Marriage in Other Countries Essay Example for Free

Marriage in Other Countries Essay This paper will be about a traditional dress from my native land and other countries. The traditional dress I will be writing about is called a wedding dress. A wedding dress is used throughout the world in various countries including China, Japan, India, and Vietnam. This paper will also detail different cultures, religions, types and colors of wedding gowns that symbolize the bride or groom wealth, occupation and or belief. In the Americas, weddings performed during and immediately following the middle ages were often more than just a union between two people. They could be a union between two families, two businesses or even two countries. Many weddings were more a matter of business than love, particularly among the wealthy people. Brides were therefore expected to dress in a manner that made their family seem more presentable, for they were not representing only themselves during the ceremony. Brides from wealthy families often wore rich colors and exclusive fabrics. The amount of material a wedding dress contained also was a reflection of the brides social standing and indicated the extent of the familys wealth to wedding guests. In the 1920s, wedding dresses were typically short in the front with a longer train in the back and were worn with cloche-style wedding veils. Today, Americas traditional wedding color is white because of the marriage of Queen Victoria to Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Victoria wore a white gown for the event to incorporate some lace she prized. Before then, white was a mourning color, it represented a bride whom had recently lost a loved one. Black was actually a color that was worn by the lower class because it was more favorable and could be worn again on many occasions. In the eastern cultures, the traditional wedding color was red, the color red symbolizes good luck and favorable. In modern Chinese weddings, the bride will opt for Western style dresses and traditional costumes for the official tea ceremony. In India a choice for a bride is a wedding sari, which is a traditional garment for Indian women. Over time color options and wedding fabrics have changed throughout the eastern countries. Fabrics have expanded and today, fabrics like crepe, georgette, tissue, silk, and satin have been used. Colors such as gold, pink, maroon, brown and yellow have also expanded. It seems as if the other countries around the world are starting to adopt the western tradition. At Japanese weddings, brides will often wear three or more dresses throughout the ceremony and subsequent celebrations with a traditional kimono, white and color dress combination being popular. The Javanese people of Indonesia wear a kebaya, a traditional kind of blouse, along with batik. The Native Americans have traditions different from most other countries. A Hopi (A Native American tribe) bride traditionally would have her garments woven by the groom and any men in the village who wished to participate. The garments consisted of a large belt, two all-white wedding robes, a white wedding robe with red stripes at top and bottom, white buckskin leggings and moccasins, a string for tying the hair, and a reed mat in which to wrap the outfit. A Pueblo bride wore a cotton garment tied above the right shoulder, secured with a belt around the waist. In the traditions of the Delaware, a bride would wear a knee-length skirt of deerskin and a band of wampum beads around her forehead. Wedding dresses are very diverse and unique. There are a few things that all weddings dresses have in common among all cultures. The most important thing is that bride’s want to look and feel beautiful. The wedding dress is plays a significant part in the wedding ceremony. The wedding dress gives the bride the opportunity to stand out. A wedding dress represents one of the most precious garments that a woman will wear in her lifetime. It represents religions, cultures and family traditions. Although it’s just material, the wedding dress is very important because it symbolize marriage, the union of two people who love each other.

I Wish to Pursue Structural Engineering :: Graduate Admissions Essays

I Wish to Pursue Structural Engineering A simple bridge truss was the first structure I ever analyzed. The simple combination of beams that could hold cars, trains, and trucks over long spans of water fascinated me. Having the tools to analyze the loads on the truss further increased my interest in structures. I encountered the bridge in a textbook for my first engineering class. Knowing that the professor, Mr. Paul Davids, was a tough teacher, I asked him for the textbook so I could study and get ready for the class over the summer. Just arrived from Belize, I was determined to succeed. In class we learned about forces on simple members and then we put the members together to form a simple truss. At this point I had almost decided that structural engineering was the career for me. From there the class just took off: We went on to frames, distributed loads, considered friction; basically we were incorporating real world considerations into structural members. I loved the practical, problem solving aspects of the field. At UC my classes were even more advanced. In my analysis and design classes, I especially enjoyed studying steel design because we not only learned the use of the load resistance factor design but also applied that knowledge -- I designed a four-story building. The professor was a practicing engineer, and he always related the subject to real life steel structures he had engineered, for example, the SB Medical Centre, an all steel building with a base isolated campus. This is the kind of project on which I would like to work, designing the structure and considering how the building will respond to ground motion. After two quarters of structural analysis, I had come as close as possible to analyzing real world structures. Looking back I realize, I had learned great tools for structural analysis, but my "tool box" was still inadequate. I lacked a very important tool: finite element analysis. According to my professor, finite element analysis has revolutionized structural an alysis. Although I liked my classes, my internship experiences really confirmed my interest in structural engineering. While working at Caltrans as a student volunteer, I reviewed computer grading output for streets under construction.

