This blog is not dead
No it's not! Just that for some time, you know, I wanted to leave some things away, stop analysing all the time everything that was happening to me and live it 100%. I have to admit as well that the level of laziness was quite... how to say.. HIGH. But let's say that I managed to put up with this, and that i'll try to write here more regularly. My last message was posted some 4 months ago, in the middle of August. At that time, I was just considering starting to write “seriously” my internship report which was to be handed one month later, when I would go for some vacations. Today, my need for some vacations is comparable to that former period, all the more since everyone around me (not geographically speaking, I’m talking about my relatives) is preparing Christmas. I don’t mean to complain at all about my situation here, since I will spend this period in Middle East – hoping that some 2 weeks will be given to me after the January-February Session – but it feels very weird to know that it’s Christmas period when absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g in your immediate environment reminds you of the events. No need to mention that in the Muslim context, 24th and 25th of December are not more significant than a 12th of April, unless one of those three days might match with an Islamic celebration. Even at my workplace, the students didn’t seem to understand clearly why I took the Christmas days “off”. “ But it’s going to be a hole in the session, isn’t it ?”,one said....
Yes, so what? Isn’t it me, the boss, after all? :)
It is in Bahrain that we find some elements, decorations that remind one about Christmas. Some big trees are decorated (Christmas palm trees are a bit... exotic but still, a tree is a tree even though it requires big balls.. ehm). However I still haven’t found the sandman with a carrot as a nose.
This “opening” to Christian culture in Bahrain is mainly due to the important community of filipino people. Some of them chose Islam, but they are not that many. I had long been wondering what was the connection between Filipinos and Christianism (Roman Catholicism). It’s thanks to – or because of, choose your point of view :P – the Spanish. Them Spaniards, again! They brought Catholicism there, and also had an influence in the forming of one of the main Filipino dialects called “Tagalog”. When you hear Filipinos speaking this language, despite their pronounciation which is typical from this Asian-Indonesian part of the world, it’s possible to recognize some spanish words such as numbers, for example...
So Bahrain is more tainted with this Christian tradition but we shan’t exaggerate : it’s still a Muslim kingdom and even though Christian churches are tolerated – contrary to Saudi Arabia that admit nothing but mosques – you will obviously find more mosques than any other religious temple. Another difference, as far as religion is concerned between Bahrain and S.A. is the belonging to a specific dissidence. In Islam, we mainly find two dissidences, the first one which is “Sunnite” and the latter that is “Chi’ite”. The Chi’ite Muslims have different mosques, their convictions are based upon the great tragedy of Islamic people in the History of religion. In Bahrain, the religious color is Chi’ite contrary to Saudi Arabia, where Islam was born. I’m not sure that the open-mindedness of Bahrainis is due to this religious specificity.. I’ll try to find some documents for next post about this and explain it better.
Today I found again my little book entitled “learning Arabic without pain”. So far, I’ve ignored the therapeutical virtues of learning this language. When you look more thoroughly into it, you realize that the title is a big joke, since its content seems to be very hard to digest. Still... This is a language I want to know more about. Now that I can read numbers (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) and most of the arabic alphabet, it would be quite useful to grasp their meaning. To me, learning a language which looks like no one else has always looked exciting. I experienced that through my “very light” learning of Ancient Greek 4 years ago and I liked it very much. At that time, it was the changing of alphabet that gave a special difficulty and interest to the language. Now, the difficulty has reached another level above, since not only is the alphabet different, but the direction of reading is different. Another interesting thing is that letters, in Arabic, are not written in the same way depending on their position in the word : there are 29 letters in the alphabet, and each of them has 3 graphic variations : one variation if the letter is at the beginning of the word, another one when the word is in the middle of the word and a “final” version, when the letter is at the very end.
Let’s forget about linguistic stuff for a while... Some more news will be coming soon. For now, I will just go to bed, keeping some things to say – I mean, to write – in a little corner of my mind. I hope my “frequent readers” who were disappointed with this huuuuge break will excuse me.
See you..
Yes, so what? Isn’t it me, the boss, after all? :)
It is in Bahrain that we find some elements, decorations that remind one about Christmas. Some big trees are decorated (Christmas palm trees are a bit... exotic but still, a tree is a tree even though it requires big balls.. ehm). However I still haven’t found the sandman with a carrot as a nose.
This “opening” to Christian culture in Bahrain is mainly due to the important community of filipino people. Some of them chose Islam, but they are not that many. I had long been wondering what was the connection between Filipinos and Christianism (Roman Catholicism). It’s thanks to – or because of, choose your point of view :P – the Spanish. Them Spaniards, again! They brought Catholicism there, and also had an influence in the forming of one of the main Filipino dialects called “Tagalog”. When you hear Filipinos speaking this language, despite their pronounciation which is typical from this Asian-Indonesian part of the world, it’s possible to recognize some spanish words such as numbers, for example...
So Bahrain is more tainted with this Christian tradition but we shan’t exaggerate : it’s still a Muslim kingdom and even though Christian churches are tolerated – contrary to Saudi Arabia that admit nothing but mosques – you will obviously find more mosques than any other religious temple. Another difference, as far as religion is concerned between Bahrain and S.A. is the belonging to a specific dissidence. In Islam, we mainly find two dissidences, the first one which is “Sunnite” and the latter that is “Chi’ite”. The Chi’ite Muslims have different mosques, their convictions are based upon the great tragedy of Islamic people in the History of religion. In Bahrain, the religious color is Chi’ite contrary to Saudi Arabia, where Islam was born. I’m not sure that the open-mindedness of Bahrainis is due to this religious specificity.. I’ll try to find some documents for next post about this and explain it better.
Today I found again my little book entitled “learning Arabic without pain”. So far, I’ve ignored the therapeutical virtues of learning this language. When you look more thoroughly into it, you realize that the title is a big joke, since its content seems to be very hard to digest. Still... This is a language I want to know more about. Now that I can read numbers (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) and most of the arabic alphabet, it would be quite useful to grasp their meaning. To me, learning a language which looks like no one else has always looked exciting. I experienced that through my “very light” learning of Ancient Greek 4 years ago and I liked it very much. At that time, it was the changing of alphabet that gave a special difficulty and interest to the language. Now, the difficulty has reached another level above, since not only is the alphabet different, but the direction of reading is different. Another interesting thing is that letters, in Arabic, are not written in the same way depending on their position in the word : there are 29 letters in the alphabet, and each of them has 3 graphic variations : one variation if the letter is at the beginning of the word, another one when the word is in the middle of the word and a “final” version, when the letter is at the very end.
Let’s forget about linguistic stuff for a while... Some more news will be coming soon. For now, I will just go to bed, keeping some things to say – I mean, to write – in a little corner of my mind. I hope my “frequent readers” who were disappointed with this huuuuge break will excuse me.
See you..
