FAIRY TALE

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA

CRITICISM EVERYWHERE

We live in a society in which you can hear people criticising all the time, and I’m not excluding myself from this, because let’s accept it, we all criticise. We are all guilty of dissing or speaking badly of someone, because something they have done, something they have said, something about their personality or even because something about their appearance. But there is people that go beyond that and tend to criticise all the time, for every little thing, and the worst: without knowing. And this is what I’m going to talk about.

I started to think about this some days ago, when I was spending some time on Instagram. There I saw a photo of a young American actress from a famous TV series. The photo was posted on the TV series’ official Instagram account just showing the dress she had worn to an event that evening. I read some of the comments, and there were a lot of people saying that the actress had gained weight. I don’t think this is what you should tell a person, unless you are really confident with him or her, but it can be kind of accepted if you just say it with respect and as a remark, because it’s true: she had gained weight. The problem is that most of the people said it in a disrespectful way, with comments such as ‘’OMG she is so fat’’ or ‘’She looks so ugly’’, just criticising. 

The thing is that they spoke without knowing, because actually the actress, four months ago, had posted a picture on her Instagram explaining that she was having hormone problems, and although she was now healthy and getting everything back to OK, those problems had made her body suffer changes and that’s why she had gained weight.

That is what makes me be outraged: people speaking badly and showing their negative opinions without really knowing what they are talking about. And saying all that in a public space, where the people you are talking about maybe will see your comments. If you think that, it’s fine, just keep it to yourself or say it in a respectful way but, still with the actress’ example, not because she’s famous your mean comments are not going to affect her.

And that’s just an example of people criticising, but there are a lot more. For example, nowadays Youtubers have become so popular, and in every famous channel on Youtube you can find disrespectful comments insulting them. C’mon, if you don’t like that person, if you don’t like the way they talk or if you don’t like the content they have on their channel, just leave. No one is forcing you to see their videos, so if you don’t like them, just stop watching them. Of course, I’m not saying you can’t comment to give your opinion, even if you want to give a negative opinion, but just do it with respect and with a foundation. Don’t limit yourself to say ‘’Your hair is awful’’, because yes, it may sound a silly example, but you can find plenty of comments similar to this one on Youtube.

And I could go on and on putting more examples of situations like these, but that's not the point. 

In my opinion, it all gets reduced to the quote: ‘’Live and let others live’’. If you don’t like what someone is doing, just ignore it, as long as it doesn’t affect you, of course. If you think they aren’t doing the right thing, just let them figure that out, and if you can’t live without expressing your opinion and telling them what you think, just do it in a respectful way, because there’s no need of saying it meanly. 

THE HARBIN ICE AND SNOW FESTIVAL

The Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is held every winter in Harbin, a city in China. Harbin is located in the northeast of the country, so it recieves the cold Siberian wind, that's why this festival is held in this city, because it needs a cold weather to keep all the sculptures intact. 

Because yes, this is what this festival it's about: a snow and ice sculptures display.

This festival is based on a Chinese tradition that they have had for many years: the Ice lanterns. We could compare this to the Jack o' lanterns in Halloween, but instead of using a pumpkin, they used an ice block. They created the block using a bucket and placed a candle inside of it, and doing this they got a windproof lamp. 

Years later, they started to use this technique in their free time, to create beautiful sculptures. And this is more or less how the festival started, although it wasn't until 1963 when it became an actual festival. Then, after some years not being held because of the Cultural Revolution in China, it returned on 1984 as the official Harbin Ice and Snow Festival.

The festival officially starts on January 5th and lasts for a month, although usually it goes on for some more time. During this month there are plenty of exhibitions around the whole city, but the main areas that you have to visit if you go there during the festival are: Ice and Snow World, Zhaolin Park and The Sun Island Park.

Ice and Snow and Zhaolin Park are both areas full of ice sculptures, beautiful during the day and striking at night, because of the different colour lights they have inside. In these areas you can find all type of scultures: some of them based on famous buildings, such as the Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall or European churches; others based on nature elements, like flowers, waterfalls and also animals; others on fantastic elements from tales and legends, etc.



In the Sun Island Park you can find snow sculptures also representing all types of things.

It is the largest ice and snow festival in the world, and besides the activities related to this, nowadays during the festival there are plenty of other activities, such as alpine skiing, winter swimming in the Songhua River, fireworks, concerts and even fashion shows.

REBEL SONG

AMERICAN IDIOT- Green Day

This task was about to choose a ''rebel song'', a song that criticizes and complains about the society and that instills the feeling of rebellion against it. 

The song I have chosen is American Idiot by the punck-rock band Green Day, a song released on 2004. 

This song talks about the American society, and although they don't really name it, the members of the band give their negative opintion about president's Bush administration system, complaining that it's full of lies and they're not OK with that. They talk about America as a country controlled by the media and they show their desires of rebelling against this and of not being part of this society.

I have chosen the song because I like the rythym of it and the song in general. This was a song that I already liked, and even though I had never thought about the message of it, it seem to me a perfect ''rebel song''. It has been interesting to find out the actual meaning and message of it.