Old Company Case Essay

We are a very old company, but we recognise that our customers are changing, so we continually develop new products to reflect this. David Lee, managing director, Lee Kum Kee Company2 The problem with a lot of family-controlled local brands that have a long history behind them is that it’s very easy to become old and run out of steam. – Antony Chow, vice-president for Greater China, RSCG (an advertising agency)3 The sauce company Lee Kum Kee, one of the best known Hong Kong brands, certainly did not have the problem mentioned above, although it did have a long history that began in 1888, and was run by the same family through four generations. The company was founded by Lee Kam Sheung as a small oyster-sauce manufacturer in Guangdong Province, China. It relocated to Macau in the early 1900s, moved once more to Hong Kong after World War II, and was based there in the decades afterwards. Lee Kum Kee was already expanding beyond the Guangdong-Macau-Hong Kong distribution network in the 1920s to North America, when it was also making shrimp paste. In the 1970s and 1980s, after the torch passed to thirdgeneration leader Lee Man Tat, there was a diversification of geographical markets as well as products at a very quick pace. Lee Man Tat’s sons, who were educated in the West, inherited the leadership from their father in the 1990s, and the pace of modernisation and diversification continued while the Company’s marketing strategy remained as vigorous and Vincent Mak prepared this Case under the supervision of Dr. Chi Kin (Bennett) Yim for class discussion. This case is not intended to show effective or ineffective handling of decision or business processes. This Case is part of the Trade & Industry Department SME case series funded by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Trade and Industry Department SME Development Fund. Any opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material/event (by members of the project team) do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Trade and Industry Department or the vetting committee for the SME Development Fund.  © 2003 by The Centre for Asian Business Cases, The University of Hong Kong. The Company moreover overcame a consumer-confidence crisis — called 3-MPCD crisis — in the late 1990s and early 2000s and continued to thrive. By early 2003, Lee Kum Kee had already developed more than 200 sauces. Its distribution network covered 60 countries in five continents, and its products were available in more than 80 countries. What lessons about strategic brand management can we learn from the way Lee Kum Kee developed, maintaine d and expanded the reach of its products over a whole century? What lessons about crisis management does the Company’s handling of the 3-MPCD crisis offer? Lee Kam Sheung was born in 1868 in Qibao, a village in Xinhui, Guangdong Province, China. Threat from local gangsters forced him to leave his farming life and move to a small island called Nam Shui in the same province, where oysters were abundant. Lee opened a small restaurant there, often using oysters as stock for soups. One day, while cooking oysters, he absent-mindedly walked away for a long time, so that when he remembered the oysters and looked at the soup, it had already become a thick, strongly aromatic liquid, which he found delicious. Hence the birth of Lee’s oyster sauce, which he began producing under the brand name of Lee Kum Kee in 1888 (â€Å"Kee† meaning â€Å"company† in local Cantonese). In 1902, a fire destroyed Lee Kam Sheung’s manufacturing plant, and he moved to nearby Macau, where oysters were also abundant. He began to sell shrimp paste as well as oyster sauce, and his business soon covered Guangdong, Macau and Hong Kong. Of Lee Kam Sheung’s three sons and two daughters, the eldest son died young, and the family business passed to his two remaining sons, Lee Shiu Tang and Lee Shiu Nan. The former was responsible for marketing while the latter took up product quality and improvements to production procedures. The Company’s products were already selling successfully among the Chinese immigrant population in North American cities at that time. The company opened a Hong Kong branch in 1932 while expanding to meet the increasing demands of overseas markets. In 1946, after the Second World War, the two brothers moved their headquarters to Hong Kong, where the prospering economic climate was more conducive for businesses. The 1970s and 1980s5 Lee Man Tat, son of Lee Shiu Tang, took over as Company chairman in 1972, taking the Company to new heights. His era was marked by agile and flexible marketing; production enhancements through the automation and modernisation of production techniques; further expansion of geographical markets and sales networks, and large-scale diversification of sauce products. One of Lee Man Tat’s important early moves was to launch a new brand called Panda Oyster Sauce, capturing the hype caused by the Chinese government’s gift of a pair of pandas to US President Richard Nixon during his visit to China in 1971. The Panda brand was created as a result of slow growth in the Company’s traditional product, premium oyster sauce, which was too expensive for many families. Panda Oyster Sauce was reasonably priced and was expected to have stronger market penetration power. The brand, however, did not secure a good foothold at once, but after some effective marketing efforts it became a hit and outperformed the old labels.   