13 mars 2007
Awards and recognition
Dear readers,
Well today, following the various Awards Ceremonies (Academy awards: Ceremonie des Oscars, Cesars, Victoires de la Musique and else), it is worth (cela vaut la peine) wondering (se demander) whether they are necessary or not.
When you type "awards and recognition" in Google, you cannot imagine how many websites are listed. You can even find the ARA, Awards and Recognition Association which is "is a membership organization of 4,000 companies dedicated to increasing the professionalism of recognition specialists and advancing the awards and engraving industry (industrie de la gravure)".
http://www.ara.org/about/who.cfm
What means "award" and "recognition"?
The noun "award" has 3 meanings:
1) a grant made by a law court (dommages et interets donnes par un tribunal)
2) a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction (in studies for example - un prix)
3) something given for victory or superiority in a contest (concours) or competition
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
An award is something given to a person or group of people to
recognize excellence in a certain field. Awards are often signified by trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins or ribbons. An award can carry a monetary prize given to the recipient, for instance,
the Nobel Prize for contributions to society, or the Pulitzer Prize for literary achievements. An
award can also simply be a public acknowledgment of excellence, without a
tangible token or a prize.
Awards can be given by any person or institution, although the prestige of
an award may depend on the status of the awarder. Usually, awards are given by
an organization of some sort, or by the office of an official within an
organization or government. For instance, a special presidential citation (as
given by the President of the United States) is a public announcement giving an official place of honor (e.g. President
Ronald Reagan gave a special presidential citation in 1984 to the Disney
Channel for its excellent children's television programming).
The verb is "to reward": recompenser (someone for...)
Recognition has also different meanings. The one in which we are interested is related to attention or favourable notice.
Let us study deeply this relationship between "award" and recognition".
Extract from the text by Chris Rose on the British Council Website.
The Nobels are the originals, of course. Alfred Nobel, the man who invented deadly explosives decided to try and do something good with all the moeny he earned (gagner), and gave prizes to people who made progress in literature, sciences , economics and maybe msot importantly peace (...)
(...) there are hundreds of awards and awards ceremonies for all kind of things.
The Oscars are probably the most famous, a time for the (mostly) American film industry to tell itself how good it is, an annual opportunity for lots of big stars to give each other awards and make tearful (larmoyant) speeches (...)
(...) Awards do not only exist for the arts. There are awards for Sports Personality of the Year, for European Footballer of the Year and World Footballer of the Year. This seems very strange - sometimes awards can be good to give recognition to people who deserve it, or help people who do not make a lot of money carry on their work without worrying about finances but professional soccer players these days certainly are not short (etre a court de) of cash (...)
(...) Why all these awards and ceremonies appeared recently? Shakespeare never won a prize, nor Leonardo da Vinci or Adam Smith or Charles Dickens (...) In the past, scientists and artists could win "patronage" (mecenat) from rich people (...) With the change in social systems accross the world, this is no longer happens. A lot of scientific research is now either (a la fois) funded (finance) by the state or by private companies (...)
(...) Most awards ceremonies are now sponsored by big organisations or companies. This means that is not only the person who wins the awards who benefits - but also the sponsors.
(...) On the surface, it seems to be a "win-win" situation with everyone being happy, but let me ask you a question - how far do you think that publicity and marketing are winning here, and how much genuine (authentique) recognition of achievement (accomplissement, realisation) is taking place?
Well, receiving an award, a prize, a recognition sign is quite pleasant. All depends at which level this award is, if it is just popular and at small scale (city, university...) or large scale (national, worldwide).
A lot of people realize every day honourable facts or actions and they are recognized and appreciated by the others. No need of crying it from the housetops (crier quelque chose sur les toits).
Maybe the most important is to be generous towards others not materially speaking but thanks to your behaviour ;-)
Well, to finish, here is a list of the most famous awards. Some of them are typically British:
GOLDEN GLOBES
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association was founded more than 60 years
ago by a group of Los Angeles-based journalists working for overseas
publications. Its annual Golden Globe awards have enabled the non-profit
organization to donate more than $6.5 million in the past twelve years to
entertainment-related charities, as well as funding scholarships and other
programs for future film and television professionals. In the year
2006 the donation was more than one million dollars.
GRAMMIES
The recording industry's most prestigious award, the GRAMMY, is presented
annually by The Recording Academy. A GRAMMY is awarded by The Recording
Academy's voting membership to honor excellence in the recording arts and
sciences. It is truly a peer honor, awarded by and to artists and technical
professionals for artistic or technical achievement, not sales or chart
positions (GRAMMY Awards Process). The annual GRAMMY Awards presentation brings
together thousands of creative and technical professionals in the recording
industry from all over the world.
BRITS
The Brit Awards are industry-voted awards, rewarding stars who are liked
by a lot of people and therefore make the industry a lot of money.
