Memories

A long time has passed since my last post, but I was extremely busy at work and privately. But then I could take a break - a holiday in Carinthia/ Austria. The interesting thing about this holiday place is the fact that it has been  part of nearly my whole life.

It is a farm whose owners started to rent out rooms to holiday makes in the 1960s and when I was nine years old, my family and I went there for the first time. It was an adventure: strange smells, strange language, no wash basin in our rooms, the only tap was in the kitchen. They have come a long way from there, today there are apartments with cable TV.

I came here as a child and teenager with my parents, alone as a student, with my boy-friend and then with husband and child. I met a lot of other people who had been here as a child and came back with their own children. The friendship to the farmer's family grew - the older generation died and we "youngsters " are now in our 50s.

I had not been at this place for 10 years, but when I entered the kitchen, it was like coming home. And I spent a week remembering things my late mother had done or said - and thinking of the happy times of my marriage and the time when my son was little. It was like re-living my life, but at the end of the week I had arrived in the present and could look ahead to new adventures.

However, like a real home, the farm in Carinthia will remain with me wherever I go.

Some things never change: a new-born calf

Internet Connections

Today I realized again how useful Internet is and how much it has changed our lives. On TV I saw a report about the revolution in Egypt and the role that mobile phones, Facebook and Twitter played in it. Information can be passed on at the wink of an eye and people cannot be kept from getting it, no matter how hard a government may try to prevent this.

After that I had my very own personal "Internet " moments.I know a lot of students all  around the world  - and I am a passionate teacher. So when my friend asked me to have a look at her essay and correct the language, I agreed to do so. She sent me her essay by email, I sent it back the same way an hour later. She is in  California at the moment, I am in Germany - in real life we would not even have met. Something similar happened a bit later with a student friend in China who is  studying  German. I explained  German grammar to him via Instant Messenger and then remembered some  helpful documents, so I put them into an email  and he got them a few seconds after I had hit the "send" button.

 Do you remember how difficult it was in the old days to get authentic material in a foreign language? Nowadays you can access online TV stations, radio or newspapers; there are websites with tons of material to practise and to study . And you can make friends around the world with whom you can practise your language skills.

Maybe these new media are a chance for understanding and peace, too. They have made the world a smaller place - hopefully no "Klingon" attack from outer space is needed (yes, I admit, I watched Star Trek last night)  to make us humans work together instead of against each other. And we need to work together to save our little planet ...

Parque Nacional in Uruapan/Mexico

All's right with the world ??!!

There is a war in Libya. The Japanese are still fighting with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami and it will take the country years to repair all the damage.I know people who are somehow affected by it all - or by some other form of hardship.

And what does the sun do today? It shines. The sky is blue, the birds are singing, it is a lovely and warm spring day. The smell of flowers and trees is incredible. The cold and dark winter is over. I could sit in the sun and relax. But how can I, when I think of all the sad things happening ?

I can allow myself to do that. Maybe even more, I must do it. We all need it - the precious moments when there is peace around us. We need them to gather new energy to face the hard times. We must take them and cherish them. I think the secret of life lies in living these moments in the full knowledge of the cruel other side of  life. The secret lies in hoping they will come back, when we are in the middle of a disaster.

Hope is a powerful source of energy. Believing can give you hope - religious people know what I am talking about.

I wish those who have a peaceful day that you can enjoy the precious moment thankfully. To those, who are troubled: I wish you hope.

Photo: Sam C. Chan

What we should really care about ...

So many things I want to do become irrelevant, when I watch the news about Japan and Libya on TV. I worry about friends I have in dangerous parts of the world , but there is not much I can do. So, as a means of distraction, I switch to another channel and hit "Germany's Next Top Model",  a "casting show" (as they are called in German) hosted by Heidi Klum.

I must admit, I stayed glued to the screen until the end. What am I worrying about, I ask myself, when there are REAL PROBLEMS ... such as if you are wearing the right dress or shoes while walking along the catwalk ? Ahh,  walking .... I don't know how I have survived more than 50 years with my unsexy and uninspirational walk. It is a wonder anybody talks to me ! And the bitch fights: a girl is not chosen at once as a flat mate - tears, long discussions. One girl is praised by presenter and photographer... jealousy.

