text:
Growkaru
A Japan lifestyle and language blog
These 8 Things Are What Make Japanese so Difficult to Learn
Posted bygrowkaru January 30, 2022 March 16, 2022 Posted inUncategorized
This social context can be seen pretty clearly in Japan's senpai-kohai or "superior and subordinate" relationships.
In January of 2015 I moved to Osaka, Japan to enroll in a Japanese language school. Like many others, I assumed diving into the deep end with complete Japanese immersion would be the thing that would push me to propel my Japanese learning. After I graduated from language school in 2016 I would enroll in a Japanese university, begin working in Japan, and 7 years later here I am writing this article. After so much time in Japan, I've spent some time reflecting recently on my Japanese language learning journey, and what I learned along the way.
The truth is, there are some things that make learning Japanese incredibly difficult. Being immersed into the culture and language here, there were some things that would become a subconscious hurdle for me on a daily basis. After 7 years, I think I can put into words what makes Japanese such a difficult language to learn as a native English speaker. In no particular order, here were some of the things that stuck out to me, and some things you can begin tackling to improve your Japanese right away and avoid obvious pitfalls.
1. The writing system in general, along with the sheer number of Kanji
Did you know that Japan has three alphabets? Did you know that one of these alphabets has 1000's upon 1000's of characters? Well, technically that last one isn't an alphabet since it is a logographic system where shapes in combination and order denote specific ideas and meaning. The point being, this is probably the most intimidating and difficult aspect of learning Japanese that stops most new learners in their tracks. At first, learning the first two alphabets hiragana and katakana is relatively simple, but mastering kanji is a lifetime pursuit. Many people on YouTube videos are articles say things like "There are 2000 kanji to learn!" or something along those lines, but the reality I think lies somewhere closer to 3500 to 5000 kanji you will need to know to be able to write intelligent Japanese, with nuance. While reflecting on my Japanese learning experience, I can say that learning the first 1000 kanji was one of the most difficult things I had to do to become fluent. As you learn more kanji, you memorize more patterns that make learning the next kanji easier and easier. Really though, the further you get on your Japanese language-learning journey, it becomes more apparent just how many kanji there are to memorize. It really never ends…
However, I know just how difficult it can be to learn kanji, because for the past 7 years I have been living, studying, and working in Japan. I know exactly what worked for me and what didn't, so if you're interested in learning more about my process in studying Japanese kanji you can read about it here.
2. Multiple readings, Onyomi and Kunyomi
If the absolutely insurmountable number of kanji there are to learn wasn't enough, it main pain you to find out that these kanji in Japanese actually have multiple readings. These are officially divided into onyomi and kunyomi. A long long time ago (in a land far away) kanji were created in China, which would then be imported into Japan through Korea in the 5th century. These onyomi are the remnants of the original Chinese pronunciation. Kunyomi, on the other hand, are words that are pronounced using the original Japanese pronunciation. It doesn't end there. Depending on the specific order of kanji, the pronunciation of the kanji before it can change depending on the context. This creates a dynamic where you need to read ahead so you can determine the correct pronunciation of a word as a whole based on what comes after it. It's a very uniquely Japanese situation (as far as I know), and means that you not only have to memorize how to read kanji, multiple different ways to pronounce each kanji, but you also have to learn an entirely new way of reading all together.
3. The insane counting system (seriously)
You know how people like to talk about how weird English is for having so many different exceptions when counting animals. "It's 1 goose and 2 geese? WOW! What's up with that?! (In my best Seinfeld impression.) Now imagine another world where plates, pencils, pizza's, any other P word you can think had a specific method in which you would need to count them. You, my friend, have just entered the wonderful world of Japanese counters.
In actuality, this isn't really that big of a deal since, practically speaking, you really only need to know maybe around 20 of these in 90% of all everyday scenarios. Still, this may be the one area of Japanese that I am okay with never reaching native level fluency on. If you're interested in deeper context, Tofugu wrote a fantastic article where they compiled 350 different means of counting in Japanese. They actually go over their "17 must-know Japanese counters", which should come in handy if you're learning Japanese and are looking to tackle counters for the first time.
4. The complexity of Keigo
Keigo is often described as "polite Japanese" or "honorific Japanese" but it's a bit more complicated than that. It's actually a lot more complicated than that, as there are different types of keigo. There is sonkeigo (尊敬語) or respectful Japanese, kenjyogo (謙譲語) or humble Japanese, and teineigo (丁寧語) which is the standard for using more polite forms of Japanese that most Japanese leaners start with.
So, why does the addition of keigo make Japanese such a complex language to learn. Well, for starters, while simpler forms of keigo like teineigo typical modify the grammar structure similar to how we may in English, kenjyogo and sonkeigo are spoken using an entirely different vocabulary word altogether from what would be standard Japanese. For example, to eat in kenjyogo or humble-style keigo would be to "itadakimasu. (頂きます)" This is what Japanese people say before every meal. "Itadakimasu!" However, to say that someone else you respect is eating in sonkeigo, or respectful-keigo, is to say they "Meshiagarimasu (召し上がります.) Of course this is also the more standard way to say to in Japanese, which is to "tabemasu (食べます.)
So, what does this mean? The addition of keigo in Japanese means that there are often several standardized ways to say the same thing depending on every situation. Depending on your company, it can be very important that you understand these nuances.
Even Japanese people struggle with keigo.
5. EVERYTHING is context sensitive.
This context can be seen pretty clearly in Japan's senpai-kohai or "superior and subordinate" relationship dynamic.
As I had mentioned before, the addition of honorific Japanese demands that Japanese speakers are constantly aware of their present compare, their surroundings in general, and that they adjust to them accordingly. Only, this isn't only a linguistic principle in Japan, this idea may be the entire cornerstone for Japanese society in general. Because of the nature of Japanese grammar, conversations can often go on for minutes without any direct reference to what anyone is talking about. It seems that the biggest virtue in Japanese society is the ability to be able to "read the room", but in an entirely more extreme and socially complex manner, as they put it in Japanese, it is those who can not "read the air" who are truly lost in social situations. Japanese people tend to be incredibly indirect, which often makes it difficult for Japanese learners to ascertain not only the way to say what they're thinking, but how to convey the idea in general. Many new expats in Japan struggle with whether or not they should be direct or indirect, or even whether or not they should be honest or tell people what they want to hear. It's an entirely new style of communication if you come from a country with a more direct style of communication. Japanese is a very high context language, and coming from English, a very low context language, this can be quite tricky.
6. A complete opposite word order
The Japanese grammatical structure may as well have been constructed in another universe as any romance language. I suppose it was when you consider how big the world used to be. In Japanese, verbs are typically placed at the very end of the sentence, which is typically the opposite of what you would see in English. This opposite word order means that it is very difficult for Japanese learners to even start constructing anything that looks like a sentence in the beginning. This article I found from Japanese pod 101 does a great job of breaking down the grammatical differences between English and Japanese in a very visual way. As they state in the article, Japanese is a SOV language, meaning the order of a sentence typically consists of a subject, object, and then finally the verb. English is instead a SVO language, meaning the modifying object is typically the last thing in a sentence. What's more, the subject is often omitted entirely in Japanese (as I explained in point number 5.), which leaves out a lot of information that English speakers would otherwise be waiting for. In short, learning Japanese is difficult not only because of the grammatical shift, but because of the way you will need to adjust your thought process in order to be able to effectively adjust to both the language and culture.
7. People talk really fast in Japanese. Like, REALLY fast.
In 2011 linguists and behavioral scientists attempted the measure the speed of common language across the world. At 7.84 syllables spoken per-second, Japanese was ranked as the fastest language in the world. Comparatively, English was found to be spoken at a speed of 6.19 syllables per second, making it one of the slower languages out of the tested languages of Mandarin, German, English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Japanese. It is important to note that this tests denotes the speed at which syllables are spoken in a given language, but that doesn't necessarily translate to the speed at which information is relayed. Source: Pellegrino, F., Coupé, C., & Marsico, E. (2011). Across-language perspective on speech information rate. Language, 87(3), 539-558.
