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xtruss · 1 year ago
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Living in Two Cultures! The Asian American and Pacific Islander Experience
— American 🇺🇸 Experience | NOVA—PBS
Andrew Lam is a California-based journalist, short story writer, and National Public Radio commentator. In this interview, he shares his thoughts on Vietnam and America.
How did you come to the U.S.? I left Vietnam on April 28, 1975, two days before communist tanks rolled into Saigon. My family and I were airlifted in a C-130 cargo plane out of Tan Son Nhat airport and a few hours before Vietcong shells bombarded the runway and effectively stopped all other flights from taking off. My father was an officer in the South Vietnamese government and he got us passage out of the country. He himself stayed behind and left on a Navy ship on April 30, 1975 when he heard on the radio that General Duong Van Minh, acting president of South Vietnam, had surrendered.
I remember spending a few hours at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, wondering what had just happened. I also remember eating a ham sandwich and drinking milk, my first American meal. It was the best sandwich I ever had in my life though I didn't like the milk. Next we flew to Guam where a refugee camp was already set up to receive tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees. I was confused, frightened, and from all available evidence -- the khaki army tents in the Guam refugee camp, the scorching heat, the long lines for army food rations, the fetid odor of the communal latrines, the freshly bulldozed ground under my sandaled feet -- I was also homeless. I was 11 years old.
My family and I spent three weeks in Guam and then we went on to spend another week in Camp Pendleton in Southern California. It was freezing there. I had never been out of Vietnam before, and it being a tropical country, well, I was not used to the weather, to say the least. We all wore army jackets given to us by the GIs and mine reached down to my ankles. Luckily, my family was among the first few families who were sponsored out of the camp. My mother's sister was living in San Francisco at the time and she drove down and took us back to San Francisco with her. I went to summer school and entered the 7th grade in autumn and became an American.
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Andrew Lam
What was it like for Vietnamese in America when you came? What is it like today? There were no Vietnamese in San Francisco to speak of when I came here in 1975. There was my aunt's family and five other families, and there were diplomats or foreign students who remained in the U.S.. That's how small the Vietnamese community was here.
In school, kids always asked whether I had killed anybody in Vietnam or had seen dead bodies and helicopters being blown up. It was interesting: Vietnam was the first television war and though traumatized by that war, everyone in America knows something about Vietnam. It gave me an entry to the American imagination that was not otherwise available to a kid, say, from Sri Lanka. The truth was that I had not killed anyone but yes, I have seen dead bodies, and had seen burnt out helicopters and villages during the war, being an army brat. I became a story teller. But after a few years, I fit in so well with my American life that I stopped telling my stories. I stopped speaking Vietnamese altogether. Not until college, not until I started dreaming about Vietnam and my childhood again, not until I wanted to become a writer that words came back, language came back, dreams came back, Vietnam came back.
The America that received my family in the mid-70s was not an America that could have imagined a Pacific Rim future. It was an America which had retreated from the Far East, traumatized by its latest adventure abroad. Vietnamese living in America had little access to Vietnam. It was the height of the Cold War. It took six months, if at all, for a letter to reach that country. We were cut off from our homeland in the United States. We adjusted quickly to life in America because of it.
Luckily the first wave of refugees were among the crème de la crème, as they say, of the south -- doctors, lawyers, government officers, professors -- and, having experienced far less trauma than what Vietnamese boat people experienced later on, and having no experience of life under communism (where children of the bourgeois class were deprived of schooling) we adjusted rather quickly in the United States. But we also managed to create a little community and gathered for various occasions, most of which were very political. We rallied each April 30 in front of City Hall in San Francisco and demanded freedom and democracy for Vietnam and so on. We celebrate Tet, Vietnamese new year, together. We mourn the loss of homeland and the fate of being an exile. In other words, we share a particular history, and were very close.
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Andrew Lam as a child
Much has changed a quarter of a century later, in a globalized and post-Cold War world...
Today I can e-mail my cousin in Vietnam and I can send him money via a bank. I do not have to hide it in a tube of toothpaste. And movement back and forth between Vietnam and the U.S. is the norm after normalization. Vietnamese newspapers in the States freely advertise flights to Vietnam and phone cards so you can call home to talk to your grandmother anytime you like. If we all considered ourselves exiles in the late 70s, only a small percentage do so now. Now the picture of the Vietnamese community in the United States is a very diverse one. There are still a staunchly anti-communist faction, especially those who suffered life in re-education camps and whose family members were killed by the Hanoi government. But there are also foreign exchange students, tourists from Vietnam, American-born Vietnamese who have no memories of the war, people who go back and forth, and even those who went back to live and work in their homeland, and so on. It's estimated that more than 200,000 Vietnamese living abroad return to Vietnam every year during Tet. I myself have gone back eight times as a journalist. I am more familiar with Saigon than Los Angeles.
America, too, has changed dramatically. Years ago, for instance, it was impossible to find fish sauce, the prime element of Vietnamese cooking. Now you can go to Safeway and get it. Vietnamese and other Asian populations in California have indelibly changed its cultural landscape. America is more accepting of Asian cultures than ever before. When the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh spoke at Berkeley last year, there was standing room only, and most of the people who attended were white Americans. Buddhism is on the rise here and the longing for the Far East is growing. Witness the number of Asian directors now working in Hollywood. What was once considered private or ethnic culture is moving into the public sphere... I was interviewed on NPR when Campbell soup decided to make Vietnamese pho -- beef and noodle soup. "How did you feel?" The interviewer asked. "Well," I said, "it seems inevitable. Think of pizza and burritos. Grandma still makes it best, but in America, if it's good, it's appropriated and mass produced." If I associated pho with a particular geography, I have to change my mind. It's an age of open borders and perceptions are shifting very quickly.