Yes, I know. These shows are not about finding talents, they are about entertainment. The candidates are used by the production company and put into certain situations, so that in the end something interesting, shocking and entertaining can be shown. How many girls enter a competition like this with high hopes and dreams and in the end are simply exploited?

Commercial TV is about selling advertising time. The adverts that interrupt the programme  are, of course, about beauty products. Again I am fascinated by what I need and have not got . When I realized that my armpits will never be "beautiful", because I am using the wrong deodorant, I lost all hope that I will ever be able to catch up...

Demostrations against nuclear power ? Peace walks ?  Protecting the environment, saving the earth ? Equal pay for men and women ? Human rights ? People dying ?  Who is interested in that ? 

Who wants us not to be interested ?

Tagesschau online (German news programme)

Help Japan

If I ignore those for whom the terrible plight of the Japanese people is only a way of making money, I  see pictures that touch my heart.

I see the dignity and calmness with which the people in Japan go through these difficult times. My heart bleeds when I see children  ... it bleeds for them and their parents. I see the true heroes of our days: the technicians and firefighters  in the power plant risking their lives to avoid the final catastrophe.

All I personally can do is pray - and support relief agencies with a donation.  Money that says "We are thinking of you.. you are not forgotten."

Please ... help in the way you can.

A Prayer from Japan

For those who pray I want to include the text of the prayer that the German Protestant community in Tokyo published at the weekend:

FÜRBITTENGEBET
Gott, du hast die Welt geschaffen. Dafür waren wir immer dankbar. Darauf haben wir immer vertraut, dass wir ein Teil deiner Schöpfung sind, von dir gewollt und zu Gutem bestimmt.
Jetzt haben wir erlebt, dass deine Schöpfung auch ein anderes Gesicht hat. Wir haben erlebt, wie klein wir Menschen sind.
Manche von uns haben Stunden der Angst erlebt, Stunden der Unsicherheit und Sorge. Die Menschen in der Erdbebenregion haben ihr Leben verloren, ihre Angehörigen, ihre Existenz.
Und der Schrecken ist noch nicht vorbei. Das Kernkraftwerk in Fukushima ist noch nicht sicher.
Dennoch hoffen wir auf dich, Gott, halten an dir fest und bitten dich um deine Gegenwart in all diesen schlimmen Erfahrungen.

Wir bitten für die Familien, die nicht wissen, ob ihre Angehörigen noch leben.
Wir bitten für die Verstorbenen.
Wir bitten für die Menschen in den Notunterkünften.
Wir bitten für die Menschen, die vor dem Nichts stehen.
Wir bitten für die vielen Helfer, die ihr Leben für andere aufs Spiel setzen.

An dir halten wir uns fest, Gott, gerade, wenn uns der Boden unter den Füßen wegrutscht.
Auf dich hoffen wir, in allem, was wir erleben, ertragen, durchmachen müssen.
Begleite du uns, dass wir nicht verzweifeln.
Hilf uns, aufeinander zu achten, richtige Entscheidungen zu treffen und zu helfen, wo wir können. Amen. 

My English translation:

 God, you have created the world. We have always been thankful for it. We have always trusted that we are part of your creation, wanted by you, meant to do good. 

Now we have experienced that your creation can also have a different face. We have experienced how small we humans are.

Some of us have experienced hours of fear, of insecurity and of worries. People in the earthquake region have lost their lives, their relatives, their livelihood.

And the horror is not over. The nuclear power plant in Fukushima is not secure yet.

And yet, oh Lord, we have our hopes in you and ask for your presence in all these terrible moments.

We pray for the families, who do not know, if their members are still alive.

We pray for the dead.

We pray for the people in emergency shelters.

We pray for people who have lost everything.

We pray for the many helpers who risk their lives for others.

