USHA POKHAREL
Reading is not new to us. I am sure you know there are two kinds of reading. One is the formal that you do in school to gain knowledge and the other, of course, is recreational, done for entertainment. Recreational reading is also called leisure reading that people do almost every day, whether it’s reading newspapers or magazine or a book. It is a process to release pressure and thus slip into the realm of relaxation. To some people, such reading is kind of a therapy. While for others, it is pure pleasure and a source of entertainment.
Recreational reading has a long history, as old as the invention of the text. Yes, that’s a long time. Now, join me as I analyze the terms, synthesize meanings by delving into the ancient history of reading and trace its evolution through the centuries. Let us trace the historical development of recreational reading. I can see a few funny faces with questions written all over, “Why the history? Isn’t reading in itself enough?” Well, you read about history of this king and that country and it is boring but you will be surprised to know that the history of reading is much more interesting.
Did you know that the concept of recreational reading dates back to the time when text was invented about 6,000 years ago? You did not, right? I can see a few heads shaking. I know it’s hard to remember, it’s such a long time ago. Anyway, when text gave way to the written representation of oral culture, Aristotle, the world’s first psychologist, understood this fundamental difference and relationship between spoken and written language. He said, “Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience, and written words are the symbols of spoken word”.
Submit
The evidence of Greek reading recreationally is clearly visible when we take a closer look at the Greek language. Let me tell you something interesting. Did you know that in Greek language there are more than a dozen verbs that signify “to read”, attested from around 500 BC? Again, I can see a few surprised faces. Yes, the first Greek readers read aloud, because Greek culture valued spoken word highly. Hence writing held little interest, except as vocalized reading. In the absence of documents, reading aloud was the form of recreational reading at the time. By the sixth century, the Greeks were reading silently for recreation. Now let us look at the first books.
At the beginning of the second century AD, books in the form of rolls were first introduced in Rome. Throughout the history of reading, text representation has evolved from wax tablets, to rolls and then to codex—the book with pages—a Roman invention of the early fifth century. By the 14th century, a shift from recreational reading to normative reading took place in Greece. In the 15th century, Machiavelli, the political genius, describes himself as reading books for entertainment. Now getting on to the early 20th century, George Brandes, a Danish scholar, while talking about recreational reading says, “Reading has power to make us keener and more susceptible to the values of things… Reading for pure amusement is by no means to be despised, so long as it does indeed amuse”.
In the 21st century recreational reading is still considered a means to lose oneself in pure luxury or relaxation. By now you must be wondering what exactly recreational reading means. The meaning of recreational reading has gradually evolved as ‘refreshment or comfort of mind, produced by the action of perusing written or printed matter’. Thanks to technology, we don’t have to carry huge tablets to read good books anymore. Oh yes, we do carry tablets but of a different kind: a mobile computer with display, circuitry and battery all in a single unit that fits in the palm of our hand. Guess what, we can read books in those tablets! Now you can smile, and breathe a sigh of relief!
2 Why can’t you copy a simple sentence? Why can’t you read? When will you know the difference between b and d, n and u, w and m? You are impossible. You cannot do anything properly!” Frustrated with the situation, it is but natural for parents to blame teachers and the school for not taking good care of their child.
During a parent teacher meeting, you shout, “My child can’t read! S/he works so hard, but it just never gets easier. S/he knows s/he is smart, so why can’t s/he read like other kids?” As usual the teachers have a few things to say about your child but don’t have answers to your question. Instead they will tell you, “Your child has no manners, we punish him/her everyday and still s/he does not put in any effort to learn. S/he does not want to study. S/he does not pay attention in class.”
You are angry, disappointed and would give anything to know why your child is the way s/he is. Chances are that your child is dyslexic. I know you are shocked. You have never heard of the word and want to know ‘what exactly is dyslexia?’
Dyslexia is a language-based disorder that blocks the development of oral and written language skills in a perfectly normal child. This makes it difficult for a child to read and interpret words, letters, other symbols, and to spell words, but that doesn’t mean the person is dumb. Plenty of smart and talented people struggle with dyslexia.