Lee Man Tat learned from the success of the Panda brand that he needed to cater to different market segments. He soon launched a string of new products and brands at different prices and for different tastes, such as chilli sauce, sweet and sour sauce, chicken marinade and curry sauce. These products did well particularly in North American Chinese restaurants. In 1980, the Company, which was still quite small, with only 25 staff, began exploring the Mainland Chinese market. It was extremely difficult for them at the start, as they knew little about the market. Everything they exported to the Mainland was wrong, from the products themselves to packaging and prices, according to Lee Man Tat’s son Eddy Lee Wai Man, who joined the Company in 1980.6 The Company then reduced the number of products for the Mainland market from 50 to 15, in order to focus its promotional efforts. The products gradually became well-received in the Mainland, although delayed payment from retailers emerged as a problem. In the 1980s, Lee Man Tat’s four sons — Eddy, David, Charlie and Sammy — returned with different US degrees to Hong Kong within a couple of years of each other and joined the Company as interns.7 They all started their stints with low-level duties but as their managerial involvement increased, they began to introduce more and more new concepts from the West. When Lee Kum Kee celebrated its first 100 years in 1988, the Company changed its logo to symbolise its vision of â€Å"building a cultural bridge between East and West with our sauce products†. The Company underwent still greater changes after the 1980s. As Eddy Lee took on more and more leadership responsibility, becoming managing director and then chairman of the group, he and his brothers unleashed new initiatives that combined the flexible strategic approach of their father with Western business thinking. Quality and modernised branding were emphasised, as was an up-to-date information technology system. New Products, Brand Building and Market Expansion In 1992, the Company launched a super premium gourmet sauce called XO sauce, which was made from dried scallop, ham and dried shrimp, and had a variety of applications on noodles, porridge, dim sum, sushi, stir fry dishes and other dishes. The sauce’s popularity was a great triumph for the Company. The sauce was later diversified into additional variants such as XO Seafood Sauce and Premium XO Sauce with Abalone. In 1994, the Company started selling soy sauce, a generic product for which there were established competitors. As a result, sales were slow at the beginning.9 The Company then observed that, in most homes, the amount of soy sauce used for dipping was fairly low, both in frequency and in volume. For the Hong Kong market, however, steamed fish was popular among the Chinese, and housewives wanted to make their home-cooked steamed fish taste like those in the restaurants. Lee Kum Kee saw that it could develop a soy sauce that was sweeter than normal soy sauce, specifically for seafood. The strategy led to success, and the Company went on to develop variants including chilli soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, saltreduced soy sauce, mushroom-flavoured dark/light soy sauces, etc. Lee Kum Kee did not invest significantly in its brand until the early 1990s.10 In 1994, it scrapped its old product labels — as David Lee himself said, the old product labels were boring to him.11 The arch of the company logo became a â€Å"Golden Plaque† that implied a guarantee of product quality, while a detail of the traditional Chinese window frame at the border of the plaque reflected the Company’s Hong Kong heritage. By the late 1990s, the Company aimed to use its name and history in Asia and the many Chinese communities around the world to penetrate the general US and European household market.12 On the industry side, the Company capitalised on its status as a premier Asian food brand to expand its network of retailers, restaurateurs and other manufacturers in the West. Most importantly, to make its products even more consumer-friendly and to appeal to young families that did not wish to spend too much time on cooking, the Company continuously widened its product line. Examples included single-use sauce packets with instructions on how to prepare specific dishes, and a larger variety of ready-made sauces that could be used with a range of ingredients. Even its oyster sauce products came in variants such as Premium, Panda Brand, Choy Sun, Vegetarian and others with added dried scallops and mushrooms. In 1998, the Company launched its first five varieties of sauce packets; in the following year, it added 11 more to include dishes such as sweet-and-sour fish, black-bean chicken and spicy tofu. These lines of products became popular in Asia and were then introduced to the West. Throughout the process of geographical diversification, for new as well as old products, the Company observed the different needs of different regional markets. As David Lee said:13 We †¦ have different packaging and tastes to suit different markets, so a chilli product in Japan will come in smaller bottles and be sweeter and less thick, for instance, than it would be in Ho ng Kong. Development in China14 Lee Kum Kee built its first factory in China in 1990; the plant was located in the southern province of Guangdong. Its sales expansion also started with the Guangdong Province but gradually moved north; in 1998, the company began to sell its products in Beijing. In 