Features

PARIS — Parents have long suspected it, but now doctors have proof: the more time teenagers spend on computers or mobile phones, the less they sleep — especially if the gadget is used just before bedtime.

The evidence is so strong, the experts said, that health watchdogs should overhaul guidelines for electronic device use by youngsters.

The team carried out an investigation among nearly 10,000 people aged 16 to 19 in Hordaland county, western Norway, in 2012, they reported in the journal BMJ Open on Tuesday.

The teens were questioned about their sleeping patterns, how long they looked at a screen outside of school hours and the type of gadget they used.

The respondents said they needed between eight and nine hours’ sleep on average to feel rested.

Those with screen time of more than four hours per day were three-and-a-half times likelier to sleep fewer than five hours at night, the probe found.

They also were 49 per cent likelier to need more than 60 minutes to fall asleep. Adults normally nod off in under 30 minutes.

The study also confirmed what many parents of a sleepy teen have experienced already — using an electronic device in the hour before bedtime badly affects both onset of sleep and its duration.

In particular, teens who used a computer or mobile phone in the last hour were 52 and 48 per cent likelier to take more than 60 minutes to fall asleep.

They were also 53 and 35 per cent likelier to lose out on two or more hours of sleep.

Somewhat smaller risks of delayed or shortened sleep were observed among youngsters who used an MP3 player, tablet, game console or TV in the final hour before bedtime.

But why?

The researchers, led by Mari Hysing at a regional centre for child health in the city of Bergen, point to several possible explanations.

One is quite simple: that teenagers are getting to bed later — screen time eats into sleep time.

Another idea is that the bright light from devices interferes with circadian rhythm, the day-night system that tells our brain when we should sleep and when we should wake up.

There could also be muscle pains, tension or headaches, for instance from playing a game for too long.

The media content, too, may play a role by causing “increased psychophysiological arousal” — which means the mind is spinning just as it should be slowing down for the night.

“The recommendations for healthy media use given to parents and adolescents need updating, and age specific guidelines regarding the quantity and timing of electronic media use should be developed,” the study said.

The current recommendation by the American Academy of Paediatrics set down in 2004 is to not have a TV in the bedroom. 

“It seems, however, that there may be other electronic devices exerting the same negative influence on sleep, such as PCs and mobile phones,” said the study. 

“The results confirm recommendations for restricting media use in general.” 

KAMPALA — A “detoother” or a “dentist” is a gold digger looking for a wealthy partner, while “spewing out buffalos” means you can’t speak proper English. And a “side dish” isn’t served by a waiter.

Those and other terms are articles in Uganda’s strange, often funny locally adapted English known as “Uglish”, which is now published for the first time in dictionary form.

“It is so entrenched right now that, even when you think you cannot use it, you actually find yourself speaking Uglish,” Bernard Sabiiti, the author of the first Uglish dictionary, told AFP.

“Even as I was researching, I was surprised that these words are not English because they were the only ones I knew. A word like a ‘campuser’ — a university student — I used to think was an English word.”

“Uglish: A Dictionary of Ugandan English,” which went on sale in bookshops across the East African country late last year, contains hundreds of popular Uglish terms, some coined by Ugandans as far back as the colonial period.

Sabiiti, 32, said the informal patois was greatly influenced by the local Luganda language, and is a “symptom of a serious problem with our education system” that he claims has been deteriorating since the 1990s.

Uglish is largely dependent on sentences being literally translated, word for word, from local dialects with little regard for context, while vocabulary used is derived from standard English.

Meantime, Sabiiti says, influence from the Internet, local media and musicians have seen additional words and phrases created and slowly enter the lexicon.

The result is colourful but at times confounding expressions. If you haven’t seen someone for a while, for example, you’re “lost”, while if you “design well”, you are snappy dresser.

Today, Uglish is used by people from all walks of life, but particularly popular with youths.

English is the working language in Uganda, and it remains the only medium of instruction in schools and in official business.

But Sabiiti said everyone from the president to simple farmers speak at least some Uglish, which varies according to region, tribe and gender, and is regularly seen on signposts.

“MPs are almost notorious at using Uglish, you see it in parliamentary debates,” said Sabiiti.

But it wasn’t until 2011, a year after the term Uglish — pronounced “You-glish” — had been coined on social media, that Sabiiti began keeping newspaper cuttings, conducting interviews and searching online for material for his book.

“I knew that people talked a lot about this, and my friends used to laugh about it,” said the author, whose full-time job with a think tank has taken him to different regions of Uganda, and exposed him to the different types of Uglish.

His book contains a brief history of Uglish, and a glossary of terms relating to education, telecommunications, society and lifestyle, food, transport, sex and relationships.

