Mirror Mirror VS Snow White and The Huntsman

Everyone must have seen or read the fairy tales of Snow White from Walt Disney or even some fairy tales books our parent bought for us when we are children. As for the record various people tend to imagine Snow White in many direction and inspired viewers. Thanks to these two marvelous screen writer who created these two different version of Snow White Tales that is Melissa Wallack and Evan Daugherty for Mirror Mirror and Snow White And Huntsman simultaneously.

As most of us known the character in the original story are Snow White, Prince, The Queen, The King, The Huntsman and The Seven Dwarfs. All are remain the same for both or these stories but the plots are changing slight different from the original version.

Snow White & The Huntsman

The movie Snow White and the Huntsman described about a girl named Snow White which played by Kristen Stewart. In that movie, she is the princess of Tabor, daughter of King Magnus and Queen Eleanor. After the death of her mother, King Magnus which is her father marries the beautiful Ravenna. Ravenna is an evil witch who has the intention to take over the kingdom of Tabor.  Ravenna then kills King Magnus on their wedding night after noting that men like him exploit the beauty of women and discard them. Soon, Tabor is left in ruins under Ravenna's rule and control.

As time passes by, Snow White grew older and becomes a beautiful young lady. Ravenna knows from her Magic Mirror that Snow White is destined to destroy her unless Ravenna consumes the young girl's heart which will make her immortal. Ravenna orders Finn to bring her Snow White but she escapes into the Dark Forest. Ravenna then ordered Eric Huntsman who is a drunken widower to lead Finn in pursuit of Snow White since he is the only one who survived the Dark Forest.

The Huntsman locates Snow White in the Dark Forest but Finn admits that Ravenna cannot resurrect the dead. The Huntsman then helps Snow White to escape, promising to escort her to Duke Hammond's Castle in exchange for a reward of gold. During their journey in escaping they eventually come upon a band of dwarves. The movie gets interesting when Ravenna disguises as William and tempts Snow White into eating a poisoned apple, but is forced to flee when the Huntsman and William discover her. Soon, the Huntsman kisses Snow White ; , breaking the spell as she awakens after a second tear falls. Snow White then takes command of the Duke's army and leads them into battle against Ravenna. They won the battle and Snow White is crowned Queen as the kingdom is restored.

Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror is a comedy romance movie starring by Lily Collins as Snow White. In this movie, the queen’s name is Queen Clementianna and at that time she was the prettiest woman in the land marrying to the King. Snow White’s mother had died since her childbirth. After going out to fight an evil creature, the king had never return causing Snow White to be live and raises by her stepmother, Queen Clementianna. She keep Snow White in the palace for all the time and did not know about what had happened to the people.

After turning eighteen, in Snow White small birthday party at the kitchen, the palace servant encourage Snow White to see how her people had become worse than before her father existence

The differences between the movie of Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror:

• Mirror Mirror is very light in it’s tone while Snow White and The Huntsman is very dark.
• In Mirror Mirror when the queen talks to her magic reflecting glass, it transports her to another world  where she sees images of herself that give her advice. In Snow White and The Huntsman, the mirror oozes out this liquid gold that forms itself into a statue to give advice.
• Lilly Collins (Mirror Mirror) looks like fairy tale princess while Kristen Stewart (Snow White and The Huntsman) looks like a peasant even before she got locked away by the Queen.
• The dwarfs in Mirror Mirror use devices to make themselves appear taller than they actual are and are played by actors who are that size in life.   Snow White and The Huntsman casts regular size actors and just films them in a way to make them seem smaller next to everyone else.
• In Snow White and The Huntsman, Snow White falls in love with the person who was sent out to kill her  while in Mirror Mirror that same person falls in love with the head cook.
• Mirror Mirror has a Bollywood style music number at the end, while Snow White and The Huntsman have a very somber song by Florence and The Machine during the end credits.