2002, the Company’s sales in Beijing had already increased more than 10-fold since it entered the market there, while its sales in Guandong were also growing at a double-digit annual rate. The Company had three factories in the Guangdong Province and was considering setting up new ones in northern China. Lee Kum Kee was turning its market development focus back from overseas to the Mainland in the early 2000s. The potential for the development of this obviously huge market could also be seen in the fact that, of the 200-odd products of Lee Kum Kee, only about 60 were sold in the Mainland. As with other markets, Lee Kum Kee was sensitive about different customers’ tastes, so that a Lee Kum Kee sauce in Beijing might taste a little differently from a similarly named sauce in Shanghai. By 2002, the Company had more than 500 distribution networks in the Mainland, and was ranked fourth in total sales in the sauce market, but it had not yet expanded fully into secondary cities in provinces such as Szechuan and Guangxi. In an interview in 2002, Eddy Lee said it would already be great if Lee Kum Kee could secure one per cent of the Mainland market, which was very fragmented.

Chapter 22 Apush Key Terms

Marcus Pando Period 4 Chapter 22 Key Terms Describe and state the historical significance of the following: 7. Freedmen's Bureau Initiated by President Abraham Lincoln and was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War. At the end of the war, the Bureau's main role was providing emergency food, housing, and medical aid to refugees, though it also helped reunite families. Later, it focused its work on helping the freedmen adjust to their conditions of freedom.Its main job was setting up work opportunities and supervising labor contracts. 8. Exodusters Was a name given to African Americans who left the south[Kansas] in 1879 and 1880. After the end of Reconstruction, racial oppression and rumors of the reinstitution of slavery led many freedmen to seek a new place to live. 9. Wade-Davis Bill Was a bill proposed for the Reconstruction of the South written by two Radical Republicans, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland.In contr ast to President Abraham Lincoln's more lenient Ten Percent Plan, the bill made re-admittance to the Union for former Confederate states contingent on a majority in each Southern state to take the Ironclad oath to the effect they had never in the past supported the Confederacy. 10. Percent Plan 11. moderate/radical Republicans Radical Republicans were a loose faction of American politicians within the Republican Party from about 1854 (before the American Civil War) until the end of Reconstruction in 1877.They called themselves â€Å"radicals† and were opposed during the war by moderates and conservative factions led by Abraham Lincoln and after the war by self-described â€Å"conservatives† (in the South) and â€Å"Liberals† (in the North). Radicals strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted ex-Confederates, demanding harsh policies for the former rebels, and emphasizing civil rights and voting rights for Freedmen (recently freed slaves ). [1] 12. Black Codes Black Codes were laws in the United States after the Civil War with the effect of limiting the civil rights and civil liberties of blacks.Even though the U. S. constitution originally discriminated against blacks and both Northern and Southern states had passed discriminatory legislation from the early 19th century, the term Black Codes is used most often to refer to legislation passed by Southern states at the end of the Civil War to control the labor, migration and other activities of newly-freed slaves. 13. sharecropping Sharecropping is a system of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crop produced on the land (e. g. , 50% of the crop).Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have encompassed the system. Some are governed by tradition, others by law. 14. Civil Rights Act A United States federal law that was mainly intended to pro tect the civil rights of African-Americans, in the wake of the American Civil War. The Act was enacted by Congress in 1865 but vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. In April 1866 Congress again passed the bill. Although Johnson again vetoed it, a two-thirds majority in each house overcame the veto and the bill became law. 5. Fourteenth Amendment Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that had held that black people could not be citizens of the United States. [1] Its Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantive and procedural rights.Its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its ju risdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation in United States education. In Reed v. Reed (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that laws arbitrarily requiring sex discrimination violated the Equal Protection Clause. The amendment also includes a number of clauses dealing with the Confederacy and its officials. 17. Reconstruction ActAfter the end of the American Civil War, as part of the on-going process of Reconstruction, the United States Congress passed four statutes known as Reconstruction Acts. The actual title of the initial legislation was â€Å"An act to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States† and it was passed on March 2, 1867. Fulfillment of the requirements of the Acts were necessary for the former Confederate States to be readmitted to the Union. The Acts excluded Tennessee, which had already ratified the 14th Amendment and had been readmitted to the Union. 