8. The final and most humorous point: Some Japanese people refuse to talk to you in Japanese
This is something that happens to everyone when they first come to Japan. You're likely pumped and ready to start using that Japanese you've painstakingly learned, only to find that once you actually get to Japan, many people refuse to respond to you in Japanese. So, what gives? I think a few things are going on here. First, people in Japan aren't used to hearing people speak Japanese with all different kinds of heavy accents like we are in English. When you first get off the plane, your pronunciation is likely very, very bad. This is when Japan's "omoiyari" or "culture of caretaking" takes over, and people assume that you would be happier to speak in English. Because, of course! You have a foreign face, and you're trying to speak Japanese! This is something many foreigners take personally in the beginning, but I think people's intentions are usually good. This becomes a problem when you're in the intermediate stages of learning Japanese, because your Japanese is almost certainly better than most people's English in Japan, but some people will still insist on speaking English to you, which in-turn makes it more difficult to learn Japanese. It's a vicious cycle, but is one that you can push through with time. I find now that I've been here for 7 years, even when I was in the countryside people would still tend to speak to me normally and in Japanese, but it takes a certain amount of confidence to make this happen. I know that I can usually tell how long another foreigner has been in Japan by the way they act, and I think Japanese natives can pick up on this too. Generally speaking, if you keep moving forward in a proactive way, and continue in initiate positive interactions, people will respond in a more positive and "normal" way to you in-turn. This is perhaps the most difficult and daunting thing about learning Japanese that makes most foreigners quit; You will never be Japanese, but you can be a foreigner who is really great at Japanese, and understands the local culture. There's nothing wrong with that! But, you will need to make people feel comfortable around you on a daily basis. This is the truth for us as foreigners in japan, and this is the life we choose. At least, I suspects things aren't going to change for a long time.
But, It gets easier! Don't give up! If you're looking for some extra language learning help, why not check out my article below?
If you're interested in hearing my story on how I studied Japanese in Japan and abroad, you can read about my experiences (and tips) here!
Why is Japan called Japan? 'Nippon' vs. 'Nihon' and more on why Japan is called what it is.
What is it Like Living in Japan as an American? My Experience Living in Japan for 7 Years
Growkaru, Website Powered by WordPress.com.


text:
18 days to go...
18 days to go until the Referendum and where are we now?
90% of economists and just about everyone with any expertise in the world of economics and finance has told us we're #StrongerIn and that a Brexit would severely damage the UK economy. But the Brexit cheerleaders do not want to hear. Farage says that £45 billion is a price worth paying. He says this with all the confidence of a seedy estate agent flogging a house that hasn't yet been built. Gove says he's had enough of experts. In his last incarnation, the experts had had enough of him. So he was moved from Education to Justice where he has demonstrated manifold skills in injustice. Boris continues to bumble round Britain belching baloney and diesel fumes. His German bus is still sign-written with the NHS logo and the claim that the UK sends £350 million to the EU every week. The BFG (Boris-Farage-Gove) and their cronies repeat the £350 million lie at every opportunity; apparently incapable of understanding the simple mathematics of the UK's EU contribution.
The BFG persist in their claim that we can have Trade Deals with whomsoever we wish post-Brexit. The heads of state of all of these countries have told them that either we can't or we can't for a very long time. Furthermore, all of Britain's friends have implored us to stay in the EU. But with deaf ears & blind eyes the BFG blunder onwards brandishing fantastically generous offers of funding to the NHS, the farmers and everyone under the cool summer sun. To date they have reallocated the EU funds many times over BUT none of it has been allocated to the making of new Trade Deals. Nor has any money been allocated to the complicated legal process that will follow from a Brexit. Nor to the making and amending of laws to replace those detested ones that are currently on the statute book due to the EU.
'We want to Take Back Control' is the mantra of the BFG morning, noon and night. What exactly is it that is Out of Control? Sovereignty appears to be the main offender. That's been commuted to the EU. Well, some of it has. We're members of a club and we agree to the club rules. We do this because the club works to our benefit, and in the areas of trade and travel we benefit enormously. We have gained more freedom than we've sacrificed. And we have a veto on issues of paramount importance.
Of sovereignty, Thomas Hobbes said: "The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them." Largely due to the EU combined with NATO we've enjoyed many decades of peace in Europe. I have serious doubts about the endurance of peace in Europe if we depart the EU. Poland is building a Home Guard of 35,000 and NATO is establishing military bases there. This is in response to the threat from Russia. Nationalism is on the rise across Europe and far beyond. There have been few instances since the French Revolution when extreme nationalistic politics have resulted in neither tyranny nor war. Narrow, nationalistic sovereignty looks increasingly like a devil in disguise and can do little to protect us.
The other area in which the BFG are insistent that we need to take back control is immigration. Their current fad is for an Australian style points system. However, the media have pointed out that the Australian system has resulted in higher immigration into Australia than the UK has under its own current system. There's also a serious ethical problem with such a system: if we cherry pick the medics and engineers and so on from countries less well off than ourselves, who is going to look after the people left behind in those countries? Nothing could be more wrong than for us to poach their professionals.
Immigration is not and cannot be easily controlled. It comes with big advantages, not least of which is a constant supply of labour that we desperately need. So long as people have transport they will find a way of moving from one place to another. The smartphone and the internet have combined to open the window on the world to the whole world and the world wants to move to where the good life is. Nothing and no one can stop that process. It's an unintended consequence of globalisation and technology.
Our choices are limited. Either we can bark nostalgic mantras about the greatness of some unidentified point in the past and attempt to hole up on an isolated sandcastle that destiny will dissolve into the North Sea. Or we can accept the world we live in and make the most of it by collaborating and compromising with our willing and friendly neighbours.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For applications requiring a plug-in AC to DC conversion the model 2935T will convert and step down 110V AC to a +5V DC regulated output at 700 mA.
Standard applications capable of utilizing a non-regulated plug-in AC to DC power supply can best use the model 6973 to convert 110V AC to a non-regulated 9V DC at 50 mA output.
The G.R.I. 8065 is a class II U.L. 12V DC Regulated 500 mA Power Supply with red LED indicator for power supervision, and built-in cable strain relief. It comes with a mounting tab and mounting screw. Recommended for use with the 189/289 G.R.I. Series Pool Alarms.


Osmose USA/The End Records has set a June 26 release date for the new album from Sweden's controversial act SHINING, titled "V - Halmstad".
According to a press release, "SHINING's fifth recorded depression is no less than a monument of beauty in blackness and ghostly shades. From the early black metal influences of the cult act remains the sensation of illness, reinforced by some of the most possessed vocal parts howling from Kvarforth's tortured soul. The psychologically confused singer (who had vanished for a couple of weeks last August, letting his comrades think he might have killed himself) proves on SHINING 'V' that he's back from the dark side sicker than ever before. While in the meantime, the band displays a mix between sheer heaviness and sublime atmospheric moments, with a special mention to the amazing acoustic guitar work delivering eerie melodies as well as masterclass skills when it comes to lead parts. 'V' is truly one of a kind. Handle with care, but for art's sake, handle now."
Longtime friends Kvarforth and Maniac (SKITLIV, TEAM ARMSTRONG, ex-MAYHEM), two of black metal's most controversial frontmen, were the featured guests on Monday (May 7) on the "Conte and Kenny Show" on Cringe Humour Radio. Download and listen to the program at this location (MP3, 107 MB; the interview begins roughly one hour into the show and lasts about 25-30 minutes).
SHINING filmed its controversial February 3, 2007 concert at Diezel in Halmstad, Sweden for an upcoming DVD, entitled "Fy Fan För Livet!" In addition to the live footage, the disc will consist of a two-hour "road movie" and the promotional video for the new song "Låt Oss Ta Allt Från Varandra". SHINING's setlist spanned the band's entire career and the show featured guest appearances by members of MAYHEM and CARPATHIAN FOREST.


text:
Top 20 Richest Africans for 2022 According to Forbes
January 29, 2022 January 25, 2022 by Actionable Info
Last updated on January 29th, 2022 at 07:51 am
For the 11th time in a row, the Chairman of Dangote Group Alhaji Aliko Dangote has again been rated as the wealthiest in Africa, according to Forbes 2022 list which was released on January 24, 2022.