2 favorite fairy tales

As this title came up, I knew it was going to be exciting for us to work on this post. So after all the discussion my group and I made together, we all agreed on choosing Mulan and The Little Mermaid. I would be representing my group on elaborating why these two are our favorite fairy tales. Obviously, Mulan and The Little Mermaid are the fairy tales that everyone mostly know of. I practically grew up watching these fairy tales throughout my younger years! Disney helped me so much in getting to know more about fairy tales movies and cartoons. It was the only channel I would look forward to.

“The Little Mermaid” attracted me firstly when I saw Ariel, the heroin. She was a sweet girl who was loved by everyone. Her gorgeous red hair caught my attention and up until now I have always wondered how it would look like if I were to have a red hair. Even worse, in my younger years I used to force my mother to dye my hair the same color as hers, as I was too young to even know about anything, of course I had been responded with a rejection. Now I know understand why!

Secondly, I admire her great desire in getting what she thought she really wanted by ignoring her father, King Triton, who warned her that the contact between merpeople (people who are in a shape of mermaid.) [Reference: Wikipedia] and humans was forbidden. Ariel was longing to join the human and become a human herself. Ariel was always surrounded by her best friends, the animals that belong to the sea, like her. There were Flounder the fish, Scuttle the seagull, who helped Ariel know more about knowledge of human culture and lastly, Sebastian, King Triton’s adviser. They were always around Ariel making her life in the sea cheerful yet Ariel’s thought would not disappear about what was there on land.

Last but not least, I have always been attracted on fairy tales’ love stories, including Ariel’s, she had fallen in love with Prince Eric which made her intention about joining the human world stronger. She had often come to the surface of the ocean just to stalk this handsome prince. How Eric was fascinated by Ariel’s voice when she sung to him after she rescued him made the story a whole lot more interesting. Ariel escaped quickly and Prince Eric had vowed to find who she was. On the other hand, Ariel made a vow to find a way to be with him.

Ariel had gone through a lot just to be with Prince Eric, she had to face her raging father who was upset with her behavior and also Ursula! The sea witch in form of a Cecalia (part human, part octupos.) [reference: Wikipedia]. Ariel’s love for Eric was too strong that she fell into Ursula’s trap. Yet in the end, having all the animals as her bestfriends at the ocean, a loving father who would do anything for his daughter, she was saved from Ursula’s evil plan. But another time she was captured by Ursula, Eric was the one to save her and realized she was the one he had been looking for. Knowing how both of them were so madly in love with each other, King Triton agreed to transform Ariel into a human. Ariel and Eric married on a ship and lived happily ever after!

Secondly, I am going to talk about “Mulan”, the most brave girl I know among all the fairy tales I had lived with when I was a young girl. One of the reasons why I love this was I admire her bravery. When her village was invaded by The Huns, the Chinese army required one man from each family to join them. Mulan was only child Fa Zhou, her elderly father, had. So when Mulan heard that her father was forced to join the army, she decided to stand in his place. Changing her appearance as a young man named “Ping”. What attracted me more was that during her army camp, she worked hard to become a skilled warrior for her family and country. Her father had prayed to his ancestors to order a protector for her daughter which was known as Mushu, who was in a form of a small dragon. A talkative and funny dragon whom Mulan could not put up with.

Her identity was revealed when she became unconscious after creating an avalanche and then she was left alone with Mushu at the mountain where they all had settled while the others departed to The Imperial City. Even after she was abandoned, she still attempted to warn the army about the trap The Huns had made. But they ignored her and she knew she was the only hope in rescuing her country and men. With the help of Mushu, Mulan succeed and then was praised by the Emperor and the people of China. The great part is that knowing she started off as a clueless girl who only intended to safe his elderly father and even throughout her whole challenging journey she had then managed to prove her father for her bravery. She came home happily and her father knew he was the luckiest and proudest man alive.

Baby dumping issue

What is baby dumping? 

