Last weekend there was the last bullfight ever in Catalunya. This means no more toreros and no more bull slaughtered while people is watching and cheering for it to die. But it also meant controversy.
Why is that? If you've followed my blog you already know that we, Catalans, are a bit different from Spaniards, we have our own language and our own culture as well as our own government (which has existed since middle ages). Bullfighting is something that is deeply related with Spanish traditions and a think that we don't see as our own, also it is barbaric, they torture the poor animal for a long time before they get to kill him. The controversy comes because there is some people that believe that the ban is because of national identity reasons instead of animal rights reasons.
Let's make it clear I do feel Catalan, but the reason why I don't like bullfighting and I wanted it banned is because it is unethical and cruel and it cannot be called culture in any way. I don't care if it is a Spanish or a Catalan tradition, I just don't like to see how people kill animals that way just for "fun".
9/29/2011
9/17/2011
Catalan, Spanish and the value of knowing languages
I live in Catalunya, this means that in here there are three official languages: Catalan, Spanish and Aranès (which unfortunatelly I'm not able to speak, mainly because it is not spoken in my region). At school kids are taught mainly in Catalan, using Spanish and English in their specific subjects. It has been done like this for 30 years (I think), but now there have been some parents (Spanish-speakers) who have complaint about this.
I know that most of the people who gets in this blog may not even know that in Catalunya there's a different language than from the rest of Spain, but there is, and it has more speakers (around 7 million I think) than some of the EU official languages. So it is not only a language that we have to preserve because of cultural richness but because it is alive and it was persecuted during the dictatorship years meaning that older people cannot write it correctly even if they understand it.
Teaching kids in Catalan is important because it helps them to integrate in the country, especially those whose parents are from other countries. Some people say that since we speak in Spanish too it is completely useless, but, as some of you might already know, the most languages you learn as a kid the easier it is to learn a new one afterwards. What's more if we had to learn languages only because of its usefulness many official languages of some countries would disappear because they are only spoken there.
I was taught mainly in Catalan so I can explain my own experience. Rising from a Catalan family, Catalan has always been my mother language and I only started learning Spanish about the same time I started learning English, which I think was when I was 8 years old, fairly late I have to admit this. Even after a late start I am competent in Spanish, I guess I should say more than competent, although I hardly ever speak it, not because I don't want to, but because I don't need to since I mostly speak in Catalan or in English. This doesn't mean that I don't value my knowledge in Spanish, it has prepared my mind to learn other languages like French, English or even Icelandic.
So this is a message to everyone who thinks that learning Catalan is useless and that Spanish should be the main language... go live to another country and ask them to teach your kids in Spanish... we'll see what they say.
I know that most of the people who gets in this blog may not even know that in Catalunya there's a different language than from the rest of Spain, but there is, and it has more speakers (around 7 million I think) than some of the EU official languages. So it is not only a language that we have to preserve because of cultural richness but because it is alive and it was persecuted during the dictatorship years meaning that older people cannot write it correctly even if they understand it.
Teaching kids in Catalan is important because it helps them to integrate in the country, especially those whose parents are from other countries. Some people say that since we speak in Spanish too it is completely useless, but, as some of you might already know, the most languages you learn as a kid the easier it is to learn a new one afterwards. What's more if we had to learn languages only because of its usefulness many official languages of some countries would disappear because they are only spoken there.
I was taught mainly in Catalan so I can explain my own experience. Rising from a Catalan family, Catalan has always been my mother language and I only started learning Spanish about the same time I started learning English, which I think was when I was 8 years old, fairly late I have to admit this. Even after a late start I am competent in Spanish, I guess I should say more than competent, although I hardly ever speak it, not because I don't want to, but because I don't need to since I mostly speak in Catalan or in English. This doesn't mean that I don't value my knowledge in Spanish, it has prepared my mind to learn other languages like French, English or even Icelandic.
So this is a message to everyone who thinks that learning Catalan is useless and that Spanish should be the main language... go live to another country and ask them to teach your kids in Spanish... we'll see what they say.
9/02/2011
We don't value what we got
There are lots of things that we have and we do and we never value them, I'm not talking about things like a family or education or work, I'm talking about things we do unconsciously, like seeing, hearing, walking, breathing, etcetera.
I was really close to be sitting in a wheelchair for all my life, really really close, hadn't it been for a doctor that believed in himself and tried something different when I was born I wouldn't have been able to walk, but here I am walking on my feet as if it was the most natural thing to do. And it is but it could have not been, still as I said I walk without thinking and only sometimes I think how life would have been in a wheelchair, specially when I take the metro or the train, and I realize that I am lucky.
These kind of things that most of us take for granted aren't so for some people and we only realize how important they are when we have some kind of problem. Just stop and think how many of the things you do everyday you wouldn't be able to do if you couldn't hear, see or walk. I know that if I couldn't walk I wouldn't be able to go to Barcelona every day on my own by train, the train station I usually get out in doesn't have an elevator, or I wouldn't be able to take the metro, or maybe only in some places.
The point is that we complain we have problems but we could have bigger problems, I'm not saying that being blind or deaf or wheelchair bound is something that you cannot overcome but certainly depending on the places it makes life a bit more difficult and we that don't have any of this problems don't value it as we should.
I was really close to be sitting in a wheelchair for all my life, really really close, hadn't it been for a doctor that believed in himself and tried something different when I was born I wouldn't have been able to walk, but here I am walking on my feet as if it was the most natural thing to do. And it is but it could have not been, still as I said I walk without thinking and only sometimes I think how life would have been in a wheelchair, specially when I take the metro or the train, and I realize that I am lucky.
These kind of things that most of us take for granted aren't so for some people and we only realize how important they are when we have some kind of problem. Just stop and think how many of the things you do everyday you wouldn't be able to do if you couldn't hear, see or walk. I know that if I couldn't walk I wouldn't be able to go to Barcelona every day on my own by train, the train station I usually get out in doesn't have an elevator, or I wouldn't be able to take the metro, or maybe only in some places.
The point is that we complain we have problems but we could have bigger problems, I'm not saying that being blind or deaf or wheelchair bound is something that you cannot overcome but certainly depending on the places it makes life a bit more difficult and we that don't have any of this problems don't value it as we should.
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