SYMBOLS OF DEEPAVALI

" Kolam is an auspicious art of decorating courtyards and pooja rooms/prayer halls in South India drawn mainly by women and girls. Some women use rice flour to draw a kolam, which is the traditional medium to be used while others use sandstone or limestone powder".

Generally, a kolam is drawn with bare fingers using predetermined dots. The dots are either connected together to make a pattern or loops are drawn encircling the dots to complete a design.

DEEPAVALI CELEBRATION IN KUANTAN

WHAT IS DEEPAVALI ?

A colorful festival that is celebrated by all Hindus worldwide is Deepavali, which is also known as the festival of lights. This festival usually falls around late October and November. One important practice that the Hindus follow during the festival is to light oil lamps in their homes on Deepavali morning. By lighting the oil lamps, the Hindus are thanking the gods for the happiness, knowledge, peace and wealth that they have received. The Hindus consider Deepavali as one of the most important festivals to celebrate.


The Legend -

There is even an interesting legend behind this festival. The story goes that Narakasura, a demon, ruled the kingdom of Pradyoshapuram. Under his rule, the villagers suffered a lot of hardship as the demon tortured the people and kidnapped the women to be imprisoned in his palace. Seeing his wickedness, Lord Khrishna set out to destroy the demon and the day Narakasura died was celebrated as Deepavali, the triumph of good over evil!



Preparations -

Preparation for Deepavali starts usually at least two to three weeks before the festival. It is known that the Hindus will be busy cleaning their houses to prepare for the festival. Some would even renovate their houses to prepare it for Deepavali. Usually the family will shop for new clothes and for accessories to decorate their homes. Prior to the festival, Indian shops will be selling festive items like Deepavali greeting cards, carpets, Punjabi suits and flowers. The Hindus will frequent these shops when they are shopping for Deepavali.


Celebrations -

The Hindus usually awake early in the morning of deepavali around 3am and the first ritual will be having an oil bath, which is an important feature of Deepavali. Hindus will be dressed in their new clothes on Deepavali. Most of the ladies would be clad in silk saris or Punjabi suits of various bright shades. Hindus particularly dislike dressing in black on that day, as they consider black an inauspicious color for the festival. Hindus would also pay their respects to the elderly and most families would go to the temple after having breakfast. This is also an important practice for them. The reason why they would be going to the temples is to pray to get happiness and prosperity on Deepavali. The houses would be decorated with oil lamps and children will play with firecrackers to celebrate the festival. On the first day, they would not go visiting but would stay at home to welcome the guests who visit them.


Food -

Visiting Hindus during Deepavali will be an interesting activity, as you will get to taste a wide variety of delicious food. In every home that you visit you are bound to be served with a tempting spread of sweets. Some of the popular sweets are halwa, burfi and laddu. Hindus love eating spicy food and for non-vegetarians they indulge in favorites like chicken tandoori, prawn sambal and fish head curry. In homes of Hindus who are vegetarians popular dishes like thosais, idlis and naans are prepared.

HAPPY DEEPAVALI !!!

THE ART OF MODERN MOONCAKES

CHINESE YOUNGSTER CELEBRATE THEIR LANTERN FESTIVAL

THE TRADITIONAL MOONCAKES

The traditional moon cakes such as lotus paste with single yolk and assorted fruit and nuts, or optional for an assortment of healthy choices made available with a healthy in mind like the low sugar white lotus with single yolk and the low sugar white lotus with double york. It was truly an unspeakable journey of eating pleasure over a fine pot of Chinese tea.

LANTERN FESTIVAL

Lately Malaysia had been attacked by the slogan of '1Malaysia' which come from the idea of the Malaysia current Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. All Malaysian are racing to apply that slogan in their society. It obvious when the slogan is been used at the 1st phrase of every event or occasion name that is going to be held soon in extravaganza status. For example of the usage of '1Malaysia' slogan is 'Salam 1Malaysia' to say hi to anyone but for the title of event that can be seen recently is the name of Lantern Festival "1Malaysia Lantern Festival".

Lantern Festival also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese Lunar Calendar. This festival is a historical festival rather than a religious one. It marks the successful rebellion against the Mongol ruler during the past 14th century in China. Legend has indicated that the secret about a plot against the Mongolians was hidden inside the moon cake and the moon cake was distributed widely. Lanterns were used at night as signals from higher grounds and hilltop.