In you we trust, God, particularly when the ground has been taken from under our feet.

Facing everything we must experience, suffer and go through, we put our hopes in you.

Accompany us that we do not despair.

Help us to take care of each other, to make the right decisions and to help where we can.

Amen.

(Translation SK/15th March, 2011)

http://www.ekd.de/bilder/rubrik_glauben_2009.jpg

When Disaster Strikes: Japan and the Media

Do you remember Tchernobyl 1986? When you lived in Europe at that time, you know about the accident in the Ukranian  nuclear power plant  - the worst one in history. It had far reaching effects, not only for the region,but the nuclear fallout affected also northern and central Europe - up to the present day. In those days we wanted and needed information, which we got from TV and radio. Reliable, factual information, so I felt. I remember that I was worried, but not in panic (and that this nourished my suspicion against nuclear power plants, but that is a different topic).

In those days we had mainly the public broadcasting services for information and they did a good job.

When the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, we had already lived in the age of commercial TV for more than 20 years. Due to Internet and advanced technologies we were flooded with pictures of the disaster immediately. Media were competing for the most terrible disaster scenario .

And then nuclear power plants in Japan were affected, there was an explosion - and, naturally, we worry. All TV channels brim with activity. Special news programmes. Everybody who knows how to spell "nuclear power" is called in as a specialist and interviewed. They cannot say much, of course, facts are hard to come by. So they say what they think. In between some "human interest stories" -  and one journalist remarked that the Japanese were taking all this with amazingly little panic. Yeah, what a pity, would have made great pictures for the evening news, wouldn't it?

In fact, I am fed up with the "news coverage" of this. It does not help anybody, least of all the people in Japan and neighbouring countries . I want to know if my friends in that part of the world are ok, but I don't learn that on TV. I want facts and information. But what I don't want is sensationalist reports, pictures of crying children (I can imagine myself that the Japanese are not exactly having a party there) and a disaster simply used for selling advertising time.

And least of all do I need worried discussions about the question what the nuclear fallout could do to Germany. I feel it is necessary we dicuss our own nuclear power plants.

As to Japan, I   feel deeply with the people there.All I can do is donate to relief agencies and pray for them  - and ignore those who want to make money out of a terrible catastrophe.

Stuff as TV shows are made on ?

This morning I remembered one of my favourite Shakespeare quotations, taken from his last play "The Tempest":

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

(The Tempest, Act IV,1)

"The Tempest" takes place on a magic island and with these words the "master" and magician Prospero ends the show. Both, the play and this quote, leave a lot of room for interpretation I don't want to discuss here. And the idea that "all the world's a stage" (As You Like It , Act II,7) shines through his plays also at other places. 

In his time, Shakespeare was a star writing  plays that people from all social spheres watched and loved. Today we have TV - and we have things like "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" (= DSDS, the German version of "American Idol"). Of course, this show is not about finding and supporting talented young artists - it is about selling advertising time. After 10 years, people singing wrong notes is not enough to attract the audience's attention, so more exciting stuff has to be staged. In the last season one of the contestants had to go to prison half -way through the show. And just now I saw a magazine informing the bored viewer about the "biggest  fight in the history of DSDS." !!  It is a childish argument between two of the girls - so obviously written into the show by those who make it. Boring, shallow, blown up out of proportion . I prefer Shakespeare  any time...

And yet, it makes me wonder ... I hope we are not such stuff as TV shows are made on ...

(http://www.dsds-superstar.com)

Romance Scammers - A Serious Comment

I have  already written about the positive sides of Internet, but on 14th February you can find a slightly ironic post making fun of some of the more amateurish romance scammers I came across. But there is a serious background to it and I want to comment on it here.

Like already mentioned in the Valentine's post,  romance scamming is no fun for the victim. I read heart-breaking stories of women or men for whom the material loss was not the most terrible thing, but who suffered for a long time from what can only be described as a traumatic experience. They had opened their hearts to someone, they had trusted him/her, had fallen in love, had thought they had found happiness - and then suddenly they found out that the "someone" did not even exist.

