Mehndi India

Behind every tattoo there is a story.

There are plenty of reasons to get a tattoo. In our society we may do it because its for fashion, for personal reasons, being symbolic of something and even just a fake tattoo, everyone seems to enjoy the idea of having something printed on their skins. 

Today's post we will look closely at another form of art, known as the Mehndi. 

A certain paste is made and put in a cone like tube so that the sharp end of the cone squeezes out the paste. The pastes goes onto the skin and as it dries up, you get the print of it on your hands. 

Mehndi is usually used in wedding and for the coming of age for girls in India. It is a figurative art because it is not permanent and changes constantly. 

The following video lets you view the complexity behind making the Mehndi style of art on your hands. 

Eunuchs In India

Life isn't as always 'straight' as we want it to be.


Life may seem confusing, even more so when we talk about gender. It is assumed that everyone is born to be a boy or a girl. When they grow up they conform to societies expectations.

But what if you were born between this line of gender, or later in life you may find yourself steering off this path.

This leads itself to another realm.

Today's post delves itself into another realm as I came across an article on Eunuchs. Eunuchs are people, generally males who have castrated their manhood in order to become a woman. On some cases it can be about baby boys who were born with a dysfunctional genitalia.

Like all occupations, they hold a status in our society. In India, Eunuchs have an occupation that stems into the tradition and value belief systems of its society. They play a vital role and are paid handsomely for their work, which is having a duty to give blessings at weddings and new births.
 
The following article talks more into detail about Eunuchs history.


http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/2022

Witch doctors

Who do you go to when you're feeling sick and in need for medical advice? Who do you go to see when you have financial and personal problems? In our society we often have someone for everything. Teachers to teach students. Accountants to deal with our money. Mechanics to deal with our cars and so on.

In African societies, witch doctors are part of their daily lives. We may feel skeptical about them and may not believe in witch doctors because of its practices which conflicts with science.

The following article tells us a chilling story about a the owner of a farm and how he went bankrupt. He also provides details about witch doctors and their practices. It opens up a discussion and lets us get involve with the debate.

For example, if the practices of the witch doctors do not work then how else did people back in the medieval times get through?

Hope you enjoy the article just as much as we did. Tell us what you think.

http://www.squidoo.com/africanwitchdoctors

Marriage in Africa

In today's post we will look at marriage customs within a particular tribe in Africa.

The Wundabi tribe annually hold a beauty contest for men as a custom for the women of the tribe to choose their husbands.

The family hierarchy in the tribe on the male side is not traditional when it comes to monogamy, but rather they are given the chance to try and win over another wife in this contest. From a feminist point of view this might seem outrageous, but surprisingly the women have the upper hand, and are allowed to find a new husband, however have to stay monogamous.

In this beauty contest, as featured in the video below, men must adorn themselves with make up, dance and dress up to show their masculinity and attractiveness. The women are the main audience and they choose who they want to be with.

It makes me think of all the cheesy pick up lines that guys would try to say to girls and how girls try to impress guys with their looks and personality. I think the Wundabi tribes way is much more entertaining and worth the effort.

Beauty in Africa

We'd just like to take note that this post is not aimed at generalizing the idea of beauty in African culture.

Our main focus for this post is on a video that we have come across about the Mursi Tribe of Southern Ethiopia. It features a woman exploring the tribes customs and values where she reveals the ideas behind the lip plate (see video below).

This lip plate is the tribes symbol for beauty, where the bigger the lip plate, the more beautiful you are.

In a way this parallels itself to western culture as well as we go from a simple piercing of the ears to extreme mutilation, for example having surgery to create elf ears, or more so as we know, the famous snake man and tiger man.

Russian Superstitions

A big aspect of Russian Taboos is the amount of superstitions involved in their culture. It controls their everyday lives, such as not being able to return back home if you forget something, otherwise you will have bad luck, and if you do return back, you must look at yourself in the mirror before leaving again.

For Russian people, superstitions are taken very seriously and a lot of people abide by them religiously.

As a child growing up with Russian parents, I was raised knowing and taking part in these superstitions. Even till this day I won't whistle indoors as it brings bad luck, as my mother told me.

The article linked below lists many of the Russian superstitions which are well known by all of the Russian community around the world. One of them listed says that you should never celebrate your birthday early. For my entire life my parents wouldn't let me celebrate my birthday the weekend before it actually came up because again it was bad luck to do so. I had to wait until the week after to have a party.

Click here to see the article

My point to this is that superstitions in Russian culture is a big taboo of its own, and revolves around their lives just like a religion would. Of course their are many other countries that have their own superstitions too, so let us know the superstitions you were brought up with in your home.

Vodka in Russia

Russian taboos comprise of many sorts of idea, views and superstitions. However, when a person thinks of Russia, the first word that comes up is 'Vodka'. Therefore, although this is a very generic Russian topic, it is a huge part of the culture and its' history.

It is still unclear today where these remedies have come from. It has now become a social norm in Russian society. It is not only a tradition, a remedy, or a stereotype, but it is what I personally believe, the heart of Russian culture.

Vodka is used for many occasions, such as celebrating an unexpected gain and to ease pain, to welcome back a long-absent friends and bid them good buy, to overcome stress and to cure depression. Vodka in Russia is irreplaceable all-purpose drink, the subject of novels and poems, songs and legends.

The funniest thing I learnt from my father who is Russian, was when he told me how his mother would give him vodka to drink when he was younger, when he was sick, to make him feel warm and better. I found an article which is exactly about this topic, which is :

http://www.russianvodka.com/vodka_for_health.htm

The article skims over some of the facts of vodka for health. However, of course this was all tradition in the Russian culture, but in the present day the negatives of drinking vodka is well known.

Tell us what you think and post other remedies that you know of.

Bound Feet in China

I came across an article about an old custom where women in china had their feet bound. It was a custom that was outlawed in 1949 during the Cultural Revolution in China.

The bound feet had many meanings. Economically it meant that the women would be considered to be from a higher class and that she was also the property of the family. Socially the girl would be beautiful, the smaller the feet the more attractive and appealing she was.

What struck me the most was that the women would have to endure the pain as they wobbled to get from place to place, and needed help from others to get around. Above all, they were still expected to do the house work and take care of their children. This makes me value my feet more.

What do you think about this old tradition of class and beauty?

Click here for more information on bound feet

Chinese Cultural Taboos

This post we are focusing on overall Chinese cultural taboos.


The following link is an interesting article that we found that may arouse your interest.


http://chineseculture.about.com/od/chinesefestivals/a/Chinese-Taboo.htm


It identifies many different Chinese cultural taboos from an everyday perspective, giving examples from work, food, celebrations, gifts etc.


The most amusing thing we found was the idea that you should not leave chopsticks standing up in a bowl of rice in a restaurant, this is because it is believed it will bring bad luck to the owners of the restaurant, as it looks similar to incence sticks being put in an urn used to bring offerings to past ancestors.


In our point of view, living in Australia, putting chopsticks in a bowl of rice is just convenient and more hygienic than placing it on the table.


Tell us what you think?