Now that you understand the term, you are better equipped to understand the reason behind homework time tension at home. At the same time you are now more concerned as to how your child will make it through elementary school, middle school and high school. This is a natural reaction, but remember it’s not just your child who is struggling, it’s you too who are struggling to deal with the new found knowledge regarding your child being dyslexic.
I know it is difficult to change gears from the version of your child you expect, to the one you have at hand. I can even understand a parent’s frustration at their past reaction to their child’s inability to read and write like others in his/her class, although s/he is just as intelligent.
Often, parents consumed by their child’s deficits in reading, overlook things their children can do well. It is not just parents, teachers, are equally guilty of this. Just because a child can’t physically decode the words and/or write a response to a reading comprehension question, doesn’t mean s/he cannot achieve higher oral comprehension.
It is entirely possible they are very creative and can write or narrate beautiful stories or poems. Maybe s/he can draw beautifully and has great listening skills. Letting these children use their strengths will boost their confidence. This in turn will give them something to feel good that they are excelling at something.
Life for a child with dyslexia is challenging. Even if s/he has normal intelligence level, they still fail at the normally recognized parameter of intelligence: academic performance. At this point it is important for parents to understand the dynamics and deal with the situation appropriately.
You have to understand that your child thinks in wholes: whole words, whole chapters and stories, whole lessons, whole assignments and whole concepts. Dyslexics need to see the whole process, the whole picture and its meaning right at the beginning. That is the reason behind your child’s never ending stock of questions. Without these being answered, your child cannot function properly. They need to see the “forest before the trees.” It’s true with everything they are learning and processing.
Dyslexics think in concrete wholes, that is, they work backwards from a conclusion. I am sure you have noticed that your child looks at the last page of the book before even starting to read the book. This is “top/down processing,” also known as “large chunk” processing: they focus on the larger concept or idea and then work their way down to the finer details of the concept or idea. If they look like they are daydreaming, it is entirely possible that they may be learning by listening or are trying to find answers for something that is bothering them.
Make a point of not criticizing your child for not paying attention or being lazy. Parents’ negligence of the matter can affect the child in many ways. How? You may ask. Parents need to understand that dyslexia impacts a child’s self-image. While academic problems may make him/her feel ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’, his/her inability to clearly express one’s feelings, results in the child having trouble conversing. This might make the child feel more isolated, as he/she grows up and fail to make friends.
Since a dyslexic child has to deal with inconsistencies everyday, it is but natural for his/her frustrations to lead to anger and temper tantrums. Along with this comes another dangerous complication: depression. The child may not only have negative thoughts about himself/herself, but also about the world around him/her.
With so much emotional trauma going on, dyslexic children can often be in difficulty at home and amazingly parents are still the best support available to them. I can see a few confused parents wondering, ‘how can I help my child?’ To make things simple parents can create an ideal environment (devoid of anger, frustrations, irritation and immediate adverse reaction) by providing their children with constant love, support and encouragement. It is important for parents to understand that many people with dyslexia have conquered it to become very successful in their chosen careers. Dyslexia in no way hampers a person’s ability to lead a perfectly normal life.
Stop feeling guilty. You did not cause your child to have dyslexia and you could not have prevented it. While you are at it, don’t blame anyone else either. Now realize dyslexia is a fact of life. Read to your child as often and for as long as possible. This will help your child to develop a larger vocabulary, hear words pronounced properly and learn to enjoy books.
Talk to your child—just about anything and everything. So much of family life is used up in other activities that don’t involve children, the time for chatting with them can get lost. It is very important to keep in touch with your child’s progress, because dyslexia affects the whole personality, not just schoolwork.
Learn to hear what the child is saying and note what is not being said. Learn to pick up on tone of voice indicating possible worries. Ask open questions, like, “How do you feel about that?” or “What do you think of this?” Never underestimate the amount of learning a child does simply by being with you and observing. Keep in mind that informal teaching is very effective. I can see a few parents saying, ‘what about schoolwork?’
