Culturally, poetry is used in varied ways. Haikus, for example, juxtapose images of the everyday, while lyric poetry expresses the personal and emotional. Similarly, poets themselves come in a range of guises. Think of the Romantic poet engaging with the sublime, the penniless artist in their garret, the high-brow don, the bard, the soldier on
Nearly 70 years ago, in December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At this time, the UN’s cultural arm, UNESCO, sought to harness the “universal language” of photography to communicate the new system of human rights globally, across barriers of race and language. UNESCO curated the ground-breaking “Human Rights Exhibition” in
By Vibrant Dot Staff The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, or Zhōngqiū Jié (中秋节), is also known as the Mooncake Festival. Each year, it is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunar calendar, when the full moon is said to be at its brightest and closest to Earth, and therefore at
The Philippines was colonized by the Spaniards for 300 years and is currently very much into Western culture. Hence, the Filipino way of life is a colorful mix of Malayan, Spanish, Eastern and Western influences. If you want the best Filipino souvenirs and gifts, you need to go to a specialized shop. If a website
One of the most upsetting things for book lovers is to see a book being mutilated. Book vandalism includes but not limited to defacing, slicing and removal of pages. To many, intentional destruction of book is disturbing but what if it is done for the sake for art creation? Let’s take a little tour around
There’s an image that’s been shared on social media dozens of times over the past few years, typically without attribution. The image depicts a shoeless samurai walking an armored cat. The samurai has a helmet with cat ears, and the image appears to be weathered and old, perhaps dating back to Medieval Japan. There are a variety
“A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in society,” said Billy Graham. History is full of stories about great figures and heroes, but a good number of them owed their success to their fathers — the unsung heroes who led by example and
I was fascinated when I first got to know how certain Hokkien words sound so similar to Japanese or even Korean. If you don’t believe it, try reading out the following words in Hokkien: 世界 (world), 新闻 (news), 未来 (future), 简单 (simple) It sounds identical whether you vocalise these words in Hokkien or Japanese. Well,
“One expects to see the traditional Chinese symbols of prosperity and fortune on an altar cloth. But the attentive ones are rewarded with a pleasant surprise – on one altar cloth is the little Red Riding Hood with a lion instead of a wolf, and on another are riders holding flags of the old Republic
