Bushido

"Japan was ruled by warrior for the better part of a millennium. From the twelfth to the nineteenth century its political history was dominated by the struggle of competing leagues of fighting men. These centuries left a lasting imprint on the country's values and society. Bushi, "fighting men," and samurai, "those who serve," developed a rhetoric with emphases of loyalty and courage and worked out a code that came to be known as "Bushido," the Way of the Warrior."(1)

Effectively Ending a Culture

How do we know anything about a culture that once almost completely disappeared?  Limited sources of information make it difficult to define the culture with any accuracy.  It just so happens that the culture I am going to discuss today is such a culture: the Minoan civilization, which disappeared more than a thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era.

Politics of the Kush (and not the kind from a Dr. Dre song)

If you're like me, you might not be terribly familiar with the Kush people of Africa, so here's a bit of background... the Kush civilization was a group located in the South of the Nile River valley, mostly in what is the modern day country of Sudan. For most of it's history it was the generally accepted belief that the Kushite culture was a result of the expansion of Egyptian rule into that area, but more recent discoveries in the latter half of the 20th century showed strong evidence that a thriving culture culture existed here prior to the First Egyptian Dynasty, and might have been a very influential force in the development of the Kemites. The Kush Civilization had rich architectural achievements, flourishing trade, a strong belief in divine kingship, and even matriarchy. They were under Egyptian rule for several centuries, but at their high point the Kingdom of Kush, based in Meroe, took control of Kemet and had a very prosperous dynasty of Kushite Pharaohs. But what made political landscape of the Kush kingdom unique?

Rice the start of a Civilization

While I was searching for the history of Japan I was having a hard time coming up with what to talk about since I am assigned to talk about civic life but what I decided to talk about is that the Japanese people didn't really come into their own and become a strong united people until they had rice and iron imported into the country at around 100 BC.

Persuading Death (Exploring the Mahabharata)

Those who have a way with words set themselves apart from those who don't. Aptitude for speech and reason gives power to those who possess it. Power to entrance those who hear their voice and fill their souls with emotion - pain, joy, sadness or excitement. Power to convince others to do or believe what the speaker wants. This is the power of rhetoric.

In fact, with enough practice and skill, one can talk their way out of almost anything. But have you ever heard of someone who could talk their way out of death itself? In the Mahabharata, a virtuous woman does just that.

Ni Hao

The Chinese language has often been coined one of the most difficult languages to learn and speak. Not only are there thousands of characters one would need to learn, the language itself is tonal and uses different inflections than the English language.





Other than being a language that dates back centuries, Chinese has evolved to become one of the forefront languages to learn in today's world. But even before its evolution, the language was still a great influence in the ancient dynasties.

Is this not a connection, Glaucon?

For our section on oral knowledge, I have been assigned the topic of the ancient Minoans, with an emphasis on how they were portrayed by Euripides in his classic play, Bacchae.  As I was thinking about this assignment, I had an idea that will (hopefully) allow me to connect our discussions in the last section of the class to the idea of rhetoric in Greek culture, which, I hope, will transition into Euripides.  My idea was to incorporate Socrates into a post. (hence the title, I hope someone besides me sees the humor?) 

Sing it Out!

Sorry about the video quality, it's the best I could find. Start watching at 0:30 :)

This week I really wasn't sure what type of folk/oral knowledge I was going to post about. I was singing a song, like I usually am, and it hit me... Why not do a post on singing?! I think just about everyone sings at some point in their life, and people in history has, so I'd say that makes it a pretty substantial piece of folk knowledge.

 

The Talk

"It may be the most important talk you will ever

have with your child! The "big talk" about sex should
come early (we recommend the eighth birthday), but
it is never too late! A "preemptive strike" can give your
child a healthy, positive, respectful view of human intimacy
that will stand up to all the garbage that will come from the media
and the peer group."(value)

I asked my roommate about something that is both folk knowledge and oral knowledge and he immediately said "The Talk." The talk is something that as far as I can gauge all parents

dread the time when needing to bring up the talk of intercourse. Some people prefer to avoid the topic and others tend to attempt to make a joke out of it. I am certain that this is one topic that has been both folk knowledge as well as oral knowledge. I know that for the most part until recently parents didn't have any help from outside sources to figure out what they were going to do tell their children. I think the most difficult thing for parents with this topic has been that they needed to figure out when to tell their children and how much to tell them. Today there are many books out there which can be used to aid in talking to children about intercourse.