8. Fifteenth Amendment Prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's â€Å"race, color, or previous condition of servitude† (for example, slavery). It was ratified on February 3, 1870. The Fifteenth Amendment is one of the Reconstruction Amendments. 19. Ex parte Milligan Was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that the application of military tribunals to citizens when civilian courts are still operating is unconstitutional.It was also controversial because it was one of the first cases after the end of the American Civil War. 22. scalawags Were southern whites who supported Reconstruction and the Republican Party after the Civil War. Like similar terms such as â€Å"carpetbagger† the word has a long history of use as a slur against southerners considered by other conservative or pro-federation Southerners to betray southern values by supporting policies considered Nort hern such as desegregation and racial integration. 1] The term is commonly used in historical studies as a neutral descriptor of Southern White Republicans, though some historians have discarded the term due to its history of pejorative connotations. [2] 23. carpetbaggers Was a pejorative term Southerners gave to Northerners (also referred to as Yankees) who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era, between 1865 and 1877.24. Ku Klux Klan advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically expressed through terrorism. 10] Since the mid-20th century, the KKK has also been anti-communist. [10] The current manifestation is splintered into several chapters with no connections between each other; it is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. [11] It is estimated to have between 3,000 and 5,000 members as of 2012. [12] The first Klan flourished in the Southern U nited States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. Members adopted white costumes: robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be outlandish and terrifying, and to hide their identities. 13]The second KKK flourished nationwide in the early and mid 1920s, and adopted the same costumes and code words as the first Klan, while introducing cross burnings. [14] The third KKK emerged after World War II and was associated with opposing the Civil Rights Movement and progress among minorities. The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent reference to the USA's â€Å"Anglo-Saxon† and â€Å"Celtic† blood, harking back to 19th-century nativism and claiming descent from the original 18th-century British colonial revolutionaries. 15] The first and third incarnations of the Klan have well-established records of engaging in terrorism and political violence, though historians debate whether or not the tactic was supported by the second KKK. 25. Forc e Acts Can refer to several groups of acts passed by the United States Congress. The term usually refers to the events after the American Civil War. 26. Tenure of Office Act Was a federal law (in force from 1867 to 1887) that was intended to restrict the power of the President of the United States to remove certain office-holders without the approval of the Senate.The law was enacted on March 3, 1867, over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. It purported to deny the president the power to remove any executive officer who had been appointed by a past president, without the advice and consent of the Senate, unless the Senate approved the removal during the next full session of Congress. 27. Impeachment of President Johnson The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States, was one of the most dramatic events in the political life of the United States during Reconstruction, and the first impeachment in history of a sitting United States president.Johnson was impe ached for his efforts to undermine Congressional policy; he was acquitted by one vote. The Impeachment was the consummation of a lengthy political battle, between the moderate Johnson and the â€Å"Radical Republican† movement that dominated Congress and sought control of Reconstruction policies. Johnson was impeached on February 24, 1868 in the U. S. House of Representatives on eleven articles of impeachment detailing his â€Å"high crimes and misdemeanors†,[1] in accordance with Article Two of the United States Constitution.The House's primary charge against Johnson was with violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress the previous year. Specifically, he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War (whom the Tenure of Office Act was largely designed to protect), from office and replaced him with Major General Lorenzo Thomas. The House agreed to the articles of impeachment on March 2, 1868. The trial began three days later in the Senate, with Suprem e Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding.Trial concluded on May 26 with Johnson's acquittal, the votes for conviction being one less than the required two-thirds tally. The impeachment and subsequent trial gained a historical reputation as an act of political expedience, rather than necessity, based on Johnson's defiance of an unconstitutional piece of legislation and with little regard for the will of the public (which, despite the unpopularity of Johnson, opposed the impeachment). Until the impeachment of Bill Clinton 131 years later, it was the only presidential impeachment in the history of the United States.

