Big Wonderful Thing

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Wonderful Thing

Introduction:The Magic Device

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravi Agrawal
Keyword(s):  
The Internet ◽  
Older Woman ◽  
Small Circle ◽  
Large Screen ◽  
Wonderful Thing ◽  
Woman In White ◽  
Village Women ◽  
Taj Mahal ◽  
The Village

In the dusty northwestern state of Rajasthan, Phoolwati was visiting a neighboring village on business. She was addressing a small circle of women dressed in sarees. Together, they formed a kaleidoscope of reds, yellows, and pinks. The colors parted obediently when an older woman, in white, pushed her way through the huddle. “What’s going on here?” bellowed the wizened old lady, speaking the rustic Hindi of the region. She pointed at the wiry newcomer, the hub of the commotion. “Who’s this?” All eyes turned to Phoolwati. “I’m here to teach the village women about the internet,” she said, as she thrust her hand out, revealing a phone with a large screen of images and text. She encountered a blank stare. “In-ter-nate,” tried Phoolwati once again, spelling it out phonetically in Hindi. “It’s a wonderful thing. You can get all kinds of information and knowledge on it.” The old lady snorted in disdain. “We’re all illiterate here, child,” she said. “Why are you wasting our time?” This was a familiar refrain to Phoolwati’s internet evangelism. She was prepared. “Who says you need to read and write to use the internet? Who says you need to know English?” demanded Phoolwati. “This is a magic device. See?” She held up her smartphone and pressed a button. The image of a microphone popped up on the screen. (This might have been more effective had the village women seen a microphone before.) “Go on. Ask it something,” Phoolwati told them. “Kuchh bhi. Anything. This has all the answers! You must be curious about something, na?” The old lady looked on incredulously. She slapped the top of her forehead in an exaggerated show of despair. Another woman had seen a city cousin toying with a smartphone once. She felt emboldened in the presence of Phoolwati’s gadget. “Show us the Taj Mahal!” she exclaimed loudly in Hindi. To instantly summon an image of the country’s most famous monument—one that none of them had ever seen—seemed an insurmountable challenge. But Google understood. The phone came alive; a video appeared on the screen. Phoolwati pressed Play.

Chapter XIII: Showing how the Golden Dustman Helped to Scatter Dust

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Dickens
Keyword(s):  
Wonderful Thing

In all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most bewilderingly wonderful thing to Bella was the shining countenance of Mr. Boffin. That his wife should be joyous, open-hearted, and genial, or that her face should express every quality that was large and trusting,...

scholarly journals Talking About “Chinese Dream” and “American Dream” From an Intercultural Communication Perspective

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Xiaochi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Chinese Dream ◽  
Wonderful Thing ◽  
The Chinese Dream ◽  
Cultural Connotations

Dream is usually a beautiful or wonderful thing, and often begins from the pursuit of beautiful or wonderful thing and the desire for happiness from poverty or suffering. The Chinese Dream and the American Dream have their own different cultural connotations especially under the influence of their own cultural values. Therefore, the author tries to compare the Chinese Dream with the American Dream from an intercultural perspective, discusses the cultural connotations of the different two dreams and focuses on the comparative analysis on the different intercultural values of the different two dreams, so as to deeply understand the Chinese Dream and American Dream from its history, culture, and its cultural values.

Discourses of Piracy in an Age of Revolutions

Itinerario ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Layton
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Present Article ◽  
British Empire ◽  
World History ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Naval History ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Wonderful Thing ◽  
Central Pillar

“The stigma of piracy,” writes Sugata Bose, “has provoked heated historical and political debate without always shedding much new light on its meaning and substance.” As a stigma, it has not only misrepresented the morality and motives of so-called pirates, but has also succeeded in ascribing an air of criminality to their activities, in an absence of any law that would actually have made it so. Moreover, recounting the spectacles of piracy in world history once nourished a faltering vision of imperial triumph, in which the maritime violence of empires, particularly the British Empire, was seen to be a wonderful thing. Since then, naval history has run aground, while other historians have begun to confront some of the questions head on: what is a “pirate,” and what made its violence illegitimate relative to the power of sovereign states? Most important to the present article is questioning how piracy developed into a central pillar of maritime-imperial expansion. Was it, as Bose suggests, part of a wider “extraterritorial and universalist anticolonialism” within the Indian Ocean arena, or was it merely an oppositional fantasy that legitimised sea power against a ubiquitous and ill-defined foe?

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