Tao Film Questions

(1)Indicate the importance of the ocean to Tao:

It acts as a kind of playground for the children. For the grown ups, rowing plank boats is a form of exercise. The ocean provides the Tao with food like crabs or fish. As the Tao live close to the ocean, it teaches them to watch the wind, clouds, and currents for shifts in weather. 

(2) It takes a lot of time for Tao people to build a boat. How do Tao people make a boat? Do you think it is worthy or it wastes time? Why?

The boats are made of at least 23 trees, of 5 different kinds. It takes the Tao about a year to carefully select the best trees in the mountains for build a boat and before the tree is cut down, a prayer is said for the tree. In order to protect their environment, they never cut down more than one or two trees in the same place. After the shape of the boat is done, the pieces are joined together with wooden pegs. Nails or screws are not used. Then, they paint and decorate the boat according to their beliefs. There are usually two eyes equally balanced on each side of the stern and bow.

I think it would be easier for them to use modern tools like the saw to chop down the tree and nails to secure the pieces together, but what the Taos are trying to do is preserve what they still have of their old traditions, so they are doing a good job of that. I don't think the decorating is worth the time is precision, but again, they decorate because they believe it will help them in harvesting the fish.

(3) Explain the boat launching ceremony.

Male Taos perform an loud angry dance around the boat because in the culture, anger is said to repel the evil spirits that might be around the boat. They toss the boat with the chief inside to represent how the waves will act on the boat. 

(4) Explain the flying fish calling ceremony.

The flying fish is viewed as their god, or the God's fish and they pray to it, like they do with many of nature's creations. On the boat, the crew sings again to repel the unwanted spirits. They set something on fire and hoist it on the back of the boat, as flames are said to lure in the flying fish. They also hold up a rooster (presumably dead) also to attract the fish. On the shore, the other people dip their fingers in a piglet's blood and put wash it away in the ocean. (Also to get in the fish). Short drift nets are used to catch the prized fish, which they carefully store on the boat until the next day by when the fish will have to be eaten. 

(5) How do Tao people live in harmony with the natural environment? 

The Tao people take good care of the trees and plants around them, especially the ones that they have "grown up with". They also leave the animals to their natural habitat and respect the way they are. Basically, they make sure that they are not harming their environment with pollutants or human waste.

(6) The houses the Tao people build are so special. Please compare their houses to those houses in your own country. 

Each house is built with carefully selected leaves, plants and timber. They ask the gods to bless the materials they use to build their house, so that the end product (the house) in the end is blessed. 

In Taiwan, Singapore, the States, wherever, people have other workers build the house for them with cement, bricks, metal, etc. Our houses are usually not made of plants or leaves. 

(7) Tao people view eating a sea snake is a taboo because it lowers social status. In your own culture, do you have any eating taboos? Do you believe in it? Why?

  If we do have any taboos, I'm not familiar with any of them.

(8) So far only one big handmade boat is kept in Tao tribe because of modernization. Thus, some Tao people try to preserve their art culture. Please describe a vanishing art culture in your country that you would like to preserve.

  I don't know much of Taiwanese culture, but I guess they try to preserve tea art and the old traditions that follow along with it. Modernization has changed tea so that people don't drink it the way it's supposed to be enjoyed and savoured.

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Teenager sentenced to 4 life terms for racist murders

This article reports about a white South African teen who has been convicted of murdering four blacks in his racist killing spree. His victims were a mother and her infant, an elderly man and a ten year old boy. He not only had killed these four but also planned on killing 11 others, earning him 68 years in prison. On top of that, he got another 8 years for possessing firearms and ammunition. His lawyer is attempting to plead the court to consider "compelling circumstances", that his upbringing played a major role. The teenage has been home-schooled all his life and has never learnt to socialize with other kids, especially one who are of a different race. 

This is good reminder to everyone that there is still racism in the world, and the harm that people are compelled to do to someone of a different race because of it. The article isn't biased because it just stated the facts of the situation and there was not a hint of opinion about the convicted. 

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All About Luck

A question most of us haven’t thought about and most likely will not pass us is why the Europeans were the ones to conquer so much of our planet. We can look at Spain now, or France, or the UK and we will unanimously agree that those nations are a lot more civilized than third world nations like New Guinea. We buy our food in supermarkets, where everything have been processed for us. We can get from place A to place B in automated vehicles in short amounts of time. The New Guineans, however, have to gather their own food everyday without break. They travel on foot, searching relentlessly for food to keep themselves alive. They don’t have the time to play video games to to get an education. But why? Why is it that these nations are so different in lifestyle? In his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Dr Jared Diamond explain that it all comes down to geographic luck.

