Superstitions about Weddings (Reading Class)

Superstitions about Weddings
Wedding Day Superstitions and Traditions

BRIDAL SHOWER	The first gift the bride opens should be the first gift she uses.
	Everything the bride says as she opens her gifts will be repeated on her wedding night. Somone should be assigned to write down these comments during the shower.
	The person who gives the third gift to be opened will soon have a baby.
	Save the ribbons from the shower gifts to make a mock bouquet to be used at the wedding rehearsal.
WEDDING DAY	Certain days of the week, and certain months of the year are better than others for a wedding.
	Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday best of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, Saturday for no luck at all
	Married when the year is new, he'll be loving, kind & true, When February birds do mate, You wed nor dread your fate. If you wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you'll know. Marry in April when you can, Joy for Maiden & for Man. Marry in the month of May, and you'll surely rue the day. Marry when June roses grow, over land and sea you'll go. Those who in July do wed, must labour for their daily bred. Whoever wed in August be, many a change is sure to see Marry in September's shrine, your living will be rich and fine. If in October you do marry, love will come but riches tarry. If you wed in bleak November, only joys will come, remember. When December snows fall fast, marry and true love will last.
FOR A LUCKY BRIDE	Something old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something blue, And a lucky sixpence In her shoe.
	Married in White, you have chosen right Married in Grey, you will go far away, Married in Black, you will wish yourself back, Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead, Married in Green, ashamed to be seen, Married in Blue, you will always be true, Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl, Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow, Married in Brown, you will live in the town, Married in Pink, you spirit will sink.
WEDDING DAY
Good Omens:	seeing a rainbow having the sun shine meeting a black cat meeting a chimney sweep
WEDDING DAY
Bad Omens:	a pig, hare, or lizard running across the road seeing an open grave meeting a nun or a monk foretell barrenness
OTHER BELIEFS	If the groom drops the wedding band during the ceremony, the marriage is doomed.
	The new bride must enter her home by the main door, and must not trip or fall - hence the custom of carrying the bride over the threshold.
	The spouse who goes to sleep first on the wedding day will be the first to die.
WEDDING CAKE	If a single woman sleeps with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow, she will dream of her future husband. Special Thanks to: Source: http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/scary3.html

Korean Wedding Customs (Reading Class)

Korean Wedding Customs

Credits: Photo by R Wagner Photography. 

"Korean Wedding Customs"
Article by: Shu Shu Costa from the feature entitled: "Rituals of Bliss"

Like the Chinese, Koreans also exchanged the "eight characters" or "four pillars" to determine if the match was suitable. When that process was over, a local fortune-teller was summoned to see if the couple could live harmoniously. Koreans call this kung-hap. This custom is still important among many older Korean Americans. As the old saying goes, straw sandals are useful only if they fit your feet.

The Engagement
Gifts are an important part of an engagement. Traditionally, gifts from the groom's side would be delivered on the eve of the wedding day. With faces blackened with dried squid's ink and in costume, friends of the groom would parade a box, or hahm, filled with gifts. As they approached the bride's house, they would chant, "Hahm for sale, buy ahahm." Her family would rush out to greet the gift-bearers, enticing them with money and food. These days, the families are likely to meet in a restaurant, but gifts--and lots of them--are a must. Some Korean American families can spend $30,000 to $40,000 on engagement gifts alone.

The Wedding Outfits
The two dresses worn by the bride were once the costume of the noble class. The simple lime-green wonsam and the more elaborate hwarrot, or "flower robe," are embroidered with flowers and butterflies. Underneath, she wears the hanbok, the doll-like traditional dress of Korea. On the bride's head is a black cap studded with gems. On her feet are white socks and embroidered shoes. Her makeup is simple, except for three red circles, yonji konji, the size of nickels. These circles, traditionally made of red peppers, but now often drawn on, are supposed to ward off evil spirits. The groom'sfaruotsu is also the dress of the nobility. It is made of dark green damask with auspicious symbols woven in gold. The headdress is the tall black cap of high-ranking officials made of silk. Traditional costumes can be rented in Korean dress shops or even some banquet halls starting around $150.

