IA: 1HOUR OBSERVATION.

The day was just so perfect and fine. It was a pleasant day indeed. On 20^th September, I decided to observe my locality, Boudhanath Stupa, which is known for its beauty, rich cultural heritage and tourism site for my 1 hour observation for my IA.

4:20 PM.

Just when I began my observation, I saw two Taiwanese ladies accompanied by a guide who was pointing and explaining them about the Stupa just beside me.  They were taking pictures of the Stupa and I could see smile brightening their face. Then I looked straight and my eyes happened to see an old Anila (lady monk) dressed shabbily unlike the other monks sitting beside the temple spinning her prayer wheel. I wondered why was she sitting on the floor. Then I saw she looked after the shoes of the people who visited the temple. She was paid five rupees for each shoe. She was also asking people to give her money. Some did and some just ignored her. People were receiving holy water from a man who looked after the temple. Just beside the temple there was an entrance to the roof of the Stupa and I saw many people making their way through the narrow entrance door. I saw many small groups of people up in the Stupa. I saw couple, family, group of tourist, friends and some of them were alone. We actually go up to take Kora (rounds) around the Stupa, because its in our culture. But what I saw made me upset because they weren’t doing what they were supposed to. I guess majority of them just came to hang around because all I saw was them taking pictures with the Stupa, some were dating in one corner and others were laughing and talking like it was a park. But the foreigners seemed more loyal to me because though they knew nothing about our culture they took rounds around the Stupa and at the same time took pictures. They took exact three rounds and got down. But the other groups I was observing along with the tourists were still in the exact position doing what they were doing. I actually realized how many of us see boudhanath Stupa, as one of the places where people meet up, hang out and had fun. I didn’t like what I was observing so I decided to drift my eyes somewhere else just when I was disturbed by an excuse me. I saw three American ladies. One of them asked me where they could exchange currency. I couldn’t leave my spot so hence I showed them the direction. They seemed pretty clear with the direction. They thanked me and left the monastery. I looked down and saw many people doing their regular Kora around the Stupa. Most of them had Maney (holy beads) in their hands. To be honest, majority of them were old people. I later noticed few pigeons feeding on the left over grains from the morning. They were enjoying their meal. Suddenly the weather started to change. The dark clouds covered the sky and it started to get gloomy. In no time all the pigeons flew away. There was raindrops on my copy and realized that it was starting to rain. People began rushing and running to find a place where they could wait for the rain to stop. The spot that I was observing was a quarter of the entire Stupa, so therefore the monastery was their only option. In a minute the monastery was filled with people. I looked at my watch and it was almost time. I had 8 more minutes. I last thing I observed was a lady who was talking so loudly over the phone that made everybody look at her. The few minutes remaining I observed how some people of them were still taking Kora in their raincoats and umbrellas. I stopped my observation at 5:20 PM. While reflecting on what I observed I then realized how diverse Boudhanath Stupa was. I was proud to be a part of such locality. I learned that observing a particular place can be challenging but it was worth it.

Thank you.   

  

SURAT ALI IMRAN 
                                   - FAMILY OF IMRAN 

Reflection on what I read on "SURAT ALI IMRAN" taken from the Quran.


The religion in the sight of Allah is Islam. Allah is the ever-living and the sustainer of existence. Their is no deity except Allah. It is said that Allah the mighty has sent Muhammad, which they consider the book of truth.Muhammad revealed the "Torah" and the "Gospel" and most importantly the "Quran" for the muslim people. Allah knows everything and nothing can be hidden from him in earth nor in the heaven. He is the creator of human beings. Those who disbelieve in Allah are the ones adding fuel to the fire. They shall receive punishment as well. I feel that the people who are against Allah are very much hated. the Muslim people view Allah as the only deity. Well, we can't say anything on this matter because each individual have their own of predicting things. And those who will fear Allah will be the gardens in the presence of lords. The believers shall be forgiven of their sins as they believe in their mighty, the wise and the exalted Allah.

"Our lord, surely you will gather the people for a day about which there is no doubt. Indeed Allah does not fail in his promises." 

I really like this sentence because we believe in god because we trust them. We feel that they will be there for us in our bad times and when we need them the most. That's one of the reason why people have faith on their own religion's god. We want the trust returned to us that we bestowed on our deities. It is more than enough when god never fail on their promises because for many people, they depend on the prayers spoken to god. 
I think all the religions are pretty much the same, where they find their own deity superior. We cannot judge them because we belong to the same society. Well for me, There is only one god who takes in many forms like Buddha, Jesus Christ, Allah, Ganesh and many other deities. 

