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| Romantic love is a strong physical and emotional attraction between a man and a woman. Usually people get marry is not because they really desperately love each other, they get marry because of pressure from parents, money, or even peer pressure. It seems that romantice love is not linked to marriage,(not as most of the love movies described!). Therefore, romantic love and marriage is not necessary dependent. An old lady can have romantic love with a young man, but they can't get marry because of pressure from the culture norms. A teacher can have romantic love with his student: again, they can't get marry because of the law. As people say that marrige based on romantic love has a higher succes rate. I think that it was wrong. As I mentioned at the beginning, romantic love and marriage are not dependent. Blind marriage can be very successful, for instance, in mainland China, we seldom see couples getting divorce. In America, there are more marriage based on romantic love, but in the end, many were divorced. Therefore, I think they are not related and sometimes successful marriages are based on culture background more than romatice love. In the Islamic sulture, marriages are usually decided by parents. But there isn't much divorce case in Islamic culture. And we can see that the couples love each other even though they don't know each other before they get marry. |
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| What�s Cooking? Oct 27th 2001 This movie is about four families living at the four corner of a crossroad. The story begins on few days before Thanksgiving. Each of them has some trouble in their own family. The movie is about how they deal with their problems such as conflicts and difference in customs and can finally have a Thanksgiving Dinner. The four families came from different culture background including Vietnamese, African American, Latin-American and Jewish-American family. The Vietnamese family has a generation gap problem. The new generation who were grown up in America has a lot of misunderstanding between their parents. The parents do not agree their daughter having an American boyfriend. And their son was carrying guns for his friends. The African American has many problems too. The husband had an affair, and the wife has many disagreements with her mother-in-law. The parents were facing the danger of divorce, but the mother decided to keep up their marriage for their children. Also, their son did not satisfy with the Governor of their state and poured paints him. His father does not support his son to study African-American culture in college. They had a big fight. The Latin-American family was a big family. However, the parents were divorced. The mother has a new boyfriend and some of her child agreed and some disagree about that. Unexpectedly, on the Thanksgiving Day, the father and her new boyfriend were there. They started a big fight. The Jewish-American family has a daughter who was lesbian. The parents felt very disappointed and frustrated about this. They don�t want to tell their relatives about this. Also, the lesbian couple has a baby in which a gay guy donated sperms to them. These complicated relations bother their parents and relatives. Although these four families have such many problems, they can still get together and have a nice Thanksgiving dinner. This movie shows the points of view of family kinship of different people. The Vietnamese and the Jewish parents think that family must be tradition (the family of doll). They think that one should follow the order of their parents and obey them. (The boyfriend of their daughter must be Vietnamese. In Jewish every boy in the family must be circumcised�..etc.) On the other hand, the Latin family accepts non-traditional family. (The daughters felt happy about their having a new boyfriend, they accept the daughter having a Vietnamese boyfriend��etc.) This movie also shows the generation gap that is happing between two generations. The young generation thinks that Thanksgiving is not really important. However, the elder generations think that everyone of the family should be together on Thanksgiving Day. It also shows the various culture differences on food in different family. The Vietnamese used two recipes in one turkey showing their �non-wasting� culture. The African-America family had to buy an organic turkey but the Latin just wants the turkey to be big. The author wants to shows a very typical American family in each culture. The culture I most identify with is the Vietnamese family. I think they are the victims of American cultures. Their children were beaten by classmates but the parents tried very hard to help them and tried to break the generation gap between them. Although the parents do not allow their daughter to have an American boyfriend, their intention was to protect her from being harm. Their non-verbal way of caring really touches me. The family I least identify with is the Jewish-American family. I think the parents should tell their feelings to their lesbian daughter. It seems to me that they are not very close and they have many things hiding from each others. There were many �acting� and �pretending� between this family in which I think a family should really not be like this. In general I really like this movie because it pointed out the typical problems different cultures are facing now in America. It skillfully used Thanksgiving as a theme to link together between different families. |
| Ways to reduce discrimination in society In the year 2001, it seems that discrimination should be extinct. In fact, discrimination in Hong Kong is still at an alarming rate. For instance, many people still think that a policeman should be a man. Even a taxi driver, too should be a man. I remember I have saw one lady got off the taxi immediately after she found out the taxi driver was a woman. The above I have mentioned is just a few examples on sexual discrimination. There are many other kinds of discrimination which are ten times worse than sexual discrimination, not to mention the discrimination against the mentally disabled and AIDS patient. We must find ways to solve the discrimination problems in Hong Kong. Otherwise, we may be a victim one day! The most important step we should do is to change people�s views towards the disabled. We could achieve this by letting the disabled to expose themselves to the public so as to let people realize disabled people can actually do a lots of things, it is a way to increase public acceptance towards the disabled. We could make commercials and broadcast them on TV. We can also organize a fund-raising show so that disabled patients could dance and play tricks. Last and most importantly, recovered patients could hold talks at school. This could educate our next generation the importance of respecting and caring the needs of others. Secondly, we must give all kinds of supports to those who are being discriminated. As a result, they will now fell lonely and helpless once they have been discriminated. It can reduce the tragedy of suicide. We can provide consultant for people who are being sexually discriminated; they could be advised on what action they could take. We could have social workers to visit the physically disabled people regularly. They could help the disabled to start their new live and talk to them to give them mental support. Social workers could also organize activities for people to visit the mentally disabled people. It can encourage them to step back into the society when they recover. Thirdly, we must seize help from the government. Since the government is our biggest supporter, it can help reduce discrimination in various ways. The first thing the government should do is to enforce the anti-discriminating ordinance. This is to make sure no employer will dismiss their employee because of discrimination. The law can protect victims being discriminated. They government should also revise the law to make the systems word properly. The Government could provide channels for the victims to complain, for example setting up an anti-discrimination department specialized on reporting unlawful employers could help. The above is only a few ways to reduce discrimination. It is a topic in which everyone should concern and get involved. Most importantly, we should not discriminate others. A democratic society should accept and help the weak |