Kim 1

Kim reminds me of “Aladdin”. Aladdin is just a little urchin like Kim, but is found by Jafar (Mahbub) and has to do his bidding—stealing a lamp from a cave.

Aladdin in the Cave of Wonders[1]

So far, Kim seems to be a classic story of deception. Kimball O’Hara can choose between pursuing the River of the Arrow with his lama as a chela or live a life of danger mixed up with Mahbub and his schemes.

Ghats at Benares circa 1900[2]

Either way, he is lying about his identity. When he is with the lama in Umballa, he enjoys lying about the amount of information he knows about the war, “Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the letter-carrying line, when, for the sake of a few pice, he pretended to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things—the sheer excitement and the sense of power.”[3] He also has to deceive and be crafty in order to be

part of Mahbub’s crew. After he gives the message from Mahbub to the Englishman, “…Kim took up the money; but for all his training, he was Irish enough by birth to reckon silver the least part of any game. What he desired was the visible effect of action; so, instead of slinking away, he lay close in the grass and wormed nearer to the house.”[4]

Despite Kim’s torn desires, he still seems to care about the lama more than deception. On his way to the school, he meets up with him and expresses his desire to remain with him still, “ ‘I am all alone in this land; I know not where I go nor what shall befall me. My heart was in that letter I sent thee. Except for Mahbub Ali…I have no friend save thee, Holy One.”[5] Since Kim has no living parents, the lama must serve as his caretaker. Despite all that Kim learns from Mahbub, he wants to learn the ways of the lama as well. The lama is home base to him; a place of safety.

A Tibetan Lama[6]

Sometimes I feel this way too. Though I don’t spend my time deceiving people, nor do I care to do so, it is hard to not have torn desires as a college student. In some ways, I want to learn things on my own or learn how to run my life from my friends, even if they aren’t always wise (Like Kim’s learning from Mahbub). At the same time, however, I also want to learn from my parents who know so much more about life than I do. Kim is very open to learning new things and experiencing everything that he can, but I wonder how much trouble this will get him into later in the novel.

Our society promotes the idea of living on the edge and being free and open to everything all at the same time. We’ve got more opportunities than we used to, this much is obvious, but by being open are we really closing ourselves off? Can we no longer specialize? We talked earlier in the semester about the liberal arts degree. We said that it is good to have a broad education because it makes us more valuable, but will this later keep us from having people who are actually educated in and proficient at what they do? If we become too universal, we’ll have to make up our minds and pick something someday when we are in dire straits.

“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.”- Aneurin Bevan.[7]

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[1] Aladdin- Cave of Wonders, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDZVqaHQt3E

[2] Ghats at Benares, http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3320628.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=86F19F6C94FCC84FC9FD8BB0CB926FCAA55A1E4F32AD3138

[3] Rudyard Kipling, Kim (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2002), 43.

[4] Kipling, Kim, 34.

[5] Ibid, 104.

[6] Old Lama, http://www.reincarnations.co.uk/images/old-lama.jpg

[7] Indecision Quotes, http://www.paralumun.com/quotesindecision.htm

Jashan 2008

On Friday night I went to the Jashan festival on the South Mall with my roommate. We had a great time! The Festival featured dancing and singing as well as several informational booths about different aspects of India. The most interesting booth I found was the booth about travel. The pamphlet the volunteers handed out detailed important tips on traveling to India that I didn’t know about such as buying a local SIM card for your cell phone while in India so you can call people back home. Another suggestion was to meet a friend in India through a website called couchsurfing.com. It allows people to meet others around the world so that when you travel, you know someone in that country who can help you out.

I also visited a booth where you could try on Indian clothes. Most Indian women are a lot shorter than me, so most of what they had was too small, but I did manage to put an outfit together. I felt kind of insensitive and tourist-y while dressing up, but I guess that is the point.

Me "blending in"

In addition to dressing up and travel, there were booths that featured Indian games such as cricket and hoopla (both very fun), architecture, performing arts, community service, language, henna, Bollywood, and of course, food. The performing arts booth featured a man playing a sitar and another man playing a set of drums. I’d never seen a sitar in real life before, so that was definitely a treat for me.