Despite the pandemic that ravaged many businesses between 2021, the latest list shows that the Nigerian billionaire's wealth grew from $12.1 billion to an estimated net worth of $13.9 billion. That's 30 per cent growth.
Forbes attributed the growth in Aliko Dangote's wealth to the sterling performance of Dangote Cement on the Nigerian Exchange.
At the end of 2021, Bloomberg put his wealth at $19.2 billion. Remember, Bloomberg and Forbes, use different indicators to measure wealth.
Other Nigerian billionaires that made the top 10 richest Africans are 1) Abdul Samad Rabiu and Mike Adenuga.
Earlier in our reports, we reported how the market capitalisation of BUA Foods stocks grew astronomically, making BUA Founder to take the position of GLO Founder as the second richest Nigerian man.
At the time of publication, Abdul Samad Rabiu is sitting on $7 billion, making him the fifth richest African billionaire while Mike Adenuga who is now in the third position in Nigeria is ranked as the sixth African richest man, sitting on a net worth of $6.7 billion.
The report noted that Africa's billionaires were richer than they had been in years, despite the outbreak of covid-19.
Jumping from number four (2021) to number two in the 2022 ranking is the South African Fashion and retail business mogul Johann Rupert.
It's revealed that more than a 60 per cent surge in the share price of his Compagnie Financiere Richemont–maker of Cartier watches and Montblanc pens–pushed his fortune to $11 billion, up from $7.2 billion a year ago, making him the biggest dollar gainer on the list.
Another South African who occupied third place is Nicky Oppenheimer, who formerly ran diamond mining firm DeBeers before selling it to mining firm Anglo American a decade ago, worth an estimated $8.7 billion.
Forbes said:
"To value privately-held businesses, we start with estimates of revenues or profits and apply prevailing price-to-sale or price-to-earnings ratios for similar public companies".
Forbes List 2022 for African Wealthiest
Below is the full list of African business moguls who control the largest wealth of the continent.
Rank Name Net Worth Business Interests
1 Aliko Dangote $13.9Billion Manufacturing
2 Joann Rupert $11Billion Fashion and retail
3 Nicky Oppenheimer $8.7 Billion Metals and Mining
4 Nassef Sawiris $8.6Billion Construction
5 Abdul Samad Rabiu $7Billion Diversified
6 Mike Adenuga $6.7Billion Diversified
7 Issad Rebrab $5.1Billion Food and beverage
8 Naguib Sawiris $3.4Billion Telecommunication
9 Patrice Motsepe $3.1Billion Metals and Mining
10 Koos Bekker $2.7Billiom Media and entertainment
10 Strive Masiyiwa $2.7Billion Telecom
12 Mohamed Mansour $2.5Billion Diversified
13 Aziz Akhannouch and Family $2.2Billion Diversified
14 Michiel Le Roux $1.7Billion Finance and investment
15 Othman Benjelloun and family $1.5Billion Finance and investment
15 Mohammed Dewji $1.5Billion Diversified
15 Youssef Mansour $1.5Billion Diversified
18 Yasseen Mansour $1.1Billion Diversified
Dolan, Kerry (January 24, 2022). "Forbes 2022 Africa's Billionaires". forbes.com. Retrieved January 25, 2022
Categories Investment
Is Cryptocurrency Illegal In Nigeria?
Why You Should Not Store Your Money in Naira – NESG DG
What Are The Benefits Of Start Investing?
Suggestions For Purchasing A Dream Property In Dubai
How to Invest in Self-Storage for Your Business
How Much Can Elon Musk Make from Twitter Verification Subscription?
15 Benefits of Doing Business in Hawaii
7 Benefits of incorporating a business in Alabama
15 Benefits of Doing Business in Utah
10 Benefits of Incorporating a Business in Kentucky
5 Benefits of Incorporating a Business in Maryland
5 Benefits of Doing Business in Georgia (USA)


Professional services are occupations in the tertiary sector of the economy requiring special training in the arts or sciences. Some professional services require holding professional licenses such as architects, accountants, engineers, doctors, and lawyers. Other professional services involve providing specialist business support to businesses of all sizes and in all sectors; this can include tax advice, supporting a company with accounting, IT services or providing management advice. The professional services industry is usually the largest employer and contributor to GDP in most developed economies.
The rapid growth of the professional service market according to the recently published report Professional Services Market Global Report 2017 by The Business Research Company. The market is forecast to register a 5.4% growth rate from 2016 to 2020, reaching almost USD $5 trillion.
On the other hand, automation also adds to the overall growth of the information technology market which is forecast to reach 1.2 trillion by 2020. Professional services companies should consider automating their back-end operations to reduce their operational costs and customer requests service time.
E-SPIN provide various enterprise IT solution to assist professional services industry customer to cope with various changes and challenges, from IT infrastructure automation, DevSecOps, continuous security to regulatory compliance. Feel free contact E-SPIN for various requirement and solution consultancy, project and maintenance support.


You have one of the most enviable positions in the divide between fashion and tech right now. How did you get into fashion and thereafter, Instagram?
I never really had a set career path. I've always been a little more random and I simply follow my passion. I started out as an intern at Harper's Bazaar and then Elle for a few years. I was then at Teen Vogue for seven years and freelanced for publications like the Wall Street Journal and Vogue China. I left my last role at Lucky magazine as I wanted a break because I had just had a baby. Now, I've been with Instagram for almost two years. I never expected to be working there but I loved the platform from the minute it came out. I think fashion and Instagram have a lot in common; Instagram is so visual and fashion is about creating beautiful images. When the team reached out to me, I said: "Oh, I don't know, I kind of want to stay home with my baby," but everyone was like this is perfect for you. Even before my job at Instagram, my role in the fashion industry helped me to understand how to use it better. It was something I was doing before I even had the job. I helped Pat McGrath join Instagram!
Yeah (laughs), you can ask her! I was backstage at a show and talking to models like Karlie Kloss, and I said: "You have to join this app — it's called Instagram." So much of what I do now is helping to educate the fashion industry about the platform. It makes so much sense.
How was working at magazines different to what you do now?
I don't think it's that different. When I was an Editor-in-Chief, I was working with photographers, stylists, models and editors trying to create the best work for a magazine. Now for Instagram, I'm working with a lot of the same people I used to work with — many familiar faces — that I've known for years to help them do the best work for themselves on their Instagram pages. Both jobs, I've been very lucky to work with many top creatives in the industry. The team at Instagram is brilliant. They always think of ways to improve user experience and to make the app a safer place.
Now that there are Stories, you can do photos, videos, Boomerangs... but how many times a day should one post? Who should you be targeting? Who is your audience? What should your voice be on Instagram? What kind of content should you be posting? If you have a party, should you have an Instagram booth? People ask me these things 500 times a day. My job is to work with models, designers, stylists, and creative directors to help them understand how to use it better. It's not the same for everyone; there is no one size fits all answer. Tom Ford is going to be very different from Marc Jacobs and it will be too, for Karlie Kloss and Gigi Hadid. Everyone has different needs. If a model is having a hard time with people calling her too skinny on Instagram, we have these amazing tools and settings where she can protect herself from bullies. This is something a lot of people don't know about! You can use certain words in your comment moderation so you feel like the app is a safer place.
How have you evolved the digital space from the fashion world's feedback?
As people give feedback, I share it with the team. Instagram used to allow only square photos and so many fashion editors have mentioned that they wished they could post landscapes or portraits. We took this feedback very seriously as it was the top request we received from magazines and photographers, including Annie Leibovitz, where many felt they couldn't crop certain pictures into a square. My job is to receive feedback so we can always improve the experience.
How do you think Instagram helps shape modern fashion?
It has made the industry a lot more inclusive. Ten years ago, unless you lived in Paris, London, Milan or New York, people would never have access to designers and they felt very far away. I didn't know what a stylist did growing up and I had no idea what a creative director did. Instagram kind of becomes a fashion education. You can be a 20-year-old living in the suburbs of Paris or you can be a 60-year-old, like my mum in Taiwan, but you can feel like a part of the fashion community on Instagram. Whatever it is you like to do, you can connect with people around the world.
