A Solution for Traffic

Traffic on EDSA road in Metro Manila
(Photo retrieved from Richard Reyes)

          With the boom of the car industry, millions of people from different cities have bought a car which contributes to the growth of the number of cars and of course, contribute different problems that we cannot escape and one of them is what we despise the most — Traffic.  Traffic is a problem we can't wish for it to be gone forever and this is with the increasing number of cars in the country. According to the Land Transportation Office, 11.2 million motor vehicles were registered and 28.7% of these comes from the National Capital Region (2016). Traffic has been rampant and has been getting worse as time pass and with the worsening of traffic, the government is expected to find a permanent solution that can reduce the growth of traffic and here are the reasons why.

A road accident that was caused by traffic in
Mandaue City
(Photo retrieved by Joy Torrejos)

          The reason why the government should find a solution is because traffic can cause more road accidents. Traffic can cause a person to become impatient and therefore, he/she can cause road rage. Road rage is also one reasons why these accidents happen. Around ten thousand road traffic accidents were recorded and it is the 14th most common cause of deaths in the Philippines and with every 100,000 people, 11.87 people would die (World Health Organization, 2017). The country also saw a great increase of road traffic accidents. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, from 2006, there were 6,689 accidents and it increased by 45.76% in 2015 with 10,012 accidents (2015).

Traffic in Mambaling, Cebu City as an
underpass is still under construction.
(Photo retrieved from Junjie Mendoza)

          Traffic is expensive. According to Japan International Cooperation Agency, it is estimated that the traffic congestion in Metro Manila now costs 3.5 billion pesos everyday and it has increased since the 2012 cost (2.4 billion pesos everyday). If the government will do nothing, then it will increase to 5.4 billion pesos a day in 2035, but with the different road projects of the "Build, Build, Build" project, it would go back to 2.4 billion pesos.The reason why traffic is so costly is because it reduces the productivity of the labor force and it wastes fuel (The Economist, 2014). Instead of doing something productive, a person would be stuck in traffic and would waste time in driving to his/her destination.

An aerial view of Makati City during
weekdays (above) and weekends (below)
(Photo retrieved from Frank Schuengel)

          With traffic, it can cause air pollution to the cities. According to The British Petroleum Company, our country has emitted 119.94 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and it has greatly increased since 2016 with 111.67 metric tons (2017). Carbon dioxide emissions are the main reason of air pollution and it won't only affect the environment, but also the health of the citizens with illnesses such as respiratory problems (Conserve Energy Future, 2016). This is why the government needs to find a solution as it can affect both the environment and the health of the people.

A traffic jam in Los Angeles in 1953
(Photo retrieved from the Los Angeles
Daily News)

          With these reasons, I am expecting the government to plan on something effective that can help reduce traffic. Traffic is the root cause of some problems like the lacking of roads (which is caused by the growth of vehicles), the expensiveness or the great costs, road accidents and air pollution. With an effective solution, it can lead to a very good outcome and this can benefit both the environment and people.

Constructive Speech: Cats are better than dogs. (Negative Side)

          Dogs and cats are the two most common animals that are kept as house pets and are often fought on as to which is better. Cats are also good companions, but if you are finding for the best pet, a dog is more suitable for a good companion as it expresses its emotions more. Although some people (especially the cat owners) oppose to this, it is actually true because they are loyal, they make you laugh and they make you a healthier person.

          Firstly, they are loyal to their owners. Dogs are very loyal, if you own a dog, you could experience him/her crying every time you arrive at your house. Since they are loyal, they also tend to help and protect their owners in times of burglary and very serious situations like fire. One incident according to Ladbible, while Tony Baker and his wife, Jacky were sleeping, their attic had been on fire, but fortunately, their dogs Holly and Poppy managed to wake them up before it's too late. They had managed to escape and warn their neighbors. According to National Geographic, some dogs have a sixth sense, this helps them to detect an anxiety and warns them within 12 hours by doing attention-catching things like crying and whining.

Baker with his two border terriers, Holly and Poppy (SWNS)

          Second, they make you laugh. according to Gaiam, laughing lowers blood pressure, it releases endorphins (which are the body's painkillers), and overall, increases your sense of well being. According to Business Insider, a study of 95 people found that dog owners laugh significantly than any other pet owners like cats. Even the people without a pet, they also reported laughing to a dog. It could also benefit you socially at the same time by communicating with strangers while taking your dog to walks.