Rhetorical Analysis of a Modest Proposal Essay

Swift’s â€Å"A Modest Proposal† written in 1729 was his proposal â€Å"for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to he publick† (Swift, Title). This proposal included the selling, skinning and buying of babies at the age of one. This proposal that he has come up with is a very inhuman and controversial one when it comes to being socially acceptable. Swift begins his essay by describing walking down a street in Ireland. He describes how you would see, â€Å"beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms† (Swift, Para. 1). This gives the reader a mental picture of how bad things are for the women he is trying to help. Swift then talks about how there are very many of these poor people in Ireland and how they are not able to be part of the middle or working class. Look more:  how to write satire essay He then proposes his idea that the children could, â€Å"contribute to the feeding, and partly to the cloathing of many thousands† (Swift, Para. 4). In no way, shape, or form is the eating of or the using of children in this manner acceptable. No society would ever find it suitable to eat or make babies into clothes. Dr. Swift has made a proposal that he should know would not work because of the inhumanity that it is asking people in which to participate. Jonathan Swift later tells the reader of how he has, â€Å"computed the charge of nursing a beggar’s child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child,† (Swift, Para. 14). This is a good thing that Swift does telling how the mother would stand to make money on selling her child to a man for dinner. Except, I do not believe you couldn’t find a willing mother to sell her child knowing that it would be eaten by a human for a meal. Dr. Swift has made a plan for people with no remorse or thought of their children. The only place this plan could be carried out and continue working is a place with robots that have no feeling or conscious. Swift then makes the statement, â€Å"Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flea the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen,† (Swift, Para. 15). He thinks that someone would be able to treat a baby’s skin as an animal’s and make it into a glove or boot without objection to what it is. This is another flaw in his plan. There are people who are against making animals into clothing. Therefore, I am sure that there would be people against the making of clothes from baby. Next, Dr. Swift gives 6 reasons of why he thinks the plan is a good one. His second reason states, â€Å"Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to a distress, and help to pay their landlord’s rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown,† (Swift, Para. 22). He thinks that poor tenants with children will be able to give their landlords something valuable by giving them their child. No landlord would take a child as a means of money because it just costs more money to them to have the child then without it. In his fourth reason Swift says, â€Å"Fourthly, The constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year,† (Swift, Para. 24) If the people who like to â€Å"breed† hear of this then they will just think that they will be able to keep having children and selling them instead of having a job. This would cause more jobless people and after so long the supply of the babies would surpass the demand. There then would be poor children hanging on their mothers again in the street defeating the purpose of the plan in the beginning. Fifthly Dr. Swift says, â€Å"This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns, where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection; and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating; and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please,† (Swift, Para. 5). Again, I refer back to how people would not be able to eat the carcass of an one year old child, but also I think that if you were to find a cook to make this and a person to eat it that it would be at such an outrageous price that the people could not afford to try the meal of the baby. Finally, the last reason I do not think that this plan would work is what is in the final paragraph of the essay-â€Å"I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. † (Swift, Para. 33). If the person that is proposing the idea at the end of the idea tells you that he has no interest in promoting his own proposal, I believe that it means he thinks that it also will not work and could not be enacted on a society. I am not the only one that is outraged or appalled with the works of Dr. Swift. Patrick Delany also states â€Å"As I have marked the passages that seemed to me most faulty, and gave me most offence, I beg leave to point them out, as they come in my way: without any further preface, or apology. The picture he draws of the Yahoos, is too offensive to be copied, even in the slightest sketch. † (Kathleen, Pg. 132). Delany and I are both offended and disagree with Swift’s works, but as a satire writer this just shows how effective his writing is on his audience. He tries to use outrageous and controversial subjects in order to grab the attention of his readers and keep them reading his papers. This style works very well and is a great way to get your point across. This style has grabbed the attention of all the readers and will continue to grab the attention of all the future readers of his essay.