Well, baby dumping is a social problem that arises due to the acts of stranding the babies with no intention of taking care of it. Baby dumping is not only a rising social problem in Malaysia but as well as other countries. According to the police headquarters in Bukit Aman, for Malaysia alone the statistic from the year of 2000 to 2006, the total number of baby dumping case is 580 babies. This number of baby dumping are expected to increase every year where as much as 65 baby dumping cases has increased  to 83 cases in the year 2006. Other than Malaysia, it also recorded that Indonesia has the highest percentage of baby dumping. In the wake of this disturbing reports of baby dumping, the question that comes to mind is ‘WHY is this scenario is happening in a modern and technology era that we lived in’? Do we, the society, play a good role in handling this issue or perhaps we just take this issue as light as feathers since we got nothing to do with it? And do we have even have a little of sympathy when we see how these innocent babies’ lives being ripped out by this shameful act? 

Every time when this issue is being reported in the newspapers or posted in any of the social network, what would you do? Do you just read it and ignore it or do you read it and have the urge and motivation to stop this problem? Well, if you do have the responsibility to stand up for this issue, then I have a few suggestions that might be effective for you to practice.

First and foremost, I shall brief you on the factors that causes baby dumping. This is because by knowing the factors we can apply prevention, as prevention is better than cure. One factor that leads to baby dumping is teenage pregnancy. But it is important to know that not all teenage pregnancies are unwanted. This is because some of the teenagers get married at an early age and are determined to have a perfect family institution comprising of husband and kids. While some of them take sexual intercourse lightly and do it for fun. When they get into an illegal relationship that causes pregnancy, it is often that none of the partner in the relationship wants to keep the baby because of the shame they have to face if their relatives find out and this can lead to baby dumping.

Rather than that, poverty is also another factor that causes baby dumping. People who lives in a poor social welfare system and are not financially capable of taking care of the baby are most likely to commit baby dumping. This is because  raising the child as in this modern and technology era are burdening to them. As parents, they know they are responsible in giving their child a better life and education which needs a lot of money to be invested for their baby future and this is one of the problem they do not know how to overcome.

Thus, after knowing the factors that contribute to baby dumping, we can design some ways to reduce this scenario from increasing in number. Some of the prevention that can be implemented is that :

-Sex Education

*All the people need to have the knowledge and education about the sex to make sure the number of baby dumping cases are decreased.

*this education will provide them knowledge and aware them that sex will results in unplanned and unexpected pregnancies

-Responding to Unwanted Pregnancy

*Individuals experiencing unwanted pregnancies must receive support and services. The women who are facing this problems need to give shelter where they can be secured, guided and motivated.

* They should be supported to make sure they can change and build new life.

-Build up the DNA database

* DNA bank is the new and effective approach to lessen the baby dumping.

* To identify the parents of the baby by matching the DNA database, as it can aware and frightened people from doing this crime

So why don’t we take a step back and look at the real world that we are facing. Are we so mean and cold-hearted to watch these innocent lives being ripped out due to irresponsible people who cannot face their own mistakes? Maybe while you are reading this post you might just wonder how I, just a petite human being, can make a change and difference. Well actually you can because the very first change starts in you!

Ghosts in different cultures

In many societies, the spirit world is accepted as fact, and people's daily lives are connected with rituals and beliefs, which means the needs of their ghostly companions. Objects and places may be associated with particular spirits, and people will call on spirits to help on their behalf to deal with life's problems.

In the East, such as China, many people believe in reincarnation. Ghosts are those souls that refused to be 'recycled' because they have unfinished business similar to those in western belief. Exorcists can either help a ghost to be reincarnated or blow it out of existence. In Chinese belief, besides reincarnation, a ghost can also become immortal and become demigod, or it can go to hell and suffer till eternality, or it can die again and become "ghost of ghost".

Here are a few ghosts from other cultures:

The Duppy is a West Indian ghost who will appear if coins and a glass of rum are thrown on its grave. Duppies (plural of Duppy) are pure evil. If they breathe on someone that person will become very sick, and anyone touched by a duppy will have a fit. If they don't get back to the grave by dawn they can no longer do anyone any harm.

Toyol is a very famous ghost among Malay societies. The Toyol is believed to be a dead baby that has been revived through some demonic ritual. This small creature, which serves the person who has revived it, is said to be green in colour with red eyes and feeds on small amounts of blood.  The Toyol is also believed to be somewhat mischievous and will suck on the big toes of a sleeping person. If commanded to steal, it will only take half of the victim’s treasure. 