           Lastly, they make you a healthier person. Our health is the most important thing if you want to live a longer life. With dogs, you could have fun and get fit at the same time because of walking and playing with them. According to the same site, a survey reported that older people with dogs covered an average distance of approximately 0.95 miles. Another study of nearly 2,000 people on Australia reported it increases physical and outdoor activity in a large community. By playing and walking with them, you could also take a break from technology and your gadgets.

A woman taking a dog to a walk. (Getty Images)

              A dog is the best pet when it comes to the safety, protection and health of a person. With dogs, they could be able to make you happier at the same time. If you truly love your dog, you always dedicate your time to him/her when it comes to taking care and spending time with them.

Afro-Asian Narratives in Varied Points of View

This blog contains six stories from Africa and Asia and each story, there is a picture that interprets a part from the photoshoot we did. In that part that we picked, we narrated it into various points of view, the first person (which uses the pronouns I, we and us), first person omniscient (is like the first person but in a detailed way with a purpose), first person observer (is also like the first person but in a way of witnessing), the second person (uses the pronouns you), third person point of view (which uses names and objects and pronouns like he, she, it, them and they), and finally, third person omniscient (like the third person but in a more detailed way and with a purpose). I can consider this blog successful because of the cooperation of my members.

Ramayana (from India)

The Wonder Tree (from Arabia)

Guno and Koyo (from Indonesia)

Maguindanao Pearls (from the Philippines)

The Leopard (from Central Africa)

Story of the Aged Mother (from Japan)

Nutrition Month 2017

            Nutrition Month is all about the healthy foods, eradicating obesity and malnutrition and being nutritious for a longer life. This month, the school held activities like the trivia of the day, the poster making contest and the jingle. The year's theme is "Healthy Diet, Gawing Habit - FOR LIFE!". This means that we must make it a habit to eat healthy foods for life to avoid diseases that makes you weak. The culminating activity was held on the 28th of July and the activities are the following:

• NutriWalk and Yell

After the morning assembly, we went back to our classrooms to get our visors and prepare for the event. Then, the nutriwalk had started and we passed through the hallway and then going to the stage of the lobby to present our yell. After each section had their yell and everyone had settled down, that leads to our next activity.

The preparation for our nutriwalk

Our section presenting our yell

• Zumba

Like I said, after the yells of each sections, we had a zumba. There will be two students (boy and girl) who will be chosen as the best zumba dancer. Two students from Grade 7 were chosen and were asked to do a encore. Then they presented and we had a good time laughing at their dances and we also had a good time dancing the zumba.

Our teachers presenting the zumba in front

• NutriChef

Next was the nutrichef. There are two representatives of each section and the mechanics were that after choosing the ingredients, person 1 will do the tasks for 20 minutes and after, person 2 will replace person 1. The winners were the two sections of Grade 10 (Perseverance and Fortitude) and one section from Grade 7 (Courage). After this activity, lunch had came and it was the most fun part for me.

• Final Program and Mr. and Ms. Healthy

This started during the afternoon, and we gave our representatives some shouts and cheers. Sadly, our male representative was eliminated, though he got the people's choice awards. The second round was the question and answer. Our representative answered the question calmly and we were proud of her getting the second runner-up and the people's choice awards. There were intermission numbers performed by two members of the glee club and the members of the dance club and there were the giving of awards to those who had won the activities this month.

Ms. Healthy

Mr. Healthy

Grade 10-Perseverance posing as they got the award of first place during the
jingle contest. They did also perform during the program.

Dance club members performing

Two of the members of the glee club performing

The Soul of The Great Bell: The Richness of Chinese Culture

The Summary of the Soul of the Great Bell

Introduction

Lafcadio Hearn

                         The Soul of the Great Bell, is one of the six stories in the book “Some Chinese Ghosts” which was published by Lafcadio Hearn during 1887. These stories were originally Chinese legends, but these were adopted and translated into English. Generally, it displayed the value of sacrificing for your loved ones to prevent him/her from troubles. With Hearn’s background, he had went to Japan, with his name being changed to Koizumi Yakumo. Although perhaps he hadn’t learned about Chinese culture and also its language (due to the fact that he had not gone to China), he had managed to translate the stories, but of course there were some flaws and he hadn’t managed to perfect his writing and translation about the Chinese due to the fact, again, of him not learning about the country’s culture and language.

