The Big Questions

When I hear the word communication, I think in my mind about myself and a friend speaking to one another about a relate able topic of interest. This is because communication is the process of sending and receiving messages. However, not everyone communicates in the same way as I do, which means there are different ways in which we choose to communicate.

Language in some form is always involved in communication. Language can be spoken, hand-signed, written, or shown through body movements; such as, body markings, hairstyle, dress and accessories.

Two features of Human Language 


Scholars have found two most prominent language characteristics to be one, Productivity and two, Displacement.

Productivity is a feature of human language whereby people are able to communicate a potentially infinite number of messages efficiently.

. nonhuman primates do not have the capability to for speech that humans do.

There is a world famous Ape in Iowa who can understand a large percentage of what humans say to him, and he can respond to them by combining symbols on a printed board.

Kanzi

Displacement the second feature of language, it is a human language whereby people are able to talk about events in the past and future.

The past and the future are considered displacement domains.

Piraha are a group of around 350 foragers whom live in the Amazonian rain forest.  Their grammar is simple and they use no numbers, no past-tense verbs or color terms. They have no myths or stories and no art other than a few necklace pieces.

Piraha 

Language is also non-verbal.

Sign language is a non-verbal form of communication. Sign language uses mainly hand movements to convey messages. This is a communication system that provides a fully competent communication system for its users, the same as spoken language does. Some cultures use sign language as a second language and can be recognized as a native language. Gestures are movements, usually of  the hands, that convey meanings.

Sign language alpha bet

Gestures can be universal, however some cultures have highly developed their gesture system more than others.

Silence Speaks

Silence is a form of non-verbal and can be related to a social status. In Siberia, when a women becomes a marrying in, daugher-in-law she has the lowest status in the household, and will rarely speak. Silence is related with power and is an important component of communication among many American Indian cultures.

Writing systems are also a big part of Communications.

The earliest written language comes from Mesopotamia, Egypt and China. Early systems of writing used logographs. These are signs that indicate a word, symbol, or sound.

Logographs

Khipu- Cords of knotted strings used during the Inca empire for keeping accounts and recording events.The knots conveyed substantial information to those who could interpret their meaning.

Khipu Cords

Religion in Comparative Perspective


What is religion? There are a variety of Religious beliefs but to sum up the term religion, it is beliefs and behavior related to supernatural beings and forces. Religion is linked to people's worldviews but it is not the same. Worldview is a wider concept and it does not include the criterion of concern with a supernatural realm. Comparatively speakings religion is placed in a category of terms such as; magic, myths and a doctrine.

Magic is people's attempt to compel supernatural forces and beings to act in certain ways.

Sir James Frazer contrasted magic with religion, he stated that" it is the attempt to please supernatural forces or beings."

Myth and Doctrine are two main forms of expressing beliefs.

Myth, stories about supernatural forces or begins. It is narrative and has a plot with a beginning, middle and end.

Myths tell of a message through a story rather than by using logic or formal argument.

The Sun and the Moon 

A side from Myths a Doctrine is direct and formalized statements about religious beliefs.

Within Religion there is rituals that groups regularly practice.

A ritual is a patterned, repetitive behavior focused on the supernatural realm. A Christian ritual of communion is performed the first Sunday of every month and is a symbol of God's body broken and his blood shed for his people. By remembering they drink a bit of red colored wine or juice and break off a piece of bread.

Communion

Life-cycle rituals are a different form of rituals. Life-cycle is a ritual that marks a change in status from one life stage to another; also called rite of passage.

.The beginning phase, is the initiate. It is separated by physically, socially, or symbolically normal life.
. The transition is when the person is no longer in the previous status but is not yet a member of the next stage.
. Reintegration, the last stage, happens when the initiate emerges and is welcomed by the community as an individual taking place in the new status.

Religious freedom is here in America, however in other places religious views are kept quit and anyone who disagrees may be thrown in jail or worse murdered. Sometimes people who are persecuted on religious grounds can seek and obtain sanctuary in other places or nations.

Religion can often be the cause of major conflicts. As an integral part of the heritage of humanity, religions are best understood within a cross-cultural and contextualized perspective.

Protest against God

Art and Culture

Expressive culture and art can be easily compared because they are similar to one another. Expressive culture is behaviors and beliefs related to art. Art, is the application of imagination, skill, and style to matter, movement, and sound that goes beyond what is purely practical. 

Art is consider to be universal to all humans. Every culture possesses the ability to create beautiful artwork. For example when looking a piece of work that has a women holding a baby in her arms, this would be understood in every culture as a mother and her child. It is because all humans can see and interpret what the artist is saying by relating it to what they see in their own lives..

Motherhood is universal 

There are different forms of art!

One form is performance art. This includes music, dance, theater, rhetoric speech making and a narrative story. 