The dancers on stage were also very fun to watch. I was able to see three different groups perform and each had a slightly different style. The first group was a bit more contemporary, but the third group was very traditional. There were moments I wanted to get up and dance too! Something about dancing and music really brings people together, from people who don’t know hardly anything about a culture to people who have been raised in that culture their entire lives.

Facts about Indian Architecture

My favorite part by far would have to be the food. Though I didn’t purchase dinner, my roommate and I enjoyed a drink called Mango Lassi. We had had this before at an Indian restaurant on Guadalupe past MLK called The Clay Pit and knew how tasty it is. The drink is mostly straight up mango juice (something Conrad would love, of course) with milk and sugar; like a smoothie, but with more ice. Hopefully I’ll learn to replicate this for the future.

I gathered that the point of us going to this event as extra credit was to experience another culture and to feel out of place. I definitely felt that way. There were other people at the event besides UT students: mostly older Indian community members. I didn’t feel unwelcome there because I am white, but I did feel like I was intruding a bit into another culture and their traditions. I didn’t want to make the “adults” think I was being disrespectful by being there. This is something I have felt before, even earlier this year. My roommate goes to a church that is comprised of mostly Chinese-Americans and I visited a few times. The people were friendly, but my lack of knowledge of Asian culture definitely was apparent and I was worried about making a faux pas. I think the unique challenge to me in visiting events from other cultures is my height: I’m usually taller than most women and in the case of Vietnamese and Chinese-Americans, I’m taller than the men as well. This makes me feel more conspicuous, but I think visiting things like Jashan is a good way to get over this feeling.

The Light of Asia

In the note on Sir Edwin Arnold, I came across a quote that reminded me of a book I read last year: “Thenceforward his soul was seized with just one consuming passion: to communicate to his countrymen in England, in the language native to them, the vision he had seen of India,… It was this vision he pledged himself to convey, be it in song or speech or story, ‘for England; O Our India! As dear to me as She.’ “[1]

A Beautiful Indian Landscape[2]

Last spring I read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri after reading her short stories book in an English course.

A movie based on the book The Namesake. I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it is pretty good.[3]

I really enjoy her writing because she does what Sir Edwin Arnold does in his poem: she brings out the beauty of India. I don’t remember the plot very well now, but the story really inspired me to want to travel to India someday. Even though I still don’t know much about India or Buddhism, I want to learn more so that when I do visit, I know more about the culture of the people there.

Like Nhuy, I also found connections between The Light of Asia and Christianity. The story about Siddartha and the swan reminds me of a story in the Bible in 1 Kings. Two prostitutes came to see King Solomon. Each woman had a baby, but one of the babies

died during the night. The woman whose baby died traded her baby for the other and placed the dead baby with the other woman. Now there is a fight about whose baby is still alive and the women argue before the king. Solomon says that he will cut the baby in half and give half to each woman. The true mother argued against this, saying that it would be better to spare the life of the child and give him to the other woman than to kill him. The other woman said that it was best to kill him so that neither woman would have him. Solomon then gave the baby to the woman who said not to kill him because she was the true mother.[4]

The Judgment of Solomon[5]

Likewise in the poem, an unknown priest makes nearly the same verdict: “ ‘If life be aught, the savior of a life/ Owns more the living thing than he can own/ Who sought to slay—the slayer spoils and wastes,/ The cherisher sustains, give him the bird:’.”[6] This also sounds a lot like the Jain principle of ahimsa- nonviolence. It was best to minimize violence than to obey the laws of ownership.

I haven’t decided quite yet how I feel about Jainism and Buddhism. I understand how they work, but not how they fit with what I believe. Perhaps it will take more research. But learning about the two has definitely made me more conscious of the differences in world beliefs and also the similarities in the ideals they promote.

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[1] Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of India (New Delhi: Crest Publishing House, 1879), 7.

[2] Beauty of India, http://www.johansentravel.com/images/Beauty%20of%20India%20(37).jpg

[3] The Namesake Preview, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sOaA-4Y8tI

[4] The Bible, I Kings 3: 16-28. Also available: http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=I+Kings+3%3A+16-28&passage2=&passage3=&passage4=&passage5=&version1=31&version2=0&version3=0&version4=0&version5=0&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0

[5] The Judgment of Solomon, http://guardiansatlaw.org/solomon.htm

[6] Arnold, The Light of India, 19.