One phrase commonly used when discussing the latter is “live sex”, which means unprotected sex — a term thought to have derived from the live European football games Ugandans love to watch.

“When the ministry of health is doing campaigns to warn young people against unprotected sex, they use ‘live sex’, because everybody will understand it,” said Sabiiti.

On the same subject, if you’re a “side dish”, you are someone’s mistress.

Sabiiti’s book has proven popular among the middle class, including academics, and with locals and foreigners alike. To date he’s sold about a 1,000 copies. 

“I’ve had incredible feedback from professional linguists, ordinary readers — some even suggesting more phrases — so I’ll be doing another edition,” said Sabiiti.

“I don’t see it disappearing. I’m looking forward to seeing five years from now how many new words and phrases have joined the lexicon,” he said, adding some teachers, particularly in state schools, are passing Uglish on to their students.

But, as the author stresses in the final chapter of his book, there comes a point when Uglish stops being funny.

In 1997, Uganda introduced universal primary school education, which eliminated official school fees and made education accessible to millions more children.

But literacy rates remain low: more than a quarter of the population cannot read or write, according to the UN, and critics say standards remain low in many schools.

“Uglish is not something that should be encouraged, particularly for young, impressionable children. They really should learn what they call proper standard English.”

HONG KONG — Philipp Mattheis knew his gaming app was addictive when he realised he kept checking his phone — hooked by the brightly coloured reminders telling him to play again or risk falling from the triple-figure level he had reached.

Yet gripping the German journalist’s attention was not Candy Crush, but one of a new generation of Chinese language apps that are using tricks traditionally employed by online games to get users hooked on learning.

For years the thrill of studying a new language has been tempered by the tedium of rote learning and repetition required to be truly accomplished — particularly the case for memorising a character-based system — but now language apps are increasingly turning to the same praise, reward and challenge format that games such as Candy Crush use to such devastating success.

Shanghai-based Mattheis is an avid user of the app Memrise, which offers courses in standard Mandarin Chinese and several dialects, and has 25 million users.

“We’ve turned learning into a game where you grow a Garden of Memory,” the firm says. The premise being that when users learn words, they plant virtual seeds, which grow and bloom the more they review and practise. If they forget, then reminders are sent that their buds of knowledge are wilting.

“It’s so quick, it doesn’t feel like any effort,” Mattheis told AFP. “I learnt a few hundred characters without really trying.”

Memrise, along with rivals Skritter and ChineseSkill, all feature interactive tools that entertain as well as teach — a trend known as “gamification” — pioneered by the big daddy of education apps, DuoLingo.

“In a lot of Western countries we now see ourselves as competitive with Candy Crush. We want to be a very popular game and we want people to play when they’re bored,” Gina Gotthilf, a DuoLingo spokeswoman, told AFP.

DuoLingo does not currently offer a Chinese course, leaving a gap for language learners keen to capitalise on a rising China, and Mandarin as a lingua franca in smartphone-hooked Asia.

‘You feel like a hero’

“Candy Crush is effective because it adjusts the difficulty level to just the right level for you,” said Ben Whately, who worked on Memrise’s Chinese courses.

“Adapting to a level where people feel clever is a great way to keep them playing...That is exactly what our learning algorithm does: adjusts when you are tested so that you always have to struggle a little bit, but you are generally successful.”

Users commit Chinese characters and definitions to memory with the help of animations and mnemonics, and are notified to review the characters each time they are just at the point of forgetting them, a technique known as “spaced repetition”.

“Within a couple of hours of study you can read most of a Chinese menu. Every time you go to a Chinese restaurant or walk through China town, you re-engage with that. You feel like a hero,” Whately said of his app.

Daniel Blurton, a director at a paediatric mental health clinic in Hong Kong, said he enjoyed the ability “to see immediate progress and track how much you’ve accomplished”, making the daunting task of starting Chinese seem “manageable”.

This sense of reinforced achievement is also evident in the app ChineseSkill, which features a cute cartoon panda that punches the air with happiness when you remember, for example, that “ren” means “people”.

ChineseSkill uses the classic video game tactic of “unlocking” levels only when you get enough multiple choice answers right, bringing users back again and again as they try to beat their own memory.

A lesser-considered obstacle in Chinese learning is learning to write characters correctly, a time-consuming technique that greatly enhances one’s ability to remember them.

Skritter instructs users on the order and direction of strokes with bright graphics and feedback that flashes when you miss, recalling another popular game called “Fruit Ninja”.

“The only way to quickly learn lots of characters is to write them over and over [20-30 times],” Hong Kong-based businessman Brad Jester told AFP by e-mail.