If we go back to a time when everyone on earth was pretty much on the same living standards, it would be much easier to find an answer. First, we look at the different types of crops that could have been cultivated and domesticated. Europe is along the same lines of latitude as the Fertile Crescent. And as we all should know, civilizations on the same lines of latitude share the same geography and climate. Therefore, whatever crops that are able to be grown in the Fertile Crescent were able to be grown in places east and west of that piece of land. That would be Europe and China. In the Fertile Crescent, there were two main cereal crops that the people relived heavily on: Barley and wheat. Not only did these two grasses provide the people with a steady source of carbs and protein, it was able to be stored for long periods of time without decaying or rotting. This meant that the people didn’t have to farm everyday of their lives, worrying whether a sudden change in the climate will affect what they have to eat tomorrow. Meanwhile, in New Guinea, the people harvested sorghum and bananas. Both are low on protein and carbs, so almost all the people there were and are malnourished. Large amounts of energy are required to harvest just a few pounds of sorghum, and both crops rot easily. There people would have to work everyday for their food while the people in Europe and the Fertile Crescent had time to delve into other ideas and come up with machines to make their lives and work easier. 

Diamond notices that the lines of latitude where the most bountiful crops grew are the same as where the “beasts of burden” were able to survive. Out of all the many animals that live on our planet, humans have only been able to domesticate 17. Out of that 17, the four main ones (cows, sheep, goat, and horses) are all found in the Fertile Crescent. The rest are scattered all over the planet, except for New Guinea, which is home to none of the domesticated animals. Beasts of burden, as their name suggests may be domesticated to lift the burden of carrying and moving heavy loads or ploughing our fields. They may also provide us with certain materials, like leather, hide, milk, wool, and a source of meat. Civilizations without these animals have to completely rely on their own human ability and strength to complete jobs that might have been easier if they had these beasts of burden. Another example when having beasts of burden domesticated in your land is during war. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to be victorious if your soldiers came riding in on horseback while your enemy was on foot? You would have the high ground. You could look down on your enemy and attack from atop. You wouldn’t have had to use up all your energy charging ahead. In recent years, the pig has been brought over to New Guinea. And even so, pigs don’t give any wool or hide, they have little muscle strength, and are too difficult to rear as a steady source of food. The New Guineans were on a disadvantage. Therefore, their road to a greater and flourishing civilization was a much steeper one than the Europeans’.

When your country is in turmoil from the outbreak of a contagious and lethal disease or infection, the economy inevitable tumbles and loses out. An example would be of the problem with the spread of malaria throughout Africa. Before Africa had been colonized, malaria stayed wherever it first began: In places where amount of stale water was present or by marshes and lakes. After Africa was colonized, they became forming civilizations that were closer and closer to each other, and therefore more people became infected with this disease. Nearly half the children that are hospitalized are there because of malaria. Quinine may be able to stop the first few generations of strains of malaria, but two problems come up. One, the human body is designed to adapt and become immune to certain diseases, like malaria, but at the same time, makes that person more vulnerable to a different strain of malaria that also is mutating faster and faster. The simple drugs are no longer strong enough to eradicate the disease. Two, medicine is expensive. Countries in Africa are few of the poorest in the world. Though it may seem like the parents of the sick children might work more to provide the medicine and care, malaria is the reason why Africa’s economy deteriorates by 1% each year. The parents of the very young children actually quit their jobs to look after their kids in the hospital. From there, they basically can’t do any more than that. When your economy is on a downhill like that, how can your nation prosper? When people cannot even find the time to take care of themselves, what else can they do for their community? On a different view, disease can also be used as a biological weapons to cause internal uprising in opposing nations. The advancement of technological weapons is also another topic that causes certain civilizations like Europe’s to grow. (I’ll need another paragraph to explain that, so I won’t go there.)

In the end, as Jared Diamond says, it's really all about location. Civilizations living in conditions like new Guinea will not prosper because its people will not have time to. They spend their life hunting and gathering food. The idea of expansion does not even pass their mind because they can’t even take care of themselves. The creation of technology because ideas of staying “at home” inventing machines does not appeal. Who would want to collect someone else’s share of food? This is why the New Guineans never learnt how to smelt steel or create weapons like the gun or the atomic bomb.  On the other side of the world, in Europe, the people had division of labour. They had people who specialized in certain areas and institutes. They had jobs so not everyone had to search for their own food because food itself wasn’t as hard to get. Eventually, they began roaming outside their comfort zone to other territories to conquer so they could expand their land. They traded their goods with other nations who needed them. In conclusion, the New Guineans were at a standstill because there was nothing else they could do. They weren’t able to become like how the Europeans are now because where they are situated. The Europeans are where they are in terms of how advanced they are now simply because of pure geographic luck. 

