Havin' a good time in Chile

2010 was expected and announced last years as the time of consolidation of 200 years of the Chilean Republic. In the last years of the Bachelet’s administration, several TV programs, political projects and cultural manifestations tried to reflect about the history of our country, promoting to remember and evaluate the actors that contributed to the construction of the nation. Considering 2010 as a year of culmination of this memory process, I will try to express how the government has been trying to neutralize some political interpretations of our History and our present and to show a “reconciled” (hegemonic) impression of them.

Firstly, this year started with a terrible episode: the 27th February earthquake, which affected to almost all of the central and southern regions. It ended with some towns, where people couldn’t work and live more. At this time, some institutions were acussed of guilt because of the bad diffusion of this fact (the earthquake) to all the territory. Moreover, the mass media and the government put the attention on condemning the people who stole things when it was time of shortage of supplies. The problems with institutions didn’t have the attention that looters won that time. The idea of attacking to these people was (implicitly) legitimized gradually. That time, Michelle Bachelet was finishing her term of office and Sebastián Piñera assumed the conflict giving a message of hope and trying to emphasize on the National Unity. Then, this political strategy arrived and has been a way of ignoring the conflicts that constitutes to all the nations of the world. As an expression of it, the Education Ministry had didn’t know the manifestations of the students and professors because of his intentions of privatize this area. The idea of the Chilean History promoted by the government could also be understood by analyzing their position on some historical dates. In September 11th, Piñera said that this was a date to celebrate to the National Unity. Also, when some mapuche people started a hunger strike against the Antiterrorist Law, the government tried to ignore to their demands and treat them as humans (and not as political actors), carrying about their lives but not on their political requirements.

I think that Piñera’s government had tried to be unaware of the political manifestations and to present an illusory lecture of the History, presenting to the political scenary as one of National Unity. The big problem with that is that this process has been reinforced by the mass media, which (In the case of the mapuche people) didn’t show their situation for a long time. I would like to end saying that this could be dangerous for democracy, because this interpretation ignores that conflicts are the base of this system and denies any possibility of saying publicly a critic discourse.

Big Brother has a place for you

In China some Chinese community party veterans, spread a letter in which they challenged to stop the censorship, and to promote freedom of speech. In their letter they said "This false democracy of formal avowal and concrete denial has become a scandalous mark on the history of world democracy". This was raised in addition to the petition of releasing to Xie Chaoping, who is a writer imprisoned by denouncing corruption. In addition, they expressed their repudiation against the government decision of denying bringing the 2010’s Nobel Prize to Liu Xiaobo, who was arrested after he wrote a document calling for freedom of expression and political reforms.
The Central Propaganda Department removed the letter from the website, and veterans said that tomorrow they will present a more formal letter, with 500 signatures.

Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, considered that this action expressed the dissatisfaction towards the party’s hardliner politics. However, he emphasized about that this was not a political dispute between conservatives and reformers, but between some pragmatic positions and hardliners.

Xiao Mo said that promoting the freedom of speech by the government doesn’t represent an expensive policy. He said that China had experienced some changes since Mao Zedong’s times, when nobody could express publicly their disagreement without being at risk of being killed and persecuted. However, he recognized that the censorship was being stricter last years. He criticized the idea of the government of censoring to the dissident's opinions , using the “maintaining stability” idea as an excuse and ignoring some aspects of their own constitution.

"Such dreams I have dreamed"

Well, sincerely I’ve been trying to remember some movies that I really loved, but I forgot some things of them, so I will talk about one of the last films that I have seen and that I liked. It’s “Dreams”, a 1990 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. There appears actors like Akira Terao, Mitsuko Baisho and also the director Martin Scorsese. This film is divided into eight separated short films, which are dreams that Kurosawa had through his life, and that has some overlaps in terms of characters and themes (it raises up the relation between man and the environment and the relation between traditions and the modern age).

The short films are: “Sunshine through the rain”, which tells the story of a child whose mother forbids him to go out because outside there’s a foxes’ wedding ceremony, and If they manage to see it, this would cause problems. “The Peach Orchard”, where the same boy find the spirits of the peach trees that have been cut down by humans. “The Blizzard”, which takes place in a mountain and where some mountaineers fight against the death and are saved from a blizzard by Yuki-Onna, a mythical spirit. “The Tunnel”, where a soldier finds to spirits of their army, and whose deaths he was responsible for. “Crows”, which shows the encounter between an art student and Vincent Van Gogh. “Mount Fuji in Red”, which shows the devastations because of a nuclear shipwreck. “The weeping demon”, which shows the terrible life of some nuclear catastroph’s survivors. Finally it’s “Village of the Watermills”, which shows the peaceful lifestyle of a little town.

