Sabato, 16 ottobre 2004

Being in Taipei for some days, I came across a strange thought. Kong Fuzi, the man that we always call Confucius, still has a lot of influence here in Taiwan. One way of summarizing his thoughts is the following sentence: "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you". Some say that Westerners have a different approach and would say instead: "Do unto others what you would like them to do unto you". And it occurred to me to think that Italians seem more Confucian then Westerns in that respect. Furthermore, Confucius has built the Chinese culture on the foundation of family. It is the family that matters the most. It is the family that takes care of most economic, political and even legal matters. And a network of friends helps families in all these matters. Families and networks of friends take the place that in other countries are held by professionalism and legality. In this respect, Italians are very much Confucians. Maybe it is true then, that Italians are a sort of bridge between West and East. --- please visit my Italian site at: http://www.debiase.com --- 3:09:52 PM    comment []; De Niro no-show for Italian award. Robert De Niro fails to show up at an awards ceremony in Milan and a press conference in Rome. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition] It seems that the Order of Sons of Italy has criticized the Milan administration for giving an award to the actor Robert De Niro. They said that De Niro has not contributed to the image of Italy by playing roles of a Mafia leader in different movies, such as the Godfather II and The Untouchables. And they wrote their protest to the Italian government. The Italian government didn't do anything. There is a lot of confusion in what the Order of Sons of Italy has done. First, Milan doesn't take orders from the Italian government in these matters. Second, it is true that Mafia doesn't contribute to the image of Italy, but it is a reality and it would be worse not to speak and make movies about it. Third, the stories that De Niro played were about the American Mafia and not the Italian one (they are related, but they are not the same thing). If there is an actor that has earned an award, that actor is De Niro. And if he didn't show up for being awarded, he also acknowledged that it was not the right thing to do. And now, dear Order of Sons of Italy, let's talk Mafia out of both Italy and America. We cannot silence it out of our reality just not mentioning it in movies. --- please visit my Italian site at: http://www.debiase.com --- 2:52:45 PM    comment []; ROME - Poor families are 2.36 millions in Italy, the national institute for statistics (Istat) says. That[base ']s the 20 per cent. It means that they don't know how to arrive at the end of the month, in which as average, an Italian family of two people should spend 869.5 euro. The number of poor families has not grown since 2002. But they seem to concentrate in the Southern part of Italy. Which hosts a 21.3 per cent of all poor families. André Urani, an Italian economist who operates in Brasil, says that having less poverty and not more growth should be the objective of economic policy. Because, he says, growth doesn[base ']t make less poverty. And Brasil demonstrates this. We have a strong immigration rate. It seems that many come to Italy because they watch our television and think that we are a wealthy country. We are, but not as they expect. Television creates a virtual reality. And we tend to forget it. --- please visit my Italian site at: http://www.debiase.com --- 11:05:12 AM    comment [];

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Ottobre 2004
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