“I started by doing this on paper, but Skritter is better because it replays them for you in a better timed sequence.”

Helpful tools, not a panacea

A key question is whether these methods work any better than traditional immersion in a native speaking environment or a traditional classroom.

Jester, now a fluent speaker, commented: “People sometimes think they can take the easy route of using flashcards and dictionaries to learn Chinese but that is 100 per cent not the case.

“Until these apps shame you into studying harder, they will just be helpful tools that reinforce lessons learned,” he said.

Linguistics expert Dr Peter Crosthwaite of the University of Hong Kong believes such apps may facilitate memorisation — an important aspect of language learning — but cannot offer the holistic approach a good teacher would deliver.

“Due to the continued growth and expansion of China’s economy, more people than ever are wishing to learn Chinese,” Crosthwaite said.

However, “there are very, very few examples of the internet being used to teach someone a language from a beginner to advanced level of proficiency,” he cautioned.

“The gamification of [language] learning is, in my opinion, a welcome approach — particularly with children — although one must be careful to focus on the learning aspect of the tasks, rather than the point scoring.”

With a three-family range of vehicles taking shape at Land Rover, the Discovery Sport compact SUV becomes the effective replacement for Land Rover’s yet smaller entry-level LR3/Freelander model, and features optional 7-passenger seating.

Sitting between the luxury Range Rover line and more rugged off-road oriented Defender range, the Discovery is Land Rover’s more family- and leisure-oriented range, with the Discovery Sport slotting in somewhere between the full-size Discovery and stylised compact luxury Range Rover Evoque.

In a heavily-populated segment, the Discovery Sport stands out for its rare and well reconciled “just right” approach to design, engineering and execution, and flawlessly availed itself during an epic and demanding test drive in Iceland.

‘Just right’ design

Built on a monocoque frame utilising various high strength steels and lightweight aluminium panels the Discovery Sport benefits from high levels of torsional rigidity, which yields ride, handling, refinement and safety benefits. Designed for a taut and compact appearance the Discovery Sport is however packaged and engineered to efficiently maximise interior space.

Using similar but modified multi-link rear suspension, the Discovery Sport suspension mountings are 100mm further apart to reduce noise and luggage compartment intrusion and allow for optional occasional-use third-row seats. Streamlined with un-exaggerated extremities and bodywork, and with rising bonnet and waistline allows the Discovery Sport provides good all-round visibility in its segment.

With short overhangs and wheels pushed far to corners for enhanced space and stability, the Discovery Sport has a sure-footedly assertive stance, further emphasized by its jutting front bumper and swept back fascia. Lower black cladding around subtly bulging wheel-arches and lower metal skid-plate lend an air of adventurous ruggedness, and are complemented by punctuated compass-like circular elements within squinting Xenon and LED headlights. Streamlined with clamshell bonnet closing at its rising waistline and mirrored by a side character line, the Discovery Sport achieves low CD0.36 aerodynamic drag, while a distinctive reverse-angle C-pillar mirrors the D-pillar and creates a visual sense of forward momentum.

Smooth and versatile

Powered by Jaguar Land Rover’s thoroughly proven 2-litre turbocharged direct injection transverse four-cylinder engine — derived from Ford’s acclaimed Ecoboost — the Discovery Sport Si4 develops 237BHP at 5800rpm and 250lb/ft throughout 1750-4000rpm. This allows 8.2-second 0-100km/h acceleration and 200km/h top speed in either 1744kg 5-seat or 1841kg 7-seat version, and respectively returns 8l/100km and 8.3l/100km combined fuel consumption and 191g/km and 197g/km CO2 emissions.

Smooth and punchy as it distantly thrums, the Si4’s quick-spooling turbo allows for responsive low-end characteristics with negligibly little turbo lag. A rich and wide mid-range torque band underwrites top-end power build-up and provides muscularly effortless confidence in daily driving and demanding situations.

Channelling the Discovery Sport’s sole low-friction petrol engine’s power to its driven four wheels, its 9-speed automatic gearbox utilises torque for enhanced performance and efficiency. Smooth and swift shifting, the Discovery Sport’s numerous ratios provide the benefits of both sporty a close and broad range of ratios for low-end responsiveness and low-rev cruising.

Nominally starting in second gear, the Discovery Sport’s gearbox can skip gears as necessary in auto mode when up- or down-shifting, while shift point automatically adapt to driving style. First gear can be engaged in manual paddle-shift mode and can serve as a substitute for low gears when driving off-road or towing. 

The thick of it

Shortly after arrival at Keflavik Airport, the Discovery Sport was in the thick of it, plowing through deeply snowed and in the midst of a night-time blizzard near the Blue Mountain ski resort and along the Nesjavellir geothermal Pipeline Road. There, the Discovery Sport proved that despite carlike architecture, refinement and handling, it was no soft-roader, but possessed off-road abilities to make many dyed in the wool SUVs envious.