As a journalist, what is your perspective on Vietnamese-American community issues? There are several issues that the community is struggling with. There's the language problem. The older generation speaks Vietnamese and the younger English. This is particularly problematic when a person from the older generation speaks no English and the younger person speaks no Vietnamese. How can you communicate? There is a communication gap. Many books written by Vietnamese in the United States are written in Vietnamese, but a generation of Vietnamese born in the United States can not access them. Many turn to libraries as a way to find out about their own history. But books in libraries don't address the South Vietnamese experience. The South Vietnamese are losers in history and very little is devoted to their plight. North Vietnamese have the upper hand. Hanoi rewrites history and that history is now being accessed in the U.S. I met several Vietnamese American kids who asked me to tell them how they got here. "Don't your parents tell you?" I said. And they said: "No. All they said is that we lost a war and that's why we're here. I want to know more." And they should know more. The responsibility of the older generation is to translate or have their works and testimonies, i.e.. life in re-education camps, boat peoples' experiences, adjustment to American life -- translated so that it's accessible to the new generation.
The other issue is the question all diasporas tend to ask: how to sustain a community over time? There are several diasporas that the Vietnamese community can learn from: the Chinese, the Jewish, the Indian. These have been in existence much longer and can provide models for fledgling ones.
What are some of the areas of difference between Vietnamese and American cultures? I think Americans are fond of saying "I love you." Vietnamese are not. Vietnamese don't share words of affections very easily. In fact, it was unusual to see in Daughter from Danang the mother being overly affectionate and saying "I love you" repeatedly. My mother who loves me dearly never says "I love you" in such a way.
It's more typical for Vietnamese to demonstrate affections through gestures. When I went home to visit my parents, my mother would fry a fish as it's my favorite dish. And to show her I love her I would have to eat the whole fish. When I won a journalism award a few years ago, my father was very proud. But he couldn't find the words in Vietnamese to say this so finally he shook my hand (which in itself was very unusual) and said in English: "I'm very proud of you, son." It was the first time I heard him saying something like this and it was in English. In some way, English is used when Vietnamese words fail us. And they tend to be words like proud or love.
Many American-born Vietnamese have complained to me that their parents don't love them. "They never say 'I love you' to me," they'd say. But they don't understand: it's not the standard practice in Vietnam. You have to read affection through gestures and actions.
When I first came to the United States, I also failed to look at teachers in the eyes. In Vietnam it's a sign of disrespect when you look at someone in the eyes. In the United States you are shifty if you don't look at people in the eyes. Even now I tend to shift my focus when I look at someone too long in the eyes. I feel as if I am invading their privacy. Strange but true.
What cultural differences have caused the most difficulty for Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S.? Vietnamese culture puts a strong emphasis on being part of the We. Your individualism is below the need of the many. This is how families survived traditionally. Children are duty-bound to take care of their families. When I went to school at Berkeley, more than half of the Vietnamese student population majored in computer science and electrical engineering. Many told me they didn't want to. It was competitive and difficult. A few wanted to be artists or architects and so on, but their parents were poor or were still in Vietnam. They needed to find a solid footing in America in order to help out the rest of the family.
America, on the other hand, tells you to look out for number 1. It tells you to follow your dream, to have individual ambition. Take care of yourself first. Go on a quest. The Vietnamese American conflict is one where he has to negotiate between his own needs and dreams with that of his family.
I myself was lucky. My parents found jobs and moved us to the suburbs when I was in high school. I didn't have to make money to send home to someone in Vietnam. I was the youngest in the family. There were no big demands on me. I was free to decide what to do with my life. But if my parents had been stuck behind in Vietnam and living in the New Economic Zone, I would have been an electrical engineer by now.
In some way, for Asian immigrants, to learn to negotiate between the I and the We is the most important lesson to learn, a skill much needed in order to appease to both cultures.
Immigrants always face the challenge of how much to assimilate to American culture and how much of their native culture to keep. How has this played out in the Vietnamese American community? I think in many ways normalization with Vietnam has helped boost a revival of Vietnamese culture dramatically. I know young Vietnamese Americans who went back, or visited for the first time, and came back speaking Vietnamese whereas they didn't speak a word before. These totally Americanized kids suddenly feel connected to another place and it gives them an edge over their American counterparts.
I think all Americans would love to have another country connected to their history. Ireland, Italy, China, whatever. To have a hyphen connected to your identity makes you feel cosmopolitan and sophisticated, a bridge to some other place. You have something that you can call your own. This is a recent phenomenon. Before the idea of a melting pot was still the aim, at least by the institutions. But now it's chic to be ethnic, to speak another language, to feel connected to another culture, to another set of values, to a sensibility. It's a post-modern age where options are far more available than they were to someone who lived in America in the mid-20th century. And far more individualistic. You pick and choose. Stay traditional as you want or be as modern as you want. Options are available at your beck and call.
Besides, the pressure to assimilate is no longer as heavy as before. If anything, all Americans are learning to assimilate to new cultures that keep showing up at the American shores. In San Francisco, blacks, hispanics, whites, all know how to use chopsticks. Go to Bolsa in Orange County and see non Vietnamese eating pho and buying Vietnamese groceries. My mother complains that I speak to much English in the house, but as the most conservative member of our family she, too, has changed. She goes to the gym, does aerobics. She prays to Buddha, but bets on football. I don't watch football, but she's fanatic. So who's more American than whom?