My favorite part of the movie was “Village of the Watermills”, because it shows a particular way of thinking. People in that town decided to live far from the modern cities, and seem to be freer than them. I liked a scene of a funeral, where people laughs, celebrates and recognize death as a natural fact and as “the right final for a good life”.

I liked it because it’s way of criticizing the modern life and showing the fragility of human condition in opposition to the omnipotence that man seeks through the modern life and that affects to their own living and nature.

Mapuches didn't accept the government's proposition

Today the hunger strike that 34 mapuche citizen started 80 days ago, hasn’t found any solution. Mapuche prisoner’s spokesperson Rodrigo Curipán, said yesterday that they rejected the government’s offer, because of the Public Ministry position on that theme (the Public Ministry ruled out the idea of closing the lawsuit over the mapuche’s prisoners). This institution also had the intention of keeping applying the Antiterrorist Law. That’s why mapuche’s demanded to the Public Ministry and the Judiciary to become part of the negotiation committee. The Concepcion’s Monsignor Ricardo Ezzati, who had been the mediator between the strikers and the government, said that he had carried out his cycle in the negotiation and called to the other state powers to help in the solution. On the other hand, the Secretary of the Interior, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, pointed out that the government had done all that was in their hands, and that the mapuche’s petitions were going too far.
In my point of view, the meaningful thing is that the government hadn’t been capable of making a global proposition of reform in the Antiterrorist Law, ignoring the structural problem and assuming it as a particular decision of people that tries to attempt to their own lives. For example, Ena Von Baer said that if some mapuche citizen would die now, it would be caused by their own intransigent position.
The people involved in this news were those who were in the negotiation committee: Ricardo Ezzati, the prisoner’s spokesperson, and Claudio Alvarado, who is the sub secretary of the General Secretary of the Presidency.
I think that this piece of news will affect in my community, firstly by the position that this hunger strike had shown from the part of government, which has practically ignored the theme and the political issue beyond the fact. It’s worrying that legitimate demands in a democracy have kept invisible and ignored from part of the mass media too.

Places in Santiago

I think that a foreigner tourist should visit Plaza de Armas. Many people like painting sellers, chess players, religious and immigrants meet there every day and there are a lot of cheap restaurants and bars where you can eat typical food. He could also go to the Parque Forestal. It is a very large park, with a huge variety of types of trees where friends and couples meet. It’s parallel from the Mapocho River. At night it is enjoyable to go there and the streetlamps look nice. If he go there, it would be nice that he could visit to the Museo de Bellas Artes. It is a museum from the 19th century, and it has a lot of paintings from Chilean painters and sculptors. In the permanent exposition, he could find some paintings of Roberto Matta, for example. He could also visit to the Biblioteca Nacional, where you can find almost all of the Chilean publicated books. You can read in the library all of the books that they’ve got there. It’s also a loan’s section, and they lend you books for two weeks. Another special place in Santiago is the Parque Quinta Normal, which is a park where families share with their children.

Some asian countries

I would like to travel to Japan or China some day. They are very old countries and have some thousand-year-old traditions, which (specially in Japan) coexist with some aspects of the Western way to live and have experienced the globalization process in a particular way. For example, in China they live with a dynastic regime from 2100 BC to the beginning of the 20th century. They have a peculiar alphabet and philosophical expressions as the Confucianism and Taoism. I would like to go there because I feel interested in their culture and their thoughts. When I have read some Japanese writers or directors I think that they express some particular way to see the world and I like to know how these people can experience their traditions now.

What I made last semester

Last semester was funny. I started studying Sociology, so I had subjects as Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Contemporary World History. I think that Sociology and History were the ones that I liked the most, because professors were really stimulating and clear. A meaningful thing was that subjects had to deal with similar problems, so we had to study to the same or similar theories and authors in almost all of them. For example, in the Sociology subject, we studied to the classical authors of that discipline, but they were also included in the methodological course.

Honestly, I didn’t practice any sport constantly last semester and in general I was very lazy about doing exercises. It wasn’t because of the academic demand: I guess that I become accustomed to be sedentary, and after all, my family and friends were very comprehensive about time, and they possibly thought that I was really stressed of “studying at the university”. Anyway, I spent my free time playing the bass with my friends and sharing with my classmates.

The principal challenges that I had to face were to become more responsible and studious, because I think that I still don’t get studying habits. After all I could be relaxed and lazy at school and I get used to don’t make so much effort.

Finally, I feel really happy about being at the university: I like my career very much, my parents have been supporting me since I choose it and I have met so many friends and special people here.

Second term, 2010

My blogging experience

Today I’m going to write about my blogging experience. I think that blogging was –sometimes- funny and- always- easy because I could talk about my interests, opinions and themes of my career. Although sometimes it was a little boring to write so many words, it wasn’t very difficult to talk about myself. I have to confess that I was always thinking about the minimum words to write and I had to pad out with reiterative ideas and . I think that the hour of the course influenced in how I expressed my ideas, because sometimes I felt tired and I only want to finish my posts. I think that to had classes before writing helped me too because I learned sometimes about grammar, ( even when I don’t used it here) phonetics and I learned more vocabulary in the classroom.

