World on Stage: Tibetan Monk's Sand Mandala

I attended some of the events that are apart of the World on Stage Event at the Alys Stephens Center from the 15th to the 19th. I attended the opening ceremony on the 15th and the closing ceremony on the 19th. I classify this under the Arts as I have already used Rituals. During the opening ceremony one of the monks explained the opening ritual of chanting and playing instruments and how it was to make peace with any spirits residing in the location. It was really amazing how the first monk starting chanting. It was extremely low, pitch-wise, and very booming. A few members of the audience closed their eyes and felt the sound as it echoed through the hall. After chanting for a while, maybe five to 10 minutes, they began playing their instruments. Two oboe like trumpets, a drum player, two people playing large horns about 5 feet in length that reach down to the floor, a cymbal player, one still chanting, and the last one performing small actions that helped ready the location for the mandala. After this, they began using chalk-lines, rulers and white pencils to draw the outline of the mandala.

At the closing ceremony, the same monk who explained the opening, held a lecture on the meaning of the mandala. Before that, they chanted. He then explained his English is limited so the lecture would also teach us patience. He then explained there are multiple mandalas and the one they chose for UAB is the Medicine Buddha; due to our medical facility. After the lecture, we went outside to the mandala and prepared for the deconstruction of this beautiful piece of art.  They chanted almost exactly like the opening ceremony and slowly a monk, the same one who helped prepare the location during the instrumental, began running a paintbrush in swirls on the mandala, making a tie dye swirl. They then gave everyone some of the sand to help bring us good fortune and good health.

This event was really interesting. I enjoyed the process of making the mandala as well as the symbolism. This art is not only a beautiful physical entity, but a truly amazing piece of intellectual information resembling an importance of a lifestyle that holds being happy and making people happy a top priority.

Body Art: Self-Expression or Self Mutilation?

             This topic was held at a Free Food For Thought session. At first I was intimidated to go, because I was told that I would have to actively participate. I like discussing, but not about controversial topics with random people. I needed a cultural event, so I went ahead and attended. It consisted of about 2 groups of 6 tables each. Probably about 30 people in all. They gave us a clicker contraption to respond to surveys anonymously, and paper to respond with that we turned in at the end of the session it had items like: what we expected, how it turned out, how the food was, how comfortable we were with discussing our own opinions, and any suggestions we had for future topics. I had just eaten, but I wanted to try the food, so I grabbed a plate. They had food for everyone: Baked Chicken, Stuffed Mushroom for vegetarians, and Stuffed Bell Pepper for vegans. Although I was tempted to try the bell pepper, I just got some sides: mashed potatoes and green beans. I was impressed with the food; I expected cheap food that didn't taste so good. I was obviously wrong.

             We started off with the survey, answering simple questions, followed by topic related questions: Expression or Mutilation? Would you continue going to a doctor with multiple piercings/tattoos? Would you deny someone entrance to medical school because of their piercings/tattoos? After that, we started the video. It was a short, five minute video basically interviewing different tattooists and body artists, asking them their thoughts on people being judged for expressing themselves. I learned that most people have the same belief about the topic: It is indeed self-expression, but there is a limit. People will judge you subconsciously, so it's up to you if you want to endure what consequences you're going to face if you do decide to get piercings/tattoos. I would put this under the Ritual Category, because some people in the video stated that it is more of a rite of passage. I noticed the emic and etic were about the same: Self-Expression. If you haven't gone to a Food for Thought session, I highly suggest going. It's not as bad as you may think it is.

Cultural Prescription!

So let's see...

Cultural Prescription...

I believe I will go with the "Special Knowledge" category.

So, I believe I have at least SOME special knowledge when it comes to music. I was in band for multiple years, from 7th grade in middle school, all the way to senior year in high school. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I enjoy knowing or at least having known the technicalities of music. Now when I say technicalities, I just mean the basics. From something as simple as common or 4/4 time to having to memorize all 12 major scales and dealing with such time signatures as 7/4 and 5/8.

            I believe having known the basics of music, or knowing the basics of music will change your life at least one way. Once you realize that you are learning music, it doesn't pertain strictly to the music in band, but you can go throughout the rest of your life taking apart each song you hear. It may seem difficult for some songs, and easier for others, but that's life. Once you begin "gutting" each song you listen to, you realize that some songs are way too similar. One instance is "Soul Sister" by Train compared with " I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. I'm not 100% sure, but they share about three fourths of the same exact chords given one song might have one or two more than the other. This can be culturally viable due to noticing trends within each culture's music. On a side note, music is more of a language than anything else, in fact I believe when going for a doctorate you can study musical composition for your foreign language, but once again, I'm not 100% sure. Basically, I think that when you learn music and what makes it up, understanding people of other cultures or ethnicities will be easier.

             Notice I said nothing about having to like the other culture's music, it's not a bad thing to like it, but it's not necessary to have to like something in order to understand it. Take American pop music and compare it to J-Pop(Japanese Pop), you will notice some similarities and will most likely notice the differences. In my experience, I've realized that rhyming isn't as important in J-pop as it is in American Pop. You can obviously tell when a rhyme is about to come up in american pop music, but in j-pop, I believe they really look for meanings more than words, hence a lack of rhyming. If you do listen to j-pop just to see if you can hear any differences, you will most likely get lost in confusion at how fast they can annunciate a number of syllables, but in continuously listening, you will also notice the flow it has. It obviously has a flow that is different from american pop, but you can comprehend the flow. Since you can comprehend the flow, you can connect to a different culture through means of likewise understanding.

I feel like this is not going to be the best blog out there, but that doesn't mean I won't try. I hope that this will interest you in reading my other blog posts in the future and maybe the new ones will make sense. If it didn't interest you, sorry for wasting your time.

I can't think of a witty closer, so yeah.