Is it true that one of the areas of cultural divergence is the relationship with authorities such as police? Yes, that's true. The problem is that in Vietnam you cannot trust the authorities. In dictatorial countries, there's no good news when the police come calling. You function best when the authorities leave you alone. And worse, in poor countries like Vietnam, petty corruption is a daily event. A cop might stop you and say that you have violated some traffic law. What he means is: "Give me five dollars for breakfast and I'll let you go." The idea that the authorities are on your side is such a novelty that it does not occur to the newly arrived refugee or immigrant to the United States. If you call the police they might arrest you instead of the criminal. There's always a risk as everything could be deemed illegal in Vietnam (and nothing is). Everything can be settled with grease money.
It takes a while to learn to live in a civil society. It takes a while to have the idea that the police work for you sink in. At least that's the idea. In some neighborhoods, the inner city, for example, that may not be true. Also, many Vietnamese are afraid to fill out forms. Census or otherwise. They have this fear that the government will know everything about them and will use the information against them. And even in the United States, given the post 9-11 scenario, there is some valid justification for that fear.
Another is in the difference in health and mental health issues? There's a big difference. You must understand that traditional Vietnamese are Confucian bound. We worship ancestors. We light incense and pray to Grandpas and Grandmas long dead. That is to say, we talk to ghosts. Once I worked as an interpreter and there was a case where a Vietnamese woman was suffering from depression and told the psychologist that she kept seeing her dead husband. He thought she was having some kind of disorder. But I told him it's actually typical. Mind you, I was stepping out of bounds as an interpreter, but I couldn't help myself. My grandmother, when she was alive, saw her dead husband, in dreams, or late at night sitting in his old chair for a brief moment, and there was nothing wrong with her. Practically all old people talk like that lady. It was a way for her to say she mourns her losses. It took a while, but I think the American psychologist came around. They have to: they can't put an entire population in the insane asylum, can they?
The other classic example in terms of health problems is the one that I'm sure that's well recorded in medical school. A little Vietnamese boy showed up in school with red marks on his back. "Who did this to you?" the teacher asked. "My father," he answered. His father was immediately arrested. Having no idea how to explain what he did, his English limited, and lacking money to hire a lawyer, he ended up serving time in jail. He was so frustrated he hung himself. What he did was a typical thing: Vietnamese practice cao gio -- a kind of therapeutic massage for people who come down with a cold. They scrape the skin on your back with a spoon or a coin, using an ointment. He wasn't abusing his child. He was helping him, but nobody believed the man.
Had the U.S. prepared at all for addressing any "culture shock" that the airlifted Vietnamese children might have experienced? I think there was an assumption on the part of the Americans who wanted to adopt those Vietnamese children. That they will assimilate and become Americans. That they will forget Vietnam. That their personal history is not as important as the new reality in which they found themselves. What they were not prepared for is the hunger of memories. Many of those babies may adjust well to America as adults but they also long for their Vietnamese past. They want to know where they come from, who are their relatives, and how can they learn to connect to that past. They will always look, they will always search, they will never be satisfied until they have all the fragments of their life put together. It's an inevitable human impulse.
What parts of Vietnamese culture do you see thriving in Vietnamese-American communities? The wedding is the biggest event in Vietnamese American community. It's the time where people dress up, meet, exchange information and show off their children, meet new people, and so on. Vietnamese in the U.S. live for weddings and a typical wedding has about 300 people at the reception. Five hundred people came to my brother's wedding and it's not the biggest. People invite themselves. They want to come.
Vietnamese newspapers, television shows and magazines are thriving. So much so that the San Jose Mercury News has a Vietnamese language weekly. Vietnamese read quite a bit and they thirst for information regarding Vietnam. Go to any Vietnamese restaurants in the Bay Area and you'll see three or four give-away newspapers full of news on Vietnam.
Vietnamese love their Vietnamese singers. Some Vietnamese American singers make quite a bit of money singing in Vietnamese communities in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, Dallas, Houston, New York. Tickets can go as high as $40 a pop.
Food is thriving. Vietnamese restaurants are packed. I know a Ph.D. student, an American-born Vietnamese. She speaks very little Vietnamese and is a feminist and a vegan. But she has a dark confession: she eats pho soup. Sometimes she can't help herself. She's got to have that beef broth
In a newspaper article, Heidi Bub's adoptive mother, Ann Neville, dismissed the importance of cultural differences, saying, "...we're all part of the human race..." Do you agree? I think we are all part of the human race, but differences will always remain. That's what makes the human race interesting. If everything is merged all you get is a bland, uninteresting picture. It's easy to dismiss other cultures when yours is the dominant one. It's easy to dismiss other sensibilities when you assume yours is the only one that's important, and that it's the only one that matters. We're all part of the human race, but we are different by degree -- and that difference will never go away.
In the film, Heidi rejects her brother's request for financial help. Is Heidi's response personal or cultural? It's expected of you to help your family out, no matter what culture you're from. In the Vietnamese case, it's even more so considering that those who left for the U.S. are in general far more wealthy than those they left behind. An average income in Vietnam is around 400 dollars a year. A Vietnamese American coming home for the first time will always save a few hundred if not a few thousand dollars to give to his family and relatives. For him to leave Vietnam in the first place the family had to sacrifice quite a bit -- gold, land, dollars -- to purchase a seat on a boat for him to escape. He owes them. Many Vietnamese living overseas become an anchor person — someone who will help the rest back home when they make it abroad.