Fitted with discreetly studded tyres for the occasion, the Discovery Sport was equally unfaltering through Thingvellir National Park’s iced and snowed-over routes and along treacherously winding, ascending, rutted and thickly snowed-in volcano-view Kaldidalur routes and glaciers.

With white cloaking the landscape as far as the eye can see, the Discovery sport’s full-time four-wheel-drive proved its mettle the electronically-controlled Haldex centre coupling distributed torque between front and rear wheels to maintain traction, grip and forward movement. At the heart of its off-road ability is the Terrain Response system, which adjusts throttle, gearbox, centre coupling, steering and braking and stability for off-road driving.

With segment-leading off-road ability, the Discovery Sport can climb 45° gradients, drive at a 27° tilt and with water tight seals and high air intake, can safely wade through 600mm of water, while a Wade Sensing system can detect water depth. 

Comfort and composure

With different modes tailored for snow, gravel, grass, mud, ruts and sand, the Discovery Sport’s Terrain Response system also features a Dynamic mode setting when combined with the 5-seat version’s optional MagnaRide adaptive magnetic dampers.

Mated to MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension, MagnaRide’s almost instantaneous responsiveness and adaptability to road and driving conditions allow a greater level of body control and agility through corners and more supple and fluid ride characteristics.

In Dynamic mode, the adaptive damper and quick variable ratio steering firm up, while gearbox, differential and throttle become more responsive, for a more focused, controlled and involving driving experience.

Finding the right balance between ride comfort and handling ability the Discovery Sport is compliant over imperfections and buttoned down on rebound, while highway ride is refined and reassuringly stable. Tidy into and controlled through corners its steering is light but exact and dynamics grippy and predictable.

Confident and capable on icy roads, the Discovery Sport’s four-wheel-drive apportions power to maintain stability and grip, while a torque vectoring system which uses selective braking to nudge it front-end into line when understeer is detected. Meanwhile a Corner Brake Control system maintains driver control when braking heavily through corners, while electronic brakeforce distribution prevents brake dive.

‘Premium, not precious’

A practical but refined SUV, the Discovery Sport features high levels of versatility, hard wearing high quality materials and textures, clean and aesthetic layouts and intuitive controls and layouts. Described as “premium” but not “precious”, one won’t feel guilt about clambering in with snow-encrusted boots, the Discovery Sport is a dedicated family SUV with an airy ambiance and spacious and accessible interior.

Providing good visibility and a supportively commanding driving position, the Discovery Sport features versatile sliding second row seating raised to give good views. Three-row versions benefit from easy access and fold-flat, while cargo capacity fluctuates between 479- to 1698-litres depending on seat positions.

Extensively well-kitted with mod-cons, infotainment and safety features, the Discovery Sport had excellent seat adjustability during the long 290km test drive, while a heated windshield and reverse camera were crucial during the evening snow storm. In addition to convenient storage compartments, all passengers have face-level ventilation and USB ports, even in 7-seat guise.

An intuitive infotainment system features a WiFi hotspot for 8-devices including smart phone connectivity with specific apps including one that messages the owner in case of theft. Available automated driving systems include blindspot, lane-departure, highbeam, trailer, towing, parking and traffic sign assistance, and autonomous emergency braking to prevent collisions up to 50km/h and mitigate them up to 80km/h.

YANGON — Behind a wooden counter in downtown Yangon’s Coffee Club, the unmistakable hiss of a barista steaming milk briefly drowns out a funky soundtrack piped through a store filled with students glued to their smartphones.

In any other Asian capital it would be a ubiquitous sight. But in Yangon, this is something new.

Long absent from the region’s booming cafe culture, Myanmar’s commercial capital is now witnessing a surge in swish coffee bars providing an alternative to the treacly instant coffee served by thousands of street carts.

It is a trend that points both to the changing tastes of Myanmar’s emerging middle class but also the widening gap between them and the nation’s poor.

Nyi Nyi Tun, a doctor, is typical of the newly aspirant customers relishing consumer goods that were either far beyond their reach or simply unavailable under Myanmar’s brutal and economically incompetent military dictatorship.

“I came here to read,” he said, sipping an americano and perusing the web on a tablet. “With friends, a streetside tea shop is better. But if you want to be somewhere alone and quiet, then this kind of coffee shop is good.”

To escape the noisy onslaught of Yangon’s increasingly vehicle-clogged streets, Nyi Nyi Tun is willing to fork out as much as $2 — ten times what a traditional Myanmar coffee made from pre-mixed sachets and condensed milk costs at roadside stalls.