I ran into these type of books when I helped out in a library on my mission in Canada. There are many different levels of books some are for children and some are for young adults and others still are for teenagers, I found this out as I re-shelved many of the library's books. The thing about these books is that while they can help to break the surface of the topic with children the way that parents are most likely to share The Talk is to give the same talk that they were given when they were young. Folk knowledge is something that with the technology advancements that has been happening is that people are attempting to convey all of the knowledge that was once only known because they were told from one person to another is now having the ability for people in random areas of the world to hear one group or persons opinion about life from someone else super far away.

Confession: I was Home Schooled

Folk knowledge is defined as anything learned outside of formally established educational institutions. I received most of my elementary education directly in my home. My mother proved to be an excellent teacher.

Strummin' the Six String

For my teaching assignment I decided I wanted to show a couple of my friends how to play something on the guitar. Maybe this wasn't the greatest idea.... I mean I'm no John Mayer or Carlos Santana, but I can at least play enough to make the ladies notice me! That being said... I chose to teach them a song that would definitely prove my manliness - "Breathe" by Taylor Swift and Colbie Calliat (Hey, don't judge me). Read after the break to see how it all turned out!

Sidewalk Surfing

There has been an activity/sport that has swept this nation's youth..mainly the hipsters..
That sport is none other than: long-boarding.

SWIM

Learning to kick

Making a list of my talents (aka folk knowledge) was easy. I mean, ever since we entered grade school we’ve been asked to provide a list of our hobbies/talents/pastimes so that our classmates can “get to know us.”

• play volleyball
• swim
• play piano
• ride a pogo stick
• jump rope
• skate on a waveboard
  (The list just gets more desperate from there. Haha)
  

Burrito fête, you wonderful thing, you...

So, naturally, I started this assignment wondering what kind of folk knowledge (knowledge that can only be imparted interpersonally, if that's a word) I could possibly pass on to someone. (Is it ironic that I’m doing this assignment immediately after my blog post about how bullying is a form of passing on folk knowledge?  Don't worry, it didn't make the list.)

Here's the list of ideas I had: 

Leaving You Mark

Through out history people have been leaving their mark on nature. Today we refer to some of these types of things as petroglyphs. What I decided to teach for this assignment was teaching how to leave your mark.

I started by first attempting to teach how to burn a letter or design into a piece of wood but right when Rebecca and I went to do this is the sun disappeared behind a cloud. So instead I decided to teach leaving a mark in a piece of wood by carving with a knife.

First off I started by explaining the things to do so that you don't cut yourself while carving. The first thing is to always cut away from yourself. Also the most important thing is to just not have your fingers in front of the blade but that is common sense so that didn't really take very long to do. So then we began carving.

The funny thing as you will see by the picture is that Rebecca's initials make for an interesting little piece of wood. As I was completely shown up by someone who didn't have any experience carving but happen to be gifted at art I will refrain from showing my piece of wood that I demonstrated the carving on.

Carving things into our surrounding is something that has been around for a long time. The natives of the America's recorded their history on cave walls and this is one of the longest lasting forms of self expression. Petroglyphs can be anything that you were willing to take the time to carve into the side of a mountain. These carving were how people passed down their history and folk knowledge. The images that they carved were not the complete story so the knowledge of what the artist who made the petroglyph had to be passed down through stories which is one of the main ways that folk knowledge was conveyed in the past.

(source http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/jp/history.htm)

Ready or Not...

So, I’ve had something on my mind for a few weeks that I’ve wanted to take a shot at blogging about, and now, for better or worse, I’m going to give it a shot! 

The Warrior Code

So I sat down at my computer to start yet another blog post and I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write about... Suddenly the thought came to me to write about Japanese Samurai and their Bushido Code! The Mantic side of me wants to say this was inspiration from on high, (hey I can dream, ok?) but whether it was or not I realized that the Samurai way of life was kind of the ultimate folk knowledge. An unwritten tradition, passed down over centuries, of honor, mastery of the sword, and service... And I think they're cool, so why not post about them?

(Its really only important to watch maybe the first half of this)

Knitting: A New Experience

Today I learned something new. It’s something that can’t be learned from a textbook. It’s something that can only be learned by doing. It’s something that I never thought that I would learn to do. Today I learned to knit.