Heidi doesn't understand that tradition or that kind of arrangement at all, having been raised in an American family. And her Vietnamese family didn't understand that she barely knew them. That, in essence, she was a stranger, not someone who was raised by them and shared their belief system. But I think Heidi was also overwhelmed by the needs of her family and though she didn't say it, she herself is not wealthy, or so that was my impression when I watched that movie. She held on to her fantasy of being reunited with her original family without being open to the possibility that it's not all rosy, that they have fantasies of their own.
Heidi did not experience much family closeness growing up. In Vietnam, she was amazed at the love and unity her family there showed. What are the ties that bind a Vietnamese family together? Love and a shared belief system and in many ways poverty. You don't leave at 18 just because you reach 18. You live with your family until you're married and even then you might not have enough money to buy a house for yourself and your spouse. So you create a three-generational family and to do so you must learn to suppress your individualism. You cannot get everything you want because you have to share resources to survive. You learn to live well together and you learn to suppress your own desire. You learn to sacrifice a lot to live in harmony with a large family. But in return, what you get is a kind of insularity that many Americans don't have. You know you'll never be alone. You know that you will be taken care of no matter what. You make that kind of promise to each other. You make that kind of promise to your ancestors' spirit. When you break away from all that, you are seen as selfish or unfilial, and of course, anti-Confucian.
Is it true that opening a gift in front of the giver is considered rude in Vietnam? Does this explain Kim and Vinh's awkwardness in the film about Heidi's gifts? I suppose it might be rude, but I'm also very Americanized and my family and I open Christmas gifts in front of each other all the time. But it's true, traditionally you don't open it in front of the person who gives it to you, though you can ask for permission to open it. I don't' know if Kimand Vinh's awkwardness came from that or rather that they had never received gifts from America before and they were simply awed by the experience. I was, when I was a child in Vietnam and received my first Sears catalog gift from an uncle in the U.S. It was like a miracle. The gift wrap was so beautiful. And the smell of my new pair of jeans was out of this world.
Toward the end of her stay in Danang, Heidi says, "this is not what I had pictured." Was there a way to prepare her for her experience? Hers is not a typical Vietnamese reaction. Vietnamese Americans gossip among themselves and prepare each other for the "shock" of returning. The heat, the mosquitoes, the smell, the needy relatives. You come back with a certain level of cynicism built in. But Heidi, being so disconnected from the community experience, did not have any of that. I think Tran Tuong Nhu, the journalist and interpreter, should have prepared her for it instead of just teaching her "I love you" in Vietnamese. Nhu should have been more savvy as to what happens to the naive returnees.
Do you think Vietnamese Americans might have a different response to the film than non-Vietnamese Americans? I can't say for sure. In some ways Heidi is a non-Vietnamese American with a Vietnamese American dream. Non-Vietnamese Americans can watch her experience unfold and say: yup, I would feel that way too if I were her. I would feel overwhelmed. I would probably run out and look for a McDonald's and get away from the heat. But a Vietnamese American who watches the film might say she should have known better. She should have prepared herself. Poor naive woman. What do you expect when you go to a Third World country that is yearning for a better life. Of course, they would have seen you as a life saver in the middle of a turbulent sea. Between Heidi and her birth family is a gap and it needs to be filled with stories: stories that Heidi needs to tell and stories that her mother and sisters and brother need to tell. They need to bridge that gap before they can make familial demands on one another.
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fruitsofhell · 11 months ago
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Yall, its time to ramble about visual/environmental storytelling cause this is silly article is driving me insane.
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I won't argue for if the game should have had more constant and involved cutscenes like Robobot or Star Allies, but what I will say is that this game is VERY rich in story through the world design. The Forgotten Land as opposed to say the Land of the Sky in TD or the entire galaxy of Star Allies is like, DROWNING in writing and narrative. It builds so much mystery and intrigue through the theming of every world and even individual levels, with exploring both how the people of the land originally lived and how it's being reclaimed by nature and the animals.
I think the closest things maybe is Robobot and Halcandra in RTDL, the former having great little designs that key you into WHAT Haltmann is doing and what makes it so toxic. Halcandra though is the ultimate grand-daddy, the contrast between it and the Lor, and Egg Engines and Dangerous Dinner is full of theming and clues about the nature and history of the planet. AND THAT IS STORY, THAT IS WRITING! Especially when compared to say Star Allies, where most of the levels of the levels are just ye average Kirby themed fluff with little to say about the Jamba or the state they've left the galaxy in. But when you play through the casino levels of Robobot, as well as delightful theming and level design, you see that Haltmann is erecting literally the most predatory entertainment centers imaginable. When you step off the sleek futuristic Lor into the scrapyards and wastes of Halcandra, you get fun intimidating final worlds, and a good grasp on *why* the people who made the Lor aren't around anymore, and may even start questioning why Magolor made such a great fuss of dragging you to this horrible place. Music is also deeply important to this storytelling. Each of the factories/towers erected in ever world of Robobot's theme is a remix usually of themes related to older mechanical levels, subtly clueing you into where Haltmann go their technology from. Outside the Lor rather than the comfortable motif of Green Greens is this almost comically suspicious and disoriented theme once you're stuck on Halcandra and returning to Magolor with more doubts about his words. The final level inside of the volcano house a theme that is teasing the twist to come, and the theme for fighting Landia before the big reveal is less triumphant, and more majestic and pensive. Possibly trying to evoke more hesitance than confidence, even if most people wouldn't catch on to that on a first run.