Global operation and risk management of Qinetiq Group plc 01303 Essay - 1

Global operation and risk management of Qinetiq Group plc 01303 - Essay Example The company holds a business portfolio of military weapons and systems within mode of travelling including land, air and sea (QinetiQ, 2015b). According to QinetiQ (2014), the revenue of the company has been decreasing since 2011 such as 10.3% to  £m 1191.4 and with net loss of  £m12.7 in 2014. The reason is reduction in the expenditure of UK on defence equipment by 20% from 2007 and also other parts of the world (Clancy, 2014). Global company has major share in UK and USA. QinetiQ is considered for the assessment of performance and risk management due to its declining performance over last three years. Also the assessment of risk and risk management performance of the company will be reviewed. â€Å"Organic-plus† strategy drives QinetiQ’s with considering customers, people, innovation and productivity as core drivers (QinetiQ, 2014). Reported below financial trends of key indicators depicts continuous decline in performance (QinetiQ , 2014): The industry added value to the Europe via achieving turnover of 197.3 billion Euro in 2013 with the growth rate of 5.6% from military and civil sector (ASD, 2013). While, the information graphic report of Deloitte (2014), maintained that there will be decline in the Defense sector’s revenue while and increase in commercial sector is forecasted for future. It is anticipated that by 2023, commercial production level of aircrafts will witness 25% growth (Deloitte, 2014). CSC, however; forecasting challenges and only moderate growth near in the future (CSC, 2015). As depicted by the industry trends discussed above, the industry is highly flourished and developed with huge industry players base that fierce the competition level of the industry. Being the 6th largest in UK and operating in global environment the company possess a huge base of competitors including local and global players. According to Morningstar, direct competitors of QinetiQ are United technologies corp. and Boeing Co (Morning Star, 2015). However,

Gender and Sexual Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Gender and Sexual Studies - Essay Example The Western gay identity has become almost a de facto identity of this post modern world (Fortier, 2002). This paper is aimed at providing a critical analysis of the Queer theory of homosexuality and the related empirical evidences from the real life experiences on the notion of non-heterosexuality. The method used in the paper is based on the library search on different aspects related to hetero-sexual identity and application of Queer theory. In this essay, interviews of Annie Lennox, David Bowie and Liz Aggis have also been considered and discussed in the related context. Queer theory The complexities of the postmodern and post colonial issues of identity and belongings have been used by the notion of queer diaspora for changing the perception of the orientation away from the preexisting identities established alternatively by either nature or culture (Fortier, 2002). Generally, the word queer means strange, odd, or abnormal. This word was generally attached to the lesbians and ga y men in terms of abuse. The term centers around various range of critical practices and priorities, critiques of sex-gender system, studies of transsexual and transgender identification and of transgressive desires (Spargo, 2000, p.9).Sexuality, when broadly conceived, can be viewed as the direct and indirect motivation for international relocation and movement captured in the light of sexual migration. Sexual migration captures the notion that queer persons confronted by homophobia or discrimination, the queer persons migrated to different locations to enable queer practices, identities, and subjectiveness. Various urban sectors in the West are amongst the first destination for evolution of the queer Diaspora. The areas include San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Some urban centers also attract the Queer migrants which are dedicated for economic development (Fortier, 2002). Queer Diasporic desire and queer diasporic body centers contradictions and violence of multiple uprooting, displacement and exiles. Queer diasporic cultural forms and practices generally indicate to the submerged histories of the racist and colonialist violence that persist to continue and make the people with queer desires to feel through the bodily desires. Queer Diaspora brings culture that is deliberately forgotten within the conventional nationalist or diasporic scripts (Gopinath, 2005, p.4). Homosexuality among men From the birth, the young boys are infused with the feelings that they it takes some attributes to be recognized as a man in true sense of terms. Certain attributes which a man should entail are that of independence, reoccupation with career and competitiveness of physical strength, aggressiveness, and courage. When these young boys have the difficulties in attaining these goals, generally emotional isolation is likely to crop up which results in the problematic behavior. In the western societies, males are usually accustomed to keep thems elves muscular, lean and fat free and also to maintain a mature successful look. The males become trapped between getting bigger and trying to slim. Men who are physically fit may not be completely satisfied with their bodies. Various studies state that the gay men express a greater degree of body dissatisfaction than heterosexual men. For many years, the homosexual men are victims of prejudice because of their queer sexual orientation. Their self images are also at high risk of decline due to the

