Overloaded at the moment - work, studies, family members in hospital (though now out and recovering glad to say). Be back soon... Blogging has to take the back burner. Please bear with me.xx
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Size Matters?
Right, I am seriously dreadful of late at blogging and I apologise for that. Have a busy job as have said before and exams to think about too, so it tends to go on the back burner but hope it's still useful for people.
Anyway... today's blog is a bit ranty... teeny bit ranty so bear with me!
One of my friends has got engaged of late. She attended my wedding... even had a role in my wedding so as a good friend, there is the ability to be honest. She's recently got engaged which is wonderful news... but... when she told me of her own wedding plans, she was pretty critical of my having had 100 ***** well guests, as opposed to the 20 she's planning on having.
Needless to say, I was a touch irritated...
But then I got to thinking more about it... When I was wedding planning, quite a number of British women thought that my wedding sounded massive. I only met one other couple who weren't Asian who were having a bigger wedding than us. They were Irish! It struck me that most other countries, bar the North America and Britain, tend to have bigger weddings than their Canadian / American / British counterparts. Even in Europe, research I've done suggests weddings tend to be bigger events, so I got to thinking about this subject, which is what prompted today's blog post.
The thing is, standard British weddings these days are all about KNOWING THE GUESTS WELL... Families are criticised for wanting people the couples barely know and those people are not invited. I really do get this... why spend money on the distant family member or family friend you barely see who barely keeps in touch? I am in agreement and I totally see the point. My friend cited, 'being able to talk to everyone properly,' as a main reason for her criticism. Yes, I was kind of upset that I didn't get to spend more time with a friend who had flown over from Germany for the occasion. I would have liked to have sat down quietly with her and her partner and caught up... of course, but I did spend as much time with her as I could and was really glad to see her and really honoured them in my speech (yes, I did a speech - we can come to that another time!).
Anyway, Asian weddings are not like this at all. Mine was actually a really small wedding as far as Asian weddings that I've been to are concerned. The thing is... we have a culture that sees weddings as a major family celebration. Until the most recent generation, people still had really big families. I have 36 first cousins alone - but each of my parents' siblings only have 2 children average. We are close to our families. Weddings are also seen as major celebrations... As part of being a more open culture, it's also not just a celebration for the family themselves, it's a celebration for the community, so a lot of people, naturally, are invited.
Living in the UK, like many other immigrant families from my particular community, we don't have much family living here. What we have instead, is a new family. Our parents became very close to their friends and friends often become more like siblings and their children, our cousins as such. My husband calls all his parents friends by their first names... I call my parents friends Auntie and Uncle... As a child, I was taught it was disrespectful to call an adult by their first name so never did. But these honorary Aunties and Uncles, as far as I am concerned, they ARE my Aunties and Uncles. I've known them since I was a baby and they knew me when I was still a foetus. It was a pleasure that they attended on that day. There were a few admittedly, I didn't know well, but get this - I don't think people drive 150+ miles and stay overnight at a hotel to get a free meal. They go because they care about the people who are getting married.
Another point that you have to understand about Asian weddings... it's also not just about the celebration. It's the parents showing their pride in the celebration and welcoming the entire community to celebrate with them. My Dad came to Britain with £3 in his pocket (yes, you read that right). That was all the money he had left after buying his plane ticket, his visa, etc. With that, he built up a life for himself, my mother and later when my sister and I came along. He had a business before he retired, bought a beautiful home and supported two daughters through Uni... My parents didn't pay for the whole of my wedding by any means, but both sets of parents contributed... Thus I think it was fine to allow them on both sides to have guests they wanted to... For us, the celebration was about two families coming together and celebrating... not just two people. For my parents and for his parents, part of that was to be able to celebrate the lives they had made for their children too, going forth in their new partnership. They wanted to indulge the people they cared about and we cared about to have a really good time celebrating.
Yes, it's true that it's much more personal to have a smaller wedding, not least to say cheaper too... But there are good reasons for 'big' weddings as well dependent on personal perception and I wanted to clarify my take on it!
My final thought, in respect to my friend, though... is our weddings will be totally different... but I do have to say we are touched and honoured to be part of the 20, as clearly it's mostly only going to be family. Neither of them with any aunts, uncles or cousins! :)
Anyway... today's blog is a bit ranty... teeny bit ranty so bear with me!
