Dance and Travel

Karana Mudra - Buddha Position for warding off the Evil The most amazing trip I've made this year was in Thailand. To understan better Oriental and Southern Asian culture -  Lonely Planet Book Guide  can help you - you have to know first what Buddhism is and what rappresents there. Buddhism   is not properly a religion, but more a philosophy of life. According to wikipedia it is a philosophy gathering a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices based on original teachings of Buddha. All Buddhist traditions share the goal of overcoming suffering and the cycle of death and rebirth, either by the attainment of Nirvana or through the path of Buddhahood. However, have you ever noticed that Buddha is always rappresented in different positions?  Its hands, arms, and gestures changes depending the message he want to give us.  Therefore, it is essential to know Buddha's positions to undestant better the Buddhist culture. I was very impressed i...

  As a Portuguese learner and Brazilian culture and music passionate, I couldn’t stop noticing that some words do not have a translation in other languages. In my experience Portuguese language is charming and full of words that hold a tremendous amount of feeling and symbolism. Indeed, Brazilian culture is deeply intertwined with music, rhythm, traditions, and feelings. Some feelings and gestures do not have a translation. Here are my personal list with the 7 most meaningful words in Brazilian Portuguese that simply cannot be translated completely into English. 1 )Saudade Probably the most untranslatable Portuguese word. It is a nostalgic and profound state of melancholic longing for a person, place, a situation or anything that exists. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. In English can be expressed with melancholy, longing, or nostalgia. Ex. Que saudade daquela época onde a gente ainda era criança e se divertia c...

When I approach first the Portuguese language as Italian speaker, I was thinking to a single unitary block. I already expected some dialectal influences, in particular in Brazil, due to the fact that is composed of many federal states. However I could never expect that Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese could differ in grammatical, syntactic and lexical forms. We are not talking about British English and American English, we are talking about almost two different languages and cultures. Of course also for the people who do not know the syntactical and lexical differences, it seems to be evident the musicality of the Brazilian variant, due to the different pronunciations of the words. Pronunciations: Ex. Sauda d e, felicida d e, aon d e, d epois (“d” sound for Portuguese, while “gi” sound for Brasilian variant) Ex. Noi t e, gen t e, sen t ir  (“t” sound for Portuguese, while “tch” sound for Brazilian Portuguese) Besides, I recollect 10 different expression...