But the cooler thing, is that while Robobot has this cool theming at key levels, and RtDL does at the end, this type of shit is pervasive ALL throughout Forgotten Land. Every world and nearly every level is a unique, well thought-out set piece! You get to see abandoned towns, cities, malls, stores, factories, resorts, and an amusement park, each which serves as more than just a fun location, but a clear picture of the world and the state its in. This intent is made clearer through the music and tone that goes out of its way to not highlight the destruction of these areas but their beauty, wonder, and mystery through the eyes of an clueless animals and our favorite pink alien. The abandoned Alivel Malls theme is a track as upbeat and peppy as what must've played over it's speakers in it's hayday, because the hustle and bustle breathed back into it by the animals and Kirby just exploring this mysterious complex is just as lively. The theme of the Everbay Coast is peaceful and sunny despite the Holine ruins because it's as part of the scenery to the animals and Kirby as the picturesque palms and sands. And Wondaria!!!!!!!!! OMG WONDARIA WHERE TO EVEN BEGIN WITH EVERY FUCKING LEVEL AND THEME IN WONDARIA!!! THIS IS WHY I CAN'T TAKE THAT CLAIM SERIOUSLY - y'know when I cried at Forgotten Land? In world 3. Not because of a cutscene or a line of dialogue, but just from the sheer emotion the setting evoked in me. The sweet, laid-back, starry-eyed wonder that it expressed from Kirby mixed with my own sense of nostalgia being aware of what that place was, and how beautiful it was to see it rediscovered and adored by Kirby and the animals of the Forgotten Land. It evokes such a strong feeling of bittersweetness, of existential dread comforted by the knowledge that the simple joys and memories we create places like amusement parks to share will continue on as long as there is life in the world. And unlike some of my musings about past games, this was explicitly intentional. What truly brought the tears to my eyes was remembering an interview where the devs were explaining how they were trying to keep the tone light and Kumazaki said specifically they wanted to evoke peace and beauty rather than loss.
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LIKE THIS IS WRITING! This is storytelling, this is intention. It's just subtle, but not at all unimportant, and it ties into the more overarching plot. It raises the question constantly of where the people went that is answered by Forgo, and expresses the dichotomy between the simple innocence of the animals compared to the ambitions of the people who abandoned them and that is now possessing their leader. It creates stakes for Elfilis and Forgo's intentions to destroy everything so beautiful and pure about the current world, but as it absolves the current world of guilt, it puts into perspective JUST HOW LONG Forgo must have been locked away that things changed so much. And as softly as the exploits of the original people are portrayed by the game, knowing their treatment of Eliflis and Forgo as a thing of entertainment and tool for innovation is sickening placed in contrast with it. Like back to Wondaria, the way it shows how much space travel must have pervaded the imagination and escapism of the people either before or after Forgo's arrival is insanely smart. And it gives me chills in the best way seeing Kirby run around images of cartoon aliens from a civilization who would never meet him. Of Kirby, Elfilin, and Bandana sticking their head into a cardboard cutout of an astronaut meeting an alien, with the text "wish you were here" above in a script they don't even understand. A SCRIPT THE WRITERS MADE FOR THIS GAME SO THAT THEY COULD ADD MESSAGES LIKE THAT INTO THE WORLD FOR KEEN PLAYERS TO NOTICE AND MAKE CONNECTIONS. Like it's insane. The dedication the Hal Labs has to stuff like this is maddening! It's so sweet and heartfelt and crafty, I'm so pissed off how little respect it gets because people don't understand visual storytelling!!!!! Saying Forgotten Land is light on story is preposterous, it might just be one of the most finely crafted stories the series has had to date, and is just a really solid piece of science fantasy writing in general honestly. It is packed with environmental storytelling that drives me Up The Fucking Wall, Man.
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sforzesco · 10 months ago
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you know that post about how scholars talk shit about each other when they write the phrase 'one might be tempted to assume,' or however it went. the entirety of crassus scholarship is like this.
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museenkuss · 2 years ago
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Dance performance and delicately constructed skirts, flowing lines and ballet slippers for Chika Kisada a/w 2023. Runway photos by Chika Kisada via vogue.com
Ever since founding her label in 2014, Japanese designer Chika Kisada has drawn on her background as a dancer to combine ballet esprit with punk spirit. This season, after working closely with the ballet dancer Haruo Niyama has inspired her view on gender, the models floating down the runway transcend the ideas of masculine and feminine, wearing suit jackets draped over delicately constructed bustiers, glittering shirts and flowing trousers, rustling heaps of skirts, jeans and stockings, and the omnipresent ballet slippers. And all the while, Niyama dances behind a translucent curtain, a Kisada-clad shadow. Watch the show.
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butchlifeguard · 3 months ago
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swimming <3
just add water, katie ledecky / tumblr / me / "how swimming helped an ocd writer quieten their mind," oprah daily / "how does swimming help shape my body?" plunge san diego / "simone manuel has already won," the ringer / pinterest / tumblr / aristotle and dante discver the secrets of the universe, benjamin alire sáenz / instagram / the swimmer, john cheever / me
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on-this-day-mcr · 1 year ago
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On this day, June 2
In 2022: My Chemical Romance performed their twelfth show of the 2022-2023 Swarm tour in Rotterdam, Netherlands. This show was the only one of the tour to feature a short video of the band making pancakes, played immediately before "The Foundations of Decay". At this show, "HAPPY HALLOWEEN" was written on the drums. (🖤)
Watch the show here!