Victorians in Asia

The most striking comment that I found in this article was this: “The difficulty at present is that for the most part we have developed in the world’s religions certain ethical prohibitions regarding homicide and restraints concerning genocide and suicide, but none for biocide or geocide.”[i] I can’t say that I would find Jainism to be the answer to addressing this, but I think that other religions can do more than they are to help maintain or improve the environment. Scientologists (at least L. Ron Hubbard) proclaim one of the steps to happiness to be to “safeguard and improve one’s environment”.[ii] I can agree with this statement. But I don’t think that guilt-tripping people into helping the environment through silly youtube videos will do anything except incite emotions, like the Earthlings movie some of us watched a few weeks ago or An Inconvenient Truth.[iii]

The best way to help the environment is really just to be practical, not coat earth-saving techniques in religious jargon. As the author mentions, this doesn’t really work, “It should be noted…that this…has not prevented environmental degradation”.[iv] One practical thing I personally do to help the environment as well as just be a good citizen is to go to the Waller Creek Clean-Up each semester. This allows me to do at least something small that is beneficial to the earth, even if it has to be done often.

Waller Creek Clean-Up[v]

Cleaning up the earth isn’t about doing it for show: either for showing off piety, compassion, or trendiness. It is about keeping the world clean. This seems obvious, but our new ideas about “living green” blind us into believing that “saving the earth” is just a passing fad, and that it is something that is only available to the rich. The “green” products cost more than the non-green ones, which seems really counter-intuitive. I would definitely support being “green” if it didn’t cost so much green.

To sum up, the Jains have a good idea. But I think it is a bit extreme. As per my own beliefs, I believe that God created all plants for food, as He says in Genesis 1:29: “Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;”.[vi]

Fruits bearing Seed[vii]

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[i] Lawrence E. Sullivan, Preface in Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), xxv.

[ii] L. Ron Hubbard, “The Way to Happiness” brochure

[iii] An Inconvenient Truth Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XMn_Ry3z6M

[iv] Sullivan, Jainism and Ecology, xxiv.

[v] Waller Creek, http://www.utexas.edu/tmm/sponsored_sites/waller/

[vi] Genesis 1:29, also available http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=Genesis+1&version=49.

[vii] Fruitful, http://www.pathlights.com/theselastdays/images/fruitful.jpg

Hopkins: Eye vs. Ear

The statement Hopkins makes in the beginning of our reading is what I can agree with, “Poetry was originally meant for either singing or reciting; a record was kept of it; the record could be, was, read, and that in time by one reader, alone, to himself, with his eyes only.”[1] As a writer of poetry myself, I often despise letting other people read my work. I have long wondered why this is the case, and I can only assume it is because others cannot perform it the same way I did when I wrote it. Thus, I cannot agree with Hopkins’s later statement that, “This is not the true nature of poetry . . . till it is spoken it is not performed, it does not perform, it is not itself.. . .”[2] I cannot even speak my own poetry the way it is written, and thus I feel that trying to do so with the writing of others is a way to grossly misinterpret the meaning of the author. But surely, the author knows this himself when he publishes his work.

Gerard Manley Hopkins[3]

As such, I did not find the musical interpretations of the poetry to be very satisfying, particularly the renditions of Spring and The Windhover. The music didn’t suit the poem and I felt that no meaning (or deeper meaning) could be obtained from listening to the singers recite the words. It seemed only to be a way for the singers to make up a song without having to write lyrics. On the flip side, I did enjoy the renditions of God’s Grandeur and Inversnaid, but since I have no author to tell me what he meant, I cannot say whether or not the renditions were “accurate”; they were merely entertaining.

The musicality of poetry brings up an interesting point. I agree that poetry is meant to be musical; I frequently have set my own writing to music (even though the music itself is just made up in my head). The Bible does this consistently in the Psalms, an example being Psalm 8, written by David:

Psalm 8

For the director of music. According to gittith

A psalm of David.