SMALL PLACES, LARGE ISSUES. 
An introduction to social and cultural anthropology. 


1. What is the common "common concern" that all anthropologists share?

Every anthropologists have their own way of thinking or viewing anthropology. Although they have mid-ranging and are engaged in highly specialised interest, what they all share in common is trying to understand both connections within societies and connections between societies. The anthropologists wish to discover general, shared aspects of humanity or human societies. 


2.What do you think Eriksen means when he says: "As an ethical principle, however, it is impossible in practice, since it seems to indicate that everything is as good as everything else, provided it makes sense in a particular society. It may particularly lead to nihilism" page-7

Here, what Thomas Hylland Eriksen is actually trying to relate from the above statement is that cultural relativism cannot be practiced in a society or among cultures from an ethical point of view. Because what we consider right in our society may seem unapproachable in other societies. And at the end this might lead to nihilism. (life is without any objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value.)


3. Paragraph response: 
Erikson says anthropologists, "warn against the application of a shared, universal scale used to be in in evaluation of every society."page-6 Why is this the case? To what extend do you agree or disagree with the approach? Why ? 

The above statement come under the problem of ethnocentrism, which is just the opposite of cultural relativism. We should not judge people under the basis of culture. We should learn how to appreciate it and try to put cultural relativism in action instead of ethnocentrism. I think I agree with the sentence because we should not compare strangers with our societies and put ourselves on top. Instead of doing that, we should call for an understanding of different societies as they appear from the inside. He also mentions that the above statement can be read as an warning against ethnocentrism. 

  

Vocabulary  Research !


1. EMIC: Emic in anthropological term means how the local people think. How they perceive and categorise the words and their rules of behaviour. Also, how they imagine and explain things. It can also be described as a behaviour or a belief in terms meaningful to the actor, which is an emic account comes from a person within the culture.

2. ETIC: Etic shifts from the focus from local observations,categories,explanations, and interpretations to those of the anthropologists.It realises that members of a culture often are too involved in what they are doing to interpret their culture impartially.An etic also accounts to a description of a behaviour or belief by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures, which means that etic attempts to be 'culturally natural'.

*What we see here is that, both EMIC and ETIC approaches to anthropological research and it has been widely recognised, especially in the area of interest that concerns the characteristics of human nature and as well as the form and function of human social systems.

3. AGENCY: It is the role that each individual play in interpreting, using, making and remaking culture in terms of anthropological meaning. We can be more clear by saying that, it is the concept that each human individual within a culture has the ability to determine and choose by their own free will, actions, beliefs etc. Each individual should be independent and should be able to make their own choices. 

4. STRUCTURE: Structure is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. 

5. HOLISM: Holism in anthropology is the assumption that any given aspects of human life is to be studied with an eye to the way it is related to other aspects of human life. In other words, holism emphasis upon studying the relationships among all aspects of culture rather than 'whole' cultures.It is also the study of the whole of the human condition; tht is past, present and the future.

10 MINUTE OBSERVATION ! 

Me and kelly at school :) 

I decided to observe my friend, Kelly Dolma Tshering Gurung for my 10 minute observation assignments. I chose her because she does all the weirdest and silliest thing that I could do :D I further decided that i would observe her eating. Wouldn't that just be the best thing to observe, people hogging. 

So it was a fine sunny and bright saturday afternoon. kelly and I decided to go out for a lunch after our basketball practise. We went to Fire and Ice Restaurant for lunch. We just love pizza. I did not start observing her right when the waiter bought us menu.I wanted to observe her when she was eating. But I must say, people can get very choosy when it comes to food and one of them was kelly, she took her own sweet and long time deciding what she wanted to eat and drink.  Yes, so when it came to food  she always tried new things. While we were busy chitchatting,our drinks arrived few minutes after. She had ordered cinderella and it was a fancy drink. She didn't finish the entire drink before the food like I did. I think she wanted to keep space for her pineapple pizza.

