Real Vampire: Petar Blagojevic

Name      : Petar Blagojevic 

Died at    : 1725 (62 years old)

Location  : Kisilova (now Kisiljevo), Serbia

Story     

The first case of vampire which was well documented and recorded in the report of Imperial Provisor Frombald, an official of the Austrian administration. Petar Blagojevic lived in a village named Kisilova. He died in 1725. He was believed to have become vampire, rise from the grave and hunt villagers. After his death, villagers dying abruptly, they reported that Blagojevic visited them in the sleep and throttled them. They would live up to a day after the incident, after which they perished. Within 8 days, 9 people died. Furthermore, Blagojevic's

Petar Blagojevic

wife stated that he appeared in front of her asking for shoes after two months of his death. In other legend, it is said that Blagojevic demanded food from his son but the son refused then Blagojevic murdered him. The villagers decided to disinter the body and examine it. They had requested the permission from local Austrian authorities which was Frombald to perform the necessary vampire killing upon Blagojevic's grave. Frombald with local priest come to witness the event and make a record. Frombald and the priest were astonished to find that the body was undecayed, the hair and beard were grown. There were new skin and nails, fresh blood around the mouth. Villagers stake the body through the heart caused fresh blood spurted from the corpse's ears and mouth. Frombald said  he saw these creature scream and blood. Finally, the body was burnt to ashes.

There are a dozen of gravestones with no writing

Sekinchan-我的故乡

Sekinchan-我的故乡

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ekinchan (适耕庄), in Chinese means the ‘village suitable for plantation’ is well known as one of the major rice suppliers in Malaysia. Sekinchan is my home town as the place I grow up. Sekinchan is the place not known by others before. When someone asked me where you come from, I said Selangor rather than Sekinchan because they do not know the Sekinchan when I study in Northen University Malaysian in Kedah. But, nowadays, it has become one of the famous tourism destination. It is always a famous paddy field and fishing village. The picture below show where the situation of Sekinchan.

Paddy Field

Sekinchan lives up to its name as the town is the rice bowl of Selangor. Large plots of land are cultivated to produce the staple rice supply of Malaysians. This area is well-known for its high yield of rice and mechanised farming methods.

Green Paddy Field at Sekinchan

Your drive through this road to have a close contact with the Paddy Field. My father has always drive our family strolling the paddy field from site C go to site B and may go further until end to Tanjong Karang. Haha, is a bit of exaggerate, but it's true. Most importantly,we had enjoyed  the beautiful view of paddy field along the little journey.In addition, my siblings sometimes will spend their time jogging in paddy field in the sunset. There is also others like to spend their leisure time hanging in paddy field.

The wooden bridge showed in the picture might see not stable and will collapsed in anytime. But this bridge had been appeared long ago. Well, some might not stable and can not afford for people stand on it, but still some capable for the motorcycle pass through. Thus, don't worry and enjoy your journey in Sekinchan!

Visit Paddy Processing Plant

There are also factories which allow visits. They will briefing regard paddy plantation process, type of rice, you can watch the video presentation regarding the paddy plantation process. You can also purchase the rice here which is not available in the market.

Eel Fishing in Sekinchan Paddy Field

 Eel fishing is a common activity among the locals in Sekinchan during the paddy harvesting season. There are many opportunities for the exciting activity of eel-fishing. When the paddy fields are being harvested, the water level is lowered. This is the best time to fish for eels as they will be trapped in their nests. The eels will be all hungry waiting for the water level to increase again.

This picture I get from the internet and honestly I don't know who this two guys are, haha. But one thing for sure, they are fishing the eel in paddy field at Sekinchan.

Don't misunderstanding! The picture above is the eel fish that you can fish in Sekinchan. Well, it appearance look like the snake. The eel fish is delicious and juicy and you must try it!

The picture showed above.... erm.. I don't know what is it but we usually called it sheng yu (生鱼) in Mandarin.It is holded by my brother. My father and brother, they are crazy for fishing. If have some free time, they will definitely go for fishing at the river near the paddy field. They often brought the fruitful result. Sometimes, there were too many of them, my father will give some to our neighbour or my brother will sell it to others to earn some money. My mother, who was responsible for cooking the different cuisine of sheng yu. Cuisine like porridge sheng yu, curry sheng yu, fried sheng yu and so on. My brother is a fish killer!! Haha, just kidding. He always make ready the "clean" fish for my mother to cook.

Bagan-fishing village

Bagan is the main fishing village in Sekinchan, this fishing village is located along the river and small seaport, south-west of the town. The economy of Bagan is dominated by fishing industry. This fishing village will become very quiet after all the fishing boat go to the ocean for their catching at the morning. The situation of this fishing village will change to very busy during the time of fishing boat back to seaport, you will see the fisherman busy with their work to unloading their catching and the workers in jetty are busy with categorize according types and sizes. That why we describe this fishing village as Calm and Busy Fishing Village.