One of my friends has got engaged of late. She attended my wedding... even had a role in my wedding so as a good friend, there is the ability to be honest. She's recently got engaged which is wonderful news... but... when she told me of her own wedding plans, she was pretty critical of my having had 100 ***** well guests, as opposed to the 20 she's planning on having.
Needless to say, I was a touch irritated...
But then I got to thinking more about it... When I was wedding planning, quite a number of British women thought that my wedding sounded massive. I only met one other couple who weren't Asian who were having a bigger wedding than us. They were Irish! It struck me that most other countries, bar the North America and Britain, tend to have bigger weddings than their Canadian / American / British counterparts. Even in Europe, research I've done suggests weddings tend to be bigger events, so I got to thinking about this subject, which is what prompted today's blog post.
The thing is, standard British weddings these days are all about KNOWING THE GUESTS WELL... Families are criticised for wanting people the couples barely know and those people are not invited. I really do get this... why spend money on the distant family member or family friend you barely see who barely keeps in touch? I am in agreement and I totally see the point. My friend cited, 'being able to talk to everyone properly,' as a main reason for her criticism. Yes, I was kind of upset that I didn't get to spend more time with a friend who had flown over from Germany for the occasion. I would have liked to have sat down quietly with her and her partner and caught up... of course, but I did spend as much time with her as I could and was really glad to see her and really honoured them in my speech (yes, I did a speech - we can come to that another time!).
Anyway, Asian weddings are not like this at all. Mine was actually a really small wedding as far as Asian weddings that I've been to are concerned. The thing is... we have a culture that sees weddings as a major family celebration. Until the most recent generation, people still had really big families. I have 36 first cousins alone - but each of my parents' siblings only have 2 children average. We are close to our families. Weddings are also seen as major celebrations... As part of being a more open culture, it's also not just a celebration for the family themselves, it's a celebration for the community, so a lot of people, naturally, are invited.
Living in the UK, like many other immigrant families from my particular community, we don't have much family living here. What we have instead, is a new family. Our parents became very close to their friends and friends often become more like siblings and their children, our cousins as such. My husband calls all his parents friends by their first names... I call my parents friends Auntie and Uncle... As a child, I was taught it was disrespectful to call an adult by their first name so never did. But these honorary Aunties and Uncles, as far as I am concerned, they ARE my Aunties and Uncles. I've known them since I was a baby and they knew me when I was still a foetus. It was a pleasure that they attended on that day. There were a few admittedly, I didn't know well, but get this - I don't think people drive 150+ miles and stay overnight at a hotel to get a free meal. They go because they care about the people who are getting married.
Another point that you have to understand about Asian weddings... it's also not just about the celebration. It's the parents showing their pride in the celebration and welcoming the entire community to celebrate with them. My Dad came to Britain with £3 in his pocket (yes, you read that right). That was all the money he had left after buying his plane ticket, his visa, etc. With that, he built up a life for himself, my mother and later when my sister and I came along. He had a business before he retired, bought a beautiful home and supported two daughters through Uni... My parents didn't pay for the whole of my wedding by any means, but both sets of parents contributed... Thus I think it was fine to allow them on both sides to have guests they wanted to... For us, the celebration was about two families coming together and celebrating... not just two people. For my parents and for his parents, part of that was to be able to celebrate the lives they had made for their children too, going forth in their new partnership. They wanted to indulge the people they cared about and we cared about to have a really good time celebrating.
Yes, it's true that it's much more personal to have a smaller wedding, not least to say cheaper too... But there are good reasons for 'big' weddings as well dependent on personal perception and I wanted to clarify my take on it!
My final thought, in respect to my friend, though... is our weddings will be totally different... but I do have to say we are touched and honoured to be part of the 20, as clearly it's mostly only going to be family. Neither of them with any aunts, uncles or cousins! :)
Thursday, 22 November 2012
Me...
Tired, work review coming up very soon and exams next year so the blog is kind of on the back burner, but I shall try to stay on the ball.
Thanks for bearing with me!
Thanks for bearing with me!
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
More Gripes with the Asian Wedding Industry
My friend recently had an Anglo-Asian wedding in Leeds. She bought her fusion style dress from one of the Asian bridal shops in London. I can't post a picture of her just yet, so description will have to suffice. The dress was really beautiful: fuschia pink with gold detail in a ballgown style so it looked a cross between a lehenga and a ballgown, much more East meets West.