Do you have to have a ton of followers to be an influencer?
Everyone could be an influencer — even if you have 50 followers. My husband doesn't have that many followers (laughs).
Do you think the opinions of fashion critics are now less relevant with the rise of Instagram influencers?
No. I still read what people like Cathy Horyn and Nicole Phelps have to say. I think it's incredibly valid and I see it more as a commentary. For example, I think of myself as a fashion enthusiast. I love fashion, I love shopping and I love style, but if you were to ask me the history of how Cristobal Balenciaga began his line and why his hats were a crazy bubble shape, I wouldn't know. But then you ask someone like Suzy Menkes or Nicole Phelps and they will be able to tell you the history. This is why I think a fashion critic is just as relevant today.
What's your opinion on Instagram trying to become a shopping platform?
I don't think that's the primary goal of Instagram. When Kevin Systrom started it, it was to help people around the world build relationships and connect, and I do think shopping is something people can connect over. I follow Leandra Medine (of Man Repeller) on Instagram as I always love seeing what she's wearing. Sometimes I buy things because I saw them on my feed. But, I don't think it's trying to become a shopping platform. It is to make the world feel like a smaller place; you get to feel closer to people because of it.
Do you think social media has changed the way we view and consume fashion?
What's are some important factors to take into consideration when you're creating a great Instagram page?
Authenticity and realness! A lot of the time people over curate their profiles. I think fashion people look at their Instagram page like a mirror — they want to be able to say it's beautiful. But I think the most important thing is strong storytelling; to focus on individual posts instead of how your page looks overall. Have a sense of personality, too. For brands, Alexander McQueen does great storytelling. Instead of saying that this is a dress from Spring/Summer, they'll talk about how it was inspired by the creative director's trip to Cornwall, England where she browsed through a vintage shop. More brands need to do that. Gucci does a pretty good job with it and Calvin Klein has started doing well by sharing more details.
What's your advice for setting up your own brand on Instagram?
I don't think I would ever set up my own brand, but if I did, I'd probably launch it on the app like Glossier did. I feel like they've done a really good job. They have great customer service on Instagram. You could ask them what colour highlighter should you be using and they'll write back to you. Look at this, someone asked how often should they be masking and they've responded: "Feel free to mask every day if you need a deeper clean..." and so on. It's so great.
Glossier's account actually got shut down once because they were replying to so many customer comments that Instagram's computer system thought it was spam!
That's inspiration for so many of us. What about advice on being an Instagram influencer?
Just be you! A lot of people think it's about the photos. Of course, the visuals matter but I think it's also about developing your personality and being comfortable in your own skin. Share that, and it will always be rewarded on Instagram. The more you post, the better; it gives your followers something to look forward to. Take them on an adventure and make them feel like they are a part of this creative environment that you live in - especially people who live in cities like London, Paris, Milan, Tokyo or Seoul. You are living in one of the most beautiful, photogenic cities in the world and while some designers say Paris is boring, most people would kill to live in Paris! It's a dream and you have to remember that most of your followers would dream to see the Eiffel Tower sparkling. So what is every day for you - whether it's a tube stop at Covent Garden or a sunset in New York City — find a way to celebrate it and share it. Make it personal.
Exactly. But it's not. There are Stories, which allow people to be real. When people have strong Instagram Stories, I love them so much more — it just feels like you know them better.
What are some of your favourite accounts?
Fashion accounts or weird accounts? Okay, let's do weird accounts. I follow this dog-grooming handle where they do slow motion videos of dogs getting blow dries. It's so weird! In terms of designers, I like Phillip Lim. His account is so personal and you get a sense of his personality. Almost every day he'll write something on stationary and it's just beautiful and inspirational, but very real. He doesn't do a lot of selfies but he has pictures of his dog. I also love Alessandro from Gucci as you get to feel who he is and what his design inspirations are, on his personal account.
Do you ever feel overexposed by the use of social media sometimes?
Not really. I don't show what I don't want to show. I think everyone should do what they feel comfortable with. I would never tell someone to post more pictures of themselves in a bathing suit, for example. It's all up to your comfort level. If you don't want to post a selfie, then don't. You know the hair stylist Sam McKnight? His account is brilliant because he loves to garden and he's constantly posting flowers, but like two posts later it will be Cara Delevingne getting her hair done and three posts later, it's one of Karl Lagerfeld. It's random, but you get to see what his passions really are. Let it be an outlet to your creativity. If your day job is an accountant but your secret passion is watercolour, you can set up an account that just shows your secret passion and it becomes an inspiration to people.
It's amazing to feel like you are a part of something that's changing the way people communicate.


text:
Press Release -- March 7th, 2017
Source: nok
Nokia and VimpelCom sign major five-year managed services contract for management of fixed, mobile and transport networks
One of Europe's largest multi-vendor managed services agreements
Nokia to manage network operations and field maintenance for majority of VimpelCom's fixed, mobile and transport networks
Draws Nokia's extensive technology and services expertise to transform and simplify operations for VimpelCom in three regions in Russia
Moscow, Russia - Nokia and the Russian communications and technology company "VimpelCom" (brand "Beeline") have signed a five-year agreement under which Nokia will become the major supplier of managed services for VimpelCom's fixed, mobile and transport network operations.
Nokia, which has been managing services for VimpelCom's network in central Russia, will extend this responsibility to manage VimpelCom's 2G, 3G and 4G networks, provided by a variety of equipment vendors, leveraging its innovative network management tools, processes, and software automation. Field maintenance work will be carried out by Nokia in the Southern, North Caucasian and Central regions of Russia, including Moscow.
By consolidating and transforming network operations, VimpelCom will benefit from reduced network and operational complexity, faster time to market and lower total cost of ownership in running multiple networks. In turn, VimpelCom will enhance service quality for more than 58 million mobile and 2.2 million fixed broadband customers in Russia.
Nokia will also deliver full network planning and optimization services, network implementation, project management and ongoing network support from its global delivery hub in Voronezh, Russia. Nokia will draw on its extensive understanding and experience of end-to-end service delivery with multiple technologies and vendors to serve VimpelCom's specific network needs and provision of high quality network performance.
Martin Skop, Executive Vice President for Infrastructure Development PJSC "VimpelCom" said: "Today we are at a dynamic stage in our business transformation. The transition to a new operating model for "Beeline" network management is another step towards a new "VimpelCom" technological reality. The partnership with Nokia enables us to restructure business processes, improve financial performance, keep pace with global trends and drive technological innovations. In addition, smart managed services will help us improve our overall efficiency."
Igor Leprince, head of Global Services at Nokia said: "This agreement highlights the breadth of Nokia's global services and technology expertise across fixed, mobile and transport networks. Working with VimpelCom we will manage network operations and field maintenance with a focus on driving the highest levels of quality and efficiency into operations to enhance network performance and availability. Our innovative service delivery draws from world-class capabilities and the power of extreme automation."
Nokia is a global service market leader with more than 200 mobile and fixed managed services contracts across the world. Two out of three of these contracts consist of multi-vendor networks.
Nokia Managed Services has a full set of consolidation services to help operators transform network operations, including operations assessment and NOC consolidation services.
Webpage: Nokia Managed Services
Webpage: Nokia Consolidation Services
Connect with Nokia:
Subscribe to receive information on specific areas of interest
About Nokia
Nokia is a global leader innovating the technologies at the heart of our connected world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.
From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. www.nokia.com
Email: press.services@nokia.com
Previous: ADTRAN's Kevin Schneider to Join Broadband Forum's New Executive Advisory Council
Next: Verizon chooses datamena for Middle East expansion
VimpelCom signs 5-year managed services contract with Ericsson
Romtelecom and Cosmote Romania sign 7 year managed services contract
Vodafone Hutchison Australia awards 4 year managed services deal to Nokia Networks
Delivering 3G, 4G LTE Mobile Internet Services Drives VimpelCom to Cisco ASR 5000 Series
Reliance Communications and Ericsson sign USD 1 billion managed services contract for wireline and wireless networks for North and West India


text:
Home 2018 Vancouver Fringe #FringeDuJour: TrudeauMania
#FringeDuJour: TrudeauMania
The Trudeaumania phenomenon of the late 1960s is explored through song, dance, multimedia and original music
A 90-minute musical re-telling of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's life and rise to power.