Mexican vs. Taiwanese Food Culture

Before European influence, most of the foods that the Mexicans consumed was based on one main staple: corn. It could be made into many different, but similar types of food such as tortillas or tamales. Of course, they wouldn't just eat these on its own but supplement it with varieties of vegetables and meat, sweet potato, beans, squash and different spices, especially chilies. You many find that Mexican food also relies heavily on its range of mushrooms and other crops that grow in their nation (some of which has been mentioned earlier): beans, chocolate, corn, squash, tomatoes, avocado, vanilla, spices, peppers. These are still very popular in modern Mexico, but dishes vary in different regions of the nation, most likely because of foreign influence and the geography that allows certain crops to grow in that area. When Spain took over Mexico, she brought in new goods and livestock, like cows, pigs, sheep, garlic, foreign herbs, dairy products, many other spices to complement the overall appearance, aroma, and taste of the food. 

Taiwan's food culture, like the Mexicans', had a slight influence from the time of their Japanese occupation. Example of Japanese influenced foods are tempura (deep fried seafood or vegetables), mochi, and the occasional green tea ice cream or other products. Because of its proximity to China, Taiwan food is similar to that of  Guangdong, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Beijing's (Mid to Southern provinces in China). A typical Taiwanese meal has rice as the staple, a marinated meat dish (most likely pork), and a vegetable dish. Their food mainly relies on sauces made from soy, sesame, or chilli because they have those resources growing in their country. Mexico will have less products made from soy or sesame because the crop isn't native to their country, and they haven't been introduced to it. 

I notice that a lot of Taiwanese foods are deep fried to make it tastier (but is also more unhealthy), but Mexican food is baked most of the time (healthier). 

Both seem to have a variety of colours in the food to give it a more aesthetic appeal, as anyone would do to make it look more appetising.

At formal meals in Mexico, you're not to sit until told where to sit, or start until the host/hostess starts, as it pretty much is in Taiwan as well. You have to keep your hands visible on the table while eating, which is one rule most Mexicans don't follow anymore. One rule that was different from the Taiwanese etiquette is that it is polite to leave some food on the plate when you are done. In Taiwan, it would an insult to the host who has provided the food and he/she would think that you do not like the food they have prepared. 

Personally, I would prefer Mexican cuisine to the Taiwanese one because I think it does not all have a similar taste to everything. But that's just me, and I'm sure at least 90% of the other students would prefer the Taiwanese cuisine. 

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Indian milk scare kills 5 children

This article is about the milk scare that has made its way to India, killing 5 and hospitalizing another 25 children. So what's the deal with this contaminated milk? It has affected 53,000 infants in China and now it it s to have spread. Investigators have found that some milk vendors, in order to boost their supplies, have diluted the milk to increase the volume of their "milk" and added a chemicals, melamine, to make the milk seem higher in protein content. Melamine is used in the manufacturing of plastics and fertilizer -- not to be put into milk and definitely not to be consumed. 

If you look in your nearby grocery store, how many items can you point out that might contain any traces of milk? Ice cream, cheese, snacks, candy, chocolate, pudding, cereal, biscuits, cake, cookies, beverages, and of course, infant milk formula. We rely so heavily on milk, and even more so for the infants who only drink the milk formula. 

Countries like the US have blocked any imports of milk containing products from China to protect their citizens from the contamination of the goods sold in their markets. This article just points out that we need to be more careful on guarding the food that our people consume. It doesn't matter if companies earn more from selling these contaminated foods. In the end, people will become paranoid after they read about how many people have died or been hospitalized, and avoid buying any products containing milk.

I don't think there is much to be biased about in this article. The writer is simply telling the people to be more careful with the stuff they eat or drink, although this might have a significant effect on the people. When we hear about these problems going on in India or China, we tend to avoid buying products from there. There also might be less people going to those places at these times and that might have some effect on those countries. That's just the way people are.

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Energy bar prototype

For the past few classes, we've been researching on the ingredients we should put include, what kind of ingredients would be best for athletes, and so on. This time, we finally put it all together and actually began creating the first prototypes for the energy bar. We hadn't finalised what was actually going to be put into the bar, but we figured we'd just experiment with a few ingredients that we definitely wanted. Guessing that by mixing in mushed bananas would help coagulate the other dry ingredients into one form, we acted on that and it ended up working. After the mixture of two different type of oats, raisins, and the mushed bananas had been baked, it stuck together in its form, just the way we intended it to. While the little sections of the bar had was baking, we melted 2 bars of chocolate to use as a coating. One the chocolate was melted and the baking done, we would dip the little baked balls of oat raisin banana mixture in it. To cool and harden the chocolate coating, we were going to quickly soak it in cold water. We tried that, but it kind of looks wet and disgusting after. The first dip also make the chocolate a bit harder and less liquid, for some reason. (It was probably just because we had been heating it for too long.) We decided stick the portions on a skewer and spread the chocolate over them ourselves. Then we stuck them in the freezer/refrigerator so the chocolate wouldn't be as sticky and soft. 