The Ceremony
Traditionally, the groom would give a live goose--a symbol of fidelity because it takes only one partner in its life--to his new mother-in-law as a sign of his faithfulness to her daughter. Today's Korean families substitute the live goose with a wooden one called akirogi. The ceremony takes place around a table, or teresan, in an area set off by a screen with images of peonies. The highlight of the ceremony is the sharing of a special white wine called jung jong. Traditionally, this wine was poured into cups made from two halves of a gourd grown by the bride's mother. The bride and groom sip from their separate cups and then the wine is mixed together, poured once more into the gourd cups and sipped again. This is kunbere, the wedding vow. One ritual often seen at Korean American weddings is the peh beck ceremony. At this ceremony, usually only attended by family and close friends, the new wife offers her new in-laws gifts of dried dates and jujubes, symbols of children. They in turn offer her tea, a subtle but significant gift. At the ceremony's conclusion, they toss the dates and chestnuts at the bride, and she tries to catch them in her large skirt.

The Food
The Korean wedding banquet is called kook soo sang, the "noodle banquet," and can include a variety of dishes to suit the season. It begins with a toast of jung jong, a sort of Korean sake, downed quickly like a shot. The highlight is the meal's namesake, a noodle soup called kook soo. Wheat noodles are boiled and added to a clear beef broth, garnished with vegetables and eggs. Here, as in China, noodles are a wish for a long and happy life. Wedding desserts often include dok, a sticky rice cake that comes in a number of forms--sweetened, filled with bean paste, dotted with sesame seeds. Another popular dessert is yak shik, a sticky rice ball sweetened with brown sugar and speckled with chestnuts, jujubes, raisins and pine nuts, symbols of children.

Special Thanks to:
Source:

http://www.kokoliving.com/weddings/2010/03/korean-wedding-traditions.html

7 Unbelievable Lottery Winners' Stories (Reading Class)

 

7 Unbelievable Lottery Winners' Stories

 He escaped from a derailed train, a door-less plane, a bus crash, a car into flames, another 2 car accidents... then won a million dollar lottery

Here's the story of how the world's unluckiest man turned his fate upside down. Frane Selak, born in 1929, is a Croatian music teacher who used to be famous for his numerous escapes from fatal accidents:

• In January, 1962, Selak was traveling via train from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik. However, the train had suddenly derailed and plunged into an icy river, killing 17 passengers. Selak managed to escape, and only suffered a broken arm and minor scrapes and bruises.
• The following year, while traveling from Zagreb to Rijeka when the door blew away from the cockpit, forcing him out of the plane. Although 19 others were killed, he suffered only minor injuries and had miraculously landed in a haystack.
• In 1966, he was riding on a bus that crashed and plunged into a river. Four others were killed, but Selak managed to escape unharmed.
• In 1970, he managed to escape before a faulty fuel pump engulfed his car into flames.
• In 1973, another of Selak's cars caught fire, forcing fire through the air vents. He suffered no injuries save the loss of most of his hair.
• In 1995, he was hit by a city bus, but once again suffered minor injuries.
• In 1996 he escaped when he drove off a cliff to escape an oncoming truck. He managed to land in a tree, and watched as his car exploded 300 feet below him.

But then, in 2003, the heavens seemed to review his case: he won $1,000,000 dollars in the Croatian lottery!

"I know God was watching me over all these years." he said, and has reputedly refused to fly to Australia to air on a Doritos commercial, saying he "didn't want to test his luck." Frane also said that he can either be looked as "the world's unluckiest man, or the world's luckiest man," and prefers the latter.

 Woman googles husband, finds he won the lottery but never told her

On 2007, Donna Campbell became suspicious of her husband, Arnim Ramdass, when he started to keep the television turned off and disconnected the phone line. Her suspicions rose when she found a postcard about a new home purchase.

But Campbell was unaware that her husband was hiding a $10.2 million secret from her until she Googled her husband's name and lottery number. She found a Florida lottery press release that named 17 airline mechanics who won the jackpot, her husband was one of them.

The group of mechanics opted for the lump-sum payment of $10.2 million, meaning each of the 17 winners would receive about $600,000 before taxes. Since the winning, Ramdass took a leave of absence from work, according to his co-workers. He hasn't shown up at the couple's home and servers can't find him to hand him the lawsuit papers: she wants half the money and out of the marriage.

 Doubled his share of the jackpot... by mistake!

When Derek Ladner next suffers from absent mindedness, he may think twice before cursing his poor memory. For the 57-year-old's forgetfulness has landed him an amazing double lottery win.

He and his wife Dawn were elated when their six regular numbers came up on the midweek draw on 2007. They were quick to claim their £479,142 share of the £2,395,710 jackpot split between five winners. But, incredibly, a week later Mr Ladner remembered he had bought another ticket with the same numbers for the same draw.

