Anh Ngo
Mrs. Do
English Shelter II, Block 4
24 October 2013 Symbol Symbol is something represent something else, mark, a person or an event. When the author of a poem write their work, their symbol gonna stand out, so the reader could easily feel sympathy with the author’s point of view. In real life, the way people making dialogue show their symbol (or culture), or people could easily label on the other people base on the skin color, the attitude,… In somehow, these 3 things are best present me and my culture : Ao Ba Ba, Hoi An’s Lantern, coconut. Ao Ba Ba is Vietnamese traditional clothes. It’s uselly attach to the image of countryside life, especially in the Southern Vietnam. This clothes structure are simple, as their meaning too, the top made by silk, button down and the pant also made by silk and wide a little at the end. Their will be a split on the side waist, and the 2 pockets is down in front of the belly part. The popularity of this clothes increased by their simple but still have the elegant look and versatility use. It is used by astounding population, where either it rural or urban are. Nowaday, this clothes has been modernize, not only the structure, color, material, but also the meaning of it. It have been consider as fashion too, with all the design. Just a normal simple meaning clothes, but could easily represent my culture. How wonderful ! At Hoi An, locate at the north of the country, there is a famous piece of artifact, name “ Hoi An Lantern”. Because of these lantern, this place is call “lantern town”, a beautiful accent place where visitor shouldn’t miss. The originally form is a frame made out of bamboo, then it wrapped by a color paper and the string on top connect to a branch, where you can hold. There is different use for this lantern, people can use it to light, to decoration, or even kid can play with it on Moon’s Festival day. Various form was base on this too, like they made all different kind of shape or they even made electronic lantern. The base shape of the Hoi An lantern is :diamond, garlic, circle,… The paper that cover outside of the frame, can be made by nylon or cardboard, or they could made it by brocade or silk to make it even look poshly. In a certain day, their will be a Lantern release day, where they release the lantern to fly into the sky, the whole sky just get light up, and everyone eyes is illuminated by the brightness and colorful of the lantern. Intellectual Property Department have certified Hoi An as a protect local workshops. Coconut is a famous fruit to fight again the hot and the dryness. Coconut was best known in Hawaii, where all the dancer with coconut leaf bottom skirt and coconut bikini top. But what they haven’t know is, in Viet Nam, there is a city that best known for coconut and the production made from it. Ben Tre is the place I’m mentioned. They can take the coconut’s fresh juice out, and sell it or made food with it. The rich coconut cream was made from the meat of the coconut, where they just grindr it. Decoration can made out of the shell too, like cup coaster, or coconut bow, and many different decoration or useable stuff. My memory when I was a kid is the coconut candy, it’s super rich and sweet, and cover the sweet coconut candy, is a super thin layer of rice paper. As many people can see, the coconut are really useful from inside out. All these simple symbol but really best represent me and my culture. Just a normal object but can bring up the whole story about a person or their childhood, memory. In literature, symbol can made up by many thing, such as : syntax, tone, diction, imagery. It’s important to showing people’s symbols successful.