Tell us about your show.
TrudeauMania is an original Canadian musical theatre production, with over 20 original songs, plus adaptations of two traditional Quebec songs, and tells the story of Justin's father Pierre Trudeau, from his dramatic narrow victory at the 1968 Liberal Leadership Convention in Ottawa, to the dark days of the October 1970 FLQ Crisis in Quebec. We meet a young, articulate Margaret Trudeau, the fiery, idealistic but ultimately doomed FLQ separatist leader Paul Rose, and John Turner, the man who would be king but never really was.
Describe your show in three words.
That Trudeau show.
Why should someone come see your show?
It has something for everyone: drama, action, terrorism, love, comedy, poetry, history, political protest, high-tension, strong male and female leads, great dancing, and original songs in a wide range of music genres including hip-hop, blues, pop, rock, folk, a cappella choral, tango, and soul. It's a high-energy show; there is always something going on.
If your show was a superhero which superhero would it be, and why?
Batman, because the hero has a dark side.
If you could see only one show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival this year, besides your own, what show would that be?
Box of Freedom.
TrudeauMania
Venue: Firehall Arts Centre, 280 East Cordova St, Vancouver
Tickets: http://tickets.vancouverfringe.com
About #FringeDuJour
#FringeDuJour is a peek at some of the shows coming to this year's Vancouver Fringe Festival. We've asked Fringe artists to answer a few questions to entice you to see what they have to offer and to help cross-pollinate the Fringe.
For Even More Information
The 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival runs September 6-16 on Granville Island and stages around town. Visit http://vancouverfringe.com for tickets and information.
Pick of the 2018 Fringe: six shows held-over for encore performances
Fringe review: Mel Malarkey Gets the Bum's Rush is a (sometimes) charming train wreck
Fringe review: My Imagination Ran Away Without Me flops despite a few flips


text:
Home » Episode 28: Under a Shared Sky
November 12, 2020 Ethnoastronomy
Episode 28: Under a Shared Sky
with Prof John Parkington
This week we take a step back and explore the intimate roots of astronomy here in South Africa. We are joined by retired Emeritus Professor John Parkington, a senior research scholar at the University of Cape Town's Department of Archaeology.
We take part in his journey to communicate and celebrate the 'Intimate Cosmology' of the indigenous people of South Africa and the close relationship they had with the night sky. We discuss the importance of preserving these stories for future generations and we learn that perhaps the only difference between the land and night-sky is how hard you throw something.
John talks about his work with the Shared Sky exhibition, which was launched to commemorate the awarding of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to both South Africa and Australia. Although separated by great distances, we share more than we think.
We also showcase the work Dan has been involved with in trying to preserve these stories as animations, alongside linguist Dr Kerry Jones and her company African Tongue. Enjoy a first-hand experience of one such animation below, called "Moon's Message".
Moon's Message (English version). Credit: NRF/SAAO.
This week's guest
Emeritus Professor John Parkington watching Moon's Message
Feature Image
A still from the animation "Moon's Message". We see Moon as she is about to deliver her message. Credit: NRF/SAAO.
Moon's Message video: English, Afrikaans, Khoekhoegowab, isiXhosa
SKA's Shared Sky Exhibition: https://www.skatelescope.org/shared-sky/
Dr Kerry Jones' African Tongue consultancy: https://www.facebook.com/AfricanTongue/about/?ref=page_internal
Bleek and Lloyd Collection: http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/
Show notes by Timothy Roelf. Social media by Liantsoa Randrianjanahary and Sumari Hattingh.
Jacinta: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Cosmic Savannah with Dr. Jacinta Delhaize
Dan: [00:00:08] and Dr. Daniel Cunnama. Each episode, we will be giving you a behind the scenes look at the world class astronomy and astrophysics happening under African skies.
Jacinta: [00:00:15] Let us introduce you to the people involved, the technology we use, the exciting work we do, and the fascinating discoveries we make.
Dan: [00:00:22] Sit back and relax as we take you on a safari through the skies.
Jacinta: [00:00:35] Hi, welcome to episode 27? 27? 28? What are we up to? 28. All right. Welcome to episode 28 everyone.
Dan: [00:00:44] It's hard to keep track sometimes. Yeah. So today we have different episode for you. We mentioned it last time. We will be talking a little bit about ethno-astronomy and we are joined by Professor John Parkington who is a professor in archeology and hunter-gathers.
Jacinta: [00:01:00] Yeah. So Professor Parkington has spent much of his very extensive career studying the hunter-gatherer people of South Africa. And as we said, he's an archeologist. He also has a strong interest in anthropology.
Dan: [00:01:13] Yeah. And he kind of got into a bit of astronomy and the ethno-astronomy through this Shared Sky exhibit, which was commissioned by the Square Kilometer Array when it was first getting proposed and the sites were getting selected.
And the idea with the Shared Sky exhibit was to try and collect this cultural heritage of both sites, Australia and South Africa, and try and record the wisdom of the indigenous populations and their knowledge of the skies. And obviously the reason it was called Shared Sky is, again, that same theme where we were all under one sky and in particular, Australia and South Africa sharing the SKA and sharing the sky.
Jacinta: [00:01:55] Yeah. As Dan said, the Square Kilometer Array telescope that's going to be built partly in Southern Africa based in the Karoo region, and also part of it will be built in Western Australia where I'm from. The indigenous people of these countries have a wealth of knowledge and history related to the night sky, which as John mentioned in his talk he gave at the recent SAAO 200th anniversary symposium. We mustn't ignore this knowledge. This is essential to incorporate into our present and into our future.
Dan: [00:02:28] Yeah. And obviously we don't represent the indigenous population and we're aware of that.
Jacinta: [00:02:33] And we acknowledge that. Of course.
Dan: [00:02:35] And I think that, chatting to John, firstly hearing his talk, which was inspirational. The really cool thing was that he was an archeologist who in studying his archeology, and he explains it in the interview but I'll mention it briefly here, is that he realized that there was so much more to the story than just what you could tell by the rocks and artifacts that he was finding. And that there was this cultural heritage and it's just a really nice story of how he got interested in this and got into his work.
Jacinta: [00:03:09] So you and the SAAO and your team here in the public engagement sector are also interested in these stories, these indigenous stories.
Dan: [00:03:18] Yeah, I think it's something very important. I think that there is an incredible amount of knowledge and history and stories, which have been collected over the years and they were passed down from person to person through story. This knowledge of the skies.
And a lot of that is getting lost these days. And it's very difficult to hold onto as people are westernized and more disconnected from nature both on land and in the sky. So a project I've been running recently at the observatory is the development of some animations of these stories. So there are various stories which have been collected over the years.
Some of the most notable ones were the Bleek and Lloyd Collection, which were collected in the late 1800's by a couple here in Cape Town by interviewing some of the indigenous peoples and talking to them about their knowledge of the skies, naming stars and that was kind of how I got interested in it, because in our new visitor center, we are planning to install an installation of the night sky, but with indigenous constellations rather than western ones.
Jacinta: [00:04:31] Oh, fantastic.
That'll be fascinating.
Dan: [00:04:34] Yeah. So I was paging through the digital versions of the Bleek and Lloyd Collection and trying to find out where these constellations, which have been described before, but where they were in the sky. So I rolled back Heavens Above to the 23rd of January, 1874, when they were taking these notes and worked out where in the sky they were looking and what they were looking at.
For example, one of the really cool ones is Taurus, which is obviously not Taurus, but it's the Eland. Which is a big antelope here, which makes complete sense. But until you actually make that connection, you're like, well, oh yeah OK. So that was really cool. So that was kind of how I got interested in it and with the Bleek and Lloyd Collection.
