LOVE 愛 ÄLSKLING

For me, romantic love is you love/care/concern somebody else more than yourself. whenever there is happiness, you always wanna share it with him or her. But I believe there is only once or let's say...not often in one's life. that's the true love. romantic love is two people love each others, be responsible of each others. maybe not hang out all the time, but always keep each other in their hearts. love is about devotion, selflessness. usually the romantic love showed up after test/proof. if couples are not believe in or not care with each other will not discover the real love.

family love is also with the notion of love and care about your family members more then yourself. I think parents love their children for not only by given their life but protect then, treat them better then anything else in the world. And the important thing is, family love usually doesn't require repay. of course romantic love works in this way sometimes, but not as usual as family love. In Chinese culture, we care about filial respect and repay for parents or elders. But personally, I have problem to understand the love between brothers and sisters because the one child policy in China when I was born. I grown up with no sisters and brothers but my pet. But I do have a cousin who is three years older then me, we grew up together and live near by. The issues is we used to have "brothers and sisters" in class when I was in middle school and high school. That's very unique, a relationship like family and could goes beyond than friendship and romantic love.

I'm not sure about the romantic love, but the family love is basically as same as the widespread notion. Parents and elders take care of one when their were young, and after people getting old, they should repay to their families to show the filial respect. In Chinese, we call it "孝顺"(shiao shun, filial respect/filial piety/obedient). we have an old Chinese saying "百善孝为先"(filial comes the first out of hundreds of good morals). I guess the traditional Chinese way of family love are based on morals. Actually we rarely say "I love you" to our parents. I should say almost none of them saying that in my grand parents generation; maybe 5% in my parents generation; maybe 50% in my generation(only in urban family. I doubt rural family do that). To express our love to parents, most Chinese will show their love by actions(help parents, buy their presents, spend time with them). Maybe it easier to write "I love you" on sms or a card then actually say that to parents. The same thing happens from parents to child. Well, my family prefer to write "love" than say. My dad sets "we love you forever" to me as a welcome phrase when I get online to chatting program. But they hardly SAY that =)
Romantic love is another issue. Young Chinese say that everyday. Like my cousin and her boyfriend calling each others everyday and say "I love you", write that on their updates etc. But that happens mostly after they established their relationship. Before that, usually the male should be more active than female, then that present how reserve and valuable they are(hahaha... that's not working with me). I was not like that most of the time. I would rather shout it out. I don't like implication and reserve.
Personally, I don't know if it is because of the kindness from Chinese Confucianism or I get influenced by my grandpa who is a Buddhist. To me, love is all about giving and sharing(only the happiness). But part of my mind which being influenced by western culture encourages me to say that out. My idea of romantic love maybe too idealized. Usually goes like either scare guys away or attract/interest then since it hardly see a girl express her feeling like this.

I would take some examples to explain that. We have a folk story about a goddess in love with an ordinary human, the goddess was actually become a normal woman and married with the guy. But goddess father gets augury and serape them with galaxy. They try to fight for their love but not succeed. So they are stay at two sides of galaxy, the goddess is Vega and her husband is Aquilae. That is the story of constellations in China. All Chinese(in Japan as well) will celebrate the 7th of July in lunar calendar, because that is the day they could meet on the bridge built up by magpies. The story passed on for thousands years and been adopted thousands of times on media. So in Chinese culture, I think there are some important points in a great romantic love:
1. there should be problems between couples; 2. they have to fight for love; 3. 80%great love stories with a sad ending, or they become something else as a metaphor that says their love goes beyond. Same thing in movies like Hero(2002, Zhang YiMou), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2000, Ang Lee. the moive adopted from a novel in 30s'). Even girls play a passive role in Chinese way of romantic love, usually girls are brave and fight side by side for their love with guys in the love stories that being widely circulated.