Seafood in Sekinchan

Eating SEAFOOD  is the most important culture in Sekinchan. In the meal of my family, definately there are more than one meal are seafood. 

 Crab....mmm....yummy. This is  my father most favorite seafood. He will nonstop eating until we scolded him. This is for his own sake because eating too much will have high cholesterol. When we have dinner except my father, he always the last person eat dinner, my mother or sister will tell us eat more as you can as long as left just two for him, haha...sorry...dad...

 

Lala in Mandarin, favorite seafood for my family. tasty, juicy and spicy!!! Wow, I want more, more, more...

 

 

 

 

 

Delicious.....

 

There are many many more, I cannot list them all......Arggh.....they are so delicious and I cannot hold back my saliva!!

Welcome to Sekinchan.

Animal Commit Suicide-动物自杀案

Animal Commit Suicide-动物自杀案

 

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here a new stated that a pod of 61 whales beached themselves at Farewell Spit in New Zealand. Officials decided to euthanize the 18 that were still alive. Why animals such as primates (灵长类动物), dolphins and even squid commit suicide? Can they actually make a choice to kill themselves?

Did they able to think for commit suicide?

Did animals posses the mental faculties needed to end their own lives deliberately? Suicide involves a set of higher-order cognitive abilities. It requires an awareness of one’s own existence, an ability to speculate about the future, and the knowledge that an act will result in death. There are indications that certain animals have some of these capacities. Dolphins, many primates, magpies, and elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, suggesting self-awareness. Some animals know how to pretend during play activities, which indicates an ability to imagine counterfactual worlds. Still, no one really knows which animals, if any, can combine these capacities to perform an act similar to human suicide.

Reason for commit suicide

 Depression or lonely: animals will inadvertently terminate their own lives  when depressed or lonely. Highly bonded animals change their behavior when they lose a companion. For example, dogs in such situations sometimes go into depression and reject food and attention until they eventually die.

Toxoplasma gondii: the parasite Toxoplasma gondii affects the brains of rodents and causes them to be attracted to their enemy-the cat. A study made by University of Maryland researchers found that those with high levels of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies were more likely to have attempted suicide.   

*Toxoplasma gondii is a species of parasitic protozoa in the genus Toxoplasma. The definitive host of T. gondii is the cat, but the parasite can be carried by many warm-blooded animals. It can have serious or even fatal effect on a fetus whose mother contacts the disease. It also indicated an influence of T. gondii on suicidal behaviours.

            Driven by an instinct of self preservation: Self-destruction in the natural world is fairly common.For example, scorpions were thought to sting themselves when surrounded by fire. A deer jumped from a precipice to avoid capture by hunting dogs. Infected mole rats or bees that abandon the colony to prevent an epidemic, algae die for the good of the community. 

   There has one theory holds that when a sick individual heads to shore to die, the others follow.

 

Dogs commit suicide in Overtoun Bridge

In the rolling green foothills outside of West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, stands the impressive Victorian stone mansion known as Overtoun House. It was originally built in the 1860s as the private retreat of industrialist and philanthropist James White, the first Lord Overtoun, from locally quarried granite. It has the ornate look and size of a classic Scottish castle, and leading up to it is a bridge that is no less imposing. The heavy granite structure spans the shallow, rocky creek called Overtoun Burn, 15 meters below the roadway. Something about the bridge has an unusual affect on dogs. The story goes that over the past few decades, at least fifty dogs have leapt the walls and fallen to their deaths on the creek bottom far below. This bridge of doggie doom is known to some as "Rover's Leap", the place that compels dogs to suddenly, and deliberately, commit suicide.

    They believe that dogs have psychic powers and maintain a psychic connection with their owners. The Daily Mail has featured reports of horrified pet owners who walked their dog over the bridge and, without warning, saw their pet leap over the bridge falling 50 ft to the rocky bottom below.

    It is not known exactly when or why dogs began to leap from the bridge, but news stories and studies have indicated that these deaths might have begun during the 1950s or 1960s, at the rate of about one dog a month. The long leap from the bridge onto the waterfalls of the Overtoun Estate almost always results in immediate death. Inexplicably, some dogs have actually survived, recuperated, and then returned to the site to jump again.

     Some point to the idea of the graveyard of the whales, or the secret place in the jungle where the elephants all go to die, as if they are precedents for a specific location favored by dogs to end their lives.

Jumbo squid mass suicide

     In 2002, thousands of squid filled the beach at La Jolla Cove north of San Diego, California. At least 1500 of the squid ended up between San Diego and Los Angeles.

