Spreading the Christmas Spirit Through the Five Languages of Love

It’s Christmas time once again. Although Christmas is rooted on a Christian event, the birth of Jesus Christ, Christians and many non-Christians get into the spirit of the holidays in more ways than one. Christmas is a time to be with loved ones whether they be family or friends. It’s a time for endless Christmas get-togethers, from big blown out parties and family reunions to small intimate meals or drinks with close friends that have not seen each other for a long time.

Christmas is a time to dust up different holiday traditions, of which there are many. The traditions during this holiday season vary according to a particular race, their locations, their Christian religious affiliation and their overall beliefs. For example, some have a white Christmas because of the presence of snow while others have a more tropics inspired celebration. Some put up decorations a day before Christmas while other start Christmas in September. Yes, September. As soon as the “ber” months (months whose names end with the letter “b-e-r”) start, Christmas carols are played on radio stations across the Philippines signaling the start of preparations for the holidays.

Phrase of the day July 14th 2010

Three beautiful love quotes by French writer and poet Honore De Balzac:

"It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music."

"True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart."

"Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside."

Honore De Balzac.

Phrase of the day July 7th 2010

"Love

That's it:
The cashless commerce.
The blanket always too short.
The loose connexion.

To search behind the horizon.
To brush fallen leaves with four shoes
and in one's mind to rub bare feet.
To let and rent hearts;
or in a room with shower and mirror,
in a hired car, bonnet facing the moon,
wherever innocence stops
and burns its programme,
the word in falsetto sounds
different and new each time.

Today, in front of a box office not yet open,
hand in hand crackled
the hangdog old man and the dainty old woman.
The film promised love."

Günter Grass.

Pablo Neruda, words of love

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way". Pablo Neruda.

This blog is a space for all that's related to languages, culture, art, technology, modern life, globalization and many other subjects that, in the end, end up being just different manners in which human beings express themselves and create new ways of living, dreaming, sharing and communicating.

Let's make the most out of this space to also share details about the life and work of different artists, writers, poets, journalists, photographers and other interesting characters from all over the world. Their lives and what they have expressed through their works have so many cultural and historical details and visions to teach us. It's worth reading a few paragraphs about them to, at least, remember any special quote that can make us better.

Today, the turn is for the famous Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, whose real name was Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, and who was Doctor Honoris Causa of the Oxford University, and was awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize, as well as with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971 for his work, which was described by the Nobel Foundation with the following words: "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams".

Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th Century. He was also politically active and always supported the government of the socialist Chilean president, Salvador Allende. He knew the Colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez, who used to say Neruda was "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language".

His seashore house in Isla Negra, in Chile, where he and his third wife are buried, is now a museum that hundreds of persons visit every year to feel a little bit of the magic of this great man's life, to see details of a place where he used to spend his time, to observe the objects that he used to collect and, maybe, to discover some of the spaces that used to inspire him…

It's not easy to choose just one of Neruda's poems to share with you in this short post. Still, you cannot write about Pablo Neruda without reading some of his words. Here it is:

Love

By Pablo Neruda

What's wrong with you, with us,
what's happening to us?
Ah our love is a harsh cord
that binds us wounding us
and if we want
to leave our wound,
to separate,
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us
to drain our blood and burn together.

What's wrong with you? I look at you
and I find nothing in you but two eyes
like all eyes, a mouth
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful,
a body just like those that have slipped
beneath my body without leaving any memory.

And how empty you went through the world
like a wheat-colored jar
without air, without sound, without substance!
I vainly sought in you
depth for my arms
that dig, without cease, beneath the earth:
beneath your skin, beneath your eyes,
nothing,
beneath your double breast scarcely
raised
a current of crystalline order
that does not know why it flows singing.
Why, why, why,
my love, why?

Breathtaking…There's so much to say about a man like Pablo Neruda; maybe the best way to discover his greatness is reading his poems and immersing oneself into that magical world of words and significances that he created to express his vision of the world. Luckily, his work has been translated to many languages and is there to teach and enrich the lives of millions of people from all around the world.

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The Translation industry and Globalization

The translation industry is a very important industry. It is a constantly growing field which is creating new opportunities every day in the workforce. In this constantly growing economy of the west and the increasing strength of the global economy of the east, especially the Middle East and China, the need for and value of translation services has been steadily increasing.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss the Globalization of the world, international business and politics, and anything that has to do with languages.

Languages are a very important part of our culture. They are the main vehicle by which we express ourselves. Many psychologists believe that we would go crazy with out the outlet that language gives us to express ourselves. You can see this clearly in the cases of people who have a stroke and all of a sudden lose their ability to speak and don't know sign language. They often go crazy. The best therapy for them is to learn sign language.

Language are very deeply instilled in our culture. Cultural norms are often the impetus for new words. When we learn a new language, we often learn about new concepts and ideas. For example, love is expressed in many different ways in many different languages.

We will be discussing the topic of love in several languages in our next blog.

Please keep up with our blog as we will be updating it twice per week.

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Sean Patrick Hopwood