And then we started this project with a company called African Tongue and Dr. Kerry Jones, who is a linguist and speaks many indigenous languages here and has done her PhD on those topics. She's also very interested in these stories and so we started picking out some stories of the night sky, which had been collected over the years and we decided to make animations of them.
So we've got community artists from those communities, and we've collected them together. We've made a series of animations. We've got three animations so far, and then we're trying to spread those stories as far as we can. So obviously not just in English, but we've also translated them into isiXhosa, and Afrikaans, and then Khoekhoegowab.
And Khoekhoegowab is one of the indigenous languages here in South Africa from the indigenous Khoi San. And there are still about 200,000 speakers. So, we wanted to record these stories and then share them with those communities in their language so that they can feel some ownership over it. And yeah, we keep these stories going.
So yeah, it was a very interesting project and we've released the first of the animations in all four languages. We released that on the 200 year anniversary and it's on YouTube. So we will share it on this episode's blog. And you can take a look and see what you think.
Jacinta: [00:06:46] Shall we play one of them right now?
Dan: [00:06:48] Yeah. This one is called Moon's Message and well, we'll let you hear it.
Jacinta: [00:06:53] It runs for about three minutes.
Dan: [00:06:55] Enjoy!
Narrator: [00:06:58] Moon's Message.
In the beginning, Moon lived on earth with all the other beings. She was wise and respected by all. One day, she had an important message for man, but who could be her messenger? Chameleon was nearby. So she asked him to deliver the message. "As I wither and renew so will you too."
So chameleon set off to deliver this important message. "As I wither and renew so will you too." But chameleon was slow and hare overheard him talking in the velt.
What are you doing?
I am delivering an important message from Moon to man.
You're too slow, I will do it.
And before chameleon could say anything further, hare ran off with Moon's message. "As I wither and renew so will you too."
Hare arrived where man lived and shouted "I have a very important message from Moon."
"Well, what is the message?"
"I will wither and renew but not you".
Giving no time for frightened man to reply, hare dashed off back the way he came.
What a fast and clever messenger I am!
He hurried back to Moon. "Moon! Moon! I delivered your important message!"
"And? What was the message?"
"What!? You careless creature! You have delivered the wrong message!" exclaimed Moon as she swung at hare with her walking stick. Moon's stick struck hare's top lip and it split open.
To this day, hare has a split upper lip to remind him to slow down and watch his words. And Moon now lives in the sky, shining brightly, providing a constant reminder of her message to all. "As I wither and renew so will you too."
[Singing]
Jacinta: [00:10:04] That was great. And there's more of these coming out soon.
Dan: [00:10:07] Yeah. So we've got a couple more already and then we will obviously try and share these as far as possible. So the next part of the project is actually translating them into even more languages. So in South Africa, we've got 11 official languages and particularly in the Khoi San community, there are many, many more. So the Khoi San community, it's a catch all term for the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. They obviously represent many, many smaller populations with many, many different languages.
So Khoi San is a term for all of those indigenous populations, but there are many different smaller populations comprising. And obviously with many languages and some of them, like I mentioned Khoekhoegowab, has about 200,000 speakers still. But others have two speakers. So these languages are nearly extinct and some of them are extinct. And if we can translate these stories into those languages too, it would be a wonderful way to try and keep those languages going, firstly, but keep the stories going and try and share.
Jacinta: [00:11:16] Yeah. And I guess we also heard from Tshiamiso Makwela in one of the episodes during our inter-season break. That episode was called "But how does astronomy benefit humanity". And Tshiamiso was telling us a little bit about the stories that she's heard from her community growing up about the night sky. So if you're interested, check that out.
Dan: [00:11:35] Yeah. We
Jacinta: [00:11:35] should probably hear from John.
Great. Let's hear from John.
Dan: [00:11:38] Alright. I'm joined by Professor John Parkington. John, can you just introduce yourself and your role?
John: [00:11:51] I'm Retired Professor, Emeritus Professor of archeology at UCT, and I'm a senior research scholar in the Department of Archeology and the Science Faculty at UCT.
Dan: [00:12:02] Great. Thank you John for joining us on The Cosmic Savannah, we really appreciate your time.
And you've just given a talk here at the SAAO 200 virtual symposium about ethno-astronomy and your book about the Karoo sky. And for me it was incredibly interesting just to hear the stories you've recorded over the years, trying to communicate these to people.
Where to start? It's something I've been interested in for a very long time and something I've been working on in my role at the observatory. We just watched the animation Moon's Message, which was part of the unveiling of the national heritage site yesterday.
And in your talk you mentioned the story of the moon sending a message about continual renewal and the hare getting the message and making a mistake. So, maybe we can just start there. In your knowledge, where did the story come from and how did it, how did it come about and how has it sort of changed over the years?
John: [00:13:03] Well, perhaps I'll start by talking about the archeological record because the archeological record is a material record. So when we excavate or record things that have survived from the past, it's very material. We get a lot of artifacts. We obviously get rock paintings and engravings, but we don't get stories.
There are stories and there are stories behind the artifacts and behind the engravings and behind the paintings and so on. But stories are something, sound if you like, in general is something that is not there in the archeological record. And yet people didn't paint on the walls of caves or engrave boulders in the Karoo without a lot of singing and dancing.
So we know as archeologists that we're getting a very partial record of what was happening in the past. And so it's very important wherever we can to try and bring in these other elements to try and find the stories, find the singing, find the dancing, and remember that those were parallel manifestations with somebody making a painting on the wall of a cave or chipping stone by the side of a stream.
My expertise really is in those material things. And so we have to make alliances with folklorist and anthropologists and other people to try and enrich our record with those other records, those records of sound and movement and dance. It's very clear when you actually see the paintings that people are dancing in the painting, or people are clapping in the paintings.
You can't do that without sound. You can't have someone clapping without the clapping. And yet that's what we've got in the archeological record. We haven't got the clapping and the singing and the movement.
Dan: [00:14:54] And how do we go about collecting these stories then? You mentioned in your talk, the Bleek and Lloyd Collection and they interviewed a lot of indigenous peoples and tried to capture these stories very early on. And obviously over the years, the number of indigenous speakers of some of these languages has dropped drastically and some of the languages are even extinct. I mean, are we trawling through old records or are there still speakers out there today who know these stories and we can record them?
John: [00:15:22] Yeah. That's the exciting thing. Of course, it's easy to think as an archeologist with this kind of material bias that it's all gone. But if you talk to a folklorist, it's not gone. It's still there. These stories are passed down and are still there. And so at the tail end of the archeological record, if you like, of the last few hundred years, you might be able to put back in the stories and the dances and the non-material things that went with the material record that we excavate.
As you go further back in time, it's going to become more and more dangerous to assume that those things were there and were not changing. It would be a bit unrealistic to think that stories can survive and dances and songs can survive unchanged for tens of thousands of years. They might survive relatively unchanged for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years.
But it's very hard to investigate that because we don't have a fossil record of singing. We don't have a fossil record of storytelling. So it's really difficult and what we can manage to do with the archeology of the last few hundred years, it's much more difficult to do as you go further back in time.
And the paintings and the engravings are a very valuable bridge between the material record of the stone artifacts and the food waste and the fireplaces that we can dig up. And we can make a lot of those. They're a kind of bridge between those things and the non-material aspects of people's lives, which must have been there but we can't dig them up.
Dan: [00:17:04] And how do these stories relate to astronomy?
John: [00:17:07] When we met with Bernie Fanaroff he wanted us to put together an exhibition for the South African side of a South African – Australian joint exhibition to celebrate the awarding of the SKA to both South Africa and Australia. We realized that the telescopes were going to go up in an area where from which we had a lot of 19th century stories and we knew of course already that many of these stories actually did relate to the sky. You see those /Xam speaking San hunter-gatherers of the Karoo spent just as much of their time looking up at the dark sky as they did looking up at the bright daylight sky.
They spent an awful lot of time lying there, looking at the sky, they knew it backwards. They knew its patterning. They knew its variability. They knew its relationship to seasonal changes to weather and so on. So it was very obvious to us that among the stories, there are lots of stories that we had and some that we could still collect.
