Finally defended Master’s thesis

Finished!

As a American traveler of color

After recently reading this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gloria-atanmo/why-more-african-americans-need-to-travel-abroad_b_8154190.html

I decided to write as another American traveler of color. As I was reading this blog, I was so surprised that even to this day, Europeans have a hard time imagining Africans are from anywhere else but Africa. Although the author’s post tends to be more forgiving and even optimistic, I can’t even imagine being literally compared to dirt, and I would go out of my way to educate them.

I found a quote from another American traveler of color saying “”I think we’re more likely to interpret bad behavior from non-Americans as being racist because of our history with white Americans. Often their impatience is just because we’re American, and we’re clueless about other people’s cultures and practices.” However, I do not think that’s always the case they’re we’re at fault for not being sensitive to their culture (unless you count racism as being part of culture). I believe they have to realize that the US is not like Europe in so many aspects, especially demographically. I’m not so unreasonable to say that Europeans (or Asians) should know everything about American culture, of course not. I’m learning a lot about their culture if they can just get this one thing right about the US.

In the end, Americans of color need to travel a lot more and show members of the Old World that we exist. And to white Americans traveling abroad, can you try to represent us too?

I miss you already

are they for real?

These guys should go to a Build-A-Girl Workshop.

Sex-selective abortions in Montenegro

Apparently, Montenegro is one of the 4 countries in the world with the most unbalanced sex ratio (110 boys to 100 girls as opposed to 105 boys to 100 girls which is the common ratio). Women try to find out the sex of the baby as early as possible so they can abort if they’re expecting a girl, because of the pressure to carry on the family name. This data was published back in 2011 but no one did anything until Europe voiced their concerns. How Montenegro intends to deal with this issue is by not allowing women to find out the sex of the baby so early on instead of just fighting against and raising awareness about gendercide. My suggestion is to just not allow stupid people to procreate.

Црногорски језик

Говорим добро енглески али мало шпански. Учим црногорски.

Азбука (Montenegrin Cyrillic Alphabet)

This order is a tad confusingly, but it’ll have to do:

А а Б б В в Г г Д д Ђ ђ Е е Ж ж З з З́ з́ И и Ј ј К к Л л Љ љ М м Н н Њ њ О о П п Р р С с С́ с́ Т т Ћ ћ У у Ф ф Х х Ц ц Ч ч Џ џ Ш ш

“Where are you from?”

How the world’s citizens should view themselves

Children’s culture

I was recently watching the video of American children’s reactions of the “controversial” Cheerios commercial, and I realized a key difference between Chinese children and American children. First off, American children are way more diverse and open, but that’s besides the point.

The second is how much children of a collectivist society are the same, and it doesn’t even bother them one bit. I had an activity in the English school here in Jingjiang where I use their homework responses as answers for Jeopardy. When they handed in their responses, I noticed they were almost identical. Now as far as I know, most children would go out of their way to use an opportunity like this simple homework assignment to truly express themselves and distinguish themselves from the rest. However I found the opposite. The kids all answered: coffee (favorite drink), Tiny Times (favorite movie), and swimming (favorite sport).

Don’t even get me started on the gender equality…