Chinese culture has many types of ghosts, many of whom have a history so long that the influenced other Asian cultures and their beliefs. Jiang shi is not a ghost in the traditional sense because it’s actually vampire, but not in the traditional sense of the word “vampire” because it’s actually a zombie, but not in the traditional sense of being a zombie. It is, however, just a traditional piece of folktale. 

Cultural Diversity - Jakun Tribes

In speaking of Cultural Diversities, we can imagine the different races and cultures in one place. From en.wikipedia.org.wiki//cultural_diversity, we summarized that Cultural Diversity is identified as the quality of many different cultures or a mass culture that has combined homogeneously in one location. For example, Malaysia is a country with large cultural diversity that includes the Malay, Chinese, Indian, minority ethnics in peninsula Malaysia and other ethnics’ inhabitant at Sabah and Sarawak. We can differentiate these cultures from the language they speak, religions, clothes, dining, daily custom, and lifestyles.

The oldest community that lives in the rain forest of Peninsular Malaysia is the “Orang Asli”. “Orang” means people while “Asli” means original. “Orang Asli” in Peninsular Malaysia consists of less than 1% and were divided by three types  that are the "Negrito" or so called as "Semang", the "Senoi" and "Proto-Malay". They were actually divided by geography aspect whereby the Negrito distributes largely at Northern area of Peninsular, the Senoi at the central area while the Proto-Malay at the southern area. Here, we will be discussing on one of the ethnics specifically that is “Jakun” Tribes.  Jakun belongs to Proto-Malay group which largely found at Pahang beaches, Rompin, Pekan and North Johor.

Jakun people are also being called as “Orang Hulu”. They speak Malay language but slightly different and it is called as Austronesian family of language. In the past, Jakun tribes did not stay in a place permanently, they were always migrating from one place to another to find a fine place to harvest forest product. Now in modern era, they are not constantly moving anymore and use agriculture as their source of food and doing hand craft business. It is sad to know these people are lack of knowledge of nowadays technology and modern facilities. Many Jakun’s child have no appropriate education because schools are far from their places but government has established primary school and medical program for Orang Asli communities since 1960. Not every children tend to go to school and therefore not all Jakun can write and read.

Most of Jakun people still believe in animism and they are influenced by natural surroundings such as mountains, hills, valleys, stone, caves and forest. They believe that everything has their own spirit and if they break the taboo they will face a great disaster. In Johor, the Jakun tribes believe there are two god that are Upper God and Lower God. They also believe in ghost, saint and deity. Jakun tribe is led by a leader called “Tok Batin”. He can lead any ceremony including marriage except ritual involving superstitious is conducted by “Tok Pawang”, a sacred man that they believe have the power to connect them with other spirit and has abilities to heal illness.

Some of the festivals they celebrate are “Hari Perayaan”, “Berjerom”, and “Berlancang”. In “Hari Perayaan”, “Tok Pawang” will makea worship ritual to expel ghost and evil from the village. At that time outsiders are not allowed to enter the village and visiting others outside the village are also not encouraged. They will prepare a feast to the spirit they worship. Other villagers will prepare many dishes lead by “Tok Batin”. On the other hand, “Berjerom” is a ritual to select new echelon to become new “Tok Pawang”. They do this ritual by placing sacred peace at special place like the big stone, cave, bottom of the river, Casuarina trees, Fig trees  and Banyan trees. Lastly, “Berlancang” is a ritual of worshiping the spirit of the river by drifting a decorative boat filled with offering gift. A feast and bathing will take place after the event.

It is a very fascinating culture in Jakun tribes. They are lack of information from modern speaking and rich with the value of politeness and respect to elders. As an outsider, we can approach and visit them in the morning and at night. The conversation is likely to be started by them and do not enter the house unless being told so. It is rude to touch anything in the house or went deep in the house without their permission. We hope in this mass culture around the world, we can achieve harmonies and peace. The value of respecting others is very important and as well as, applying a good moral.