Food Security Essay

As the effort to alleviate poverty and increase food security takes on new dimensions on the backdrop of increasing challenges, asset-based community development has become a key strategy. There has been a shift of focus to individual, communal and institutional asset and the capacity or potential they have in building the capacity of achieving locally defined development (Social Design, 2010). The asset-based community development strategy is based on the principle that including as many people as is possible in a development project increases the probability of the project remaining sustainable even after the experts implementing it leave it under the management of the community. The asset-based community development strategy begins by first acknowledging that the existent poverty and insufficiency in a community cannot be solved by the human, physical and intellectual assets at the disposal of the community (Social Design, 2010). It involves the mobilization of members of the community so that these assets, coupled with external investment, can be effectively utilized to improve the community’s capacity of meeting the developmental challenges that face it. In addition, there needs to be creation of awareness about alternative means of acquiring additional assets and resources. Secondly, asset-based community development should be viewed as complementary to developmental work already in progress within the community; and must be based on the traditions rooted within the community with regard to organization, community development and developmental planning (Social Design, 2010). It should be noted that not a single entity (government, the business community, civil society and the community itself) can bring meaningful development on its own, so the essence of asset-based community is to forge a working partnership between all the stakeholders to bring about improvement in sufficiency, democracy and respect to human rights (Social Design, 2010). The process must therefore be based on transparency and accountability, justice and participation. Having established this operational framework, attention is shifted on ways of mobilizing the community and the assets it has towards a clearly defined vision. The first step is mapping all the assets within the community and its local institutions (Social Design, 2010). Full mobilization in this context is only achieved after the community can address its agenda and challenges with an awareness of the resources that it has to counter the developmental challenges it faces. Second, elaborate plans should be put in place to build strong relationships within the community so that these resources can be aggregated and given a common focus towards progress. Strength and self-reliance are attributes bolstered when all members of the community are linked and actively involved in finding solutions to the challenges that face them (Social Design, 2010). The community realizes that it has a great potential than it had realized and there is a rejuvenation of hope, motivation and renewal. After relationships have been established, the assets owned within the community are mobilized towards economic development and for the purpose of sharing information. This includes the assets relegated due to lack of information on how to harness them or lack of the applicable technology. The community is then convened as a unit to participate in the development of a vision and the plan to achieve it. As said earlier, the assets and resources within poor communities are not sufficient. Asset-based development strategies need therefore to leverage outside resources to support them; and after all these steps have been taken, the community is on its way to self-sufficiency (Social Design, 2010). Sustainable livelihoods frameworks (SLF) Sustainable Livelihoods frameworks provide a basis for poverty analysis so that policies, programs and projects designed to reduce poverty can be specifically tailored to meet developmental challenges facing a community (Ludy & Slater, 2008). Through SLFs, a coherent approach to the analysis of economic challenges can be performed, leading to the identification of suitable intervention and the timetable for these interventions. SLF implementation are founded on analyzing livelihoods, risks and vulnerabilities of individuals, households and the community so that key drivers of poverty and their remedies can be established (Ludy & Slater, 2008). Sustainable livelihoods frameworks are centered on people and their capacity to mobilize the natural, human, social and financial assets at their disposal in response to opportunities and risks so that the quality of life can be improved. An emphasis is laid on strengths rather than weaknesses, and the strategy is to make targeted people have the awareness that they have the assets and the potential to utilize them in pursuit of livelihood goals (Ludy & Slater, 2008). SLF implementation is multidimensional and aims at first identifying the constrictions standing in the way of individuals and households and analyzing the same to yield the opportunities that may arise therein; developing specific but diverse strategies to empower the people to pursue paths towards securing their livelihoods. SLFs focus on each target’s individual strategy for socio-economic development and therefore favor full participation and multidisciplinary approach at different levels (Ludy & Slater, 2008). They thus are flexible to organizations planning specific interventions to poverty and allow focus to be on the elements within a society most likely to face developmental challenges. Entrepreneurial ideology in rural project Entrepreneurship has been identified as a very strategic intervention for accelerating development in rural areas. It creates employment, prevents rural unrest and leads to the creation of wealth at the local level reducing dependency especially for women and other marginalized people (FAO, 1997). There is acceptance that entrepreneurship in rural areas by itself cannot achieve development; so the emphasis of this ideology is the creation of an environment that makes entrepreneurship in rural areas a viable venture. The premise of the rural entrepreneurship ideology is that diversification from subsistence agriculture holds the key to economic development (FAO, 1997). Attention is therefore paid to alternatives like the promotion of tourism and other trades like carpentry, training, retailing and sports. The genesis of rural entrepreneurship is the creation of a supporting environment through policies that establish macro-economic stability, property rights and an international outlook (FAO, 1997). The necessary inputs to the entrepreneurship process like capital, infrastructure and management training can therefore be dispatched to the rural areas as a base for establishing a vibrant economy, consequently increasing sufficiency and reducing dependency. ? References Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO. (1997). â€Å"Rural development through entrepreneurship† Retrieved on 20/5/2010 from http://www. fao. org/docrep/W6882E/w6882e02. htm#P359_61606 Ludy, E. & Slater, R. (2008). Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to understand and tackle poverty. Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Social Design. â€Å"Asset-Based Community Development† Retrieved on 19/05/2010 from http://www. socialdesign. org/assets/development. html