Finally, I think that this course was very good, because we made exercises about writing, listening, speaking and reading and finally I could improved these abilities. I think that it was very important to write constantly, because it is necessary to develop these habits if I want to improve my english. When I was at school I couldn’t develop these abilities and writing was always a temporary activity. So I think that this is a very good way of improve our english and posting to the classmates made things funnier. I value that Belén was always making new activities and trying to promote the group’s work. I could know what my classmates thought too and to know their interests and to discover that sometimes we liked similar things.

I think that writing here I improved my English and I got more facilties in the end of the course, and writing more wasn’t a problem at all and this is a very good way to learn.

Good bye. Relax and have a nice vacations!

Paz Errazuriz's Psychiatric Hospital of Putaendo

Today I’m going to write about a picture that I like. It was taken by the Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz and it shows a couple of the Psychiatric Hospital of Putaendo (actually, the Philippe Pinnel Hospital). They are embracing themselves and watching. The protograhper shows the love and affection of the people in the hospital, who expresses their loving and care to the others. She took it in 1994. She included some texts in the exposition (where appeared this photo), trying to emphasize in the sense of it: wonder about loneliness, lack of communication and tolerance in our society. Errázuriz wanted to show how we see the different people.

The photographer wanted to know the feelings, thoughts and, in general, how “the outsider people” live. She thinks that this people represents the non official speech, doesn’t have to adapt to the rules of the society. And she thought that people in the hospital were more honest and spontaneous. The photographer opposes the spontaneous and sincere life of people in the psychiatric with the ruled and false relationships of the “normal people”.

I like it because I think it’s very important the diversity and tolerance in our life and in the society to wonder why those people are (still) treated as objects. Errázuriz says that all the intents of classifying them are a way of keep our safety, be calm and forget about an uncomfortable part of ourselves (our society).

When all the people talked about “tolerance”, Errázuriz tried to know why the society put a frontier into the normal and those people who must stay cut off. I think that it’s really important to know what thinks people that aren’t included in our society.

The science of imaginary solutions

Today I’m going to write about something that I read and that seemed really interesting. Alfred Jarry, a French writer created one time a science called ‘Pataphyisics, and he defined it as "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments”. He thought that this science had to look for the laws that govern the exceptions. The name appeared in a text of Jarry called “Exploits and opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician”.

After that, some artists founded the College of 'Pataphysics (being inspired by the College of France). They created it as a sarcastic way to make fun about the scientific, artistic and academic language. The College of Pataphysics had to form erudite people specialized on invented and useless sciences. ‘Pataphysics made fun about the modern scientific thinking, which tries to find laws in all the facts of human life, tries to control to all the natural, human and social issues and wants to remove the exceptions and those things that human can’t explain himself. In opposition to that, pataphysicians express the absurd of human life.

The College of ‘Pataphyisics is organized in commissions, which are arranged in 77 subcomissions. It’s an institution with so many ranks. A lot of artists and philosophers write articles for the College of ‘Pataphysic’s review. Their writings are absurd and extremily erudite.
In 2000, they chose it as the Perpetual President to a crocodile called Lutembi, who actually lives in the Victoria’s Lake.

The man who lived Into the Wild

Today I'm going to write about a movie that I like. It is called Into the Wild, and it was directed by Sean Penn. The movie was based on a book (with the same name), which was based on a true story. The film’s premiere was on 2007. The soundtrack was composed by Eddie Vedder. It tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a young American man, who started travelling around the USA after he graduated from the university. Christopher rejected the conventional-material life and wanted to stay away from his parents.

He thought that society was sick, and that man in the city only has access to a false idea of himself. He broke his identification cards and donated his savings to Oxfam. Then he started travelling without telling it to his family.

In the film, Christopher meets many people and work in many places looking for a new life and wanting to go to Alaska, where he thinks he could live “on the wild”. Christopher wanted to start again and to know himself renouncing to the conventional values, which of them he considerate as values of hating and ambition. For that, he creates a new name for himself: Alexander Supertramp.

While Christopher was tripping, he changed and learned so much.

Music whenever you want

Today I’m going to write about my favorite piece of technology. It’s the MP3 player. The MP3 player is a tool that reproduces and allows you to hear the music that you have in your computer everywhere, but it also can keep any file that you have in your PC. It has a memory, which determines how many files you can save on it. This piece needs to keep charged, and that’s why you need to get a charger in some cases and in other cases you need to get batteries.

