This movie really took me back to some of the films watched last quarter and reminded me of the many different scenarios and situations mixed racial relationships have gone through to get where their are today with at least some for of acceptance. A quick summary of this movie is about a family sent way or banned from Uganda when Idi Amin take power who was the 3rd president of Uganda. After kicked out the family than movies to Mississippi where the daughter of Indian decent falls in love with a black man and over the course of them movie the families have to learn to cope with come to acceptance of their situation and love for one another. What i’ve taken out of the past two quarters was their was so many scenarios and probably many many more stories unheard with situations regarding people who fall in love with somebody their culture doesn’t usually ‘respect’ them begin with, weather it be are, color identity, sexuality etc. and i’ve found that it was a hard time for many. I couldn’t imagine someone in my family, especially my mother or father saying you need to leave your boyfriend because he is mexican, you guys are completely different people with different cultures etc. I would be unhappy and in the same exact situation as these individuals in the movie.

Invasive species are a major threat to our environment because they (1) can change habitats and alter ecosystem function and ecosystem services, (2) crowd out or replace native species, and (3) damage human activities, costing the economy millions of dollars.

The above definition could be molded and changed to fit a Tale for the Time Being as a being that causes a disruption in their environment and the people/humans around them. The Japanese jungle crow possibly came over on some drift. In its first appearance it’s a disruptive force, and continues to make its presence known in the second part of the story. Like Nao it is displaced, causes a disruption within the local community, and yet it’s there.

Another invasive species in the story are the trees that Oliver attempts to plant. It’s against the clause that he agreed with not allowing invasive species, and yet it’s a species that can trace its ancestry back to that island. What does it mean to be an invasive species when it lived there hundreds of years ago? It may have been displaced over the years, but is there really a cut off in ancestry when a person, animal, plant or object goes from being a native to being invasive?

In class we talked about loss, but when I got to thinking about it something else came to mind. While reading there was a mention of Ruth numbering Nao’s pages in the natural break, trying to reclaim her lost time, trying to closer emulate the time that she spent writing. So with this I began to think: What is lost reading the book in a linear fashion? What would be lost or gained if you read number to number? Read Ruth’s 1, read Nao’s 1, and so on.

What would be lost jumping back and forth between the past and the present. It feels like there’s a reason for the numbers, even though they’re for breaks, there feels like they could correspond to each other, and it would be nice to see if they do actually line up in any way, or if they’re just to create ‘natural’ breaks that show up in the story.

Writing on the wall, a creative way of resisting. A man writes Chinese on public walls as a way to hold on to his culture. Spray paint adorns walls.

Jeet Kun Do and Hip Hop were both inspired and eventually inspired different cultures and arts. They were also inspired by life experiences, be it resisting colonialism or voicing issues with the police. Both were used to to push back against mainstream culture, to get their voices heard. Through film and songs, the world listened and watched.

Both continue to inspire film and music, as well as the individual cultures.

I thought it was interesting learning  about Jeet Kune Do. I like how it is simple, or at least looks simple, but it still does what it needs to do! Bruce Lee is able to beat anyone without hardly trying or thinking about it at all!

Bruce Lee was able to create this style, and he was very dedicated to it. This makes him very inspirational. I think I want to look more into Jeet Kune Do. I think it would be fun to learn!

A theme that I noticed the most in “A Tale for the Time Being” was place. There was a lot of detail about every place that was mentioned in the reading.
For example, Nao talks about what it looks like inside of the French Maid Cafe. She talks about the silk curtains and the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, she talks about the table she is sitting at and exactly what the maids are wearing. We are easily able to picture Nao sitting in the cafe.
In the Ruth section, it talks about what her house looks like, with all of her and Oliver’s books stacked up everywhere and the cat wandering around. We also see how close she is to the beach , and what it looks like as she is walking along the beach with all the debris washed up on the shore.
I think it is important that it describes the place that Nao is in and the place that Ruth is in because we see how they are in complete opposite parts of the world, but through Nao’s journal they are able to connect.
Through a few simple words inside of an old book, Ruth gets to know this little girl and become close to her and care about her.