¹ O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

² From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

³ When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

⁵ You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

⁶ You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:

⁷ all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,

⁸ the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth![4]

Psalm 8: Man in the Universe[5]

An interpretation of Psalm 8[6]

Perhaps in David’s day it was easy to know how this should be sung; oral tradition had passed it down and David himself could convey it perfectly. Even then, the oral tradition didn’t survive long enough to make it into our day, and we have no idea how this would have been sung long ago. The musical term, selah, appears frequently in the Bible, particularly in Psalms, but we don’t know what this means. According to Wikipedia, selah “may be the most difficult word in the Hebrew Bible to translate.”[7] As a holy and ancient text, I have to form my own ideas of meaning. I don’t claim to be the authority on whether poems are meant to be sung to others or merely read to be enjoyed by others, but for me I’d rather silently glean my own interpretation than butcher it for others to hear and misinterpret the author.

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[1] Hopkins’s Letter to his Brother

[2] Ibid.

[3] Gerard Manley Hopkins, http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images1/hopkins_gm1_sm.jpg.

[4]The Bible, New International Version, Psalms 8 http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults2.php?passage1=Psalm8&book_id=23&version1=31&tp=150&c=8

[5] Psalm 8: Man in the Universe, http://z.about.com/d/judaism/1/0/V/4/psalm8_july.gif.

[6] Psalm 8, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm8BVF1NPfE.

[7] Selah, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selah.

Earthlings Extra Credit

Since Catherine posted the video on her blog, I thought I would use Spring Break to watch it and comment on the documentary Earthlings.

Honestly, I found the documentary to be very redundant and manipulative. It appeals to the viewers emotions to an extreme extent and gives no practical advice as to how we as humans should live in light of the injustices that are being done to animals. The clips of cute animals romping around in their natural habitat are juxtaposed with clips of cows' throats being slit, which creates an emotional as well as visceral reaction, but what can we do to change the treatment of animals as a whole? The clips didn't support the point: the point is that things should change (or at least that should be the point), but I feel as though the point that comes across is just that animals' lives today really suck.

Chinese Zoos[1]

This is not to say that I didn't learn anything from the documentary and that it was a total waste of my time. It was only mostly a waste of my time. I did learn a few statistics that I wasn't aware of, which are as follows:

27% of homeless dogs are purebred.
50% of shelter animals are brought in by their caretakers.
Cows in India are used for leather goods in the US.[2]

The first two stats really show how the American society is wasteful. My neighbor growing up had a purebred dog that cost their family exorbitant amounts of money to buy. It would seem that getting a purebred dog from a shelter would be like getting a used Prada handbag for $20. You bet I'd do it.

Prada Advertisement[3]

The third stat is a commentary on our growing lack of support for others' religious beliefs. If the demand is high enough in the U.S. that we have to resort to using a sacred animal of India to feed our desires, we've got some explaining to do. I may not understand that sanctity of cows, but it is about respect. How many people in India really know this is happening?

This documentary wasn’t life-changing for me. I don’t feel as though I should avoid meat or speak out against animal cruelty. I don’t agree with the inhumane execution of animals as depicted with the anal electrocution of foxes or the flogging of cows, but the use of euthanasia in the form of shots or even the captive bolt gun doesn’t bother me that much. You gotta do what you gotta do. It is unfortunate that we have to kill pets due to overpopulation due to lack of spaying and neutering, but we have consequences for our actions.

The documentary concluded with a quote by Leo Tolstoy, “As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”[4] What he says is true. Unless we decide to all go vegan and never eat animals again, people will complain about cruelty to animals. But what can we do about it? Earthlings doesn’t say.

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[1] Chinese Zoos, http://sinobling.sinosplice.com/animal%20abuse.JPG.

[2] Earthlings, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxKnys7Ryw.

[3] The History of Prada, http://www.fashionhause.com/images/prada.jpg.

[4] Earthlings, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxKnys7Ryw.