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ᴘᴀᴜʟ ʙᴀʀᴇɴᴅʀᴇɢᴛ
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felassan · 5 months ago
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dragonwysper · 10 months ago
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Can. Can we talk about how fucking damaging internet trauma is, and how nobody fucking talks about it?
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fatehbaz · 9 months ago
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[D]omesticated attack dogs [...] hunted those who defied the profitable Caribbean sugar regimes and North America’s later Cotton Kingdom, [...] enforced plantation regimens [...], and closed off fugitive landscapes with acute adaptability to the varied [...] terrains of sugar, cotton, coffee or tobacco plantations that they patrolled. [...] [I]n the Age of Revolutions the Cuban bloodhound spread across imperial boundaries to protect white power and suppress black ambitions in Haiti and Jamaica. [...] [Then] dog violence in the Caribbean spurred planters in the American South to import and breed slave dogs [...].
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Spanish landowners often used dogs to execute indigenous labourers simply for disobedience. [...] Bartolomé de las Casas [...] documented attacks against Taino populations, telling of Spaniards who ‘hunted them with their hounds [...]. These dogs shed much human blood’. Many later abolitionists made comparisons with these brutal [Spanish] precedents to criticize canine violence against slaves on these same Caribbean islands. [...] Spanish officials in Santo Domingo were licensing packs of dogs to comb the forests for [...] fugitives [...]. Dogs in Panama, for instance, tracked, attacked, captured and publicly executed maroons. [...] In the 1650s [...] [o]ne [English] observer noted, ‘There is nothing in [Barbados] so useful as … Liam Hounds, to find out these Thieves’. The term ‘liam’ likely came from the French limier, meaning ‘bloodhound’. [...] In 1659 English planters in Jamaica ‘procured some blood-hounds, and hunted these blacks like wild-beasts’ [...]. By the mid eighteenth century, French planters in Martinique were also relying upon dogs to hunt fugitive slaves. [...] In French Saint-Domingue [Haiti] dogs were used against the maroon Macandal [...] and he was burned alive in 1758. [...]
Although slave hounds existed throughout the Caribbean, it was common knowledge that Cuba bred and trained the best attack dogs, and when insurrections began to challenge plantocratic interests across the Americas, two rival empires, Britain and France, begged Spain to sell these notorious Cuban bloodhounds to suppress black ambitions and protect shared white power. [...] [I]n the 1790s and early 1800s [...] [i]n the Age of Revolutions a new canine breed gained widespread popularity in suppressing black populations across the Caribbean and eventually North America. Slave hounds were usually descended from more typical mastiffs or bloodhounds [...].
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Spanish and Cuban slave hunters not only bred the Cuban bloodhound, but were midwives to an era of international anti-black co-ordination as the breed’s reputation spread rapidly among enslavers during the seven decades between the beginning of the Haitian Revolution in 1791 and the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865. [...]
Despite the legends of Spanish cruelty, British officials bought Cuban bloodhounds when unrest erupted in Jamaica in 1795 after learning that Spanish officials in Cuba had recently sent dogs to hunt runaways and the indigenous Miskitos in Central America. [...] The island’s governor, Balcarres, later wrote that ‘Soon after the maroon rebellion broke out’ he had sent representatives ‘to Cuba in order to procure a number of large dogs of the bloodhound breed which are used to hunt down runaway negroes’ [...]. In 1803, during the final independence struggle of the Haitian Revolution, Cuban breeders again sold hundreds of hounds to the French to aid their fight against the black revolutionaries. [...] In 1819 Henri Christophe, a later leader of Haiti, told Tsar Alexander that hounds were a hallmark of French cruelty. [...]
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The most extensively documented deployment of slave hounds [...] occurred in the antebellum American South and built upon Caribbean foundations. [...] The use of dogs increased during that decade [1830s], especially with the Second Seminole War in Florida (1835–42). The first recorded sale of Cuban dogs into the United States came with this conflict, when the US military apparently purchased three such dogs for $151.72 each [...]. [F]ierce bloodhounds reputed to be from Cuba appeared in the Mississippi valley as early as 1841 [...].
The importation of these dogs changed the business of slave catching in the region, as their deployment and reputation grew rapidly throughout the 1840s and, as in Cuba, specialized dog handlers became professionalized. Newspapers advertised slave hunters who claimed to possess the ‘Finest dogs for catching negroes’ [...]. [S]lave hunting intensified [from the 1840s until the Civil War] [...]. Indeed, tactics in the American South closely mirrored those of their Cuban predecessors as local slave catchers became suppliers of biopower indispensable to slavery’s profitability. [...] [P]rice [...] was left largely to the discretion of slave hunters, who, ‘Charging by the day and mile [...] could earn what was for them a sizeable amount - ten to fifty dollars [...]'. William Craft added that the ‘business’ of slave catching was ‘openly carried on, assisted by advertisements’. [...] The Louisiana slave owner [B.B.] portrayed his own pursuits as if he were hunting wild game [...]. The relationship between trackers and slaves became intricately systematized [...]. The short-lived republic of Texas (1836–46) even enacted specific compensation and laws for slave trackers, provisions that persisted after annexation by the United States.