Today, the festival is celebrated with moon cakes and lantern hanging on the house. The lantern and the moon cakes have attracted many children and adults attention particularly from other races, Malay and Indian to be together to join the festivity. All of Chinese in every state in Malaysia make it as compulsory for them to celebrate this 'Lantern Festival or Mid - Autumn Festival' in every year with various activity has been putting down in the middle of the celebration. In certain area, lantern procession and competition, singing and dancing are held to the public.

Besides, for the older Chinese, they celebrate it formally with big event. However, the younger may celebrate it with their own way as they might celebrate it around their resident only.

MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL - Special Cuisine

SNOW SKIN MOONCAKE

SFG 6

SFG 3

SFG 4

SFG 4

CHINESE CULTURE - Spring Festival Gala 2009 (1-2)

SFG 1


SFG 2

REFLECTION ON CRITICAL LITERACY

This subject is extremely fantastic as it suit my wishes in a path to be a critical thinker. The basic aspect which included in the content of this subject likely to be pulse of Critical Literacy such as rhetorical function, perspective, positioning, impact and the essential one is the audience as the exact target for each writer of every article that published in any kind of media. From this subject, I just got something valuable to be applying not in every assignment for this subject only but able to use some sort of skills during everyday reading session. As stated in the preface in Critical Literacy: Study Guide, the skill could be on how texts or articles are constructed and how readers are positioned to understand the text. Then, it may become useful in writing critical reviews of academic writing. Before this, I never know the purpose of the writer in writing various articles in publishing field. Then, I have to bare in my mind that writing or reading an article is not as easy as ABC. Probably, there is something hidden in it. I certainly enjoy in learning this subject. Further, the course aims that is to enable students to manage the demands of literacy in a critical manner in a university environment is confirmed to be successful by the way I feel while learning this course.

REFLECTION ON THE ARTICLE ‘DRUGS OR GUNS’

After read and analyze the article of Drugs or Guns, something like injustice and cruelty did conquer the political control in South Africa. This valiantly can be proven from the article so as to the South Africa government was facing two legal cases. The two cases are the weapon-acquisition deal and making anti retroviral freely available in the country. After been examined, it is clearly shows that the government is bias towards the citizen when it comes to drugs issues where the governments have to spend a lot of money in order to make an anti-retroviral freely. Meanwhile, the government considered more about the weapon deal. This is because the deal allowed them to gain so much benefit when it comes to the collaboration with the bigger country. As mentioned in the article, the government people are involved in corruption, the dirty politics’ money, shows the world what they do. It can be seen that this unwanted action had been done for their own sake only not the citizen. Government’s responsibility is nowhere if it is still lead by the particular person or individual. The South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki surely became the worst example for the other countries’ leader. At the same time, all of his true action and bad behavior had affected the clean reputation of the majority of worlds’ important leader. At last, citizen needs to be the final victim. They have to accept the thing that they don’t deserve.

READING 7.1- ‘Dieting: a waist is a terrible thing to mind’

1. Topic
The article focuses on the dieting issue as the main subject of the discussion.

2. Content
The article covers a large scope of the hot potato among women, which is the trend of weight control. The issues very close to physical and mental health in addition to the role played by the weight loss products provider. The writer also includes newest information based on the recent research of weight loss.

3. Source
The article comes from ‘What you can change and what you can’t’ in The complete guide to self-improvement, by Martin Seligman.

4. Audience
The article is written for people who feel they are suffering from some particular problem relating to social or medical insufficiency or bad conditions that affect their life.

5. The rhetorical functions
The article is designed to inform people about how danger that the weight loss programs that is available nowadays. In spite of the danger, the weight loss programs also full of pitfalls that always hiding from the eye of the weight loss users. Besides, the article give warning to the readers to avoid them from easily believe in the claims that made by the product providers and to reassure them that their current weight is already good enough.

6. Purpose
The article aims to inform, warn and reassure the readers who are really concern about the weight to slow down their action in purchasing the expensive weight loss product. Furthermore, the article aims to make the people feel comfortable and satisfied with their current weight.

7. Perspective
The writer supports his argument by highly criticize both commercial weight loss products and any other weight loss programs. He argues that weight loss products does not work that much and never give satisfaction to the users.

