hijab is an Arabic word, and it means curtain or cover. Hijab is something a woman is forced to wear in some countries such as; Iran and Saudi Arabia. Women can’t leave their house without being covered or they can get in trouble. It has to be worn when they go out or when their with men.
The Prophet Muhammad once said that once a woman reaches her puberty age, no part of her body should be seen, that is the reason most Muslim woman have to be covered because their god (Allah) wants them to be covered and it is a way of representing their religion. By reading the memoir Honeymoon in Purdah, I got the opportunity to learn more about the Hijab. Throughout the entire memoir they spelt it “ Hejab” and not “ Hijab” but a few Muslims friend of mine got very offended when they saw me spelling it the way it was spelt in the memoir, hence I decided to look it up on the internet and learnt that it can be spelt in four different ways once the Arabic letters are translated into English.
I don’t think it’s fair to the woman who are forced to wear the Hijab by their family or society, because I’m sure that’s not what they all want. I believe we are all free to decide how we want to dress up but then again if they wear the hijab because they chose too, then I respect them for respecting their religion and culture.
3 comments November 20, 2009
Expectation
It hurts when you want something but you don’t get it, it hurts the same way when you expect something but it doesn’t happen. Sometimes we expect too much and when our expectations fail, it hurts us.
Expectations are unlimited; once one is fulfilled you seek for another to be fulfilled, were never satisfied and that is the reason most of us end up disappointed. I believe your only need is shelter and food everything else is a want and that leads to expectation.
We all want to live a perfect life, there’s a lot of things that we want but we have to work for it, it won’t just come to us. We need to work for anything we want to gain, achieve. We basically expect from our loved ones; our parents, our children, our friends, spouse because we care about them and we want the best for them.
3 comments November 13, 2009
Travel Literature
Travel Literature is the 103 English I am doing in Vanier College. When I first made my fall 2009 schedule I had no clue what to expect from this course. Even though it had the word “Travel” in the course name, I wasn’t sure what we would do in in class, because I have taken courses in the past that have nothing to do with their course name and later on you regret taking them, but now I must say I made a good choice by taking ” Travel Literature” with Dana Bath because she’s an amazing teacher, she makes the course knowledgeable and very interesting.
Yesterday in class was our second day with the oral presentations; I got the opportunity to learn a lot about different countries and their values by watching my classmates talk about Greece, Jamaica, Spain etc. I enjoyed all the presentations, they were all very well presented and interesting.
I had to present yesterday also, Me and my partner did it on Taj Mahal. In order to understand the city of Agra( which is the city Taj Mahal is located in) you need to understand everything about the Taj Mahal. I am not sure if people enjoyed it or not, but I had a lot of fun researching on that topic, because I got learn a lot about the Taj Mahal, facts I didn’t know about before.
Its not just the presentations I enjoy in this class, its also the material we are covering, the texts we have to read, are always very interesting and so is the novel “ Honeymoon in Purdah .“ This has been the first English class I don’t mind going too because it never gets boring.
4 comments October 30, 2009
Circle
October 22 2009, we watched a movie in English class, it was called “The Circle” by Jafar Panahi. This movie was about how women are treated in Iran; it’s just as if they were living in a prison, they didn’t have the right to do anything.
Being born as a girl in that country is the same thing as being born in a jail. That is why the movie is called “The Circle” because, the movie starts off in the hospital; it begins with how a baby girl is given birth too but her family is unhappy because it’s not a baby boy and they know a life of girl in Iran can be very bad. Over here it doesn’t matter if you give birth to a girl or a boy because it’s the same thing we just want our child to be healthy. There’s no difference between a girl and a boy in our country and that’s how it should be everywhere.
It’s very sad how women get treated in Iran and I don’t think that’s right. Everyone should have the same rights, and maybe these women need to speak up and fight for their rights. I did enjoy the movie, even though I don’t usually like watching movies if I have to read the subtitles to understand.
3 comments October 23, 2009
Languages
How many languages can you speak? I can speak in four different languages, I know how to speak in; English, French, Hindi and Punjabi. The reason I know how to speak these languages is because my father’s first language is Punjabi and my mother’s first language is Hindi, English and French was learnt because of the society and country I live in.