Schoolwork is more tiring for children with dyslexia. Of course, help by being close to your child during homework time, but let the child decide what help s/he needs from you. Provide just that amount and not take charge of the homework. Parents need to understand that their children can and will learn to read—that their children have strengths, not just weaknesses. They can inspire confidence and enable their children to look forward to a proud future.
3
Algorithms of shopping fancies
SEWA BHATTARAI
Many strategies based on consumer behaviour are used to boost sales at supermarkets.
You walk into a supermarket with a grocery list full of functional items: rice, dal, napkins. But before long, you find yourself buying all kinds of things you never intended: chocolates, chips and biscuits with cream that you had never seen before that day. You return home laden with twice as many items as you had intended to buy.
Your purchases aren’t merely coincidences or whims. In fact, the shelves of supermarkets are carefully designed to attract the attention of customers and maximize sales.
“Retail is a vast area with carefully analyzed principles of its own,” says Hemanta Dangal, Operations Manager at Saleways Department Store.
Areas in a supermarket are categorized as prime locations, or dead areas, according to the footfall they get. For example, the area just in front of the customers when they enter the store is a prime location that every visitor is bound to see. So, in this area are stored fast moving consumable goods like chocolates and chips. In the dead areas are stored slow-moving items which customers need only once in a while, like soaps, shampoos, etc.
When you arrive at the counter and see little knickknacks, you continue to buy even after you have officially finished your shopping.(Pratik Rayamajhi)
And it just so happens that the fast-moving items are the ones you don’t necessarily need, and may not even buy unless their attractive display entices you.
Bhatbhateni Supermarket and Departmental Store at Pulchowk has a large display box full of chips and nachos that stretches across several counters.
“Every customer is bound to look at this box,” says Panu Paudel, Operations Manager at Bhatbhateni Supermarket and Departmental Store. “25-30% of purchases at supermarkets are unplanned, and it’s displays like these that incite such unplanned purchases.”
Many shoppers confess to falling for these clever arrangements. Press Giri, 22, is a student who often shops there. There she can buy everything she needs at one place, and she can find items that she cannot find at her corner store. But she also admits that she gets swayed by the items on display and often ends up with more than her original list.
The prime area is a location of constant attention and experimentation. In summer, juices and cold drinks may be placed near the entrance, while in winter it is tea, coffees and hot chocolates. Festival offers are also placed near the entrance for the same reason. The sale of items at prime location is unfailingly high.
Apart from an item’s location in the store, its visibility on a particular shelf is also of paramount importance. The amount of shelf space occupied by a brand is directly proportional to its sale. Dangal confirms that no visibility means no sales. Brands prefer that their products be placed at eye-level.
“Eye-level is that where you don’t have to bend or stretch in any way to get a product,” informs Dangal, “and without a doubt, the items displayed at eye level get more customer interest than items stored elsewhere. This is reflected in the sales.”
While the location of products in a store is decided by the supermarkets based on pre-existing retail-store models, individual brands bargain for shelf space and level. They may offer money or discount in exchange for space at eye-level or bulk space at prime location. Paudel related that since people are more likely to buy a single-serve item than a family-sized unit, they often put the smaller unit of the same brand at eye-level.
There are many other strategies used to boost sales at supermarkets. Paudel informed that they put new items at prime locations so that customers are attracted to products that they may not have heard of otherwise. Also, little items like chewing gum that line the counter are there because “people buy them just because they see them.” In a sense, when you arrive at the counter and see little knickknacks, you continue to buy even after you have officially finished your shopping.
Intangible factors like music and wall colors are also carefully chosen to create the desired ambience.
“These factors don’t necessarily increase sales, but they help create a conducive shopping environment,” says Dangal.
Saleways has experimented on a range of different music: from Rock to Hip Hop to folk. After they received complaints from customers who didn’t like one genre or another, they have stuck to playing track music. This has created a soothing environment.
Sunila Shrestha, Branch Manager of the Pulchowk branch of Bhatbhateni Supermarket and Departmental Store, informed that they continue to experiment with music during special occasions, for example, by playing festival-specific music and songs. She believes this puts customers in a festive mood.