Her experience of buying the dress however, echoes the experience of many Asian brides that I have come across that have used these shops... Three days before her wedding, the dress had apparently not yet been delivered to the store, but they continued to assure her that it would arrive in time for delivery to Yorkshire. She hadn't thought she might need... and they hadn't even offered... a final fitting just in case things weren't quite right when the dress arrived from Pakistan.
Thankfully it did fit... but two days before the wedding she had to take unpaid time off work to go to London to pick up the dress. There was no apology or discount offered and no consideration for what she had paid to travel to London.
I have heard this time and time again and it really put me off... then I remembered something my Mum always does when we are visiting India and getting things made. She tells a little white lie about when she needs the item ready for, stating days earlier, as she points out that things are always left until the last minute. This always works.
As I have discussed before, going to India did not really help my own dress experience anyway, as the top part of the dress was made very poorly - ill fitting, the neckline not even straight and midriff revealing which I had 100% not wanted. I was lucky to have a talented friend who could remake the top for me from scratch.
I increasingly believe Asian wedding suppliers need to beware and watch their heels. In the UK, they have charged extortionate prices for years due to their exclusivity. I live in an area where there is only few Asian wedding suppliers who I found had little evidence to show the quality of their work, didn't know how to use email and in a couple of instances weren't willing to be booked more than three months ahead. I wasn't willing to pay £2000 to have a company travel from Leicester to Asian-ify my wedding. I managed it all using local British wedding suppliers and none of the Asian guests felt that it was a poor substitute. I had been told that a British makeup artist would be unlikely to be able to do a good job on Asian skin for example, but mine was excellent.
Increasingly, Western women are wearing coloured wedding dresses and I think it's going to be much harder for Asian shops to maintain that they and only they can supply the styles that Asian brides are looking for.
Jessica Biel married Justin Timberlake last week wearing a rose pink Giambattista Valli gown. I must admit, I'm not really a fan of this, but if JB wears it, increasingly more of us mere mortals will be doing the same.
She's one in a line of several female celebrities who have done similar. Examples below include the fashionista herself, Sarah Jessica Parker wearing black when she married Matthew Broderick (they invited guests to a party and then surprised them all by revealing it was in fact their wedding). It's a very simplistic dress for a lady who has pretty much every designer wanting to dress her for major occasions.
Dita Von Teese wore a rich purple Vivienne Westwood gown when she married Marilyn Manson. An ill-fated marriage, but a very memorable dress.
Dita's gown particularly illustrates how Western dresses can easily become fusion dresses. Just imagine her dress in red...
So please, if you're an Asian or fusion bride to be, think before you buy your dress. Asian bridal shops undoubtedly stock beautiful creations, but tell them your wedding is at least six weeks before the actual date (if you have time of course) or consider the many beautiful alternatives there are out there. My dress was certainly half and half... half Indian designed, half my own British designer friend, but I loved it just the same (and it didn't cost me a small fortune!).
Her experience of buying the dress however, echoes the experience of many Asian brides that I have come across that have used these shops... Three days before her wedding, the dress had apparently not yet been delivered to the store, but they continued to assure her that it would arrive in time for delivery to Yorkshire. She hadn't thought she might need... and they hadn't even offered... a final fitting just in case things weren't quite right when the dress arrived from Pakistan.
Thankfully it did fit... but two days before the wedding she had to take unpaid time off work to go to London to pick up the dress. There was no apology or discount offered and no consideration for what she had paid to travel to London.
I have heard this time and time again and it really put me off... then I remembered something my Mum always does when we are visiting India and getting things made. She tells a little white lie about when she needs the item ready for, stating days earlier, as she points out that things are always left until the last minute. This always works.
As I have discussed before, going to India did not really help my own dress experience anyway, as the top part of the dress was made very poorly - ill fitting, the neckline not even straight and midriff revealing which I had 100% not wanted. I was lucky to have a talented friend who could remake the top for me from scratch.