MERCURY PRIZE
The Mercury Prize, currently known as the Nationwide Mercury
Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the
best British or Irish album of the previous 12 months. It was established
by the BPI and BARD (the
British Association of Record Dealers) in 1992 as an alternative to the
industry-dominated Brit awards. It was originally sponsored by the now-defunct
telecoms company Mercury, followed in 1998 by Technics and starting in 2004 the Nationwide Building Society [1]. It is often
observed that bands who are nominated for, or indeed win the prize experience a
large increase in album sales, particularly for the lesser known nominees
http://www.nationwidemercurys.com/
Q award
THE Q AWARDS 2006 brought to you by Yahoo! Music took place today at London's Grosvenor House Hotel and
proved that it is, undoubtedly, THE music event of the year.
http://www.qawards.co.uk/qawards/
TURNER PRIZE
The Turner Prize is an annual prize presented
to a British visual artist under 50, named after the painter J.M.W. Turner. It is organized by the Tate Gallery, and since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised art award. It has become associated with conceptual art, although it represents all media and painters have
also won the prize.
The prize fund from 2004 onwards was £40,000. There
have been different sponsors, including Channel 4 television and Gordon's gin. The prize is awarded by a distinguished celebrity:
in 2006 this was Yoko Ono.
It is a controversial event, mainly for its exhibits,
such as a shark in formaldehyde by Damien Hirst and a dishevelled bed by Tracey Emin. Controversy has also ensued from other directions,
including a Culture Minister (Kim
Howells criticising exhibits), a
guest of honour (Madonna swearing), a prize judge (Lynn Barber writing in the press) and a speech by Sir Nicholas Serota (about the purchase of a trustee's work).
PULITZER PRIZE
Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In
twenty of these, each winner receives a certificate and a US$10,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category of the
journalism competition is awarded a gold medal, which always goes to a
newspaper, although an individual may be named in the citation.
The prize was established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the university's journalism school in 1912. The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on June 4, 1917, and they are now announced each April. Recipients are chosen by an independent board
PRIX GONCOURT
The Académie Goncourt is a literary
organization based in Paris, France that was founded in 1900 in accordance with the
wishes of French writer and publisher Edmond
de Goncourt (1822-1896),
and in opposition to the then existing policies towards writers by the Académie
française.
Wishing to honor his deceased brother Jules (1830-1870), de Goncourt named his friend Alphonse Daudet to oversee his estate that he bequeathed for the
establishment of an organization to promote literature in France. Each December
since 1903, a ten-member Board of the Académie has awarded the Prix Goncourt for the best work of fiction of the year. It is the most prestigious prize in French language literature, and a seat on the Board is a much-cherished position
in the French literary world.
http://www.academie-goncourt.fr/ (in French)
PRIX FEMINA
The Prix Femina is a French literary prize created in 1904 by 22 writers for the magazine La Vie
heureuse (today known
as Femina). The prize is decided each year by an exclusively female
jury. The winner is announced on the first Wednesday of November each year.
The Prix Femina is often misspelled Prix
Fémina but it is officially spelled without an accent even in French.
http://www.prix-litteraires.net/femina.php (in French)
PRIX MEDICIS
The Prix
Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was
founded in 1958 by Gala
Barbisan and Jean-Pierre
Giraudoux. It is
awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match their talent." In
1970 the Prix Médicis étranger, a foreign prize,
was added to award a writer each year from around the world. The Prix
Médicis essai is awarded since 1980 for non-fictional works.
PRIX RENAUDOT
The prix Renaudot (also called "prix Théophraste
Renaudot") is a literary
award which was created in 1926 by ten art critics awaiting the results of the deliberation of the jury
of the prix Goncourt.
The prix Renaudot, while not officially related to the
prix Goncourt, is a kind of complement to it, announcing its laureate at the
same time and place as the prix Goncourt, namely on the first Tuesday of
November at the Drouant restaurant in Paris.
http://www.prix-litteraires.net/medicis.php
That is for today! Talk to you shortly.
With best wishes,
Ceraulen
01 mars 2007
Chinese New Year Parade in Paris - 13th district
Dear readers,
Last Sunday, the Chinese New Year Parade took place in the 13th district. Even if the rain was not invited, it came suddenly at the end of the afternoon. Anyway, happiness, smiles, multicoloured costumes and good mood flew around us.
Chinese New Year in Paris has become one of the city's most popular annual events. Paris has a large and thriving French-Chinese community whose cultural influence grows stronger all the time. Parisians of all stripes eagerly crowd the streets of South Paris each year to witness a cheerful procession of dancers and musicians, vibrantly-hued dragons and fish, and elegant flags embossed with Chinese characters. Boisterous Chinese restaurants are packed to the brim with locals and tourists, and the night set may include special theatrical or musical performances or even film festivals. A truly unique experience.
Parades are a tradition imported by the Chinese people when they emigrated in foreign countries.
All the symbols from China are gathered during this parade: red colour for happiness, yellow colour for the Emperor, vans, lanterns and of course, dragons!