That gave him two of the five shares of the jackpot on July 11, doubling hiswinnings to £958,284. A spokesman for lottery operator Camelot said it was the first time a player had won twice in the same draw! Mr Ladner's forgetfulness cost the other three winners almost £120,000 each. Had he not bought the extra ticket, they would have split the jackpot four ways instead of five and won £598,927 a person.

 Run over by a truck, hours after his win

On 22 January 2004, 73-year-old Carl Atwood of Elwood, Indiana, who won $73,450 in an Indiana lottery game taped for television, died scant hours later. He was knocked down by a truck and expired shortly thereafter in an Indianapolis hospital.

That evening he had been walking to the grocery store that had sold him awinning ticket when a pickup truck rounded a corner and struck him. (The store was located one block from his home.) "It was at an unlighted intersection, and Mr. Atwood had dark clothing on, so the driver did not see him before he hit him," Elwood Police Chief Toby R. Barker said.

 Won $16.2 million... got sued by everyone, went broke and died

William "Bud" Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but now lives on his Social Security. "I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare," says Post.

A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings. It wasn't his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and a restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., - two ventures that brought no money back and further strained his relationship with his siblings. Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector. Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.

Post admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to please his family. He eventually declared bankruptcy. Now he lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps. "I'm tired, I'm over 65 years old, and I just had a serious operation for a heart aneurysm. Lotteries don't mean (anything) to me," said Post. He died on Jan 15 of respiratory failure.

 Won the lottery twice after a dream

Many successful lottery entrants have said their winning combinations came to them in dreams; that they awoke with five or six numbers dancing in their heads, jotted the combinations down, played them, and won. Sometimes the dreamed-of numbers paid off right away, and sometimes the dreamers played those combinations for years before hitting the jackpot. So, that 86-year-old Mary Wollens of Toronto won the Ontario Lottery on 30 September 2006 after seeing "a lotto ticket and a large cheque" in a dream a couple of days before the drawing wasn't all that unusual — the remarkable part was that her prophetic dream enabled her to win the same lottery twice.

You see, Mary had already purchased a lottery ticket with the combination she later dreamed about, but her vision instilled her with such confidence that she went out and bought a second ticket with those same numbers. Now, some people would consider purchasing a duplicate ticket be a foolish waste of money (because if your numbers lose, you're needlessly out an extra dollar, and even if you hit the big jackpot, you don't necessarily get any extra credit for winning twice), but not Mary — and good thing, too, because she happened onto one of those occasions when having a second ticket paid off big.

As things turned out, someone else had also correctly picked all six numbers for that week's draw, so instead of having to split the $24 million jackpot evenly with another winner, Mary was able to claim a two-thirds share and take home $16 million!

 Committed suicide because he mistakenly believed his lotto numbers had come up the one week he didn't play them

In April 1995 Timothy O'Brien committed suicide by shooting himself in the head because his half-share of a five-week ticket on Britain's (then) new National Lottery had expired just before the draw he thought would have made him a multi-millionaire.

The truth is, even if he'd held a valid ticket for his usual numbers, O'Brien wouldn't have won. The numbers that came up would have entitled the ticketholders to a prize of 47 pounds, not the 3.2 million he thought he and his partner had missed out on. And why? Because only four of the six numbers matched those drawn. 

Special Thanks to:
Source:

http://www.oddee.com/item_95629.aspx

Korean wins transvestite pageant in Thailand (Reading Class)

Korean wins transvestite pageant in Thailand

AP photo

Miss International Queen 2010 winner Mini of South Korea

A Korean known as Mini has won the Miss International Queen contest, a pageant for transvestites that organisers said Saturday was for those "interested in beauty and equality".

Mini, who works as a designer, fought off competitors from 15 countries to take the crown as well as 10,000 dollars in prize money at the event held in Thailand's Pattaya beach resort.

The 27-year-old is the first Korean to win the title, organisers said, and she also picked up the best national costume prize.

Judges, who scrutinised faces, skin and posture as well as attitude and intelligence were impressed by Mini's "perfect beauty", a statement from Miss International Queen 2010 said.

Runners up were Ami Takeuchi from Japan, whose occupation was not listed, and Stasha Sanchez, an entertainer from the United States.

Of the 23 contestants, 12 were from Asia, four were European and seven were from the Americas.