I increasingly believe Asian wedding suppliers need to beware and watch their heels. In the UK, they have charged extortionate prices for years due to their exclusivity. I live in an area where there is only few Asian wedding suppliers who I found had little evidence to show the quality of their work, didn't know how to use email and in a couple of instances weren't willing to be booked more than three months ahead. I wasn't willing to pay £2000 to have a company travel from Leicester to Asian-ify my wedding. I managed it all using local British wedding suppliers and none of the Asian guests felt that it was a poor substitute. I had been told that a British makeup artist would be unlikely to be able to do a good job on Asian skin for example, but mine was excellent.
Increasingly, Western women are wearing coloured wedding dresses and I think it's going to be much harder for Asian shops to maintain that they and only they can supply the styles that Asian brides are looking for.
Jessica Biel married Justin Timberlake last week wearing a rose pink Giambattista Valli gown. I must admit, I'm not really a fan of this, but if JB wears it, increasingly more of us mere mortals will be doing the same.
She's one in a line of several female celebrities who have done similar. Examples below include the fashionista herself, Sarah Jessica Parker wearing black when she married Matthew Broderick (they invited guests to a party and then surprised them all by revealing it was in fact their wedding). It's a very simplistic dress for a lady who has pretty much every designer wanting to dress her for major occasions.
Dita Von Teese wore a rich purple Vivienne Westwood gown when she married Marilyn Manson. An ill-fated marriage, but a very memorable dress.
Dita's gown particularly illustrates how Western dresses can easily become fusion dresses. Just imagine her dress in red...
So please, if you're an Asian or fusion bride to be, think before you buy your dress. Asian bridal shops undoubtedly stock beautiful creations, but tell them your wedding is at least six weeks before the actual date (if you have time of course) or consider the many beautiful alternatives there are out there. My dress was certainly half and half... half Indian designed, half my own British designer friend, but I loved it just the same (and it didn't cost me a small fortune!).
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
My Mixed Bag of Thoughts: on any relationship that isn't 'mainstream'
My first paragraph is an apology for not blogging for so long... and I've still not completed the changeover to WordPress. My reasons being my real life job has taken over for some time and I've barely had a spare moment to relax, let alone blog. We've also had various events going on in our lives which have taken up every weekend for months. Anyway... here goes...
My caveat is that I hope my terms are not politically incorrect. Some people prefer Asian to brown, African American to black... to be honest as a British Indian woman with brown skin, to me the terms are interchangeable and not meant offensively. I hope readers consider it that way too.
George Takei (Mr Sulu of Star Trek fame) recently posted this picture on facebook.
Now I am an unashamed geek and remember reading about this kiss being considered the first ever televised inter-racial kiss in US mainstream media. The episode first aired in 1968. The only thing is... if you see the episode, in actuality they are forced to do this by telepathic aliens(!) all the while protesting, "Noooooooo!!!" So although it raised controversy, they didn't really do it because they actually even wanted to. If the viewer was thinking, don't do it, they were reassured that that was what the characters were thinking as well. Interestingly, the show was originally shown in black and white and many people used to think the Uhura character was Asian anyway, which was also more acceptable than her being African American, so the point was diluted anyway.
I read the comments on this photograph on Mr Takei's wall with interest. One man even mentioned that he had started asking out African American girls based on this kiss, as he thought if Captain Kirk could do it, then so could he. I found this a little bizarre but unsurprising. It doesn't surprise me that people may behave differently based on the actions of a character.
In fact, it wasn't the first inter-racial kiss on TV. It was the first time in the USA, a white man had been shown kissing a black woman. In the UK, there had apparently been a televised inter-racial kiss in 1964 and before that in America, Lucille Ball (white) would be shown kissing Desi Arnaz (Hispanic) in a show called 'I Love Lucy' but that was considered more acceptable than black / white. I can find little to show when a black man was ever shown kissing a white woman first.
US television surprises me to this day to be honest, as normally when I see any characters, they will date someone of the same race. Alyssa Milano of 'Charmed' fame will be starring in a US TV remake of the BBC TV show 'Mistresses.' The character of Hari, who was an Asian man married to a white woman, has been changed to Harry, a white man in the American version.
The Big Bang Theory features the fantastic character of Raj Kuthrapali, a satirical and hilarious version of a nerdy Indian young man living in the USA. They have shown him dating girls of different races, though he now remains the only main character not in a relationship. They never show his white counterparts dating or even being attracted to girls of other races.
I find the US attitude honestly utterly bizarre because this is not something that happens on British TV particularly. There remains racial taboo there, in the media anyway, which does not exist in the UK. I am not even sure, with a black president, why this remains but there you go.