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All text above by: Tyler D. Parry and Charlton W. Yingling. "Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas". Past & Present, Volume 246, Issue 1, February 2020, pages 69-108. Published February 2020. At: doi dot org/10.1093/pastj/gtz020. February 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]
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soliusss · 1 year ago
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You guys ever get like the really innate urge to create something big. Happening to me right now. But I have no solid concept of what I want to make. I just want to do something with ion and the klavigar. Do not have the skill or full idea or actual drive or time to do it though. Hhgmmrmrmm
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geronimomo-spd · 2 years ago
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come in number 8 article! (from dwm 354)
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who's who? (left to right): The Eighth Doctor (Father Time); The Eighth Doctor (big finish audios); The Eighth Doctor (the tv movie); The Eighth Doctor (DWM comic strip); The Eighth Doctor (Zagrues); Grandfather Paradox (the ancestor cell); The Eighth Doctor (the flood); The Doctor (the infinity doctors)
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heyo guys!! for anyone that is interested in actually reading this and reading the article i found the magazine and managed to scan it!!
its a lovey exploration of all of the versions of 8, the audios, the edas and the comics!! and how they managed to tell a pretty similer stories and character arcs for 8!
its really cool, i was espeshelly fasinated by this and how exactly they all managed to take and make up 8s personality with only the movie as the guide, it was one of the things thta really attrackted me to his character to begin with!!
(the quality is really good i promise its just that tumblr zoinked the quality here)
here is the full thing!
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california-112 · 4 months ago
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Why is EVERYTHING happening this week lol.
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tardis--dreams · 25 days ago
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Me panicking because i have 9 missed calls and 5 emails talking about my absence and how "a colleague could take over for me" vs. Me knowing it's really not that important no matter how pushy a client is and that on top of it I'm underpaid and have way to much overtime so i shouldn't even care
#i have 14 hours overtime#collected within 2 weeks lol#you know how it's apparently mandatory for companies in germany to have a way track employees working time? yeah we're#the only company in the whole fucking country who doesn't do that (obviously that's not true there's probably plenty more but it's#still not right.) so we don't get paid overtime nor does it get acknowledged in any way#so technically we're not allowed to even it out (which most people try to do anyway because tf do they think they are asking us to work for#free) but I'm dedicated to not collect any more unpaid working hours so i take the liberty to leave work early this week#so today i left at 12pm (and then got home 4 hours later because another person decided to kill themselves by train. they should call me#first. or anyone else taking the train. I'm sure there'd be plenty of volunteers to do the killing if it means not another miserable day#stuck in a disgusting train). and i logged in again at 6pm today to see if i have anything important messages (stupid i know)#and i saw the missed calls and that there had been an email exchange with me in the cc talking about the 'changes' made in one of the#articles and that someone else could do that for me since i couldn't be reached and at first i felt ashamed and scared#but now it's honestly just pissing me off. that asshole can't write emails and communicate requests like normal people can he#he already called me last week about something completely stupid and acts like his matters are the most important shit in the world#fuck you if you can't wait one day you should have sent this a month earlier because i won't stay online everyday#just to see if there might be an 'important' change you want me to make Immediately. bitch.#also missed two calls from my colleague but she didn't send any messages about what she wanted so i asked her because i felt bad for not#being online and turns out she wanted Nothing. just hear how i was. JUST TEXT ME THEN???? I HATE IT HERE FUCK YOU#seriously i don't get paid enough for this to bother me so much. she probably gets 12-15€ more than me per hour#of course she doesn't care about her overtime as much as i do. i get minimum wage which is less than what I'd get if i still worked at uni#as a student assistant so fuck this shit it's really not important or worth it. from now on i'll only put in minimum effort too#sorry got carried away. rant over now i guess#void screams#work stuff
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octavianacidicbreastmilk · 10 months ago
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i also wish we used disgust less as a framework when it comes to discussing criminalising behaviours. even if something disgusts you, it should not be actionable upon, especially in a criminal setting.
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drawnecromancy · 5 months ago
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Mid-Year Book Freak Out
Question. Why's this called a freak out. Is it designed to make you freak out about your TBR that's taller than you are ? :P
I was tagged by the lovely @logarithmicpanda <3 thank youu
Number of books you’ve read so far : 12 ! (it's more than last year at the same time of year tbh.)
Best book you’ve read so far in 2024 : I'd say Crossfire by Miyabe Miyuki. I really loved it.
Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2024 : I almost said I haven't read a single sequel, but that's false ! I've read Les Disparus du Clairdelune, the sequel to Les Fiancés de l'Hiver, by Christelle Dabos. From the series La Passe-Miroir :) It was good ! It was the only and best sequel I've read, lol
New release you haven’t read yet but want to : I don't follow new releases at all.
Most anticipated release for the second half of the year : Same answer !
Biggest surprise favorite new author (debut or new to you) : ...IDK i forget the names of authors after reading their books unless I'm specifically wanting to read more from a series of theirs. So no one :')
Newest fictional crush : Shrugs. Nothing in there I don't think
Book that made you cry : None lol
Most beautiful book you’ve bought so far this year (or received) : Bought but not-yet read~
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I'm waiting to have all of them before I start reading tbh. But yeah these covers r dope love them
Book that made you happy : 49 by Isabelle Bisson-Routhier bc it was a fun read after way too long reading history books and also she's my friend I love reading my friends' work :)
What books do you need to read by the end of the year ? Need ? Technically none. I guess I could consider I should finish the ones I borrowed by the end of the year though. I am lucky to have loved ones who are very understanding of my slow reading speed...
I'm really starting to think I don't read enough to have good answers to most of these HAHA + out of 12 books I've read this year, 4 so far were history books. I'm actually in the middle of ANOTHER history book. So there isn't much in the way of fictional crushes, narratives, and emotions when you're trying to understand stuff written by historians, for historians (and I am not a historian). I'll get these, hopefully, uh, after i finish that history book and just stop reading history for a bit.