All I need is love? Really? From Spain with love

Romantic love is a self destructive feeling, a kind of chemical reaction in our body caused because of the presence or the physical perception of other person, it makes to feel you inferior to this person and focus yourself only in the challenge of “catching” this person. When time passes by this feeling tend to vanish, and a terrific feeling of repentance about all the fool things you did come to your head. Romantic movement was based in people that most of the times commit suicide because of being frustrated of haven’t been able to reach the goal or, even, being injured by others because of the blindness that this chemical reaction causes.

Familiar love is a mixture between genetic predisposition to have a safety group where you can grow up overprotected and a feeling of affection for a group of person that have lived long time at your side. Family is the authentic homeland, and childhood the most special time at your homeland.

In my country many people think that the romantic love is the most important and it justify all. “He is in love” is one of the most common apologies you can hear in Spain. But it is a modern concept fostered by mass media, specially stories from TV and Cinema. In the past there is a lot of refrains about the sufferings of realistic love, and my parents have always educated me about that. Now I base my relationships, both friends and girlfriends in patience and forgiveness, and I use to differentiate between a fun person and a good friend (sometimes are the same)

Media in Spain reflects a society where the romantic love is the most powerful way to reach happiness. But Stories have an end, and life continues. Nobody like to see at television couples without big problems that follow a “boring” life.

Family love is depicted in the most commercial movies as a responsible life within the “american dream”: House, car, job and barbeque at sundays, everybody happy. Romantic love is always the engine of the movies, somebody wants to get somebody and he or she is ready to break up any boundary to reach it. The boundaries are always the family or the society and the couple are heros because they fight against all that the majority of people in real life is not able to do.

Love as you think!!!

Dear Class:

First, I have not heard from the first years yet, but only one student Lisa said she cannot make it for the meeting, secondly, they said that they might have a class at the time, we will continue with whoever shows up and will see.

And I will upload the following on our website but thought you could get it in the email.

I have talked to the second year Master’s students about this research project.

I am interested in identifying certain aspects of movies made in different world.

So, help me out please.

Here on the blog, please write as long and as short as you would like about.

1. Your idea of romantic love
2. Your idea of family love
3. Do you think your idea of love, family or romantic is the same as the widespread notion of these ideas in the country of your origin? If not then, please describe how your ideas are different from the dominant ideas in the country of your origin?
4. How do you see it reflected in media from your country (if that applies)
5. How do you see both family and romantic love is depicted in hollywood?
6. If you feel you do not wish to share your thoughts on any of the above mentioned questioned please do not hesitate to say so.

Lärare

Love love love

Typical understanding of romantic love are as followings: to present flowers to a girl at every date, to take girl to a restaurant, cinema, etc. And in the predominant number of cases the guy pays. If a girl suggests to pay for herself, it can be considered as a disregard\disrespect of a man's ability to support both. If a girl pays for both, a guy is immediately considered Alfonso.
In the family love all mentioned above disappear in most cases, since a man is busy earning money and woman is responsible for rising children, keeping the household. The work of woman is mostly underestimated by man, so they do no see any reason to help her while man gets extremely tired after work, as they say. This results in a high divorce rate.
In the extreme stereotype of family love a woman just "has a right to be loved" and a "man to be breadwinner" as in Russian movie Bless the Woman (Blagoslovite Zhenshshinu, 2003). Though it deals with the role of woman in the wartime.

This all is best depicted in a Russian cartoon made in USSR times. I am amazed by most of Russian cartoons of my childhood. Thought "cartoon" tells us that it is for children, many Russian cartoon of that time are full of wisdom worth watching by every adult and adults only can understand that wisdom. These cartoons are needless to translate because they speak for themselves and are highly symbolic.

The cartoon is called "I will present you a star". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu6sFEud6Rk It will also confirm that my understanding of these "loves" fully matches common belief.

Though of course there are people who does not fit this reality but they are just exceptions of a rule. Yeah, I called it reality because it is so in my country. It becomes stereotype when it is only compared with the roles of men and women in western societies, for those who have a chance to compare whether directly or indirectly.