Let us discover a few pictures of this parade:
In China, it is rather a family gathering and the equivalent of our western Christmas and New Year.
Let us read an interesting article on this topic!
CHINESE NEW YEAR TRADITION
Extract from: http://www.123chinesenewyear.com/traditions/
Chinese
Culture is rich in its culture and traditions . They have their own
beliefs and New Year traditions , which they follow ardently. Although
the Chinese New Year , Nian, lasts only two or three days including the
Chinese New Year's Eve, the Chinese New Year season extends from the
mid-twelfth month
of the previous year to the middle of the first month of the new year.
A month from the onset of the Chinese New Year, it is supposed to be a
good time for business. People will pour
out their money to buy presents, decoration material, food and clothing.
It is the Chinese New Year tradition that every family gives its house
a thorough cleaning, hoping to sweep away all the ill-fortune there may
have been in the family to make way for the wishful in-coming good
luck. People also give their doors and window-panes a new paint,
usually in red color. They decorate the doors and windows with
paper-cuts and couplets with the very popular theme of
"happiness", "wealth",
"logevity" and "satisfactory marriage with
more children". Paintings of the same theme are put up in the
house on top of the newly mounted wallpaper. In the old days, it was a
Chinese New year tradition to distribute various kinds of food at the
alta of ancestors.
The Eve of the Chinese New Year is very carefully observed. Supper is a
feast, with all members coming together. One of the most popular
Chinese New year tradition course is “jiaozi”, dumplings boiled in
water. "Jiaozi" in Chinese literally mean "sleep together and have
sons", a long-lost good wish for a family. After dinner, it is time for
the whole family to sit up for the night while having fun playing cards
or board games or watching TV programs dedicated to the occasion. It is
also a tradition to keep every light on the whole night. At midnight,
fireworks will light up the whole sky as people's excitement reach its
zenith.
Very early the next morning, children greet their parents and receive their presents in terms of cash wrapped up in red paper packages from them. Then, the family starts out to say greetings from door to door, first to their relatives and then to their neighbors. This Chinese New Year tradition is a great way to reconcile forgetting all old grudges. The air is permeated with warmth and friendliness. During and several days following the New Year's day, people are visiting each other, with a great deal of exchange of gifts. The New Year atmosphere is brought to an anti-climax fifteen days away when the Festival of Lanterns sets in. It is an occasion of lantern shows and folk dances everywhere. One typical food is the Tang Yuan, another kind of dumplings made of sweet rice rolled into balls and stuffed with either sweet or spicy fillings. This tradition is also specially followed on Chinese New Year time.
The Lantern Festival marks the end of the Chinese New Year season and afterwards life becomes daily routines once again. Traditions of the Chinese New Year vary from place to place, considering that China is a big country not only geographically, but also demographically and ethnically. Yet, the spirit underlying the diverse celebrations of the Chinese New Year is the same: a sincere wish of peace and happiness for the family members and friends.
A few words about the Pig sign ...
Years of the Boar (Pig)
Born in 1923, 1935, 1947, 1959,
1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019
Extract from: THE SIGN OF THE PIG
http://www.chinatownconnection.com/chinese-new-year.html
The Pig type is usually an honest, straightforward (loyal, franc) and patient person. He/she
is a modest, shy character who prefers to work quietly behind the scenes. When
others despair, he/she is often there to offer support. This type of person is
reserved with those they do not know too well, but as time passes and they gain
confidence, those around them may discover a lively and warm-hearted person
behind that mask of aloofness. Despite those born in the year of pig having a
wide circle of friends and acquaintances, they have few close friends who
understand them and share their inner thoughts and feelings. It is easy to put
trust in pig type; he/she won't let you down and will never even attempt to do
so. Such people simply want to do everything right according to social norms.
It is important to remember that these people are not vengeful creatures. If
someone tries to take advantage of him/her, the pig type tend to withdraw to
reflect on the problem and protect themselves. All they need in such situations
is a little time to find a constructive way to respond. The people of the pig
type are conservative creatures of habit. They dislike being made to travel too
far from familiar surroundings, unless it is a trip to the countryside. They
love nature and are never happier than when they are out somewhere, far from the
city.
There is a tolerant and peaceful side to their character. Such people are never
afraid to allow others their freedom of expression; they do not want to cause
arguments and if there is any way to avoid arguing, they will probably take this
option. They are not weak, however, and if the situation forces them to fight
these people will rise to the occasion, whether it is to defend themselves or
those close to them. People of the Pig type are the most admired by others.
Some links about Chinese New Year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year
- Fiercy launch for Chinese New Year: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6368383.stm
- Chinese zodiac calls for volatile period on planet: http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/261666,CST-NWS-pig18a.article - Chinese New Year is all about tradition:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/25/FDGOSGQ21E1.DTL
- Overseas Chinese celebrate new year:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/19/content_5756950.htm
祝 大家 新 年 快 乐 ！
Happy Spring Festival/New Year
to each of you!
With best wishes,
Ceraulen