‘Exponential growth’

In the last few years since the end of outright military rule in 2011, around two dozen speciality coffee shops have opened up in Yangon alone.

“You will witness exponential growth of the coffee industry in the next three years,” predicts Ye Naing Wynn, managing director of the Nervin Cafe chain — Myanmar’s oldest — which now boasts five outlets including in Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw.

“A country like Myanmar has newly opened up. People have been closed up for so many years. The natural human reaction is they want to experience new things,” he adds.

Initially it was the large influx of expats and tourists that helped foster Yangon’s nascent coffee scene. But owners say locals now make up the majority of drinkers.

“That’s my target audience going forward to be honest... because any food and beverage business that relies 70 per cent on locals ought to do well in the long run,” says Thura Ko Ko, who returned to Myanmar from overseas four years ago and opened The Coffee Club above another of his businesses — a mobile phone shop.

It helps, he adds, that speciality coffee is seen as something aspirational and trendy.

“Sometimes I sit in and I overhear some new local customers try and they’re not quite sure what a cappuccino is — but they’ve seen it [on] the TV, they’ve seen it online and that’s been a big influence in lifestyle as well. Everything from Korean soaps to films,” he says.

Out of reach

The economic potential of Myanmar’s growing middle class is not lost on international companies who are scrambling to access one of Asia’s last untapped markets.

In 2013 Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz hinted during a trip to Thailand that he was eyeing Myanmar while Carlsberg is also hoping to break into the beer market — an area currently monopolised by the country’s military.

Management consulting giant McKinsey believes up to a quarter of Myanmar’s population could be living in large cities by 2030 — up from 13 per cent in 2010 — while the economy, if managed properly, could quadruple from $45 billion in 2010 to $200 billion by 2030.

“The size of the urban middle-class is expected to double over the next decade, with annual double-digit growth in middle-class incomes over the next five years,” says Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS.

“This will generate very rapid growth in urban consumer demand for retail goods, including consumer durables such as autos, motorcycles, refrigerators and air conditioners, consumer electronics such as mobile telephones and tablets, and basic consumer goods such as food and beverages,” he adds.

But Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar’s economy at Macquarie University in Australia, warns against overhyping the potential of the middle class in a country where the vast majority of its 60 million population are the rural poor.

“Serious consumption usually starts for people with disposable incomes above around $5,000. There would be few in Myanmar with this sort of spending power,” he says.

However, much buzz is created by the opening of the next hip coffee joint, for people like Ko Phyo, who runs a photography shop in Yangon, a latte will likely remain far outside his budget.

“It’s too expensive for ordinary people,” the 33-year-old says while sipping a sweet brew in one of Yangon’s many traditional, cheaper teashops.

“It’s ten times more expensive in those places. Only the middle classes can afford that.”

PARIS — Two French restaurants tasted the ultimate accolade in top-level gastronomy on Monday, winning three coveted Michelin stars in the guide’s 2015 edition.

“La Bouitte” in the French Alps, run by father-and-son team Rene and Maxime Meilleur and Yannick Alleno’s Parisian restaurant “Ledoyen” joined the pantheon of top eateries in the self-styled home of gastronomy.

Rene, 64, and Maxime, 39, were awarded the industry’s top prize for their “extraordinary” skills with fish, said Michael Ellis, director of international guides for Michelin.

The food bible hailed the Alpine chalet restaurant, located at an altitude of 2,500 metres, as “generous, authentic and full of emotion”.

The fishy delights on the menu include trout, scallops and crawfish, while meat eaters can tuck into frogs’ legs with black garlic and watercress, duck foie gras escalope, sweetbreads and venison.

But such three-star cuisine does not come cheap. A three-course “surprise” menu will set you back 115 euros ($130), while an eight-course banquet weighs in at 225 euros.

‘Explosion of flavour’

Away from the snowy mountains, “Ledoyen”, near the capital’s famed Champs Elysees, retained its three-star status but with a new chef, the 46-year-old Alleno, at the pass.

Alleno, who already won three stars in 2007 for his work at Le Meurice in Paris, was cited for his skill with sauces.

He has perfected an “extraction” technique for sauces, resulting in an ultra-pure jus with an intense flavour.

“We found a Yannick Alleno at the top of his game,” said Ellis.

“The techniques have been mastered in an extraordinary fashion. The concentration and explosion of flavour are quite simply remarkable,” he added.

He singled out for special praise a souffle of smoked eel with a watercress reduction and a brioche of pike with celery extract.

While the champagne corks were popping there, others were left crying into their soup as they were demoted to “mere” two-star status.