8. Positioning
The article describes weight loss as only a commercial strategy for the providers to gain much more profit rather than give the kindest benefits to its users.

9. Impact
The effect on readers is likely to be broke the myths of ideal weight that is typically manipulate the people’s mind. To have and appreciate the recent weight is the best solution to live life happily.

10. Visual literacy
The visual aspects of the text are significant because the title did its work by obviously stating that diet is such the worst thing that should be totally vanished from people’s mind.

READING 6.1- ‘Invasion of the Baby Snatchers’

1. Topic
The article focuses on Kidnapping Child and isolated cases that had been increased tremendously and also involved the media participation.

2. Content
The article covers about the cases of child abductions that becoming serious. Some children that missing had been found when there’s publicity by media but some are not. But there also many neglected children cases that had been ignored and also do not have much coverage by the media.

3. Source
The article comes from the ‘TIME’ magazine on 26 August 2002, page 40, by Walter Kirn.

4. Audience
The article is written for public, parents and also media related people. This issue should be taken as a serious problem by public especially parents in order to make sure their children’s safety. Alongside, for media people is to make them alert with the neglected children cases.

5. The rhetorical functions
The article is designed to persuade, educate and warn the reader.

6. Purpose
The article aims to persuade the public that there are still many children out there who cannot be found, also to educate and warn parents about the abductions children. It is clear when the writer give an examples about the first case of kidnapping and murder of Danielle Van Dan in San Diego and the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart in Utah. For media people, to make them concern about the children that already ‘lost’ given it as important case too.

7. Perspective
The writer’s argument is condemning the media because they ignore the neglected issue, just focus on abductions children issue.

8. Positioning
The article describes the child of abductions are real unfortunate children after they have been killed by a cruel man.

9. Impact
The effect on readers is likely making the reader think twice about the issues that had been discussed in the article especially the hidden issues which is the neglected child. Everyone is busy talking about kidnapping child, child abduction but we are ignoring children that already ‘lost’.

10. Visual literacy
The visual aspects of the text are significant because the picture that the writer uses is clear and huge. The picture can make the reader wandering and its can attract the reader to read the article.

READING 5.2

The article entitled ‘Out of Puff’ is all about smoking issues especially among female. It is obvious shows that, the smoker among female are increased from year to year. Unfortunately, they realized that smoking is not good for their health but it just that they cannot stop it. Developing lung cancer, cancer of cervix and vulva, a greater risk of miscarriage, impact on fertility and menstruation, as well as harm unborn babies are all the bad effects of smoking. From the research, most female smoking given that they believed smoking can lose their weight. That’s why they keep smoking. Still in the article give some information to those who wants to stop smoking by go to the Nicotine Replacement therapy, medication and support.

Reading 5.4

The presenters of this topic are Fandi, Hafiz and Maryam. I can give a comment that three of them didn’t try to understand the keyword of their topic which is ‘Metaphor’. They duly discuss their topic together and come up with the best presentation. Reading 5.4 talk about ‘Metaphor’ in term of perspective and ideology in language. The writer focuses on the explanation of the relationship between the writer’s choices of metaphor and how these choices may influence the reader. Metaphor itself is a form of imagery in which something is called the thing that we are comparing it to. Metaphor also can be understood by the way of describing something by giving it the qualities of something else, as in our eagle-eyed readers soon spotted the mistake. Metaphor will require the writer to use one best word or one phrase to replace some particular sentence, which means avoid from use straight forward language to refer it.

Reading 5.3

The reading which is ‘Types of exposition: “persuading that” and “persuading to” were presented by Shima and Tyxx. Their presentation looked like “okey” from the beginning until the end but in my thinking there is something wrong about the truth of their content. I’m quite confused whether what they told us is really true, closely true, wrong or totally wrong. Thus, this topic described exposition with two types. Actually, exposition is one type of text.

They are ‘analytical’ and ‘hortatory’ expositions. Analytical functioning to persuade the recipient that something is true, while hortatory try to persuade the recipient to do something. After that, analytical expositions very related with academic speaking and writing compare to hortatory expositions that often used in political speeches, letters to the editor and office memos designed to change employee behavior.