World Poverty

By definition, poverty means the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount and also the state of being extremely poor. A man who is suffering from poverty is one who does not have command over the basic needs of life like enough food, clothing, drinking water and shelter on the material level. On the non material level a poor man is deprived of basic social needs like health and education.

Do you know how many people die everyday from poverty? About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often. Yet as we could often see it in our daily surrounding there are so many food for everyone everywhere. The main problem of the people who are suffering from poverty is that they are trapped in severe property. They lack of money to buy enough food to nourish themselves and due to this, they get weak and often sick. What leads to this is they are unable to work, therefore becoming more poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.

When we mention about poverty, often do we think that the people who are suffering from this are living in hunger problem. What we do not see is that there are other causes of poverty, diseases such as AIDS, pneumonia, diarrhea, tuberculosis and malaria, are also causes of poverty. People die from these diseases due to their lack of nutrient intakes and also living in an unhealthy environment which makes the diseases spread rapidly among them. For example in Africa, million of parents have died leaving their children as orphans. Teachers often have died as well leaving the schools empty. Also the doctors and nurses, leaving hospitals and medical clinics with nothing. Not to forget the farmers who have died, leaving crops in the fields. All these have left the villages in a devastating condition.

Many organizations around the world have worked together in solving this problem yet it is still happening. Poverty could also be caused from the economic status of the country. Often poverty occurs in a country which is poor and also, overpopulated. There are also countries that is well developed yet poverty still occurs. New Zealand is an example, it is a high human developed country, but there are still people within the country who are relatively poor, compared with richer people in the country. These relatively poor people are not living in absolute poverty but can be considered poor and are therefore living in 'relative poverty'.

Poverty is one of the major problem that is happening around the world yet people seem to be ignorant towards this world crisis. Yet we are still complaining about all the things we cannot have. We should be more than thankful for we have been raised in a well developed country, parents who are always working hard for us to grow up in a healthy condition and surrounding. Does it ever cross your mind about what if one day all the wealth that we are enjoying would be taken away?

Abusing and killing innocent people

Here, "abuse" means understanding the dynamics of domestic violence while "killing" brings the meaning of putting something to an end or to destroy. So, from what we understood in this topic is the violence to put an end to someone’s life is increasing day per day in our society. Some of the tactics of abuse are physical abuse, emotional abuse and identity abuse. All of these are considered in a major case of bullying thus could also lead to killing them - the innocent ones.

(credits to
www.thequietvoice18.wordpress.com)

(credits to
www.perfectlyawfulusa.blogspot.com)

Physical abuse can be defined as the threat of harm or any forceful physical behavior that intentionally or accidentally causes bodily harm or property destruction. As an example, a video showing a man slapping, punching and kicking a three-year-old boy has gone viral on Facebook. The boy was also seen being picked up and punched in his lower back before being thrown back on the floor several times. The 32-year-old man, said to be the stepfather, was seen beating up the boy and repeatedly ordering the helpless child to come to him only to be abused again. Fortunately, the man is under police custody now and facing his punishment. If the man had not been recorded, the poor child could have died in a most shameful way due to the consistent abuse.

(credits to www.92q.com)

Emotional abuse is any use of words, voice, action or lack of action meant to control, hurt another person. Verbal abuse usually is included in this category. For example, a person telling the partner over and over again that “no one else would have you” or repeatedly calling the partner “stupid” or “worthless”. It mostly occurs in a relationship that is breaking apart and when a partner has lost respect for his or her partner. This creates depression for the victim and in some cases, opting to commit suicide was their way of solving his or her problem.

(credits to:
www.theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com)

Meanwhile, identity abuse is when an identity abuser does not necessarily assume the identity, but nonetheless causes harm to the owner of the identity. It often happens in the internet, when criminals use the internet to hack or break into victims' online financial accounts, taking passwords, money and victims' locations. Others even create online centers for trafficking stolen identity information. People nowadays use the internet to conduct businesses or pay bills, thinking it is much easier. This increases the number of identity theft victims has risen thus arises the problem identity abuse. When criminals have collected the location of the victims, problems such as theft and rape are most possible making the victims at high risk of facing their own deaths.