The “Arnsbourg” in eastern France was relegated from three stars to two following the departure of chef Jean-Georges Klein.

And “La Cote Saint-Jacques”, in central France, had a star removed due to a “lack of consistency in certain dishes”.

The 2015 guide crowned 26 three-star restaurants in France, one fewer than last year. Worldwide, there are 111.

There were 80 two-star restaurants (seven of which were new) and 503 one-star restaurants (37 of them making the grade for the first time).

In total, there are now 609 Michelin-starred restaurants in France.

The criterion for winning three stars is that the restaurant must serve up “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”.

The three previous editions of the guide crowned one new three-starred chef each and none in 2011.

Last year, the most coveted accolade in gastronomy went to Arnaud Lallement, of the family-run L’Assiette Champenoise near Reims in northeastern France.

The new guide was unveiled at the French foreign ministry, which is determined to maintain the country’s reputation as the top destination for foodies.

Last week, an American food critic threw salt in Michelin’s sauce by declaring that most of the top Paris listings were not worth their exorbitant prices.

Meg Zimbeck, who runs Paris By Mouth, a respected online review site that also provides foodie tours to English-speaking visitors, backed up her argument with research: four months of anonymous dining in all Paris restaurants boasting two or three Michelin stars.

What she found, after booking into 16 restaurants under false names and paying a total 7,150 euros for the meals, was that Michelin’s recommendations didn’t always deliver.

Amman — Traditional Indian saris exhibited Sunday at Galleria Ras Al Ain captured visitors’ attention with their vibrancy, brightness and exquisite patterns.

Each sari on display tells a different story from the heritage of the vast civilisation of India. 

Dating back to 2800 BC, the sari continues to be an artistic statement that personifies India and Indian women.

“Throughout the years, the Indian sari and India have become synonymous,” Anupama Trigunayat, wife of the Indian ambassador to Jordan, told The Jordan Times.

“The sari still holds that special place because it is at the core of the life of Indian women,” she said, highlighting the workmanship of Indian weavers.

The exhibition, called “Sari: The Magic of Indian Weaves”, was inaugurated by HRH Princess Basma who commended the Jordanian-Indian cooperation, in whose spirit the exhibition of the saris is held.

Indian textiles and saris represent a great heritage, she said, highlighting the grace and appeal of saris.

Indian Ambassador to Jordan Anil Trigunayat said saris — the word is derived from Sanskrit “sati”, which means strip of cloth — used to be one piece of cloth in the old days, as wearing stitched clothes was believed to be impure.

“When we thought of cultural activities to bring a little bit of India to Jordan, we thought of saris,” said the ambassador. 

Curated by Rta Kapur Chishti, the exhibition drew quite an attendance on the first day.

Sue Mullin, president of the International Women’s Association, Amman, said it is interesting to see the traditional saris, which can be distinguished by states and areas, according to the pattern.

“Likewise, it is nice to see the contemporary designs which you cannot tell where they come from,” she said.

Today’s sari has three parts: the sari itself, a short blouse that is separately stitched and an underskirt, a petticoat, said the envoy’s wife, adding that a sari is usually a six to nine-metre strip of fabric.

The blouse covers the bust and can be short or long sleeved, she said, adding that traditionally, it was believed that the navel symbolises life, creation of life, “so you keep it visible”.

Visitor Parveen Rahman, a Bengali physician living in Jordan, said saris are easy to wear.

“There are some folds and you have to make the pleats,” said another visitor.

Colours are also symbolic, said Mrs. Trigunayat; red and orange, and their different nuances, are very auspicious, for example.

Bright colours are usually worn at weddings and the quality of the fabric depends on the season.

Silk is worn in winter and sometimes in spring. Silk saris from the south of India are famous for their bright colours and are embellished with gold motifs. Saris from the north are usually embellished with brocade.

“Today, there are 80 ways of draping a sari,” she added, depending on the area. 

The exhibition will run until February 10 as part of several cultural activities held in Amman this month, including a Bollywood film festival, marking 65 years of cooperation between Jordan and India.

The Plague of Doves

Louise Erdrich

London: Harper Perennial, 2008

Pp. 311

Spanning four generations, Louise Erdrich tells the story of Pluto, a fictitious town in North Dakota, and the adjacent Indian reservation. Or rather, she lets three of her characters tell their stories, then gives the final word to a fourth character who puts a whole new spin on the entire saga.

This is part of the point: There are many sides to every story; history is complicated. It does not mean that there is no right or wrong, but the dividing line between the two is not always as clear-cut as it may appear, especially if one takes into account the role of motives, chance and coercion. 