STARTED OBSERVING HER FOR 10 MINUTES WHILE EATING:


 Finally my Hawain pizza and her pineapple pizza arrived. She immediately took out her cell phone and started taking pictures of food. Well, firstly I observed that she loved taking pictures.Then both of us took selfies as well. I even observed that she liked things that looked fancy even if it was food, because both her drink and her pizza did stand out. I also think that people who would like to take kelly for dinner or lunch should definetly take her to a fancy restaurant. Good luck guys ! We both began eating our food and I had to remind myself to observe kelly as much the pizza was asking me to eat it. While eating we kept talking but I noticed that I was the one doing the talking more than her. She kept on flipping her straight brown hair while eating. My friend surely is pretty, actually all my friends are :) She ate slowly and gracefully. Suddenly she got reminded of an incident that took place when we were in our spanish class. She reminded me as well and we both burst out laughing and didn't care who else were present in the restaurant at that point of time. She was laughing out so loud that her tears started pouring out of her eyes. Yet again, our laugh was broken by the delicious pizza who was waiting to be eaten. I also observed her looking at the other customers who were in the restaurant. While eating she would play with the food and sometimes she would be in her own world for a while. I found that very strange. Maybe she was feeling kind of awkward because she knew that I was observing her for like 10 mins. She told me that she would waste food if she didn't like it but she was happy with her decision of ordering pineapple pizza. It was so yummy ofcourse. I asked her if she loved food and then she answered, Who doesn't Tsering. Yah, but who doesn't right ? Food is god and heaven's combinations. I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost 10 minutes. So I wanted to observe her for the last few mins and my last observation was that she eats really slowly and ladylike. I think she chews 32 times each time she has food in her mouth because when she was just over with 5 pieces of her pizza there I was saying goodbye to my last 2 pizzas. Seriously, how sad can that get ? Lastly, concluding my observation, I feel proud to say that my friend, my amigo eats like a queen. Very royal and gracefully indeed. I feel proud that I have friends that even looks her best while eating. 


I was very excited to observe kelly for 10 mintues because you never know what she could do to make you smile for the entire day. But it would be fun making them feel awkward for like 10 mins. I chose to write what I observed when she was eating. I chose these details because that's what I observed. I think the data is pretty much relevant to the social context of the person I observed. I mean what more could I observe when I was only given 10 mins. Next time if I was to observe someone again, I would chose to observe someone doing something more intensely like someone playing a musical instrument or someone playing sports or painting. And I  would also observe them more carefully and seriously.  


Kelly told me that she felt kind of awkward knowing that she was being observed for 10 mins, but she also told me that her awkwardness didn't last long because I was her friend and she felt comfortable. Kelly is a smart and a fun girl so even if someone else were to observe her, they would definetely enjoy observing her because of her graceful and girly charm :)

Her beautiful picture with food. 

THANKYOU :) 

CULTURAL RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS 
WRITTEN BY : CAROLYN FLUEHR-LOBBAN.


" Understanding the diverse cultural contexts where harm or violence may take place is valuable and important, but suspending or withholding judgement because of cultural relativism is intellectually and usually irresponsible." 


The reason for choosing the above quotation is because I agree with it. First of all, we all come from different cultural backgrounds. Understanding someone's culture is not easy. We may be "For it'' or either "Against it". But it is our responsibility to accept what culture  they follow and support them the,. Like in some culture, harm and violence may be a part of its traditions that they follow. So we should understand their cultural contexts because it may be valuable and important to them but suspending or withholding judgement because of cultural relativism is very irresponsible, because we cannot be careless and just say anything against their culture because t may seem wrong to us. Ethnocentrism should not be practised in such situation.

Well, for the argument part, the writer is basically trying to convey us the message that both cultural relativism and human rights should be followed by all the anthropologist and the people. The author feels that the anthropologists should try or choose to protect and promote human rights. We should also stop misusing cultural relativism. Like for example, any harmful or discriminating act that are done to an individual according what culture they belong should not be ignored because they have their own human rights. They do not choose to follow it but are compelled to accept it. In such situation where is the human rights that they have be granted universally?

The writer also mentions about "Female circumcision" being practised in Sudan. The females are compelled to follow it. And the ones who are uncircumcised are not respectable. Even the daughters for that matter have few chances of getting married if they are not circumcised. This is affecting all the female in the society. Where are the human rights that they are granted ? Even if they are granted they do not have the power to use them because the society wouldn't accept it. It is not right and just to think and follow cultures or tradition that has been practised for ages and neglect the circumstances involved in it. 

I do not have any reasoned criticism or counter argument that I want to make. I agree with what the writer have to say. Also, I do not have any experienced  situation or incident which supports or challenges the argument. 

Lastly for the implication part, I agree with what the article had to say. We should not take cultural relativism as an excuse and ignore the human rights given to the people. Human rights are more important than cultural rituals, traditions or customs. It has also given me a better perspective of viewing the entire cultural context where harm and violence still prevail and where Human rights are completely ignored.