I also remember watching the movie 'Brokeback Mountain' waiting for the 'shocking scene' in the movie and getting to the end and wandering whether I had been watching an edited version. I then realised that the insinuation of homosexual sex in a tent was the shocking scene. Those that recall Channel Four's 'Queer As Folk' were I am sure, equally bemused. For those that aren't aware, this show showed some really quite explicit scenes of men having sex with other men and was screened more than ten years before 'Brokeback Mountain.'
This post isn't really aimed at suggesting that TV and especially European TV are more forward thinking than their US counterparts. I do however wonder how far behind real life the TV and movie makers really are. Obviously I appreciate that they have to take into account the sensitivities of the more conservative viewer, but in this day and age, to consider there to be something still so shocking about anything but a male-female relationship between two people of the same race is utterly backward thinking and bizarre. One day, I am certain, history will look back and wonder what on Earth took us so long to accept gay marriage. Our attitudes will be considered in line with the Victorians undoubtedly.
The World is increasingly becoming a smaller and smaller place. No doubt the space planes of the near future, which will make flying from the UK to Australia possible in less than six hours, will change things again.
Sometimes older people ask me when I immigrated to Britian, which I think is silly given that I was born here. My Mum recently got asked whether she was going home to India by a stranger when she went to the library. Her blunt response of, "No," thankfully silenced her.
As you all know, I was recently the victim of racism / car rage by a stranger. Despite the fact that I filmed him being racist to me and have him admitting to it in the video, the local Magistrates Court found him not guilty on a technicality. I briefly considered being upset about this and then decided that it was best to just let it go as I had already wasted months worrying about it.
Eventually, I believe, racist and homophobic attitudes will increasingly be evolved out of the human race. Ignorance will always of course persist, but when my parents first migrated to the UK, years before I was born, racist comments and general ignorance were commonplace. I even recall being at primary school in the 1980s and children in my class being utterly fixated on calling me 'coloured' and making a big deal out of it. Even at the wedding of a friend back in the early 2000s, the best man made a comment on the fact that they were a brown and white person getting married and how amazing he thought it was.... which I found rather crass given that there were many mixed race couples in the room with their mixed race children. However, where it was once considered acceptable to publicly make ignorant comments, recent cases in the news (Fabrice Muamba etc) show that nowadays it clearly is not.
When I was first thinking of writing this blog and posted on wedding forums to ask people what their thoughts were, some could not understand what the point was, but it was then abundantly clear that they had no understanding that there are different types of weddings held in the UK, other than church and civil. Those that were aware got it. Of course, I am referring here to culture which is separate from race, as of course I could have just had a civil ceremony and worn whatever I liked.
Even when I posted my professional wedding photographs recently on facebook, a friend of a friend commented that he wanted the groomsmen's suits explaining (as he did not understand the wearing of an Indian outfit for an Indian ceremony). Change and mixture and integration are what makes the World go round and those who insist on staying the same, will remain trapped in the past, sometimes even isolated from their own families. The more we promote difference, the better that people will understand. I hope that my little blog goes somewhere towards this.
My caveat is that I hope my terms are not politically incorrect. Some people prefer Asian to brown, African American to black... to be honest as a British Indian woman with brown skin, to me the terms are interchangeable and not meant offensively. I hope readers consider it that way too.
George Takei (Mr Sulu of Star Trek fame) recently posted this picture on facebook.
Now I am an unashamed geek and remember reading about this kiss being considered the first ever televised inter-racial kiss in US mainstream media. The episode first aired in 1968. The only thing is... if you see the episode, in actuality they are forced to do this by telepathic aliens(!) all the while protesting, "Noooooooo!!!" So although it raised controversy, they didn't really do it because they actually even wanted to. If the viewer was thinking, don't do it, they were reassured that that was what the characters were thinking as well. Interestingly, the show was originally shown in black and white and many people used to think the Uhura character was Asian anyway, which was also more acceptable than her being African American, so the point was diluted anyway.
I read the comments on this photograph on Mr Takei's wall with interest. One man even mentioned that he had started asking out African American girls based on this kiss, as he thought if Captain Kirk could do it, then so could he. I found this a little bizarre but unsurprising. It doesn't surprise me that people may behave differently based on the actions of a character.