As the different narratives intersect, new insights and layers of understanding are added to the events and characters, and what a cast of characters Erdrich has invented! There are the pious, the pretenders and the truly spiritual, visionaries and adventurers, criminals, artists, dedicated professionals, philosophers, lovers of the land, unscrupulous landgrabbers, bigots, dreamers, and the slightly or totally crazy. Even more intriguing, many characters fall into more than one category. 

There is no rigid demarcation between the inhabitants of Pluto and the reservation as one might expect. Originally, it was white settlers who established Pluto on the land of the Chippewa or Ojibwe, one of the largest Native American groups whose territory spanned what is now the US-Canadian border. 

Yet, from the beginning, the lives of newcomers and natives began to intersect in so many ways. There was much intermarriage as well as off-the-record interbreeding, but most of all, the community was tangled together by a shared history that included the brutal murder of a white family, and the random lynching of a group of Chippewa who happened to be in the vicinity. 

Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, who narrates part of the story, is one of many who straddles the divide, being part white and part Chippewa, and thus well-placed to balance between tribal, federal and state law. He knows both sides of the cases he hears, and fills the reader in on the secrets and entanglements of the community’s shared history, concluding, “nothing that happens, nothing, is not connected here by blood.” (p. 115)

The tangled history of the community gives rise to many ironies, some of them tragic, as someone may end up killing a person whose grandfather saved one of their ancestors. While many of the adults harbour grudges because of past wrongs, they go about their lives knowing that some things cannot be changed. As Evelina, a young narrator, says after learning about the community’s history from her grandfather’s rambling reminiscences, “now that some of us have mixed in the spring of our existence both guilt and victim, there is no unravelling the rope.” (p. 243)

“The Plague of Doves” contains so many characters and subplots that one is amazed by how the author ties them together across families and time, in her graceful, lyrical and sensuous style. Her imagination seems to know no bounds. Not only people and lineage provide continuity but also objects, such as a violin fought over by two brothers and lost to both. Standing as a powerful symbol of the endurance of Ojibwe culture, it magically re-emerges decades later to give new meaning to the life of a young delinquent. 

In the novel’s now time, Pluto is dying. Erdrich’s story is a slice of American history — a chronicle of what was once called the frontier and how it developed, only to wither as the economy changed. The judge muses, “as I look at the town now, dwindling without grace, I think how strange that lives were lost in its formation. It is the same with all desperate enterprises that involve boundaries we place upon the Earth… we seem to think we have mastered something. What? The Earth swallows and absorbs even those who managed to form a country, a reservation. (Yet there is something to the love and knowledge of the land and its relationship to dreams — that’s what the old people had. That’s why as a tribe we exist to the present.)” (p. 115)

The subliminal text of Erdrich’s narrative testifies not only to the survival of Native Americans despite the odds but also to the rich cultural input that the United States lost when their society was, at worst, eradicated and, at best, sidelined in order to found a new “white” country. 

Though many events in this story are tragic, the overall effect is quite life affirming, mainly because of the numerous characters who throw themselves into life so bravely, so resourcefully — and they persist. While the past cannot be changed, people can live with it; some learn its lessons and change, many of them for the better.

MIAMI — A mysterious and sometimes fatal brain disease that has afflicted children in northeastern India for years could be linked to a toxic substance in litchi fruits, US researchers said Thursday.

Investigators say more research is needed to uncover the cause of the illness, which leads to seizures, altered mental state and death in more than a third of cases.

In the meantime, doctors who encounter sick children should takes steps to rapidly correct low blood sugar, which can make the disease more likely to be fatal, said the report by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The outbreaks have coincided with the month-long litchi harvesting season in and around the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar state since 1995, said the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In 2013, some 133 children were admitted to local hospitals with seizures and neurological symptoms.

Most were aged one to five, and nearly half (44 per cent) of them died. Those who died were more than twice as likely as other patients to have been admitted to the hospital with low blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia.

Tests on the spinal fluid of patients came back negative for infectious agents like Japanese encephalitis virus, West Nile virus and other known pathogens in the area. 

A study that compared ill children to a control group in the area found that those who got sick were more than twice as likely to have spent time in orchards or agricultural fields.

These findings “raised concern for the possibility of a toxin-mediated illness,” said the CDC.

More study in 2014

From the end of May until mid-July last year, 390 children were admitted to the two referral hospitals in Muzaffarpur with illnesses that met the same case definition used in 2013.

“As in previous years, clustering of cases was not observed; the illness of each affected child appeared to be an isolated case in various villages,” said the CDC, noting that about 1,000 people lived in each village.

“The number of cases declined significantly after the onset of monsoon rains on June 21, 2014.”

