If you are doing business in Myanmar, what is more valuable than speaking Burmese?
Understanding chinlone.
What is Chinlone?
Chinlone is the most quintessential of all Burmese national sports. It is similar to hacky-sack, but with hundreds of years of development that have incorporate traditional dance and Buddhist philosophy into its playing style.
Playing it well is an art, but the basic rules are simple:
1. Do not control the ball with your hands, and
2. Try to keep the ball aloft while in play.
At the start of play, men form a circle and warm up by passing a rattan ball amongst each other using every part of their body except the hands. When the time is right, one of the players moves into the circle and become the soloist or prince.
The prince juggles the ball using techniques that evolved from traditional Burmese dance forms. The prince’s goal is to execute the most difficult moves with the most beautiful form. Success is a measure of how aesthetically satisfying a move is.
The others players dance around him in a circle. They support him by setting him up with good passes and by keeping the ball aloft when the ball gets away from the prince.
False starts and dropped balls are part of the game and essential to understanding the Burmese character.
Burmese love children. Most kids have countless numbers of adults who find time to dote over and spoil them. Older siblings are taught to sacrifice for their younger brothers and sisters. Everyone shares everything.
When little kids meet strangers, they are taught to call everyone aunty or uncle or older brother or younger sister. Everyone is physically affectionate and caring. Burmese kids think life is fantastic.
As they get older, they star...
... middle of paper ...
...be rewarded.
Under this new system, many people feel unsatisfied because their basic cultural needs are still motivated by the same desire for group unity, harmony, and concern that chinlone exemplifies but which modern lifestyles often fail to fulfill.
Understanding chinlone means you understand what drives Burmese and how to motivate them.
So, when we meet friends or are negotiating deals we should decide if we want to become tha-nge-gyin: or only meiq-s’we and then check our actions to see if they are trust building or barrier building.
We should also remember that Burmese culture stresses consensus and seeks agreement. That true-friends sacrifice for each other and that people who never need help, never need friends. And that people sometimes drop the ball and that it is as much part of life as it is the game, so if it happens accept it and get on with it.
...values, practices, ideals, expectations and self image joining together in order to achieve a common goal. In Yu-i’s case, the traditional Chinese community wanted to maintain ancient practices, while western oriented Chinese adults wanted to modernize the country and make it similar to the United States and Britain. In Kaysen’s case, abnormal behavior in communities resulted in admittance into the community of the mentally ill. The psychologically disturbed community wanted only to fit in, while the sane community decided that they were threats to society. Both Yu-i and Kaysen physically leave their group only to find that the community ideals have only made them better people.
The study of social stratification is the study of class, caste, privilege, and status that is characteristic of a particular society. It varies according to how society is organized especially in terms of production and work. This idea is a sociological issue that seems to prevail throughout Blair's encounters. There are many different group and individual statuses that made up the village of Moulmein, Burma. The English were ultimately the superior group because they governed Burma and because they were white. Each person among the English did have his or her own individual status as well. Blair for example had high status in the community because of his job. After the English came the Burmese villagers. Some of these people were more importa...
The psycho social crisis called ‘identity versus role-confusion’ occurs mainly during adolescence, although it is not restricted to this period in life. It is usually the fifth stage in the life cycle, although it may overlap with the stages before and after it. Major circumstances can also later change the outcome of this stage. Throughout this stage, a person finds himself bringing together parts of his life and combining them to form who he wants to be in life. Outside factors, such as the community or family, tend to play an indirect, but important role in forming an identity. This is true in any culture, although family plays an even more significant role in a collectivist culture, such as Yu-i’s.
...ferences of emotional expression among different cultures. Most of the people generally agree that children who grew up in Asian culture will tend to control their negative emotions and have less facial expressivity; while the children who grew up in Western culture are more willing to express their feelings directly and have greater facial expressivity. Although the studies mentioned above showed the cultural influences in emotional development, participants were all from normal family (with two parents). Future study may also try to explore the cultural influences in emotional expression by studying children from single parent family; furthermore, there may also be differences in emotional development if children are growing up with siblings or pets. Child is a little creature that full of possibility; future research may explore more unknown sides of the children.