Heritage And Heritage Of Heritage - 982 Words

The one thing that sets an individual from other individuals is the uniqueness of one’s heritage. Heritage is the essential part of a person s life, it is the very foundation that an individual future is built from. Heritage can be based on a family values, tradition and environment. Traditions, and cultural legacies come from grandparents or older relatives, they contribute to our family values. We all take the parts of the past that means the most to us, and combine it with the new traditions. In this paper, I will discuss what heritage is, the importance of how heritage identifies an individual, or can it inhibit an individual’s self-identity, and finally look at some family tradition that makes up one’s heritage. What is heritage? First, heritage is a critical piece that represents who you are; it is the history of an individual. Heritage is something that you are born with or have inherited. This can be the color of your skin, an accent in the language that you speak, or the passing down of a unique item. For example, the short story â€Å"Everyday Use†, by Alice Walker, the narrator of the story Mama passes down two quilt to one of her daughter’s, Maggie. The quilt had been hand made with all kinds of material, one particular material was from Maggie’s Grandpa Ezra. Grandpa Ezra’s materials had come from his uniform that he had worn, while in the Civil War. Other material for the quilt had come from a dress that her Grandma Dee had worn, as well as other member ofShow MoreRelatedHeritage1432 Words   |  6 PagesHeritage Assessment: Linking Heritage to Health Tricia Wharton Grand Canyon University: 429V August 23rd 2015 Heritage Assessment: Assessing Culture and Health The care needs of patients continue to change, as the United States population becomes more diverse. 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Heaney diversifies the heritage of a father and grandfather digging in the potato fields, through an identity as a poet, by â⠂¬Å"digging† with a penRead MoreHeritage Assessment968 Words   |  4 PagesHeritage Assessment Angel S. Winnie Grand Canyon University: NRS429V May 17, 2013 Heritage Assessment The heritage assessment tool is a checklist used by professionals to gain knowledge of patient’s culture and beliefs prior to initiating care. (Spector, 2000). There are many different cultures in this country, brining different beliefs in health, illness, recovery, death, and life. The heritage assessment tool is an important measure towards better understanding of cultural competency,