And that brings us to the negative sides of Internet. It is easy to pretend to be someone you are not - everybody can pose as someone else. The only solution is to be careful, never give away too much information too soon and ask questions. An honest person does not mind if you are suspicious, but beware of those who talk of "trust" and "confidence" as an immediate must when meeting a stranger.

By the way, you are not on the safe side when you avoid dating websites. Scammers can be found everywhere: Facebook, for example, is full of them, and I was contacted by several scammers on a site where I practise languages. So be careful who you add as a friend and who you talk to.

There are sites on the Internet that help when you have become a victim of a romance scam or if you want to get further information.

All in all, I have found more friends than scammers online - and I wish you all the same good experiences !!!

Scammer Cat ... I don't know who owns the copyright for this, but I found it on this blog.

Romance Scammers

It is Valentine's Day today - the day of lovers and loved ones. The Internet message boards I am member of are full of romantic Valentine wishes for those who are in a relationship and even more wishes for those, who are not. So I am writing about something romantic, too : romance scammers. They pretend to love you, but are only after your money.

After I personally  have been bored by so many amateurs, I thought it is high time someone writes a guide for young men who want to try this as a living. So here are some points a professional should consider:

- Check your English. Chances are you come across a teacher of English who gets very suspicious if you claim to be an academic and native speaker, but can't write a single complete sentence without mistakes.
- Check your victim's age. If she is older than 50, she might have children of her own and thus might  not be interested in becoming the step-mother of a motherless 11-year-old girl, who will be a bitchy teenager faster than you can say "puberty".
- Particularly  don't say you are widowed with a pre-teenage kid when she is a teacher ! She deals with them in her job, she doesn't want to have any at home  as well.
- Don't move too fast: it is very suspicious if you say you cannot stop thinking of her and she is the woman of your life after half an hour of chat and a blurry photo.
- Don't be too insistant on getting her mobile phone number, a better photo, her real name, address, job information, income and things like that too soon, and particularly don't ask for this at your first "date".
- Don't ask for money after all together a few hours of contact. And the argument : "Yes, you are clever to be careful, but if you give me the money, you will see that I pay back..." is not very convincing. In fact, a professional scammer doesn't ask, but waits until money is offered.

In other words: LEAVE ME ALONE and don't bore me with your stupid stories !!

PS:
Sarcasm alert ... yes, the obove is meant ironically. There are  warning websites on the Internet  and if you never heard this term and are single, you should go and study them. Romance scamming is no joke for the victim, but maybe the above helps to raise awareness.

And: I still  wish you all a lovely and enjoyable Valentine's Day  !!!

Tea Ceremonies

When I work, I usually drink a lot of coffee. But in order to relax, I need tea. There are deep philosophies behind making and drinking tea , and the difference between coffee drinkers (active, extrovert) and tea drinkers (meditative, introvert, like traditions). So my way of  consuming beverages is logical - and of course, my tea is not made by throwing a tea bag into some hot water. I like loose tea and the ceremony of brewing it.

In Hong Kong I visited the Museum of Tea Ware (Flagstaff House ) which shows beautful Chinese tea cups and pots, but also the different ways of making and celebrating tea. A bit of time is always needed. When I was at the coast of the German North Sea last autumn (a landscape called "Ostfriesland"), I learned  that there is a connection between this area of Germany and China.

First of all the connection of trade: we visited a museum, a captain's house, which had a whole room dedicated to the souvenirs from his trips to China in the 19th century. But there is more: people in Ostfriesland love tea (this is the only area in Germany where people drink more tea than coffee) and the tea ceremony is an important part of their social life.

The typical tea they drink here is a mix of Assam teas that has a dark colour and strong taste, which goes very well with cold, windy and rainy days at the seaside (as I could experience myself). After the tea is prepared carefully, you pour it into a small cup with some lumps of special sugar at the bottom that does not dissolve easily. Finally you add a "cloud" of cream, carefully, so that it does not dissolve at once, either.

