Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Hotel Rwanda

Every movie includes a voice to deliver its message to the audience. I believe Hotel Rwanda definitely has a message, which is sent variously to each and many people. For me, Hotel Rwanda informed me of many historical and personal facts.
First, I got to acknowledged that there is actully a country named Rwanda in Africa. Secondly and unfortunately, I learned that there was a brutal genocide that occurred in Rwanda, because of ethnic and racial conflicts. (I thought genocides weren’t able to happen after WW2).
This movie spoke to me that we are responsible for knowing what is going on in other parts of our world, and not make the same mistakes we made in Rwanda again.
Hotel Rwanda’s intentional message is that genocides are still going around in parts of our world, that we don’t take seriously. Loss of myraid precious lives were reported, but the world had not taken strong and firm action in order to seize control of the chaos. It looked as if the situation was trivial and inconsequential. Why? Because the victims were Africans.
This movie tells us to be alert about what is happening in this world and look out for the trustworthy source, so we can do what we can to help that situation.

Hotel Rwanda had given many people a time of lamentation and introspection over those dead souls that we could have possibly saved.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

RWANDA and media

I saw, "Hotel Rwanda," in 9th grade, either in geography class or in 10th grade US history class (can’t remember). Always being fatigued and exhausted from school work, that time I rolled my brain in order to sleep without being noticed by the teacher. As a result, I only have disconnected memories of that movie.
I thought, people with different ethnicities needs to settle their disdains and discrepancies within each other, and this kind of genocide should never happen again in our time of history.
Since it was the second time watching Hotel Rwanda, I didn’t feel any need to watch this movie again, and I thought I would have a pleasant time sleeping. Ms. Lilo said this movie had something to do with our media unit and I tried to view this movie from a different perspective and mind set from last year.
This time by focusing on the media’s role and coverage, I was able to observe subtle information.

In 1994, 800,000 genocide of Tutsis occurred by the uprising of Hutus, and while killing was going on, the world looked as if they were indifferent to this massacre. “Powerful” and ‘trustworthy’ U.N. being there to settle problems between Hutus and Tutsis were not very efficient in taking control.In the movie, the Hutu radio called the Tutsis, “Cockroaches,” and from the way the VJ talked, I could sense the hatred and discrimination toward the Tutsis.Many people today debates and questions, "How and why this incident happened and how could we have let that happen." One of the reasons why this genocide was kept untreated was that the media misinformed many people and even kept it secret. Mark Doyle, from his interview link said that for several weeks he had been misinformed of this situation and wasn't clear about what was happening until he interviewed the Red Cross and the U.N. soldiers. He couldn't use the word genocide because he did not have enough information.
People rebuked US for not using the word, “Genocide,” in their media, to not get their country involved in Rwanda incident. Anyhow, even though US is a strong country, I don't think they are not the only country who have the responsibility to help out and intervene conflicts.
From the sites that I’ve been through, the two main ideas that people threw out was, Responsibility to protect and foreign interventions. We have the responsibility to protect others who are in adversities and conflicts. So it is our duty to dig for the trustworthy media information, and bring it to action.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


This poem is very serene, and it's filled with sweet memories. Persona, the grandmother, is now old and she recollecting her memories from the past. This poem had me thinking about what kind of things I would remember as memorable when I become a grandpa. I'm sure I'll remember TCIS as memorable.
This persona does not want to be any older, and she has fallen inside this hole of reminiscence, feeling sad and wanting to travel back in times when she was young.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!



When I saw this poem, and it immediately grabbed my attention because the title, We Wear The Mask, sounded attractive and wasn't tedious. Honestly, I do not fully understand this profound poem, but I think Paul Laurence, the author, is telling us about the unrevealed problems that's going around in the society that we live in. How people try to hide their pains and adversities by trying to handle it entirely by themselves or acting like nothing has ever happened to them. Those people may look fine on the outside with a smile and a mask, but there may be undivulged sufferings that are hidden inside. These days, the world is over picky of others’ mistakes and it pressures some people to put on the mask, and only show the fine and accepted side to other people.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Animal Farm Entry of my choice

The surprise reverse

At the end of the Animal farm, the pigs became like humans, which were their worst enemy and whom they always hated and cursed.
All the commandments were broken except the seventh commandment, "All animals are equal," but now that has changed to, "Some animals are more equal than others."
Napoleon started smoking pipes, pigs traded with human neighbors, Napoleon wore Mr. Jones’s clothes and pigs played card game.
The pigs were no different than Man.
“And from pig to man, and man to pig again; but it was already impossible to say which was which.”

A F entry 2

Are there any settings in this novel which you have found to be beautiful? or disturbing? or memorable? describe these settings and comment on why they were meaningful to you.

The beginning of Animal Farm was very memorable and it was peaceful. All the animals gathering and having a meeting gave me a slight different feeling than other books. Introduction of all the other animals in the farm was enjoyable and showed me the characteristics of the animals. Old major was a friendly character, which had an end of his life after the setting. He was a powerful character, because his words about his dream, made all the other animals to obey him, and his dream caused the rebellion to happen. He was lighter to the farm soaked with gasoline!

A F entry 3

Please choose one passage from the novel that is significant to you. why is this passage meaningful? Please type it into one of your entries and comment on what you think about the passage.

“No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco or touch money, or engage in trade. All the habits of Man are evil. And above all, no animal must ever tyrannize over his own kind.”

Major said this quote in the book, and everything he said in this quote happened later on the story by the pigs. This quote somehow reverse foreshadows the ending of this book. Sometimes people say, “You are an animal!” to the ones who are cold blooded, cruel, selfish and inhuman. According to this quote, animals should be saying, “You are a human!” to animals who are cold blooded, cruel and selfish. In addition, this passage contains some of the bad habits and characteristics of human, and I think George Orwell is telling the readers not to get into them. Also he tells the readers how Man are sinners and evil.