In fact, it wasn't the first inter-racial kiss on TV. It was the first time in the USA, a white man had been shown kissing a black woman. In the UK, there had apparently been a televised inter-racial kiss in 1964 and before that in America, Lucille Ball (white) would be shown kissing Desi Arnaz (Hispanic) in a show called 'I Love Lucy' but that was considered more acceptable than black / white. I can find little to show when a black man was ever shown kissing a white woman first.
US television surprises me to this day to be honest, as normally when I see any characters, they will date someone of the same race. Alyssa Milano of 'Charmed' fame will be starring in a US TV remake of the BBC TV show 'Mistresses.' The character of Hari, who was an Asian man married to a white woman, has been changed to Harry, a white man in the American version.
The Big Bang Theory features the fantastic character of Raj Kuthrapali, a satirical and hilarious version of a nerdy Indian young man living in the USA. They have shown him dating girls of different races, though he now remains the only main character not in a relationship. They never show his white counterparts dating or even being attracted to girls of other races.
I find the US attitude honestly utterly bizarre because this is not something that happens on British TV particularly. There remains racial taboo there, in the media anyway, which does not exist in the UK. I am not even sure, with a black president, why this remains but there you go.
I also remember watching the movie 'Brokeback Mountain' waiting for the 'shocking scene' in the movie and getting to the end and wandering whether I had been watching an edited version. I then realised that the insinuation of homosexual sex in a tent was the shocking scene. Those that recall Channel Four's 'Queer As Folk' were I am sure, equally bemused. For those that aren't aware, this show showed some really quite explicit scenes of men having sex with other men and was screened more than ten years before 'Brokeback Mountain.'
This post isn't really aimed at suggesting that TV and especially European TV are more forward thinking than their US counterparts. I do however wonder how far behind real life the TV and movie makers really are. Obviously I appreciate that they have to take into account the sensitivities of the more conservative viewer, but in this day and age, to consider there to be something still so shocking about anything but a male-female relationship between two people of the same race is utterly backward thinking and bizarre. One day, I am certain, history will look back and wonder what on Earth took us so long to accept gay marriage. Our attitudes will be considered in line with the Victorians undoubtedly.
The World is increasingly becoming a smaller and smaller place. No doubt the space planes of the near future, which will make flying from the UK to Australia possible in less than six hours, will change things again.
Sometimes older people ask me when I immigrated to Britian, which I think is silly given that I was born here. My Mum recently got asked whether she was going home to India by a stranger when she went to the library. Her blunt response of, "No," thankfully silenced her.
As you all know, I was recently the victim of racism / car rage by a stranger. Despite the fact that I filmed him being racist to me and have him admitting to it in the video, the local Magistrates Court found him not guilty on a technicality. I briefly considered being upset about this and then decided that it was best to just let it go as I had already wasted months worrying about it.
Eventually, I believe, racist and homophobic attitudes will increasingly be evolved out of the human race. Ignorance will always of course persist, but when my parents first migrated to the UK, years before I was born, racist comments and general ignorance were commonplace. I even recall being at primary school in the 1980s and children in my class being utterly fixated on calling me 'coloured' and making a big deal out of it. Even at the wedding of a friend back in the early 2000s, the best man made a comment on the fact that they were a brown and white person getting married and how amazing he thought it was.... which I found rather crass given that there were many mixed race couples in the room with their mixed race children. However, where it was once considered acceptable to publicly make ignorant comments, recent cases in the news (Fabrice Muamba etc) show that nowadays it clearly is not.
When I was first thinking of writing this blog and posted on wedding forums to ask people what their thoughts were, some could not understand what the point was, but it was then abundantly clear that they had no understanding that there are different types of weddings held in the UK, other than church and civil. Those that were aware got it. Of course, I am referring here to culture which is separate from race, as of course I could have just had a civil ceremony and worn whatever I liked.
Even when I posted my professional wedding photographs recently on facebook, a friend of a friend commented that he wanted the groomsmen's suits explaining (as he did not understand the wearing of an Indian outfit for an Indian ceremony). Change and mixture and integration are what makes the World go round and those who insist on staying the same, will remain trapped in the past, sometimes even isolated from their own families. The more we promote difference, the better that people will understand. I hope that my little blog goes somewhere towards this.
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