            Overall, this will tackle the kind of things (cultural doings) that are being presented in the story to make it more understandable to people foreign to Chinese culture. This also includes my opinions on some customs and traditions that this story has portrayed and the story itself.

Body

Portrait of Yung-Lo (Yongle Emperor)
(1360-1424)

              Before I introduce the characters, this story happened in Pe-King (present-day Beijing), the imperial capital of China. Yung-Lo rebuilt the city because there were some difficulties that happened in Nanjing.

               The story starts with an introduction of the two characters, Celestial August or the Son of Heaven. According to www.chinaknowledge.de, the Son of Heaven (Tianzi) have the most intimate relationship with the Heaven. Heaven is one of the important concepts of Chinese philosophy, mainly in the religion of Confucianism. According to the same website, Heaven is considered an impersonal deity (meaning a god that doesn’t exist), which controls the world and the society. Yong-Lo, is the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Take note Celestial August, the Son of Heaven and Yong-Lo are all one person.

            Then the he ordered Kouan-Yu to make a bell that can be heard up to 100 ‘li’. ‘Li’ is the traditional Chinese unit to measure miles. Since this story happened during Imperial China, 100 li is equivalent to 64465 meters or 64.464999999...km.

A Chinese bell in a monastery

           A line in the story “And he further ordained that the voice of the bell should be strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver; and that the face and the great lips of it should be graven with blessed sayings from the sacred books, and that it should be suspended in the centre of the imperial capital, to sound through all the many colored ways of the City of Pe-king.”. So it clearly states that the face of the bell should be carved with sayings from sacred books, and its voice should be loud to be heard and it should be hanged at the center of Peking, but its main purpose isn’t explained in the story. Perhaps it is used to gather people in the city for an important announcement or maybe it is used for some traditional routine the city have. According to www.china.org.cn, during the Ming Dynasty, Chinese bells were divided into many types, it could be either for musical purposes, Buddhist or Taoist bells, or bells for sounding the night watches. According to www.dictionary.com, night watches are the periods or divisions into which the night was divided in ancient times. So maybe the bell is for the night watches.

A public execution on China c.1850-1912

          During the part when Kouan-Yu had failed in making the bell for the second time, a letter had been sent to him. It stated: “From the Mighty Yong-Lo, the Sublime Tait-Sung, the Celestial and August,—whose reign is called ‘Ming,’—to Kouan-Yu the Fuh-yin: Twice thou hast betrayed the trust we have deigned graciously to place in thee; if thou fail a third time in fulfilling 10 some chinese ghosts our command, thy head shall be severed from thy neck. Tremble, and obey!”. According to the same book (Some Chinese Ghosts), Fuh-yin means a mayor who governs a city. Killing was at least seen perhaps as a normal punishment in people during Imperial China, but as the present came, these torturing practices are banned. The execution is usually done in public and one common form is to twist its arms and beat the accused up (even though the accused still declares his innocence) and minor crimes will lead to whipping in public. In my opinion, these punishments are very brutal and violent and especially during this time, again, executions were done in public, people might do the things that they saw and they might get violent. In the present, since this practice is banned, I half-support this type of practice only if the person has committed serious and heinous crimes like murder and rape because that’s what they say, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and those serial killers and criminals might get afraid and frightened and change for the better. The thing that I don’t like about it is that those leaders might take advantage of it and start killing people for nonsense reason and to mention me being a Roman Catholic is also why the reason I halfly disagree with this practice. Also, on the letter, it contains a dragon seal, perhaps the purpose is for the person to believe it is an official, not a fake letter from the emperor. The dragon seal in China contains He Shi Bi, a famous type of jade during the imperial times. They used jade because it symbolizes the inner beauty of the humans.