Ritvo, "A Measure of Compassion"

RDB: Ritvo

“(…the proprietor of a turn-of-the-century home for stray cats lamented that she could not ‘rescue the cats of Slumland’ from their impoverished owners at will, because ‘there is far too much prominence given to the rights of property and far too little to the rights of animals.’”)⁷⁶.”[i]

In addition to what this quote says about the controversy surrounding animal rights in the Victorian Era, it also makes an important commentary about the importance of the rights of property and privacy to the English then as well as us today. Animal rights cases are hard to resolve for many reasons, one of them being the breach of privacy they can cause. On the channel Animal Planet, the show, Animal Precinct, follows the work of the ASPCA and the work that they do rescuing animals in New York City.

Animal Precinct Intro[ii]

Most times, a special warrant is required for these officers to rescue the animals that are hurt, even if they see them plainly without going into the house or building. Sometimes this can even keep these animals from being rescued, for if the owner knows that the officers have come, they may escape trouble (literally) by running away. People, like many animals, are territorial; desiring to be left alone, especially when they are doing wrong. This is a normal human instinct, but the desire to protect it lawfully can occasionally cause more harm than good.

Ritvo mentions that in the early years of the RSPCA, the law held that, “[e]ven if an animal did not require unlawful punishment to keep moving, its driver might be liable to prosecution if it were not fit to work.”[iii] She gives an example of this that is similar to the injuries sustained by Black Beauty after he threw Reuben Smith for not attending to his lost shoe: “one horse whose owner was prosecuted for [the above] offense had ‘both knees broken: the flesh was cut through and the bone and sinews exposed…’ “.[iv] Since Smith died, he did not receive this punishment, but this was typical of his day. This at least guaranteed some incentive to keep animals in working order, but it didn’t guarantee the happiness or contentment of the animal.

Another gray area mentioned by Ritvo is the topic of vivisection, the dissecting of live animals.

Vivisection Protest[v]

While dissecting live animals seems quite inhumane and cruel on the surface, discoveries made by scientists as a result of this practice has furthered the science of medicine and provided knowledge about the human body and biology in general. In the late 1800’s, advances began to be made as a result of vivisection, and this spurred an “outraged” response by the RSPCA, “The society …devoted more of its public relations and enforcement resources to this issue. In 1864 it offered a prize of £50 for the best essay answering the following two questions: “1. Whether vivisection were necessary or justifiable (when performed as at certain veterinary schools) for the purpose of giving dexterity to the operators? 2. Whether it is necessary or justifiable for the general purposes of science, and if so, under what limitations?” The winners answered both questions in the negative.^{127 ([vi])} This case pitted the scientists against the RSPCA and caused further confusion for the general public.

I don’t see much wrong with dissection of animals for medical purposes. Maybe this goes against our definition of sympathy from class, but I can’t see that a dead animal will care what happens to it since I don’t care what happens to me when I’m dead. On the flip side, vivisecting animals live is another thing entirely. It isn’t something we would even think of doing to humans, and even dissection of dead humans is a dicey topic, especially in the news today.

Just recently, Gunther von Hagens, the inventor of human plastination and founder of the Body Worlds traveling exhibit has been charged for obtaining the bodies of prisoners as well as unidentified and possibly unwillingly donated remains from China.

Gunther von Hagens[vii]

Many people around the world have felt uncertain as to the humaneness and decency of presenting corpses and the dead in the way that von Hagens has, and this uncertainty has fueled the flame for the accusations put against him. Accusations of vivisection have not arisen, but if they did, this man’s reputation would be entirely destroyed. Animals have also been used in his exhibits, but to my knowledge (and from what I have researched online), no complaints about this have been made by animal rights activists, showing that despite the work done by the RSPCA, ASPCA, and other groups, we are still allowing (or are even more accepting than Victorians) of the idea that animals don’t have nearly the same rights as humans.

We may not drive emaciated horses or bear bait anymore, but our views on animal rights are only changed by the means by which we abuse animal rights, not by our respecting of them.

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[i] The Animal Estate 145-146

[ii] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wobTu3b6dyQ

[iii] The Animal Estate 140

[iv] The Animal Estate 140

[v]http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3427035.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=D278A15CF533E62C7D57D397779EFC50A55A1E4F32AD3138

[vi] The Animal Estate 159

[vii] http://www.dappercadaver.com/blog/wp-images/Body%20Worlds/body%20worlds%2014.jpg