I believe the more languages you can communicate in the better it is for our self, it does make your lives easier and more interesting. It makes your life easier if you enjoy traveling, because all around the world people communicate with each other using different languages. Every country has its own main language, for example in the United States its English, in Paris it’s French and in India its Hindi, thus if you were to travel to those places its important to know how to speak those languages.
I am comfortable with four different languages but I still don’t think it’s enough; I would like to learn a few more but I have to admit it can be very hard to learn. I am learning Spanish in school, but its only 3 hours of learning every week which is never enough to learn a new language and I don’t have any friends who I can practice with out of class, but still i wont give up beacuse your never to old to learn anything.
6 comments October 16, 2009
Cannibalism
On Tuesday October 6th 2009 some of my class mates were doing presentations, one of the groups had four girls in it and they were talking about how Cannibalism still exits and how some types of cultures still practise it. I found that topic interesting so in this blog ill be talking about Cannibalism.
I wasn’t aware of the fact that it still exists I thought it was something that people use to do back in the old days maybe like in the 1555, but after paying attention to their presentation I acknowledged it still happens in some countries. I find that extremely disturbing, I just don’t understand how or why people would eat human flesh. When I spoke to my friend about this he told me how in some parts of asia they actually sell human flesh, but it’s very expensive and only rich people can afford it.
I have seen Cannibals only in movies such as; Hostel 2, The Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal Rising. I don’t enjoy watching these movies but I don’t recall the reason why I watched them because these types of movie make me sick, I literally feel like barfing after watching a human being cut up another human and eat it.
2 comments October 9, 2009
Iranian
I read a text called “Iranian hospitality attack”(72-73) by Hamid Taghavi and I found it extremely interesting. I think everyone should read it because it’s very well written and it’s hilarious, you can find this text in your travel literature readings & study guide.
I believe the target audience for this text would be non Iranian travelers because its about how you should expect Iranians to treat you once you visit Iran and beside the title in brackets it says “ A survival guide for the non-Iranian traveler” I enjoyed this text because I found it funny but I don’t think I believe what the author is saying because if it is true then that’s just too much hospitality. “ You could walk into any house in Iran, as a complete stranger,”(72) over here in Canada its very different because we can’t just walk into any house especially if you’re a complete stranger. I wouldn’t know if their way of living is better or ours, but I do know that we don’t treat a non-Canadian traveler the way they would treat a non-Iranian traveler, maybe because Canada is a much larger country then Iran or maybe because our society doesn’t allow us to trust complete strangers.
This text only has two pages, but in these two pages I believe it explained a lot about Iranians and their hospitality. I do not know about everyone but I did start reading “Honeymoon in Purdah (An Iranian Journey)” written by Alison Wearing and that novel is connected to this text in some way because they both talk about Iranians.
2 comments October 2, 2009
Do you Enjoy Travelling?
Do You Enjoy Travelling?
I sure do! In a year I try my best to take up to 4 vacations at least, now taking a vacation can mean different things for many different people for example; Going out of the country for weeks or even months but for me it just means getting away from home just for a bit even if I’m up north which is an hour away I’d still consider that as my vacation.
This summer I was working two jobs; I worked at a Fido store and at Montreal’s theme park La Ronde I had such a busy summer I had no time to say “ I’m bored” because I was literally working everyday of the week, no doubt I saved up good amount of money but what’s the fun if you don’t have time to spend it? And I had completely killed my social life because I had no time to spend with my friends. It can be very hard to get days off when you’re working at two different places and especially when you’re working 7 days a week , so I had no choice but to quit my La Ronde job and beg my Fido manager to give me few days off so I can go on vacation before school starts.
I know it is expensive to travel by air but that’s the only way I like to travel because it’s the fastest way to get to your destination. If you’re traveling somewhere far going by car, bus or train can be very hectic, tiring and annoying so i dont like doing that at all. I do most of my booking online which I do believe is the best and cheapest way, as soon as my manager gave me permission I booked my airline ticket with delta online to fly to Atlanta, Georgia. My sister and brother in law live in Atlanta so whenever I go there I don’t need to spend money on hotels, I just stay in their luxurious condo very close to downtown. That’s why taking a trip to Atlanta can be very cheap for me because all I have to pay for is the shopping and the airline ticket( which can be sound at acheap price online) and not have any other expenses such as food or hotel.
4 comments September 25, 2009