The 10 Heavenly Stems

                   Ko-Ngai, Kouan-Yu’s daughter sold some of her jewels so that she could go to an astrologer. Chinese astrology is a very important part in their culture. They first invented the 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly stems but used the 12 earthly stems because during the old times, it was hard to use. They use this to determine their personality (based on your birthday). Astrologers will find out and tell you what will happen to you in the future, or you could also seek advice to find out if your life is going to be good or bad in the future. One line in the book said, “So the astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked the aspect of the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and examined the signs of the Zodiac,—the Hwang-tao, or Yellow Road,— and consulted the table of the Five Hin, or Principles of the Universe, and the mystical books of the alchemists.” Firstly, we all know the Zodiac Signs, some of them are Taurus, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Aquarius, etc. The Principles of the Universe consists of 8 priciples: Principle of Mentalism, Correspondence, Vibration, Polarity, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender. Lastly, mystical books of the alchemists. These are books that are made by Chinese alchemists which use traditional and ancient Chinese science. These Chinese alchemists’ purpose of doing this is mainly to gain immortality by Qigong, which is a holistic system of doing body posture, breathing, and meditation used for health, spirituality, and martial arts training. Going back to the main topic, other forms of Chinese astrology are ‘Wu Xing’ (Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, Wood), ‘Table of the Sixty-year Calendar’, which starts at year 1924 to 2043. Each year corresponds to its element or animal, the first half being the elements of Wu Xing and the other half being the 12 earthly stems (some of which are Rat, Monkey, Dog, Pig, Ox, Horse,etc.)

                     During the part where Kong-Ngai jumped onto the mixture of the bell, her main purpose was to protect her father from getting him killed (because what the astrologer had said, she had sacrificed herself to complete the mixture). It is not that necessary that this situation must be a part of a custom in their culture, in my opinion because it was stated in the story that she loves her father very much, but the Chinese also need to respect their parents and elderly because it is also a part in their culture. In relating to this, the Chinese also do not brag themselves and bring others down in their conversations, instead they encourage the one who’ll they speak to. As I said, one should must respect their elders, so you must follow what they say, like you must go to the school they decided, they must decide for your future jobs, they will also take part during the planning of your marriage (like how many kids should you decide to have), this is called ‘filial piety’. With this kind of custom, filial piety makes you lose freedom, but having freedom for doing bad things is wrong and it can ruin your future.

Shoes for foot binding

                    Lastly, during the part when Ko-Ngai leaped into the mixture, her woman had got her shoe during the time when she leapt. So talking about shoes, during imperial China, there is a practice for women called ‘foot binding’. Foot binding refers to binding the feet of young girls to modify the shape of its foot, and once it’s modified, it is called ‘lotus feet’. This originated during the 10^th or 11^th century (Five dynasties and Ten kingdoms period) and became popular among the elite during Song Dynasty. Women who had lotus feet were considered wealthy and beautiful. During the present, foot binding eventually began to die out as a result of anti-foot binding campaigns and in the present, there are still some Chinese elderly who had survived with their lotus feet. In my opinion, I feel bad for the women who were pressured to do this just to look pretty and wealthy. We are always born beautiful, even if people regard you as an ugly person.

A person with lotus feet

                      After reading this story, I discovered that China is housed with a diverse and unique culture. The concept of the story is very original, but the moral lesson in this story is somewhat common and similar to some moral lessons of other stories. Overall, it’s a very good story and it will make you learn about some of its cultures which also leads you to read some of the country’s legends and folklores.

Conclusion

                  I conclude that the country of China is engulfed with their traditional practices and customs. This story presented various types of things that make up the culture of China and there are still many legends and folk stories for you to read in order to be more informed about the Chinese Culture. The story’s moral lesson is sacrificing for your loved ones, especially to your parents, which I said earlier. Our parents had sacrificed for us during the time when we were born, until we grow older, so you must return the respect they deserve.

References

• https://theartofculturalvivisection.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/the-soul-of-the-great-bell-by-lafcadio-hearn/comment-page-1/

• https://brainly.ph/question/370593

• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Myth/personsheaven.html

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongle_Emperor

• http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/p/ming-dynasty-unit-conversion.html

• www.convertunits.com/from/meters/to/li+[imperial+China

• www.convertunits.com/from/li+[imperial+China]/to/kilometers

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(unit)

• http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/FbiCh/78687.htm

• http://www.dictionary.com/browse/night-watch

• https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=FtFQG79CNR4C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=fuh-yin+chinese&source=bl&ots=zJPo4LX0UL&sig=s5hE6md6jLwbchzLwWvgNlBjhG8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBxMe08p7VAhUHKZQKHYRzAZEQ6AEIMzAD#v=onepage&q=fuh-yin%20chinese&f=false

• http://www.crystalinks.com/chinastrology.html

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alchemy

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astrology

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_China

• https://chinaculturecorner.com/2013/06/05/proper-character-in-china/

• http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-367/Crime-and-Punishment-in-Ancient-China.aspx

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_Seal_of_the_Realm

• storyoftheweek.loa.org/2016/06/the-soul-of-the-great-bell.html