Parents and caregivers said the children seemed healthy until they suddenly began experiencing convulsions, usually between 4am and 8am, followed by an altered mental state. Most did not have a fever on admission to the hospital.

Thirty-one per cent of the children died.

“The 2013 and 2014 Muzaffarpur investigations indicate that this outbreak illness is an acute noninflammatory encephalopathy,” said the CDC.

Component in seeds?

Researchers are carefully looking at a component found in litchi seeds known to cause hypoglycemia in animal studies.

Litchi fruits near the homes of affected children are being tested for the compound, known as methylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPG), and environmental samples are being taken from their homes and water supplies to search for pesticides.

Researchers think MCPG may cause severe hypoglycemia and illness much the same way as a similar toxin, hypoglycin A, which has caused “acute encephalopathy in the West Indies and West Africa after consumption of unripe ackee, a fruit in the same botanical family as litchi,” said the CDC.

Outbreaks of neurological illness have also been observed in litchi growing regions of Bangladesh and Vietnam, “raising further interest in a possible association between litchis and this illness”.

An investigation into the Bangladesh cases focused on pesticides used in litchi orchards, but found no specific culprit.

The Vietnam probe looked at “possible infectious agents that might be present seasonally near litchi fruit plantations but found none to explain the outbreak”, the CDC said.

Until researchers uncover the cause, parents are urged to seek immediate medical care for their children if they show symptoms, and doctors should promptly check for hypoglycemia and correct it as soon as possible.

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft’s HoloLens goggles have hit a sweet spot between Google Glass and virtual reality headgear, immersing users in a mesmerising world of augmented reality holograms.

The glasses, which the US technology titan sprang on an unsuspecting press recently, elicited descriptions such as “magical” and “unbelievable”, the first time in a while such praise was heaped on a Microsoft creation.

The augmented reality goggles are a step in a different direction from virtual reality headgear such as Oculus Rift and Sony’s Project Morpheus system, as well as Google Glass.

At private demos of HoloLens in a carefully guarded lower level of Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Washington, cameras, recording devices and even smartphones were not permitted.

Microsoft executives said the holographic capabilities built into Windows 10 operating software — to be released late this year — would open doors for developers to augment tasks from complex surgery to motorcycle design.

In a captivating demonstration, a prototype HoloLens turned a room into the surface of Mars.

HoloLens wearers found themselves standing near a 3D representation of the Rover, free to roam Mars, at times accompanied by a NASA scientist projected into the scene and communicating through Skype.

“This is the future of space exploration,” said the scientist, represented by a glowing golden spacesuit reminiscent of vintage science fiction films.

NASA team members can use HoloLens to move about as if they are on Mars and figure out where they want the Rover to go and what they want it to do.

Work and play

Through a series of scenarios, HoloLens overlaid virtual scenes on real space, allowing wearers to safely and efficiently navigate rooms while engaging with 3D imagery using voice, gaze or gesture.

The head piece tracks eye movements, then lets wearers use a simple finger flick to interact with whatever they focus on.

Replacing a light switch became a collaborative effort, as one individual with a tablet computer guided the job, overlaying arrows or notes that floated in the air.

The room was then converted into an extension of the building block themed game Minecraft, with castles on floors and table tops. With voice commands and taps of the finger, a wearer built or destroyed, and sometimes vanquished zombies.

The Microsoft headgear even became a tool for designing virtual toys then made real using a 3D printer.

HoloLens also promises scintillating integration with video games, and Microsoft has a broad and devoted fan base for Xbox consoles.

The future of computing

“HoloLens offers a new platform and experience for computing on the scale of the original PC and the launch of Apple iPhone,” Forrester analyst Frank Gillett said in a blog post.

And Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has depicted virtual reality as a computing platform poised to succeed the mobile Internet era centred on smartphones and tablets.

He backed his belief by buying Oculus VR last year in a $2 billion deal.

Because virtual reality headgear disconnects users from their immediate surroundings, some people worry about what is happening in reality or what they might bump into.

“Virtual reality makes sense for gamers pretty much immediately,” said Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay.

“I think augmented reality is actually how this type of technology is going to hit in to the general population.”

By contrast, Google Glass essentially displays a miniature version of a smartphone screen in an upper corner of one lens.

People can glance to see text messages, video or other scenes in small displays, and also take pictures or video, controlling the eyewear with voice commands or taps on frames.

Google recently ended sales of Glass through an Explorer programme, but a lower cost and more fashionable version is expected to make it to market.

“I have to say Microsoft has truly delivered a mixed reality experience that will delight,” Forrester analyst James McQuivey said in a blog post.

“It’s on everybody else — from Apple to Samsung, Oculus VR to Magic Leap — to match Microsoft’s opening bid.”