Asian Studies

Language Matters: Viewpoints on Language Politics
Multilingualism in Society

A simple little story on the surface with quite simple and one-dimensional characters, but I would recommend this to every single person on this planet. I did shed a few tears, mainly from the knowledge that certain people can do these things to each other. Murder is murder, no matter how you to try to wrap it up in the fancy paper of war, or no matter how far in the sky the perpetrators were. No one should have to endure to be burnt alive, just because some big shot says so.

Morris's story shows that even though it's short, a lot of things can be read from between the lines. Not just about the atomic bomb, but also about cultural communication, traditions and family ties. Heck, I wish this book was an obligatory read in all schools!

BBC Radio 7

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime

The first time I saw James Dean was in a poster in my friend's room years ago. It was the one where he's lounging with a cowboy hat, and although I didn't know who he was (my friend had a habit of plastering her walls with posters of people she didn't even know, just to hide the ripped wallpaper), I thought it looked pretty cool. Apparently Dean was a huge phenomenon in Finland back in the 50s, but I personally didn't hear about him until a couple of years ago. Now when I was perusing the film shelf of my local library, I thought I'd grab this biography and see what all the fuss is about.

Unfortunately, I couldn't have gone more wrong. There were two choices and I picked the crappy one. I'm quite confused as to why someone would choose to write a biography based on rumours. It's like taking excerpts from tabloids here and there, and compiling them into a huge mess of hearsay and novel-like dialogue. There were a lot of words like if, may have and probably. Alexander should learn more about how to shove his boyish fandom aside and learn to deal with facts, instead of things that support the idea of who you'd have wanted James Dean to be. I have no opinion regarding Dean's sexuality, but I do know that it's not a good idea to take someone's bragging about sleeping with him seriously, especially since Dean's dead so you can't take his word for it.

Nevertheless, although I think Dean was copying Brando a little and that his early death kind of blew his reputation out of proportion, I can't deny that he had this certain charisma and acting skills that could have developed even further had he lived longer. I once saw a guy on the street strutting with gorgeous James Dean hair, and he kind of made me do something I never do: turn my head around. So I will probably read a bit more about Dean, since he's quite interesting as a phenomenon and not just another pretty face.