But many of those stories told us about the /Xam speakers as astronomers, as people who had the same kind of interest that we have in explaining what those mysterious objects and their movements up in the sky are. And we also realized pretty quickly that the distinction between the land and the sky was much more mutable, if you like, much more ephemeral in /Xam thinking.
The /Xam ontology is what's called a relational ontology. It's very mutable. They're not always trying to sort things out. Is it A or B? Maybe it's A and B. Many of the divisions: nature, culture, man, people, animals, are not as firm in /Xam way of thinking as they are in ours. And so land and sky is another example.
So events that start happening on land end up trailing off into the sky and are reflected in the constellations that are interpreted by San people in the sky. When the Australian ethnographers and the historians were doing their side of the exhibit, it was pretty clear that the same was happening there.
The Australian Aboriginals are also looking up at the sky and it was a shared sky. That's why the whole project was called Shared Sky. It was originally, interestingly, called Shared Skies. But very soon we realized, no this is Shared Sky. They share the sky and they not only share the sky, but they share an interest in it. And in many ways they share a style of interpretation about it.
In both cases it's what David Morris called an intimate cosmology. It's very intimate. It's almost within reach. It's just beyond reach. So people have to throw things for them to end up in this. But they can't put them there, they have to throw them.
So there's a lot of throwing of things into the sky and there's a lot of movement of animals or groups of animals. So a constellation is thought of as a small herd of female kudu, for instance. Well, obviously in Australia that would be emu or some other animal from their universe that was, that was reflected in the sky.
So it's very intimate, things were moving back and forth between sky and land. And it was not all about the almost unmeasurable. It was about the very measurable, the very understandable, the almost tangible.
Dan: [00:20:55] Yeah, it's a very intimate, as you say, a very intimate relationship with a sky. Something which these days we don't have at all almost, with lights and houses and things.
We have a very loose relationship with the sky. I mean, even as astronomers we're quite removed looking through computers and things.
John: [00:21:12] And you see what goes with intimacy is responsibility. If you believe that these are massive objects that are so far away, you can hardly imagine it, moving at speeds that you can hardly imagine, then there's nothing to do about that. Right?
/Xam people knew there were things you could do about it or believed that there were things you had to do about it. So the /Xam people had a responsibility to that landscape. An involvement with the landscape's continual functioning that we, I think unfortunately, have lost. And it can lead to an irresponsibility and lead to a lack of care about that landscape. /Xam people felt an enormous responsibility to the other organisms and even the inorganic parts of that landscape, to which they often ascribed agency. You know, water, wind, cloud.
These were agents that could do things and you had to be responsible in relation. So the whole thing is a relationship between people and their environmental context of responsibility. Not of helplessness. I could easily imagine that if you believe in these very large objects, moving at amazing speeds you'd think well, not my problem. What can I do?
Dan: [00:22:31] For sure. And I mean it just speaks to exactly what you were saying too, there wasn't this disconnect between the land and the sky, which we have now, which is a very clear disconnect. The land we have, we are having issues and climate change and we do feel some responsibility, although we are somewhat disconnected. But the sky's almost completely foreign, as you say, there's nothing we can do about it.
And in these cultures, there was no distinction between land and sky. So you can have that same sort of relationship with a sky. This deep, deep relationship, which we don't currently have.
John: [00:23:09] Yes, the horizon was just a kind of accidental boundary between the two arenas. If you like. And many of the things that happened in the one also happened in the other or originated in the other. The stories are wonderful like that.
Dan: [00:23:25] And then once we have these stories, then, it becomes quite important to share them. Right? Firstly, we want to record them before they're lost any further. As the languages are lost and wane, then we lose a lot of these stories. So obviously recording them is important in itself. But I think there's probably more to it than that. And that's something which at the observatory we feel quite strongly about, and myself. We've been working on this animation and we've created the animation in four different languages: in English, Afrikaans, Xhosa and Khoekhoegowab, which is as you know, spoken by about 200,000 people still. And I think that the same disconnect between land and sky is happening in these cultures too. I mean, as everyone has been westernized over the past century or more, these cultures have lost that too. So I think that we have an opportunity here to try and share these stories with the people who they originally belonged to and try and keep them going and keep this relationship.
John: [00:24:28] Yeah. No, it certainly, I was going to use the word ironic, but it's much more serious than ironic that many descendant communities have lost the stories. Jose and I have a slight disagreement about this. I have tended to think of the /Xam thinking as residual now. In other words, it was once powerful, everywhere, and full. But it's now reduced by colonialism and apartheid to traces.
He believes that there's much more of it than that, and it's wrong to call it residual. More of it is there and surviving, but either way, there are certainly communities who may not claim to be descendant communities but would probably have a perfect right to if they wanted to, for whom these stories and this notion of relatedness to the landscape, has gone.
Unfortunately, what happened to those /Xam people in the Karoo is they very rapidly, well there was a lot of genocidal killing of people. Those who survived became farm laborers and domestic servants or small town dwellers in the tiny villages that were beginning to pop up around the Karoo. And in all kinds of ways, their way of thinking about the world had to change.
Some things were lost very quickly. Probably language went pretty quickly and gradually people became Afrikaans speaking. They became Christian. The only things that survived or often the only things that survived were real basic survival issues. Like which of the planets can you eat and what will make your tummy better if you've got a bad stomach. Or what can a woman do if she's giving birth and she's got pains and she's a long way from a chemist or a pharmacist, what can she do? So obviously certain cultural strands are going to survive, but many of them disappear quite quickly. Some of them disappear more slowly.
Those Bleek and Lloyd records that we have from the 1860's, they were already on the way out. That was an almost unique opportunity to collect that kind of information. When Dorothea Bleek, Wilhelm Bleek's daughter went back about 50 years later to try and find the informants or the children and descendants of the informants of her father and her aunt, she could hardly find it.
The process of transformation was picking up pace. So there's not a lot left. And in many ways being descendant community now means reviving rather than remembering. And that's very sad because it's really valuable information. It's a wonderful way of thinking about the world.
I mean, I've been studying hunter-gatherers my whole archeological life and I've realized how sensible hunter-gatherers were. They were responsible. They thought of themselves as stewards, as looking after things, passing them on to the next generation. Not owners. And they have relationships with one another and with the landscape and with the resources. They recognize the agency of other animals. It's a really valuable way of thinking about the world that you have to live in and not damaging it.
Dan: [00:27:55] It's a difficult question, but as two males of European descent talking about this, what is our role? How can we, how do we relate to this? I mean, obviously I have an interest. You have a deep interest and a lot of experience in this. But what are your thoughts on that?
John: [00:28:14] I've been running a project in Clanwilliam for many years, the Living Landscape project. And I think our job is to recognize these traces of the past and to communicate it and to celebrate it. Obviously it's up to people to decide whether they are descendant communities and what their relationship is with the past or particular groups of people in the past.
It's obviously a decision that people have to make for themselves. But if you can put the potential decisions like that on the table, and then become, if you like, a source of information as to how one could think about the past and people from the past and what happened in the past and how the past became the present and the terrible things that turned the past into the present.
I think of it as just putting this stuff on the table. We've excavated in that area. We know quite a lot about the pasts of people in the Cederberg or in the Western Cape. It's our job to talk to the potential descendants of those people about it, rather than, or as well as, the journal editors through whom we publish.
So for the first half of my career, I spent my time doing what an academic has to do. You know, I went out there and collected information and then I wrote papers on it and the university expected me to do that. And that was fine. But from the 1990s onwards, it was very clear that I needed to be talking to other people as well.
I needed to be communicating what I thought we had found out to other people who might have a different kind of interest in it from a journal editor. A personal interest in it. And it was really interesting in Clanwilliam to see young men and young women who I thought could be descendants of the people who made the paintings and made the stone artifacts and so on, to see them pick up that notion and do what they wanted with it. Possibly even make a living out of knowing about it.