.Music is artist and is favor in nearly every country if not all. Some are better than others in certain areas of art depending on the brain creativity and time set aside to practice their skills. 

Then there is painting and drawing art. Art that is the artist perspective and a piece that relates to them and possibly other in different ways.

Art just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder!!

Interpret 

Leisure Time

Every culture has their own way of relaxing and have some fun together. 

Sports are the most popular form of leisure time. 

Leisure can be, Sports, traveling, resting, spending time outdoors or just simply talking with friends inside a home. 

In the U.S games are played safely as possible with many rules to follow, however in other cultures some sports can be very blood and dangerous. For them the game would be less for leisure and more as a ritual. 

Blood sport- is a competition that explicitly seeks to bring about a flow of blood from, or even death!

Culture is no secret, it makes up our world. It's who we are and apart of where we are from.

Art, sports,theater, Communication skills, etc. are all apart of culture. 

Expressing our own individual rituals and cultural differences is important, this is so we have a nice variety of beauty in the world and comparative relations as well as difference in between the cultures.

Leaving Mother Lake

Leaving Mother Lake is a book that will leave you speechless. It is a true, yet unbelievable story about a young girl who is born into a cultural of women. They are known as the country of daughters. They are the Moso women and they are strong, independent and unique. 

Erche's Mother wanted her to be a boy, but what she got was a little girl who continuely cried for three months straight. Ama is what Erche calls her mother. Girls are of more value for the Moso women, but they want to have boys because they herd the yaks and do all the farming. 

Moso women live in the home their mother was raised in. They raise their children and get help from uncle instead of the child's father.

 Erche's Ama leaves her mother's home and meets Zhemi who is Erche's Father. When Erche's Grandmother dies her Ama is very sad because she chose to leave and was distance from her mother and she regrets that decision once her mother has passed on. When someone passes away in their culture no one is allowed to bath for 49 days. No one under 13 or pregnant is allowed to attend the (burning) funeral. 

Erche speaks about the Han people who come into her village and try to pressure communism onto her people. The Red Guards as they are called, are a group who carry red banners and sing songs through out the village and are pro communism. There is also mention of the Yi tribe. This tribe raided her village and would kidnap little Moso children and make them slaves.

Erche was so poor that she had never worn shoes. She tells a story of her Father Zhemi bringing her a gift of red shoes and how meaningful that was for her and she treasured those shoes until she burnt the bottoms of  them and had to go back to be shoe less once again. When Echre was about eight years old her mother sent her to leave in the mountains with her uncle who needed her to help him farm, because after the death of his wife he refused to ever find love with anyone else. It was rough on the farm and Erche was so desperate for warmth that she would sit underneath the yaks and let them urinate on her, because their stream was very hot and would actually leave blisters on her legs. The 10th year of the revolution brought on a lot of change for the small Moso village. The Lamas books had been burned and there were no longer anymore festivals and even the traditional clothing style had changed.  Moso women did not believe in marriage, because love to them is like the seasons it comes and goes. With the revolution however people were actually getting married and Erche's bother went to live with his wives family.

When women in the village turn 13 they have a skit ceremony which symbolizes them becoming a woman.  They are showered with clothing and jewelry. It is tradition to burn the old clothes as a symbol of becoming a new woman. When Erche becomes a woman she was able to leave her uncle on the mountain and return home to her Ama to begin her new fate.

It is very important to the Moso women to have many children and they begin starting their families at a very young age. The tradition of the Moso culture would be to stay in the village in the mother's home and raise a large family that is made of both men and women so that everyone can work and produce what is needed to survive.







Around 13 years old Erche is asked to join a Moso singing group that is consist of her and two other Moso girls. The girls travel to Yanyuan to be in a singing contest. The city is completely different and strange for Erche. She lives with Mr. Li and his family and becomes a successful singer who travels all over china and even goes to places like Beijing. She begins to earn a good amount of money from singing and is recognized as a star in her homeland.

Erche did not want to be a star in her small village, she wanted fame all around the world. She continues to visit her family but she always travels back to the city to continue perusing her singing career.  She had many love interest but she did not let love or any man come in between her and her dream of forever being a successful Moso singer.

Around the age of sixteen she leaves her homeland again and hurts her Ama's feelings. 
Ama thought that Erche was going to leave and never return again. However after going back to Mr. Luo's home were she attended a conservatory school for five years she does return to her Ama's home.

Erche's fame never got the best of her. She remained loyal to her culture and her family. 

The stardome Erche gained did not cause her to forget who she was or where she came from. Erche is a role model and her story is a wonderful inspiration to other young women and even men who are born into unique cultures.









No matter where your born or how poor you are, anything is possible and can be achieved if your set your mind on achieving it. 

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Viaggio verso i Moso - 1: Yang Erche Namu (Lijiang, Yunnan - giugno 2012)