Oh, tags. Right. Tagging. Uhhhmm tentatively @nerdlemons ? I don't know if anyone else I know would like to be tagged in a game about reading IDK y'all's reading habits LOL consider this an open tag :)
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lyncotek · 3 months ago
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Introduction
This article will discover How Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats Can Improve Safety. In industrial environments, retaining costs under control and visitor and worker safety paramount are crucial issues. Strategically setting outdoor entrance mats is one often-not-noted method that efficiently addresses both troubles. This mattress reduces the cost of maintenance and overhaul by preventing falls and spills by preserving the environment around indoors for longer
Understanding the Diversity of Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats
There are numerous types of business outdoor entrance mats, each made to fit unique situations and necessities. Options starting from absorbent mats that take in moisture to scraper mats that successfully dispose of debris from footwear are to be had to meet any need. Aesthetic choices, weather, and foot traffic quantity are only a few of the factors to recollect even as choosing the correct mat.
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Enhanced Safety with Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats
The primary purpose of outside entrance mats is to improve safety by using reducing the threat of journeys, falls, and slips. This matting drastically decrease the hazard of mishaps by using imparting an extra traction-rich floor, particularly in damp or slick circumstances. They also keep footwear from being tracked interior and developing problems by collecting moisture and particles from shoes.
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How Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats Reduce Maintenance Costs
Over time, you may store quite a little cash on protection by investing in great outdoor front mats. These mats protect indoor flooring surfaces from dust and moisture at the entrance, increasing their durability and decreasing the want for common cleaning. By doing this, exertion fees are decreased and the demand for expensive cleaning resources and gear is reduced as nicely.
Factors to Consider When Choosing Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats
When deciding on access mats for commercial locations, there are a few matters to not forget. These include elements together with placement and length to guarantee top-of-the-line insurance and efficacy, sturdiness to face up to sturdy foot visitors and awful weather, and customization selections to meet branding specifications.
Installation and Maintenance Tips
To maximize the use and durability of outside entrance mats, proper installation and maintenance are crucial. By using the counseled installation techniques, you could lessen the hazard of journeys and falls by ensuring the mats are firmly and flatly hooked up. Moreover, frequent upkeep and cleansing, such as vacuuming, shaking, and washing, contribute to their persevered efficacy.
Cost-Effectiveness and Return on Investment
Good entrance mats may be steeply-priced up the front, but in the long run, the benefits heaps outweigh the price. These mats provide corporations a robust go-back on funding because of the reality they minimize place and tear on interior surfaces, decrease the want for ground cleanings, and avoid injuries that could cause pricey legal responsibility claims.
Environmental Sustainability
Eco-friendly access mat solutions are developing in reputation as sustainability will become an extra considerable issue for companies. These mats, which might be lengthy-lasting and products of recycled substances, help business sustainability objectives in addition to making indoor space purifiers.
Future Trends in Entrance Mat Technology
It is anticipated that future developments in entrance mat generation will concentrate on improving effectiveness and overall performance. Mats with superior dirt and moisture retention and much less complex protection will quit result from material and design enhancements. Real-time mat overall performance monitoring and management also can be made possible via integration with clever building systems.
Conclusion
Commercial outdoor entrance mats play a crucial position in improving safety and decreasing preservation prices in business spaces. By preventing slips and falls, minimizing dirt and moisture access, and defensive indoor surfaces, those mats provide a cost-effective approach to commonplace facility management demanding situations.
FAQs
How do outdoor entrance mats improve safety?
Can entrance mats really reduce maintenance costs?
What types of materials are used in commercial entrance mats?
How often should outdoor entrance mats be cleaned?
Are there any regulations regarding entrance mats for commercial spaces?
#Introduction#This article will discover How Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats Can Improve Safety. In industrial environments#retaining costs under control and visitor and worker safety paramount are crucial issues. Strategically setting outdoor entrance mats is on#Understanding the Diversity of Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats#There are numerous types of business outdoor entrance mats#each made to fit unique situations and necessities. Options starting from absorbent mats that take in moisture to scraper mats that success#weather#and foot traffic quantity are only a few of the factors to recollect even as choosing the correct mat.#Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats#Enhanced Safety with Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats#The primary purpose of outside entrance mats is to improve safety by using reducing the threat of journeys#falls#and slips. This matting drastically decrease the hazard of mishaps by using imparting an extra traction-rich floor#particularly in damp or slick circumstances. They also keep footwear from being tracked interior and developing problems by collecting mois#How Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats Reduce Maintenance Costs#Over time#you may store quite a little cash on protection by investing in great outdoor front mats. These mats protect indoor flooring surfaces from#increasing their durability and decreasing the want for common cleaning. By doing this#exertion fees are decreased and the demand for expensive cleaning resources and gear is reduced as nicely.#Factors to Consider When Choosing Commercial Outdoor Entrance Mats#When deciding on access mats for commercial locations#there are a few matters to not forget. These include elements together with placement and length to guarantee top-of-the-line insurance and#sturdiness to face up to sturdy foot visitors and awful weather#and customization selections to meet branding specifications.#Installation and Maintenance Tips#To maximize the use and durability of outside entrance mats#proper installation and maintenance are crucial. By using the counseled installation techniques#you could lessen the hazard of journeys and falls by ensuring the mats are firmly and flatly hooked up. Moreover#frequent upkeep and cleansing#such as vacuuming
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