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Woman and Aquatic Plants



Hi, folks,

Here's a message from someone who doesn't want his identity
revealed.  Don't flame me, I don't know him.

Loh K L

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>Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 12:40:37 -0800 (PST)
>From: someone who wants to be anonymous
>Subject: Woman and Aquatic Plants
>To: timebomb at pacific_net.sg
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>Kwek Leong,
>You sure know how to touch a nerve!
>
>Since I have spent a lot of time in Asia and
>ultimately married a person from an Asian country,
>I'll share some comments you may find interesting.
>Your are free to re-post if you like but please don't
>use my name.
>
>I observe that Americans often interpret cultural
>differences along the two dimensional plane of better
>and worse; if the other country is different than it
>must be worse. Asian woman are constant fodder for
>this type of mentality. Statements like Asian woman
>are treated "so poorly" (not allowed to work, only
>live for husband and family, don't have any rights,
>...) are perennial. The fact that Americans don't
>usually travel beyond their own boarders and the way
>the media uses these stereotypes for readership,
>viewership, etc. only adds to it. So I would not be
>surprised to see the different thread messages cloaked
>with these precepts of Americanism. For my own
>experience, Asians, including woman, have many good
>qualities the West can learn from if only they could
>open their eyes just a little. So let the sparks will
>fly. We need a break from all the boring stuff on the
>list anyway!
>
>My own take at possibly why there are fewer woman in
>the hobby in Asia than here would begin with my
>observation that in the East each country is about
>6000 times more mono-cultural in its ancestry and
>ideas, than here. (Singapore is "cosmopolitan" by
>Asian standards yet it still has mostly three cultures
>- Chinese, Malay, Indian.) What I have observed is
>that this relative cultural narrowness propagates
>traditional roles of man and woman, old and young,
>parent and child, etc. more strongly than here.
>Perhaps then, the hobby in Asia belongs to men because
>simply because it has always been that way. But I have
>also observed that the same cultural narrowness can
>also create new fads overnight much faster and
>stronger than here so perhaps Asia possesses greater
>capacity to change woman's role in planted aquaria
>than America if only a company could create the right
>fad?
>
>
>
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