I don't think we need to change the recipe any much since our little experimentation went pretty well. We did find that the oats we used were too soft, so next time we will probably use granola, which is harder than the oats, but just as healthy. To make the final product look better, we will also try to find crushed almonds to sprinkle over the chocolate coating while it's still sticky. 

Our groups worked very well together because there were certain jobs that required more than one person to complete. Even the simple things like changing the hot water that was used to melt the chocolate or just checking to see if the oat mixture was burning in the oven helped a lot. 

Scramble For Africa

The scramble for africa was the series of increasing European claims to different African territories that commenced in 1881. In Europe, people were beginning to create and invent new technology to make their lives better. Industrialism brought about competition amongst the nations which then led to nationalism, or a strong sense of pride for their own nation. When that happens, they usually want the best for their nation. They want to expand their territory and the amount of land they have control over. This is known as imperialism. At that time, Africa was a vast space just in wait for people to come and take over. The more powerful nations, like Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Italy quickly rushed in to claim whatever they could. 

More land meant more space for the nations to build factories to produce items to expand and improve their economy. Other than having more factories, they also had access to cheaper labourers to work in those factories. Because of where Africa was situated, she was rich in various resources that the European consumers had grown accustomed to. Tea, copper, tin, cotton, rubber were just some of the major goods. There was little competition involved, business here gained more profit and they could rely on the consumers' need for these raw materials without having to deal with rivalry. 

When the Europeans came waltzing into Africa, they took up the majority of the natives' land. Powerful technology was brought in, which increased warring. The natives' were lethally affected by the diseases that were alien to them. More importantly, traditional culture in the various tribes in Africa were destroyed and never taken back. 

If this meant that Europe just came striding into Africa make everything the way they wanted, why didn't the natives who already lived there put up a fight? This was because they saw the positive effects that it had on their own nation: The development of infrastructure, advancements in agriculture, the ability of the Europeans to moderate their internal wars, and the new medicine that was introduced in their country to help them. 

New virus contained?

We often hear about diseases or viruses, like malaria, AIDS, dengue fever, etc. Then we assume that these must be the most lethal outbreaks, and we do whatever we can to avoid catching them. But we don't know that there are other viruses out there that can be more or as deadly. 

One such example is the recent case in South Africa, where 4 people were caught and died of this virus in just a few days. This virus causes hemorrhagic fevers, which results in flu like symptoms, digestive problems, rashes that resemble the measles, and finally to respiratory and circulatory system failures. It is still unknown how the first victim got affected with this virus, but these types of viruses (arenavirus) are found in rodents' waste and can infect us as we inhale these harmful micro-organisms. The others who were infected were simply around the person who was ill: the paramedic, the nurses, and a person who was cleaning the room. So far, the outbreak seems to be well under control and the authorities are still trying to name this new virus. 

This article does not show any form of unfair opinion on the topic and is a pretty factual piece. It is just to inform us of the new outbreaks that are happening around the world that we should be aware of, and therefor it is reasonable to trust the information that is given.

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Airstrike Kills 9 Afghan Troops

Yet another article about a shooting of Afghan soldiers by a US-led coalition, it sends a message to the rest of the world about the current members of the army in the States. The story doesn't seek to explain in detail about how this incident occurred, but rather to illustrate a problem that seems to pass most of us by. It states that this shooting was a case of mistaken identity on both sides, which might lead us to believe that is just another biased article trying to cover up the mistakes that the US soldiers seem to make continuously, without fail. As we read on, it gives us a few more examples of similar situations that have occurred in the recent past. Examples such as one when more than 90 Afghan civilians in a suspected Taliban compound were killed, and how the soldiers involved tried to argue that the death toll was within 5 to 7 people. Since this example given in the text doesn't appear to be trying to conceal any of the soldiers' wrongdoings, we can assume that the article is most likely not influenced by personal bias. So as to not seem like all the blame is being put on the US side, the story also includes an incident when the fault wasn't solely the American soldiers'. Either way, the article brings out an important factor in solving conflict, which is to avoid any misunderstanding between the two sides. 

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