In Shawshank Redemption movie, King explores the idea of Karma that Essay

In Shawshank Redemption movie, King explores the idea of Karma that is, the idea that what goes around comes around, or as the - Essay Example The guards would beat them up and damage their cells and later ask them to do the entire repair (The Shawshank Redemption). Apart from being beaten, these prisoners had to do everything. When prisoners are beaten senselessly, it proves to other inmates that they do not have to respect one another. Beating up the prisoners also hurts them both physically and mentally. The warden went as far as supporting behavior that was not called for in the prison. However, the guards and the warden failed to recognize that one may not play with Karma. As it is known that â€Å"we reap what we sow,† this is what the warden and the guards had sowed and it was clearly coming back to them. As opposed to the fellow inmates, Andy possessed a sense of self-worth. Some of the other inmates tried to rape him and beat him up, but he managed to withstand all those harsh treatments even though he suffered lacerations and bruises (The Shawshank Redemption). He managed to quietly befriend Red and his tea m of friends. Once they became friends, they formed a dreadful group that always stuck together. There is a lot of prison violence and conflict throughout the movie (The Shawshank Redemption). The worst conflict was when the warden ordered the murder of Tommy who had information that would prove that Andy was innocent. Andy had not been doing the taxes of the warden. When Andy was informed of what the warden did, he got emotional. Andy decided to plan his escape that would set him free and give him a chance to expose the evil warden and the guards. In the Shawshank prison, the warden permitted the guards to torture and even to murder their prisoners. As a warden, he has the responsibility of bringing justice, but when he discovered that he had the opportunity to free Andy from wrongful accusation, he destroyed the evidence that would set Andy free. Apparently, the evidence that he destroyed was the murder of a man by the name of Tommy. When Andy discovered that he had nothing left t o prove his innocence, he became devastated. Karma became quite significant when Andy managed to escape from the prison. Andy wrote a letter to the local newspapers that described how immorally the convicts were treated and even beaten to death in the prison (The Shawshank Redemption). The journalists and the police turned up within some minutes once the information had been read and revealed. This shocked the warden and he got scared and later committed suicide. In the beginning of the movie, the warden displayed the characters of Christian men. He ensured that the Shawshank prisoners had the Bibles, and he familiarized the prisoners with his favorite Bible verse, â€Å"Salvation Lies Within.† The warden and Andy both had conversations regarding this Bible verse; however, Andy disrupted the conversation in an encouraging manner. When the warden discovered that Andy had been concealing in the Bible the tool which assisted him to flee, his jaw dropped. No one knows how people may react to what they are told and how the precise opposite may set them free. The film depicts that everyone gets what he deserves. The warden and the guards received their punishment just like they mistreated the inmates (The Shawshank Redemption). People may dance through life doing evil things to others and even mistreating others, and they may think that they may have a smooth life. Andy was an innocent man who was convicted for a crime that he did not commit. This subjected him to a life that he did not deserve.

Political science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 4

Political science - Essay Example Tough and legally fixed system of racism and segregation prevented the interracial contacts with Indians and Negros, which were brought to the USA as slaves, thus the spirit of nationalism between the settlers was strong from the very beginning. It is not easy to determine what American nationalism is. Americans are young nation and the process of ethnical consolidation in it has divergent character. Many national groups keep the elements of cultures of the countries they originate from. American nation is the nation, which consists of the people, who made their choice voluntarily and it is not based on ethnic communities. American values are not whims and not the results of the force of circumstances. They are given to American citizens by their history and fixed in their life experience, documents, traditions and customs. American values work for Americans, thus they live with them and are ready to die for