Now you have about three sips: the first has the bitter taste of the tea, with the second one you taste the cream and the third one gets you to the sweetness of the sugar. If you are invited to a "Teetied" (tea time) in Ostfriesland, you must drink at least three cups in order not to appear impolite.

Do you like tea or coffee or both ? Whatever - may you have time to sit down and enjoy it !

Adding a cloud of cream

Harbour of the little town of Carolinensiel

Coincidence ?

Some encounters change our lives. Exactly a year ago I had one that definitely influenced the whole year of 2010 for me.  I was not only happy during this time, but does that mean I wish it had never happened?

Sometimes we wish something had not happened, sometimes we wish we had made a different decision. But really, it is no use to cry over spilled milk. Our life went the way it did, we cannot change it.

And finally we may realize that everything that happened had  also positive sides. We learned something, we gained experience, we grew and developed a bit.

A year later I stand at a new point  - it was an encounter that in the end even changed my life. Although not in the way I had expected.

Is our life a series of coincidences and  do we just create an artificial sort of meaning when looking back - or is there really a sense in all this ?

The church of the village of  San Juan Parangaricutiro (Mexico)  was destroyed by the eruptions of the Paricutín volcano - the church towers and the altar were spared.  Coincidence ?

Changes

Life is movement and change . A lot of changes have happened in my life during the past two years - not only a new hairstyle ! So I decided to change the design of my blog as well  and try out some of the new things that are offered.

Changes are usually met with a mix of apprehension and excitement. We are looking forward to new challenges and experiences, but a change also means "good bye" to something old and familiar. Some changes are inevitable - growing old for example - and all we can do is make the best of the situation. Others can be avoided, but then everything stays as it is .  If we are happy, there is no need to change anything. If we are not, we probably have to collect enough courage to jump. And even then we might have moments of regret ...

"No risk - no fun" is  a motto you can hear from young people in Germany.  So I risked a new design here and hope you have fun ... ;)

No change wanted ....

Esperanto - some questions

A few months ago I commented on a series of articles on Esperanto that was published in a Mexican paper. The author explained the history of Esperanto and its importance for the past, present and future. My first comment concerned the idea of a world language. Today I have some thoughts and questions that concern communication in general .

Communication is not only about words. A person can understand the single words and the rules according to which they are put together, but sometimes this can still mean, the person does not understand the message. We all know about things like humour or irony, where we say one thing and mean another. This becomes even more complicated when you consider cultural differences.  In one country it may be custom  to use  words like "dear/dearest"  frequently and they mean just normal appreciation. In Germany, however, "liebste/liebster" is used only in very close relationships . So, how do Esperantists bridge differences like these ... do two people really mean the same when they say "Kara..." ? 

Another example is literature. Literary texts express to a great extend the personality of the writer, which is formed by his/her cultural background. It is very difficult to translate idioms , proverbs and even metaphors into another language, as they are based on the historal, social and religious background of the country in question. I find it hard to imagine that Esperanto literature really works without being influenced by the cultural background of the writer. On the other hand, maybe the Esperanto community  will develop a cultural background of its own ... or does it already exist ?

As the language of a country is part of its culture, I like studying languages, even if I won't be as fluent in most languages as I am in English. But I get a glimpse of the culture this way.

All this does not mean that I want to belittle the idea of a language that provides an easy- to- learn means of communication. I have read some criticism of Esperanto which I don't want to go into here, as my own observation is that Esperantists are peaceful people interested in the world, its human beings and their culture.The Internet provides new opportunities for this - and who knows, Zamenhof's vision might become true one day.

The author finishes his articles with some personal remarks describing his own benefits from being an Esperantist. Of course, they are the same that I have from being a Jackie Chan fan (finding friends and learning about the world) - common goals and visions connect people across all borders !

I refer to :
Guillermo Macías y Díaz Infante: Pasado, presente y futuro del Esperanto (Primera de cuatro partes), in: La Jornada Aguascalientes, 2nd September, 2010, p. 6  (written in Spanish and Esperanto, part two to four on following Wednesdays)