We already talked a lot about our Safety Net Project. We are proud to tell you that the new presentation brochure for this project is ready!
You can already see the cover here under and you can see the whole thing on our Issuu page or you can download it from our Box.net space on the right side of this website.
If the World Wide Web is a worldwide and global information system, so far it was all but universal. People could only write in Latin alphabet whatever language they used and whatever writing system they were taught in.
Egypt just put an end to the Western writing system domination by publishing the first domain name in Arabic.
Learning Arabic writing
As the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) opened registration for non-Latin domain names, Information Technology Minister Tarek Kamel said at a U.N. sponsored Internet conference that his government had filed an application to register the domain “.masr” – or “.Egypt” — written entirely in Arabic.
It took six years of discussions and technical work to get ICANN to the point of approval, even if most than half of the 1.6 billion Internet users don’t write a Latin alphabet based language… The Chinese are the most numerous Internet surfers outside the Latin realm.
This opening towards non-Western writing systems is meant to allow many Eastern languages speakers to surf on the Net in their own idiom, but, in the same time, it will close access to Westerners. So the big Internet Ocean will look more like real world with its geographic and cultural diversities…
Posted in Cultural diversity, Languages
Tagged abroad, Arabic, Chinese, Cultural diversity, diversity, East/West, Internet, Languages, writing system
Dalilah waited some news from Maarten after he left to his homeland. They had had several contacts through emails and phone calls. Maarten reassured her that everything would be all right since he sensed some uncertainty from Dalilah’s voice whenever they talked. Not knowing what was happening on the other side of the world, Dalillah put all her trust onto Maarten. After all, he’s my husband now, she thought. What could go wrong?
After some legal arrangement in the Netherlands, Maarten told Dalilah to start preparing for her journey to a new home. During that time, Maarten persistently urged Dalilah to sell her business and her property – reassuring her that a new beginning awaited her there with full hope. It wasn’t easy to find a buyer to take over her business, nor to sell her property in a very short period of time. Dalilah didn’t understand either why she needed to sell her property – after all she would like to retire one day in Malaysia with Maarten by her side. Maarten did mention about that idea too over and over again – telling her that Malaysia would be the most ideal retirement place for him. She believed him because she knew there was a lot of truth in it. No doubt about that. Maarten had showed Dalilah that he truly enjoyed his life in Malaysia.
The pressure of wanting to be with her husband and simultaneously needed to sell everything she had made Dalilah very confounded. Some friends couldn’t comprehend her reactions because they detected something wasn’t right with the big move. Especially when she needed to ‘get rid’ of her ‘stuff’ in Malaysia in order to be with her husband. If the husband was understanding enough, this topic shouldn’t even worth thinking of. After all, it was her property, her belonging. Not his. Others took advantage by dragging her down to almost bankruptcy. They offered such ludicrous amount of money that she almost fainted! All in the game of ‘good business’. Dalilah was desperate. Yet again.
Eventually, after all the troublesome and heartache of having to sell her business, Dalilah decided to keep her house and sold her car – for a ridiculously low price! She wanted to cry since she couldn’t bare to see the amount of loss she accumulated. How could this be possible? Nonetheless, everything she did was out of love. Perhaps this was the sacrifice people were talking about, she thought. Being single is one thing, being married is another, she thought even more.
Posted in Dalilah's Diary, Project Safety Net, Projects
Tagged abroad, children, couple, Dutch, East/West, family, fly, husband, immigration, love, Malaysia, man, migration, mixed couple, move, new beginning, pressure, property, relationship, retirement, sacrifice, the netherlands, travel, wife, woman
It was now a matter of confusion. Or rather a matter of insecurity. Almost everybody Dalilah knew settled down after a serious relationship. At least most of them. She didn’t understand what it was so difficult to have a commitment with Maarten. She wanted it, but Maarten seemed to hesitate a lot, especially earlier in their relationship. She didn’t dare to ask nor to mention the word. She was afraid that might drove Maarten away. Far away. Maarten reminded Dalilah over and over about his failures in the past and that gave her the impression that he might not want to settle down for good.
Maarten had had so many relationships in the past. Few were serious but mostly one-night stands. Maarten only targeted women from the same nationality – Malaysians. He found them sexy and alluring. Their tiny body attracted him so much. Maarten’s too many unsteady relationships gave Dalilah the ugliest impression about himself. Nevertheless, she still wanted to continue being with him. Perhaps the fact that she desperately wanted to be loved so much by a man, the slightest attention from Maarten brought her to another world. Despite the fact Maarten wasn’t really the best man for her, Dalilah thought she could settled for second best. Dalilah didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone.
Living the life in Asia, Maarten had had it all. He had the idea that Asian women were easier to maintain – on monetary wise, that is. He strongly believed that Asian women were so easy to please and very obedient. He saw how easy it was for him to get free love. Especially being a white man – it was rather convenient to him, as he thought.
Dalilah, on the other hand, who was brought up in such a religious background, didn’t believe in getting or receiving free love. She was constantly haunted and muddled by Maarten’s mixed behaviour. Nonetheless, surprisingly Dalilah got so many positive reactions from her friends and her children that made her wanted to stay with Maarten. His charms wooed her many times over, especially when her children were so fond of him and kept telling Dalilah that ‘he’ is the ‘one’.
At a certain point in their relationship, Maarten decided to seal their rocky turmoil journey by asking Dalilah’s hand in marriage. Shocked, yet excited she immediately replied – ‘yes’. Maarten took Dalilah to choose an engagement ring to tie her down.
Wedding rings
Posted in Dalilah's Diary, Project Safety Net, Projects
Tagged abroad, Asian woman, commitment, Dutch, family, foundation, love, Malaysia, man/woman, mixed couple, relationship, the netherlands, wedding, wedding ring, woman
Suzi and I were stunned
by the number of mixed couple who were divorcing in appalling conditions. Generally, the woman was Asian and the husband was European. They had met through a dating website or during traveling abroad. They had had a great time together (or, at least, everybody thought so) and then, the love story ended in a flurry of hatred, insults, hits, blue blacks, trials and lawyers mails… The story ended in utter despair for the woman and the children, and generally a very bad social and economic situation for the entire family.
We were curious if this kind of situation was frequent and common, or if the couples we’ve seen were the exception to the rule. We googled and investigated official documents as well as scientific reports and shockingly we found out that the cases we knew were not isolated family wrecks, but a broadly spread social disease…
We wanted to do something about it and, during a car drive to Eindhoven, to a good friend’s house, we talked about a project and how to cope with these harsh realities. Suzi jotted down notes while I was driving and, while talking and scribbling throughout the one hour journey, we achieved our first structure. The morning after, I typed a draft and we coined a name for this project : The Safety Net Project.
Suzi began to talk about it to friends and to professionals : lawyer, doctor, social workers. All were enthusiastic and very encouraging. She also met officials from local authorities and diplomats, and we have to say that the reactions so far are utterly positive.
So, in a few weeks, we’ll launch The Safety Net Project. You can already read a bit of it on this page.
Posted in Project Safety Net
Tagged abroad, domestic violence, family, health, help, immigration, law, migration, project, safety, Social, travel, woman