Reading 5.1 – Australia’s methadone madness

Methadone is a drug, used by swallow once a day to stop heroin’s withdrawal symptoms. Methadone usually taken by the heroin addicts. The main usage of methadone is to fight the heroin but taking it regularly lead up to the negative effect. In fact, when someone is addicted with the methadone, the effect towards the user will be likely to depend overally to the methadone. In addition, if it use overly, it will not help to withdraw heroin and it totally opposed with the main reason of methadone which is to help people. Normally, methadone in a right dosage will make it as the most trustful saver for heroin’s addict. Unfortunately, it becomes very harmful and dangerous because the users misuse it.

Reading 4.1- Body language that speaks to muggers

The argument which is being stated in the article is pedestrians may signal criminals that they are easy targets for mugging by the way they walk. From that argument, the evidence that we can find is a study by two New York psychologists, Betty Grayson and Morris Stein. Grayson is assistant professor of marketing while Stein is professor of psychology. They secretly video-taped people walking in Manhattan’s to see how the pedestrians walk. They tried out on a group of 12 prisoners to watch the video to differentiate on how muggable each person is. Regarding to the result of research, the evidence did support the argument.

Reading 4.3

Reading 4.3 is presented by Iman and Nini. Their presentation is short and simple. This topic is concerned with evidence’s issue on the kidnapping news, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh. Evidence is the information that gives strong reasons for believing an article. Two types of evidence are circumstantial and testimonial. Circumstantial evidence is when some particular case does not have any eye witnessed. The evidence based on findings. Testimonial evidence is when there were any alibis for some particular moment of the case.

Reading 4.4

The presenter for this topic is Ct-Z and Ann. they are doing well with a very clear explanation and they show how good they are when dealing with numbers. Statistic with a plural verb refers to information about any phenomenon. In singular sense, it denotes the art and science of collecting, presenting, analyzing and interpreting. Facts and figures related with statistics. In order to make a statistic, we need to get a true fact and a figure which is the number of the result in research. Fields that use statistics are government, business, research workers and literary field.

Reading 4.5

Now, Group 9, Anis and Sern present the topic of Crooked and Fallacious Thinking. Their presentation quite imbalance because they just finish their own part without helping each other. Crooked can be defined as something that is dishonest and fallacious thinking is wrong information. Crooked and fallacious thinking is also a manipulative tool that gives chances to the speakers or writers to influence or affect the judgement of their listeners or readers.

"Please,let me go to your school-Positioning"

The article describes Scarlett as if she had been treated unfair by the school. It is because she is handicapped and had not been accepted by the school. This can be proved by some statement, “Scarlett was born with a lesion in her spine that has caused paralysis of the feet and incontinence. But hers is a moderate disability, according to her mother, and she is able to walk short distances, and use ordinary toilets, and is not intellectually disabled”. From the article, its shows that the writer attack the school’s action and ask the school to give Scarlett chance to let her to study at The Hills Grammar School.

" Battling The Bullies - Perspective"

The stance taken in the article is the writer condemned the school because they didn’t take any pre-cautious step to overcome bullies. As we can see, the stance of the writer is negative. One of the examples is the writer quote a statement from Dr. Cross who says that “If they don’t have one the school’s not worth going to – there are going to be dramas there”. Means that, if the school doesn’t concern or take a serious action against the bullies, the number of bullying cases will increase sharply and widely without any stop. The writer believed that the school fails to maintain an active and open anti-bullying policy. For instance, Dr. Cross says, “This is a dynamite situation and has to be handled professionally. If not, the implications are severe”. To tell the truth, school should be like fanfare not the prison.

WEEK 3

As usual, there are two presentations in one week. This third week, turn to the presentation of some topics entitled ‘A Linguistic Perspective’ and ‘The Formation of Individuals in Discourse and Genre’. The first topic presented by me, myself and my friend Faiz. I think our presentation is excellent when Madam Yaya said it’s very good. It also can be seen after all of my classmate’s face seems satisfy and doesn’t look confuse when we elaborate the details. Under ‘Linguistic Perspective’, the main point is the five aspects of writing that are field, tenor, mode, genre and ideology. field means an area of knowledge, interest and study, tenor is the general meaning or character of something, mode is a manner of doing something, genre defined as type of art while ideology is a set of belief.

