Chinese New year

My parents are Chinese immigrants from China and Vietnam. China and Vietnam both share similar traditions, but the main one that is celebrated in my family is Chinese New Year. Mainly, because most of my relative that lives in Edmonton are Chinese. During Chinese New Year, there is a gathering of many families that would come to my home for Chinese New Year eve reunion dinner. During the dinner people would catch up on their life with one or the other. Also everyone there would pray to the god and goddess. In their prayer they would ask for good luck either for themselves or kids. For example, a lot of parents would ask the god and goddess to guide their kids into becoming successful in life. On the day of Chinese New Year, adults would hand out red envelopes to the children. The red envelope contains money; the children can either decide to save it or spend it as they please. When I was a little boy, my parent would bring me down to China town to see the parade. The parade was filled with excitement like the lion dance, people throwing firecrackers on the floor, and a lot of food. Chinese new year consist of 15 days. Every day during the Chinese New Year means something different; unfortunately I don’t know them all. On the 7th day of Chinese New Year, people would grow old year older and my family would celebrate this by making tossed fish salad. In the making of the fish salad, people would come together and make wishes for wealth and prosperity. On the last day of Chinese New Year is also known as the lantern festival. The really tradition Chinese people would walk on the street with lantern and have lion dances, but my family just hung lanterns outside the door. I would definitely keep this aspect throughout my life and will definitely teach it to my kids, so they can keep the tradition alive, and experience joy that I did.

Monsoon Wedding

In the beginning of the movie, I was actually confused on what is actually happening in the movie. I was so concentrating on what people were trying say, and I lost focus on the movie. Unfortunately, I am unable to multitask properly, and ended up missing parts of the movie. So I spend a lot of time going back to watch it again. However, there were parts in the movie where subtitles helped a lot to understand what is actually happening.

During the movie, I noticed that the director is trying to express the influence of western culture on Indian society. For example, the main character decided to get married for two reasons. First, her family had arranged a marriage for her. Secondly, she mentions that after reading an “American magazine” she decide, it was better to settle down early anyways. To be honest, I would have never have thought of the idea western culture, if we didn’t bring it up in class. What really surprised me was that how the bride cheated on her fiancé with her ex boyfriend and had the courage to tell him the truth.

I personally never have been to an Indian wedding, so I was shocked by how massive and expensive it can be. I also found the clothing that the people were wearing to be very colorful and beautiful. Everyone had a unique piece of clothing, although they were mainly the same style, but everyone had different design and color on them. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, despite the slow beginning.

Times of India

As I was browsing through the times of India, I stumbled upon a very interesting article. The article was titled “Lousy Driver: Men or Women?” From past experience, I always thought women are lousy drivers. I had been in four accidents in my life time as a passenger; while the driver was a lady. So from my experience I came to a conclusion that women are lousy drivers; but, the article proved me wrong. The article did a research in Britain and had found that men are worse drivers than women and are twice more likely to get into an accident. Normally, I would stop reading after the first paragraph simply because there is too much context or just really boring. Since this also concerns me, I looked further into the article. Some of the reason surprised me, because I would have never even thought of these reasons. In my opinion, it really ends up being what type of person you are behind the wheel. For example, are you easily distracted, or are you nervous while driving…etc? I believe all these traits are adjustable if the person realize his weakness and is willing to change. Personally I get distracted easily while listening to music and driving; by knowing this I prevent myself from listening to music while driving. However, not every driver realizes that. Therefore I strongly believe it is important that the government should increase the requirement for the road test to ensure everyone’s safety. It is better to be”safe than sorry”.

Another article that caught my attention was “How to be a fit 30 year old.” Surprisingly, i find some of their techniques to be quite unique. For example, eating Acai berries can reduce weight and helps you look more tone. I find this interesting because I can apply this idea while I’m dieting to lose body fat. Then I browsed further down the page to related link and stumbled upon a bodybuilding article. I find the bodybuilding article to be really inspiring. It tells the story of how Bobby Singh reached his goal and receive a goal medal in a bodybuilding competition. It gives me motivation to workout harder at the gym.

I find the site to be really fascinating and is filled with random article that I would never bother looking up on the web.

Smokes get in your eyes

At the beginning of the song smokes gets in your eye, it reminds me of movies where everything is perfect. I can imagine a happy married couple living a joyful life together. The wife is doing chores and cooking for the husband, and the husband is bringing home food for the family. Once the artist starts singing, i felt that the mood change from being perfect into loneliness. In the line “yet today my love has flown away, i am without my love,” tells me that he was once in love but his love one left him. I thought the first part of the song about how madly in love he is, and how the smoke prevents you from seeing clearly. The second part is when his heart broken and now the smoke that was blocking his vision goes into your eyes causing him to cry. After listening to the lyrics repeatedly, i came across a message that the artist is trying to tell us. The message is when you fall in love, you may think it's true love, but there's a good chance that it's not because love blinds you, therefore metaphorically speaking “smoke gets in your eyes.”