In the beginning the dancers start out standing completely still and gradually sit down in a chair, with their heads facing down, which brings their upper bodies into a hunched over position. A few seconds later they quickly fling their upper bodies up into the air, taking them out of their seats, and then gently sit back down. When the dancers are on their chairs, their bodies tense up and with their heads facing down as if gravity and pressure weigh down the dancers, restricting them. The dancers free themselves as they break through confinement and jolt their bodies up out
I was born and raised in Vietnam, so I naturally observed my culture from my family and my previous schools. I learned most of my culture by watching and coping the ways my family do things. My family and my friends all spoke Vietnamese, so I eventually knew how to speak and understand deeply about my language as I grew up. At home, my mom cooked many Vietnamese foods, and she also taught me to cook Vietnamese food. So I became accustom Vietnamese food. I also learned that grandparents and parents in my culture are taken care of until they die. At school, I learned to address people formally and greet higher-ranking people first. In Vietnamese culture, ranking and status are not related to wealth, so they are concerned with age and education.
Unlike most other families mine had decided to live with the Chinese rather than in the isolated compound away from them. I and my parents, we saw no need for separation, after all, what bad could it be? The culture and language of China had begun to grab my attention from the moment I started to learn them. I went to
All this little acts of elegance and good sportsmanship can be related to what is called “fair play.”
Ballet’s many training methods usually start with footwork and strengthening of the legs and core muscles. The training to become a professional prima ballerina includes working of the hands, pointe, partnering, and ballet’s high level techniques. Classical Chinese dance training includes three main parts which is form, bearing, and technical skill. The form is a system of a number of Chinese movements and postures. But the most important part is bearing known as yun in Chinese. Yun is the inner feeling behind any movement a dancer does. It is connected to the dancer’s breathing and personality. In classical Chinese dance men have a more protonate role in the telling of the story while in ballet the men are used for their strength to help the female dancers perform at a greater theatrical
The Vietnamese family is composed of the parents, all children, and their in-laws, the grandparents, the great-grandparents, and in some circumstances, uncles, aunts and their spouses, cousins, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. In other words, it might embrace up to six generations, with everybody who is related either by blood or marriage. There is always a strong feeling of attachment between the members of the same family in spite of the generation gap, which can be large or small. The elderly grandparents and parents are taken care of until they die (personal communication, July 26-29 2015).
Fan support is common throughout soccer, no matter the league or team. Soccer fans go a bit farther than any other fans. Teams and players usually show support to their fans, but the fans of soccer give that support right back. This method of support is called, “Tifo”, translated from Italian meaning phenomenon of supporting a sport team. Tifo’s are most common during significant matches that can
In the end, what we learn from this article is very realistic and logical. Furthermore, it is supported with real-life examples. Culture is ordinary, each individual has it, and it is both individual and common. It’s a result of both traditional values and an individual effort. Therefore, trying to fit it into certain sharp-edged models would be wrong.
In Buddhism’s most basic principles, it is understood that all beings have a right to live, life should respected and people should refrain from taking all life. Yet, currently in the country of Myanmar, extreme Buddhist monks are preaching religious superiority and leading a genocide on Myanmar’s minority religious people, especially Muslims, down to the women and children. To make matters worse Myanmar’s governing officials (exclusively Buddhist) have passed laws that assist in the persecution of minorities. There are some local reports that government authorities are tracking down and arresting religious minorities without reason. Then those who are arrested haven’t been seen or heard from since. With the known death toll of Myanmar Muslims and other minority groups increasing and the Myanmar government publicly admitting to “misplacing” huge numbers of people who fall into the religious minority, suspicions that the Myanmar government is assisting in this religious genocide have justifiably
My cousin was treated as a cruel person in my big family’s thinking due to his immoral behavior. My grandfather educated his parents and him for an hour because he called and reacted with older cousin as impolite. In Vietnamese culture, the vocative is very significant. It is highly appreciated and respected in a community. These social values are conducted from generation to generation. Parents always have to teach their children how to behave with others when they were little kids because society would appreciate our family education by their action. Although a modern life has changed our life style a lot compared with the old days, the discipline of each family is still indispensable.
Pugh, C.L. (2013) 'Is Citizenship the Answer? Constructions of belonging and exclusion for the stateless Rohingya of Burma.', p. 3.