Needles and Yarn

So Jake asked me if I would teach him the basics of knitting. Of course I happily agreed. So we got together in the HBLL and went at it.

Learning to Run Before You Walk

Well, I went and did it again.  Those of you who know me won’t be at all surprised to hear that I’ve bitten off more than I could chew again.

Moonwalkin'

Have you ever heard of the show "Glee?" Well its about a high school show choir- they sing and dance and stir up all kinds of controversy around the school... but that's not my point. What I'm getting at is that I was in show choir and performed a couple of other dances in high school, but don't let that fool you. I'm not much of a dancer. You can check out some of the videos I'm tagged in on Facebook if you don't believe me. (Look for the guy who messes up a lot)

I was there pretty much to lift the girls and sing while trying my best not to make a complete fool of myself. I'm usually quite comfortable performing in front of people, but when it comes to dancing, I'm really stiff and  I freeze up. I'm completely out of my element! That being said, I thought it might be interesting (or a complete train wreck) if I tried to learn a dance move that I'd seen my roommate doing. The Moonwalk! Follow after the jump to see look ridiculous..

Make Up?

Well the assignment said to do something that was out of your comfort zone so what I decided on was to learn how to put on a little bit of makeup specifically eye liner and mascara. No just to let
you know how uncomfortable I was with this I will let you know that there happened to be a friend from my mission at my Rebecca's house while she was teaching me how to apply the
makeup. 

Giants Causeway

Have you heard the story about Finn MacCool picking a fight with the Scottish Giant Benandonner?

Well I'll tell you a synopsis of the story but if you want to read it told well I recommend this website Giants Causeway

Finn was an Irish giant who hated the Scottish giants so much that he decided to build a road way from Ireland to Scotland so that he could go and fight the Scottish giants. Finn build the road out of six sided cobble stones and laid his road down so that he could get to Scotland. After Finn had built the road he yelled and challenged the giant Benandonner to a fight. But as Benandonner came closer and closer to Ireland Finn realized that Benandonner was much bigger than he was and realized he was in over his head so he ran home and told his wife what he had done and about that time Benandonner got to the Maccool's house. Finn's wife was smart enough to have Finn hid in the baby carriage and tell Benandonner that Finn was out hunting and would be back later. She then preceded to tell Benandonner that Finn was huge by saying that trees

and boulders and all sorts of different things were Finn's weapons and rocks for playing catch with. Well when Benandonner realized how big a giant Finn's wife was describing he ran away and tore up the causeway that Finn had built to connect Ireland and Scotland.

Godless

Definition, Please?

In our class discussion and readings, it was all based around "Mantic" and "Sophic". As we delved more into those words and discussed what both meant, I tried to follow each idea and comment that was made but what resulted was just a jumbled mess in my mind. For some reason, I just couldn't get my mind around what mantic and sophic really was. So I decided that for my post this week, I would do my own research and bring my own interpretation to what those words mean.

De Nantes à Normandie

As so often happens, a recent discussion about one subject set me off on a tangent, which eventually got me here, writing this blog. The original discussion was about ‘lost’ folk knowledge, things that had fallen out of style or favor, and were no longer passed down except in books, and it reminded me of a rather special culture that I have an extremely vested interest in:

Rock Climbing: Without All the Silly "Safety" Gear

So last weekend I was hiking to Squaw Peak with some friends of mine and I noticed a lot of rock climbers scaling the surrounding cliffs. With all the helmets, harnesses, and carabiners, they were equipped with you wouldn't worry too much about their safety, but then the thought occurred to me...

Bagpipes

First off before you go and read the rest of my blog I want you to watch this video,(or at least part of it). 

Redefining Symbols

Symbols have always held powerful meanings for those who use them. In an instant they can conjure up strong emotions within the beholder. They can strike fear into the hearts of many. They can rouse entire armies to reckless courage. They can comfort us or give us hope. Symbols accomplish in an instant what words alone can only hope to achieve. Many of the symbols that we see around us have been around for a very long time, but interestingly enough, they probably mean something different to us now than they meant to those who first created them.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Buzz Buzz

Today's post is brought to you by:             shuan

This is the start of Reinventing Knowledge.

The first post of this blog will be regarding one of the most important aspects of it: the name.

The Hive

Why The Hive? Well, it was sort of a vision. (Not in a sacrilegious way)