Great migrations

Animal migrations are the most awe-inspiring event, yet the saddest too. Today I finally watched Great Migrations on the National Geographic channel. The documentary shows animal migrations across the globe; in one scene they’re in Africa and in the next, they’re in Borneo.
In one heart-wrenching scene, a zebra foal stayed with his dead mother while the herd moved on. His father seemed uncertain on whether to help his son or follow his harem with the rest of the herd. He finally decided to help his son and tried to get the son to leave the mother. The son refused as it was part of his instinct to stay close to his mother no matter what. The father was equally adamant, he patiently paced back and forth, trying to get the son to move on. After four hours of doing this, the son still didn’t want to move. It was only when scavengers arrived that the issue was decided for father and son. The father steered his son away from the horrific scene of vultures feasting on the dead mother and hurried to catch up with the herd. They had a lot of miles to go; the herd left hours ago.
One common theme of migration is survival in their search for a more bountiful land. But another theme, unfortunately, emerged in most of the migration stories told: the effect of human activity on wildlife migration.
Female walruses off the coast of Alaska travelled for miles to a resting spot only to discover it wasn’t there. It was an ice floe that had probably melted away due to global warming. Even though they were tired, the female walruses had to swim on and went to another spot which was already filled to the brim cranky male walruses due to the limited space.
In another scene, pronghorns (deer-like mammals) in America come across a large factory obstructing their original migration path. They had to instead cross a road and even though there are signs reminding drivers to be wary of migrating pronghorns, many still get injured or die after being hit by trucks or cars.
Migration is already tough due to the movement of the seasons, the weather and predators, wildlife do not need the human factor to make things much, much worse.


Pictures sourced from National Geographic.

Best read this year

The cover of this book caught my eye. I checked out the review at the back and they were all good and by respectable publications. You can only rely so much on reviews but this is how I rely on them. At the beginning, the book was about the coming and goings of Jacob De Zoet who worked for a Dutch trading company. He was stationed in Dejima, a man-made island of the coast of Nagasaki in a time Japan was ruled by the shoguns and was mostly closed to the world.
Trade was lucatrive, but limited. The Dutch traders had to trade carefully, balancing between their own need to pursue profit and ensuring they do not offend the Japanese. This doesn’t seem like the type of book I read at all and the topic might not even seem appealing to the regular person but this is where the author uses his in-depth research, ingenuity and imagination to recreate a period and industry seldom seen in bestsellers.
The beginning was more about the daily affairs of the traders, the chapters were short. The style of writing was unusual and it really seemed the book was going to be just about trade. But then things started to become more interesting, it became more intriguing. During his stay in Dejima, Jacob met a lot of people but he was good friends with Dr Marinus. Marinus teaches medicine to a group of students and one of his students is Aibagawa Aiko, a local.
When she is suddenly sent to a monastery after her father’s death, the story takes a different turn. Even the style of the writing changes. In the beginning, the writing was kind of odd and quirky but after that it becomes like a mystery or a thriller. The main character himself, shows different traits of himself and starts to evolve. From a story about trade, it becomes a mystery, love story and coming-of-age story all rolled into one. It’s like the writer mixed in three of genres of writing in one book. From there onwards, I could not put the book down. By the time I reached the end, I thought it was the most brilliant book I’ve ever read.

There are many good lines in the book, but this one is my favourite:

“An inch away is a Go clam shell-stone, perfect and smoothed...
...a black butterfly lands on the White stone, and unfolds its wings.”


Later on, I discovered that the book is categorised under literature. Hah! Literature, the genre I usually stay away from. I always thought I couldn’t understand literature books. Either this book is really good or I like literature :P

The Deathly Hallows are upon us...

It’s that time of the year again when a Harry Potter movie comes to the cinemas. The movie is a second last hurrah for a lucrative movie franchise. Die-hard fans would no doubt be happy that it isn’t ending yet but I just roll my eyes. Still, having watched the earlier six movies, I would probably watch it. Speaking of wizards, it reminds me of a book that belongs to my nephew that I’m currently reading, Magyk by Septimus Heap. I like the simple hardcover book with no illustrations on the cover, all you can see is a faint outline of the title on it. The book started off in the usual setting of a book in the fantasy genre: a land with a castle in it. How the story is started is a bit unusual though; lets just say in terms of storyline chronology, most writers wouldn’t start there. From there, the story was okay, children could enjoy the book. I do get annoyed with the numerous highlights used by the author. For example, you wouldn’t write “She knew it was the Book left by her Friend” when “She knew it was the book left by her friend” would’ve worked perfectly well. The book was probably not an ordinary book but you can always explain it in the preceeding sentences. These kind of sentences were interspersed throughout the story. I pity the poor copyeditor who had to edit the book. Back to the story, there were a few funny moments and several hints that the writer took a lot of inspiration from the setting and surroundings of JK Rowling’s story about a boy wizard. There’s a ghost in a castle that can communicate with the living, much like Nearly Headless Nick. One of the characters in the story gets a pet rock, which kinda reminds me of students at Hogwarts who have their own unique pets, some magical, some not. The character even names her pet rock after a character from Harry Potter. Granted, it wasn’t one of the main characters but still. Oh, and there’s a dark wizard rising and plotting to take over the land. This amount of similarities would usually turn me off. Of course I understand that no writer can produce a work that is completely original (except maybe for David Mitchell but that’s another story) but there is still a certain limit to it.
I don’t know why I kept on reading. Maybe it’s been so long since I read a fantasy book. Anyways, I didn’t progress very far. I stopped when a boggart jumped out and haven’t read it since. Don’t think I will. Unlike the Harry Potter books which children and adults alike enjoyed, I think this book is only for children.