Second presentation is presented by Aien and Ekin. Their presentation from my view is not so good when they just read their long point and they make it harder for us to understand. It is all about the way of using language to describe character in their surrounding. The language used by the writer is making a comparison between two kinds of people that is described as Miss Seductress and Ms Winner. Example of language to illustrate the two misses as Miss Seductress touches everyone, give direct eye contact, make her body to do the talking but Ms Winner shows confident, relax posture, co-ordinate outfit and well-modulated conversation too.

WEEK 2

For Reading 2.2, the topic is about ‘Language, Perspective and Ideology’. Overall, the presentation of Group 3 consists of Ena, Farhana and Shareen is good because they use simple words that allow us to understand it quickly. What I understand about ‘Language’ is the usage of language will be very different when there are a different people who use the language with different ways. Under language, there are white language and black language. White language refers to white people as the writer. Usually, the words quite rude, straight forward and bias towards black people as the target reader. Otherwise, black language is neutral. Besides, perspective is between positive and negative stance from the writer and ideology is belief system. This reflect on the writer itself whether he or she is in the good emotion or absolutely not.

For second presentation in this week, Group 4 which is both Nisa were presented very well but I still get confused with the concept of ‘Text and textualities’ because they use difficult word not the easy one when presenting this topic. First, text is a combination of signs, symbol and others. Textual is connected with content of the text. Then, text has 2 types which is verbal text and fashion text. Verbal text is sentence structure while fashion text is the part of the way advertising and news works. It could be clothes, colors, images. An example of textualities is gold color will be symbolized as status and wealth.

WEEK 1

This week is totally very challenging to me because I had been given a bundle of assignment to be done though this semester just begin a few days. For CL (Critical Language) class, Madam Yaya, our lecturer had asked us to create a blog that cover the entire thing that we had learned in her class.

We start our first lesson with Unit 1. This unit requires us to master in the important elements of Critical Literacy. If we did not do that, we almost fail to triumph over this subject. This is because those 10 elements is the key of CL. First element is topic. The headline of the article is very important to give first preview to the reader. It will allow the reader to guest what the writer is going to tell them. It does not matter if it is right or wrong. Second, content should have the incidents or issue, participants, place, time and things that led up to the event. Third, source is where we can find the text. Fourth, audience is the target reader whether it is specifically or generally. Fifth, rhetorical function is connected with which kind of speech is the article. Sixth, purpose must have rhetorical function together with audience and topic. Seventh, perspective is the stance taken by the writer. Is she bias or fair, it’s up to her or him. Eighth, positioning will describe giving roles to the participant in the article. For instance, the statement ‘angel of death killer nurse’ describes Parry as a true killer but get free easily. Ninth, impact closely considers the use of language and the style of writing. Lastly, visual literacy is a relationship between headline and photo. Sometimes, the pictorial element is not ‘innocent’ and have strong power to effect the reader.

Other than that, we learn Reading 1.1 that is ‘Convicted Killer’. My view on this article is Deborah Parry is a murderer that should not be accepted back to work. People might afraid to get treatment from hospital if they find her at the same place with them. From my opinion, she should be punish by the offence that done by her. It’s truly unacceptable for a killer like her get so close with public because she might harm them anytime.

Besides, Chapter 1 is presented by Adini’s group which is including Adini, Slay and Efa. My comment for their presentation is some of them should not read everything from their own text but they should try to simplify the topic by using easy words. Although the article looks like very though but they can focus on what they understand. At least, we can gain something from their presentation rather than feel sleepy. Based on my own understanding, Chapter 1: Stories and facts are about similarities and differences between the main types of factual writing. The main types of factual writing are procedure, description, report, explanation and exposition. The example that given in the book also help me so much to understand the topic well.

Move to Chapter 2, the presenter are Nabilah, Liyana CMN and Alia. Their presentation is not going well because they seem to lose their point. It also affected after they just read their long notes in transparency paper. Their notes should be simplified to avoid us from become not too interest to listen their presentation at all. In Chapter 2, the topic is ‘Rules and regulations’. As I know, rules are instructions to make people behave in a kind of way that wanted by certain rules. However, regulations still not strict as rules. An example of rules is ‘You must wear black or white shoes in school’. For regulation, ‘Please turn off the light after you exit from this lab’. The intonation for two examples is totally different by the use of strict and soft words.