 

    Red Devil is the nickname of this squid. This elusive Humboldt squid can reach 6 feet (1.8m) long. It has powerful arms and tentacles, excellent underwater vision and a razor-sharp beak that easily tears through the flesh of its prey. William Gilly, a biologist at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station had studied The Humboldt or Jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas). But its biology and habits are very little to known and are a mystery to scientists. Where they spawn and their eggs remain unknown. It is very hard to studying their behavior because they spent 95 percent of their lives at depths ocean. Scientists believe that they live at depths of 660 to 2300 feet (200 to 700m) during the day and they preferred about 220 feet (70m) during the night. 

     

 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Alecton_giant_squid_1861.png

Why the squid ended their lives? William Gilly had predicted that the cause of the deaths might be a combination of squid spending too much time in warm water and eating something toxic. Scientists had studied the cause of death of squids. Scientists believe that the latter cause is reasonable. According to Gilly, there may be something neurologically wrong with the squid, they appeared to be mentally deranged. It is something abnormal because the squid are intelligence creatures. Scientists had found out that the toxin might domoic acid had lead squids to their aberrant behavior. Domoic acid produced by several microscopic poisonous algae known as diatoms or so call red tides. It can causes convulsions and death in marine mammals that feed on the same things that squid do. In addition, Eric Hochberg, a scientists at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History said that bad weather may played a part in the squid deaths. 

This is only clues of the deaths of squid. Someday, someone will find the truth and definite cause of the squid deaths.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Three_Beached_Whales,_1577.jpg

Marriage in Ancient Egypt

Marriage in Ancient Egypt

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ncient Egyptians were very emphasized on their family. A man was encouraged to treat his wife well. Egyptian marriages were monogamous (一夫一妻制), meaning the custom of being married to just one person at a time. A divorce was basically easy to attain, but it was costly. If a woman committed adultery, it was considered grounds for a divorce and could also bring a punishment of burning or stoning.

Marriage

Marriage contracts were registered and signed by three officers.

For commoner, the marriage contracts were arrange and drawn up between the girl’s father and future husband. The girl's father and even her mother had much more say in the matter then the bride. The future husband made a payment to the bride's father, usually amounting to about the cost of a slave. A standard marriage contract contained the date of marriage, the names of mates and parents of both sides, names of the scribe and witnesses and the husband’s profession. On the day of wedding, the bride wore a long dress or tunic made of linen, which may have been covered from head to toe with bead-net. She also adorned herself with jewelries. At the same time, the marriage contract was signed and registered by priest in the temple in the attendance of the couple and most of their families and friends. After sun set was the wedding party.

After the 26th dynasty, the bride appears to have had more say in her future husband.

Royal Marriage

A different set of marriage customs applied for people of nobility and royalty. Polygamy had existed in the royal class instead of monogamy. Multiple wives were common. The chief, or primary, wives of kings were mostly chosen from the royal family for the purpose the royal blood would be continued.

Some kings married daughters of high officials of non-royal blood to strengthen ties with these officials.

 Some kings married foreign princesses as a kind of friendly diplomacy between Egypt and the foreign country.

Also, the tradition of brother/sister or father/daughter marriages was mostly confined to the royalty of Egypt. In tales from Egyptian mythology, gods marriage between brothers and sisters and fathers and daughters were common from the earliest periods, and so Egyptian kings may have felt that it was a royal prerogative to do likewise. However, there are also theories that brother/sister marriages may also have strengthened the king's claim to rule. It was not uncommon among common people to marry relatives. Marriage between cousins, or uncles and nieces were fairly common in Egypt. A pharaoh was married to a queen with a distinct title of the “Great Royal Wife.” The male heir to the throne was often married to the oldest daughter (often his sister or stepsister) of the Great Royal Wife. The Egyptians believed that a male heir was the result of a major god mating with the “Great Royal Wife.” This idea led to the belief that the pharaoh was a descendent of the gods.

Commoner Marriage

Marriages for the commoner were not arranged. A man made his intentions known by taking gifts to the girl’s home, and then marriage arrangements followed. The average age for a girl to marry was thirteen. An agreement was drawn up at the start of a marriage, assigning a portion of the man's wealth to the wife and any children to provide for them should a divorce occur at a later time. The woman also brought items into the marriage, but they remained her property to be passed on her children. In addition, the wife and children were protected by a law that forbade transfer of a valuable object to another person without the wife’s and the eldest son’s consent.

Term used

Hemet has been translated as “wife”, but is probably more accurately “female partner”

Hi is the male counterpart to hemet.

Hebswt is another word of female partner, traditionally it has been translated as “concubine” (妾). Another meaning of this word is to describe a second or third wife after the first one died or was divorced.

Queen Mother was higher in rank than the wife of the king.