A lot of a supermarket’s sales also depend on the guaranteed customer footfalls it gets. Dangal, who has been in retail business for 15 years in Nepal and abroad, is in a position to compare supermarket culture across countries. In countries where supermarkets are the only way of shopping, it is common to have necessities like milk stored at the back of the supermarket. Customers who need milk have no option but to go to the supermarket, cross all the aisles, and reach the dead area.
“The logic of putting necessities at the back is that customers can make a round and see other things the store has to offer,” Dangal expounded.
In Nepal, we are not in the habit of getting daily necessities like milk from departmental stores, so placing milk at the back serves little purpose. In fact, Dangal informs that hiding necessities in dead areas often does not work, because people come in for a short while, have a glance, and go back disappointed.
“A supermarket is a place where you can find everything,” he says, “but because supermarket culture is not so developed in Nepal yet, sometimes people don’t bother to check out the entire store.”
Saleways had experimented with keeping essential groceries like rice, beans, etc in a different room. But after customers turned away, they put these items directly to the right of the entrance. Their sales rose by 200%. Since then, their prime location contains a mix of necessities like groceries and fast-moving consumer items like chips and chocolates.
“At the end of the day, it’s the customers who decide the display, not the display that decides the customers,” says Dangal. If a store has a certain number of guaranteed footfalls, it can put its products at any inconvenient place and expect customers to find it. But if the number of customers is not guaranteed, it must do all it can to attract new customers by contouring the display to suit their needs.
With increasing supermarket culture where people have even begun to prefer supermarkets to corner stores, the day is not far in Nepal too where the display decides the customers and not the other way around.
Some common advertising strategies
Emotions
Many advertisements link their product with some emotion: happiness, fun, relief from fear, beauty, etc. Viewers have been known to connect most easily to these kinds of advertisements. This strategy works on any kind of product.
Humor
A small section of advertisements use humor to get across to their audience. Humor can be tricky, because what one person finds funny can be offensive to others. Hence, this strategy is best suited for fast moving consumable goods (FMCG) products, where humor is used to create a fun association with the product. Humor is used less often in products that require serious investment or analytical decisions.
Information
Facts, figures and statistics are likely to communicate to consumers if the products in question are important logical investments, or those that have complicated technical aspects. Statistics are often combined with other approaches, like emotions, to take off their dry edge and make them more relatable.
Creating all that glitters
Advertisements only present a product, they don’t force consumers to buy anything. It’s up to the consumer to make a wise judgment.
Making a product is easy; the difficult part comes next, when you have to sell it. You have to make sure it appeals to your consumers, and that’s where advertising and marketing come in. The way you pitch your product often determines its sales, and the skills of marketing are thus highly in demand today.
Harshwardhan Shahani is the Managing Director of the advertising agency V-Chitra, and has been in advertising for more than 25 years. Here are excerpts from an interview about the situation of advertising and marketing in Nepal today, and how a product’s marketing impacts its image and sales.
What does marketing mean in today’s world?
I don’t think it’s possible to sell anything without marketing today. But in Nepal, the industry is still in its infancy. The market is driven by suppliers, not by buyers. If there’s more supply than demand, then there’s competition to create the best marketing strategies. But today, there’s more demand than supply, so we have more tactical advertisements than strategic ones.
What’s strategic advertising?
Strategic advertising builds the reputation of a brand over the long term. It doesn’t necessarily spell out the product’s price. But Nepal’s advertisements mostly just give information about the product, basically announcing that the product exists. The demand does the rest.
Today, there’s a glut of advertisements about every product, and most fail to make impression. What makes an advertisement good?
The idea must be innovative and creative, and it must stand out. For example, if you look at deodorant advertisements, they are all the same, you can hardly tell one brand from another. The same thing was happening with noodles in Nepal once; everyone was offering TVs, fridges and all those things. But we did a campaign for Wai Wai called “Gyan Jyoti” where we offered educational scholarships. That campaign stood out from the media clutter because it was different, and it won a lot of awards.