 

 

 

N.Korea Fires Artillery Shells into S. Korean Island (Reading Class)

N.Korea Fires Artillery Shells into S. Korean Island

North Korea started firing dozens of artillery towards South Korean waters at the West Sea, located on the Western coast of the Korean peninsula. The incidence happened near the Yeonpyeong Islands at 2:34 PM, Tuesday, November 23rd. Few of the shells fell on residential areas of Yeonpyeong.

South Korea responded by firing back rounds of K-9s towards North Korean waters.

“The attack came during the South Korean army’s annual military exercises involving offshore firing into the southern direction of the West Sea. North Korea started to fire several rounds of artillery towards the South during the exercise, and few have landed on Yeonpyeong island,” said an official from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “This is said to have caused a mountain fire in Yeonpyeong Island.”
“The South Korean army fired back with several rounds of K-9 towards the North in response. We also aired a broadcast warning that additional provocations would bring stronger countermeasures,” the official continued.

The fire exchanges went on throughout the afternoon, and the South Korean military issued a heightened alert status for the West Sea region.

Special Thanks to:
Source:

http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?articleid=2010112316205715198&linkid=4&newssetid=1352

Sunshine (Reading Class)

Sunshine

Lack of sunlight during winter can cause depression.

Depression caused by lack of sunlight is called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. For most people afflicted with SAD, symptoms begin in the fall when it becomes dark earlier in the day, and they continue throughout the winter, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Symptoms

1. Symptoms of SAD include decreased energy (particularly in the afternoon), cravings for carbohydrates, depression, increased appetite, loss of interest in daily activities, social withdrawal and increased need for sleep.

Causes

2. SAD may be caused by an overproduction of melatonin, a hormone made during hours of darkness that can disrupt the body's sleep cycles, according to Dr. Gabrielle J. Melin of the Mayo Clinic.

Treatment

3. Patients who suffer from depression due to a lack of sunshine can be treated with light therapy. This involves sitting near a special box that exposes a patient to bright light that mimics the sun. Patients also may be prescribed antidepressant medication.

Risk Factors

4. Women are more likely than men to experience SAD, and those who live further from the equator, either in the extreme north or south, are at a higher risk, the Mayo Clinic reports.

Prognosis

5. Although the disorder may continue throughout the patient's life, the outlook is good with proper treatment. In some cases, however, SAD may progress to major depression that continues throughout the year.

Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5622002_depression-due-lack-sunshine.html

Korean junk-food (Tornado Potato)

 Korean junk-food

Tornado Potatoes -- new street-food from South Korea. It's a spiral-cut potato, deep fried and dusted with tangy cheezy powder. Yes, it's unhealthy, but the Koreans have a long way to go if they're going to bridge the US-Korean junk-food gap -- hello, deep-fried Coca-Cola! Get that potato some whipped mayo and maybe some rat-poison (or plutonium) and we'll be in business. 

You can cut these potatoes into any length spiral. The standard spiral chips we sell in South Africa are with the 20cm bamboo skewers, any length skewer will work, as long as it is 5mm thick. For a hungry client, with money to spend, the chipdog option is becoming the favourite.

These commercial potato cutters cut the tornadoes on the skewers, so there is no need to transfer the potatoes after cutting a tornado potato into a twister shaped chip/money maker.

Puffer Fish Poisoning (Reading Class)