Certainly, I imagine, being able to rethink their notion of self and who they were, and certainly look back on these appalling caricatures of people in the past with a new set of eyes and realize that the people to whom they may want to claim some relatedness were high achievers. Their knowledge of plant edibility, medicinal value of plants, their knowledge of how to live sensibly and sustainably in a landscape was enormously higher than the colonists.
Their ability to paint, to develop poisons, to do chemistry basically to make poisons and mastics and paints out of various components was admirable. Now, I don't know and none of us can really determine how those notions or thoughts will be taken up by people. But one just hopes that it will have some positive value on people's thinking about themselves and their past and their future.
Dan: [00:31:20] Thank you, John. Thank you very much for speaking to us today. I really appreciate it.
John: [00:31:24] Pleasure.
Jacinta: [00:31:36] Wow. That was really cool. That was very, very different, a hugely different perspective and really interesting. I really loved hearing about how the indigenous Australian people had stories that were kind of in parallel to the indigenous South African people. And John spoke more about this during his presentation at the symposium. How there's this story from Australia about emu eggs in the sky and the story from South Africa, of course, about ostrich eggs in the sky.
Dan: [00:32:04] Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. Like it makes you wonder about all sorts of things, the history of the world. But yeah, I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation. You probably heard it in my voice.
I just thought it was fascinating. Just the whole concept of it and some of the concepts he brought up. I loved the fact that the earth and sky weren't separate that the sky was not this distant thing, which it is now. I mean, for us we talk about astronomy all the time, but it is distant.
You know, we don't have any control over it. We understand that we don't have any control over it, but in doing so it's distant.
Jacinta: [00:32:45] Yeah, exactly. And like John said, it's this concept of shared sky, of responsibility and preservation. Just kind of like what Susan and Chu were saying in the last episode, like what Vanessa was saying in episode 26. I liked this concept of the intimate cosmology, as opposed to the infinite cosmology that the SKA will study.
Dan: [00:33:07] Yeah. And it made me want that connection to seek that connection.
Jacinta: [00:33:12] I mean, we're so removed from it, particularly when we're living in cities and we can't even see the night sky at all. It makes you wonder how different the experience would have been to live like these people and to see these night skies.
Dan: [00:33:24] Yeah. And just that cultural connection, we have this striving still to feel at one with nature. I mean, most people do. You want to go camping and you want to really get in touch with nature. But to see the stars as something that is the same. It's something that you can really get in touch with. You can have an intimate relationship with these stars, even though they're very, very far.
Jacinta: [00:33:48] Yeah, that's right. And I also liked how John was saying that this is a way to communicate and celebrate the traces of the past. And you were sort of asking Dan what your role, what our role is in this. Because of course we fully acknowledge that we are both white, euro-descended persons, so that our point of view, and now our representation of all of this is probably going to be eurocentric.
And you were asking, what is the role that people like us will play in telling these stories? Do we have a right to tell these stories? Do we have a right to share it? Of course we must be including other people in this conversation. So, what did you think about John's response to that question?
Dan: [00:34:33] Yeah. I mean, I think it is a different, good question. And I think that he's right in many ways that these stories are being lost and being able to record them and offer them to populations who may feel some connection to them so that they can then choose whether this is something that they want to incorporate in their culture. But again, you don't want to do it in such a way that I've collected this story and here it is for you.
And that's kind of why I asked the question is because it is really tricky. I mean, for example, a tangible example is we've made these animations, right? And we've worked with indigenous people to make the animations. And we can translate them into indigenous languages. But is that enough?
And is that actually achieving the goal of empowering people to feel some ownership over these stories and this culture and this wisdom?
Jacinta: [00:35:35] I mean, I guess we have to constantly, we should constantly be worrying that we're, I mean, I guess the expression is white saviourism.
Dan: [00:35:42] Exactly.
Jacinta: [00:35:44] We want to participate and celebrate, but not take over.
Dan: [00:35:49] Yeah. I mean, you can take the approach of, Oh it's interesting and that's a good enough reason. I'm not going to try and do anything with it. I'm just interested. But I think that there's so much more when I think that trying to celebrate indigenous knowledge and incorporate it.
I mean, for me, the one reason I really really am interested in it and do like to incorporate it as much as possible is because it reaches people. And that's kind of what John was getting at. If you can reach people on something that they feel close to, then the experience and the interaction is so much more rich.
Jacinta: [00:36:25] And relevant to their lives.
Dan: [00:36:27] Yeah. Rather than walking into a school or an open night or something and just saying, well here's Orion. I mean, who knows what Orion is? Orion isn't an African constellation. And so I think that even taking small steps in those directions help. You know, I think that it does allow people to feel a little bit closer to the skies and feel that they have some connection with it.
Jacinta: [00:36:56] Yeah, I guess it's this ontology that John was talking about. We did have to look that up, what that meant. That's really moving away from our area of expertise. So ontology is a branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being, which is much more philosophical than the conversations we usually have, but it makes sense, right? The sky is part of our sense of being.
Dan: [00:37:22] Yeah. And I mean that's it, right? It's so much more. And we talk about it often that the sky, there's a cultural connection to it and it makes you feel humble and all that. But there's so much more. And historically in the past, there was even more and we've lost a lot of that and trying to rediscover some of it. And particularly in your own culture, it's very powerful.
Jacinta: [00:37:48] Yeah. So I guess, again, we can only bring our own perspectives to this conversation at this time, but we want to hear your perspective. So we'd love to hear from listeners how you feel about all of these topics, what you'd like to hear more about.So please do reach out to us on social media or via the contact page of our website.
Great. Okay. Well, that was a very, very different episode, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope that you did too.
Dan: [00:38:14] I did.
Jacinta: [00:38:15] You did. I was speaking to the listener. [Laughs]
Great. Okay. Well, that's it for today as always. Thank you very much for listening and we hope you'll join us again for the next episode of The Cosmic Savannah.
Dan: [00:38:28] You can visit our website, thecosmicsavannah.com where we'll have the transcript, links and other stuff related to today's episode, including the animation. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @cosmicsavannah. That's savannah spelled S A V A N N A H.
Jacinta: [00:38:43] Special thanks today to Emeritus Professor John Parkington for speaking with us.
Dan: [00:38:48] Thanks to Sumari Hattingh for social media and transcription assistance and Andy Firth for show notes preparation. Also to Mark Allnut for music production, Janus Brink and Michal Lyzcek for photography and Lana Ceraj for graphic design.
Jacinta: [00:39:01] We gratefully acknowledge support from the South African National Research Foundation, the South African Astronomical Observatory and the University of Cape Town Astronomy Department to help keep the podcast running.
Dan: [00:39:12] As always, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you'd like to help us out, please rate and review us and recommend us to a friend.
We'll speak to you next time on The Cosmic Savannah.
[Bloopers] Hello. Hello and welcome. [Jacinta laughs] Come on! What was wrong with that?
Jacinta: [00:39:43] I was trying to beat you to it.
Dan: [00:39:45] Oh right! [Laughs]
Ok. Ah. Hello and welcome to episode 28. Um, yeah, so…shall we get right into it? [Jacinta laughs]
I don't know. I'm all over the place!


UWEM gives a holistic approach to urban water systems in this ever evolving water cycle. It enables one to appreciate water as an engineer for water supply and wastewater with adequate managerial capabilities for the environment, assets and personnel.
It allows students to experience a new way of education not only in the multi expert way delivered by IHE but also in a way of sharing experiences with international colleagues. A multi cultural community has a lot to teach in life's experiences and helps to create contacts and connections in almost all continents. This is important for a stable career.
An engineering background is an advantage but also environmental and water scientists perform equally well.
This programme integrates water supply and wastewater issues and has an added advantage of managerial exposure. It is an all encompassing programme when it comes to the whole urban water cycle. The ability to use modern software in modeling urban water systems allows for a quicker way to find solutions for problems which are likely to escalate especially in developing countries due to an expected exponential growth in urban populations.
It is always good to be prepared to learn new things and share your experiences and knowledge with others.
I will advise the responsible people and take action where and when i can but above all, I will register a consultancy on urban water systems engineering and management.
UWEM gives a holistic approach to urban water systems in this ever evolving water cycle.