Does star power in advertisements work in Nepal?
These days, there’s the trend of using stars in every product which doesn’t make sense. Stars only help the product if their image fits the product.
Besides, there’s the question of celebrity culture and its audience in Nepal. Things like in-movie advertising, which work very well in countries with wide audiences, don’t work here. So we’ve thought about product placement in movies but haven’t used it.
Advertisements are criticized for their use of stereotypes. What do you say to that?
Yes, there’s a huge amount of stereotyping in advertisements. We tend to make generalizations about everything. A lot of times, stereotypes exist because they are true and we see them playing out all around us. So stereotypes work in advertisements. We do try to break free from stereotypes. For example, there are many women-centered ads today that give the message that women can do anything. But unless the company is a very radical one, that’s completely against stereotypes. One or any other is sure to come into play. How we make use of stereotypes is all need-based.
That brings us to the moral side of advertisements. Advertisements often reinforce stereotypes, attract people to products that they don’t necessarily need, and promote consumerism.
A successful advertisement is that which increases the sales of the product. So yes, advertisements do aid consumerism. But then, that’s what stimulates the economy, too. Without purchases, the economy is stagnant. Even newspapers wouldn’t survive without advertisements.
And then again, we don’t force people to buy our products, nor do we encourage consumers to forego necessities and buy products that are outside their budget range. We only present it, that’s what our business is all about. It’s up to the consumer to use their intellect to make a wise judgment.
Can consumers use their judgment in the face of such aggressive media promotion that has become our way of life?
There are many examples of customers using their discretion. For example, they say good advertising will make a bad product fail faster. If an advertisement makes its impact, more people are likely to try the advertised product, and if it’s bad, they will discard it. So a lot depends on the product’s quality itself. Advertising merely introduces a product; it isn’t responsible for all the sales.
5
The ultimate aim
THE WEEK BUREAU
Meditation has two sides to it. Insight is one and serenity another. Both these qualities are in our minds. While meditating, we use our breath as a tool – we pay attention to our breathing style and let the mind calm down.
There is a certain sense of peace that arises when we meditate. This is also known as samatha. When peace and serenity fade away, suffering takes its place. Why does that happen? Because the peace that comes by samatha meditation alone is still based on attachment because the cause that gives rise to the pain has not yet been addressed and eliminated.
So what peace and serenity give us is the base. The base to precede contemplation, investigation, and to analyze the conditioned nature of reality until we naturally become free of attachments, even the attachment of serenity. Serenity is something we create so we can use it to gain further insight into our own reality. But if we cling to this peace, then it will be the reason for pain again.
Bijay Rai
This mind is free, brilliantly radiant and without problems or issues. The reason why problems arise is because the mind is deluded by conditioned things.
When we cultivate a calm mind, we will understand impermanence and change and realize that nothing in this world remains as it is for long. When there is understanding, then we are free. Then it all just becomes a game we are a part of.
For this understanding to arise, it is very crucial for the qualities of peace and insight to be cultivated in our mind and hearts. Only theoretically being aware of our delusions and mental defilements won’t do. What is needed is that when these defilements arise, the intellect has to correspond at the very moment, which does not usually happen. Usually, our knowledge and habits are polar opposites.
For example, when something undesirable happens, do we react and get into a bad mood, or can we let it go? If we still retain aversion in our hearts, then the practice is not yet perfect. When we reach real practice, then the letting go eventually happens. We truly have to look deep within ourselves in our own hearts if we want to experience the fruit of meditation practice.
However, it is very difficult to keep track of all the mind movements and internal happenings. I have been advised by my teacher to become aware of the present moment, both internally and externally.
What I now do is this: If any emotion arises, I search for the cause. I try to find the root of the problem and then reach a conclusion. By understanding the actual problem, I’ll be able to better deal with the emotion and cultivate a peaceful mind.
Our minds will try to deceive us by pondering over things and not letting go. But practice to be in the moment. Even when you practice, it will be difficult. But with persistence and patience, you will be able to control your mind and reach the ultimate aim of meditation –
Peace and Serenity.