I got it the last year, in August. It operated fine until December, and that’s because it was very cheap. After that, the phones started to stop reproducing music (actually none of them sound). That’s why I used to fix it and adjust it, listening only with the good phone.

I use it when I’m at the subway, when I want to walk, when I’m not in classes or studying and when I’m not at home. In general, use it when I feel bored or tired and also when I go out with my bike.

I think that it’s very easy to transport it and I like it because it lets me listen to my favorite bands when I’m not at home.

I think that it’s not an essential thing and actually I’m not using it, but it helps you to amuse yourself, because it’s great to listen to your favorite music wherever you are.

CORRESPONDENCES

Nature is a temple in which living pillars
sometimes give voice to confused words;
man passes there through forest of symbols
which look at him with understanding eyes.

Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance
in a deep and tenebrous unity,
-vast as the dark of night and as the light of the day-
perfumes, sounds and colors correspond.

There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children,
sweet as oboes, green as meadows
-And others are corrput, and rich, triumphant,

With power to expand into infinity,
like amber and incense, musk, benzoin,
that sing the ecstasy of the soul and senses.


Charles Baudelaire

The life of Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867)

Today I’m going to talk about a poet that I really admire. His name is Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire was a poet, critic of arts and translator of the 19th century who is considered as a classic author in French poetry.He’s known because of his book called “The flowers of evil”. His art was important for the poetry in his country. In fact, Baudelaire have been considered as a father for the Decadent movement, which looked up to shock to the bourgeoisie with his art. Also, his influence extended to other movements as the symbolist one, which most important exponent was the poet Arthur Rimbaud, and whose objectives were to create a new art, using artistic language as a medium of human for knowing himself, putting emphasis in the dreams, the unconsciousness and using metaphors and symbols. This movement was created in opposition to the realist movement and the descriptive art. After that, he was considered as a father of the Surrealist movement.

Many of Baudelaire's philosophical proclamations were considered scandalous and intentionally provocative in his time. His familiar life was hard because of his way to be, his addiction to drugs and his bohemian life. In fact, the youth of Baudelaire was very intense because he turned into a negligent person.

At the end of his life, he died of syphilis. He wasn’t appreciated because of his poetry while he was alive, but after his death, the Baudelaire work have been considered as an important legacy of brilliant art, as a result of rebelliousness against society and originality.

Clifford Geertz (1926 - 2006)

Today I’m not going to talk about an expert in my field exactly (He’s an anthropologist and I’m studying sociology now), but he’s an expert in the social sciences field in general. He is called Clifford Geertz. Well, sincerely I don’t know him very well, because I just have read some texts that he wrote last week.
Clifford James Geertz was born in San Francisco, in 1926. When he was young, he made services in the Us Navy in the Second World War. After that, he studied first in Antioch College where he graduated from studying Philosophy and then he graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University. After that he became professor in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he turned into emeritus professor. He worked there until he died.
His theories were based on a symbolic idea of culture. He defined culture as a “system of concepts expressed in symbolic forms, through which people communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge on their attitude to life”.
He thought that we can’t apply or develop any kind of law or rule without having the experience of the relationship with the people we want to investigate. We must interpret the behavior of people attending to their ideas of what life is. In his theory, he denies an idea of “human nature”, opposing to it the concept of culture. The theory must adapt to the people we are investigating, and it has no sense if it doesn’t express the sense of social action gived by the actors. He compares the anthropological investigation with the interpretation of a book.
I like him because I think that a fundamental matter on social investigation is that we can understand the sense of the social actions, and I think that if we comprehend the reasons that people put on his actions, we can achieve that.

A schocking night

The earthquake was a shocking experience because I haven’t lived something like that, anything so powerful. I was in Plaza Brasil with some friends (almost 30 people) partying after we played in a bar that night. It was a funny night, and our idea was to stay there all night long, because we were playing music, playing in the games, and (in my case) knowing that place firstly.

I remember that I was in a kind of tunnel-game when it started and I saw that moving and shaking. First, I wondered where the friend with whom I was with earlier was and I thought simultaneously that I needed to run to a safer place and to take care about myself.

The light turned off in the entire street, and I was very afraid, because trees moved wildly, and spotlights seemed to stay incredibly fragile. I thought that one thing could tumble there, and I didn’t know what to do but keep away from trees.

Finally, we found there and went to a friend’s house. I was very afraid of my family.
That week I spoke with so many friends and went to FECH’s office, to help recollecting food.

I think that I value all of my life, friends and family more after that.

Hello!

Hi, my name is Camilo Godoy, and I'm 18 years old. I'm in the first semester of Sociology at the Universidad de Chile. I live in Santiago, in La Granja district. I like playing the bass with some friends and reading poetry.

My goals are to improve my english, to share some thoughts with you, my classmates, and to know more people.

I hope you like my blog and we could keep in touch :D