Poisoning  

Puffer poisoning usually results from consumption of incorrectly prepared puffer soup, fugu chiri, or occasionally from raw puffer meat, sashimi fugu. While chiri is much more likely to cause death, sashimi fugu often causes intoxication, light-headedness, and numbness of the lips, and is often eaten for this reason. Puffer's (tetrodotoxin) poisoning deadens the tongue and lips, and induces dizziness and vomiting, followed by numbness and prickling over the body, rapid heart rate, decreased blood pressure, and muscle paralysis. The toxin paralyzes diaphragm muscles and stops the person who has ingested it from breathing. People who live longer than 24 hours typically survive, although possibly after a coma lasting several days. Some people claim to have remained fully conscious throughout the coma, and can often recount events that occurred while they were supposedly unconscious. The paralysis reduces oxygen demands of the body dramatically, but because the toxin does not cross the blood-brain barrier, neural activity in the brain and from the eyes and ears are generally intact. In Voodoo, puffer's poison must be part of the mixture given to the victim to make them a "zombie", most likely because the paralysis and pseudo-comatose effect simulate the death portion of traditional zombie creation.
Pufferfish, called pakpao in Thailand, are usually consumed by mistake. They are often cheaper than other fish, and because they contain inconsistent levels of toxins between fish and season, there is little awareness or monitoring of the danger. Consumers are regularly hospitalized or die because cooks do not know which organs are not safe.
Treatment consists of supportive care and intestinal decontamination with gastric lavage and activated charcoal. Case reports suggest that anticholinesterases such as edrophonium may be effective.
Saxitoxin, the cause of paralytic shellfish poisoning and red tide can also be found in certain puffers. Cases of neurological symptoms, including numbness and tingling of the lips and mouth, have been reported to rise after the consumption of puffers caught in the area of Titusville, Florida. The symptoms generally resolve within hours to days, although one affected individual required intubation for 72 hours. As a result, Florida banned the harvesting of puffers from certain bodies of water.
It is not believed that puffers produce toxins themselves, as puffer fish kept in tanks or fish farms are totally free of either toxin. The gastric contents of shellfish prey are believed to carry the toxins or their precursors, which are stored in the puffers organs.

Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraodontidae

Paul the predicting octopus dies (Reading Class)

Paul the predicting octopus dies

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP)—Paul the Octopus, the tentacled tipster who fascinated football fans by correctly predicting results at this year’s World Cup, died Tuesday.
Paul had reached octopus old age of 2 1/2 years and died in his tank on Tuesday morning in an aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge said.
Paul seemed to be in good shape when he was checked late Monday, but he did not make it through the night. He died of natural causes, Vieregge added.

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“We had all naturally grown very fond of him and he will be sorely missed,” Sea Life manager Stefan Porwoll said in a statement.

The moment of truth: OctoPaul correctly predicts Spain to win the 2010 World Cup.
(Roberto Pfeil/AP)

The aquarium has not yet decided how best to commemorate their most famous resident, he said.
“We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds, and erect a modest permanent shrine,” Porwoll said.
After rising to global prominence during the World Cup in South Africa in June and July, Paul retired from the predictions business after the final between Spain and the Netherlands—the result of which he also forecast correctly—and returned to his prime role of making children happy.
The blogosphere erupted in sympathy for Paul, although some saw him more as a tasty morsel than a departed friend. “Will they cook him Galician-style? I wonder how much a plate of Paul with a beer must cost,” wrote Jordi, alluding to the popularity of octopus as a dish in the northwest Galicia region and much of Spain.
Others were more philosophical on hearing of Paul’s death.
“For the next month I will go to class dressed in mourning, wrapped in a black suit and with my gaze lost in the horizon, as this calamitous event deserves no less,” wrote ‘relojero’ which means watchmaker. Another blogger, Pedro, saw a sinister hand at work. “An autopsy should be carried out, it’s certain some betting office killed him.”
In July, the Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen said Paul was stepping “back from the official oracle business.
“He won’t give any more oracle predictions—neither in football, nor in politics, lifestyle or economy,” said spokeswoman Tanja Munzig. “Paul will get back to his former job, namely making children laugh.”
Paul correctly tipped the outcome of all seven of Germany’s games. He made his predictions by opening the lid of one of two clear plastic boxes, each containing a mussel and bearing a team flag.
After his World Cup soothsaying skills were revealed, the English-born Paul was appointed as an ambassador to England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. He had English roots, having been hatched at Weymouth Sea Life Center on England’s south coast in 2008.
Imitators sprang up all over the world, including Mani the Parakeet in Singapore and Lorenzo the Parrot in Hannover, Germany.
The latest was a saltwater crocodile named Dirty Harry, who predicted Spain’s World Cup final win and called the result of Australia’s general election by snatching a chicken carcass dangling beneath a caricature of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
“El Pulpo Paul” became so popular in Spain that the northwestern Spanish town of O Carballino tried to borrow him and made him an “honorary friend.”
In response to hundreds of requests to bring Paul to Spain, the Madrid Zoo asked Sea Life if it would be willing to make a deal to bring him in as a tribute to the Spanish football team’s victory, either temporarily or for good. But the German aquarium turned down that offer, too.
Paul also had an agent and Paul’s name will live on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where a permanent sea turtle rescue center funded in part by donations generated by the famous octopus is being established.
Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin and Paul Logothetis in Madrid contributed to this report.


Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-paultheoctopusdeath