Watch this short film

Yes, it’s in a language you probably don’t understand. It’s in Arabic (North African Arabic). Please watch BEFORE you read the translation below.

Watching this serves multiple purposes of the class. 

1-What do you think this short film is about? 

2-How much of a situation can you understand without speaking the language?

3-Why are the men surprised at the end?

4-What did you learn about “knowledge” without fully understanding the situation?  Both with these men asked to identify whose hands were they looking at, and also with you not being able to fully understand the situation since you don’t speak the language (although some of you might be able to speak the language).

If you are still lost in translation…… (Translation from Arabic)

These are the hands of a man…. a poor man who doesn’t wear gloves… it shows that he has a lot of wrinkles… it shows that he works a lot and that he has a very difficult profession like a blacksmith for example. He’s probably is 50 to 55 years old. He seems to be an old man of course. He has a profession that dictates that he uses his hand like a Carpenter or…..a Plumber and of course he works a lot

These are hands of a woman… and she suffers from conditions of work…. these are the hands of a farmer or maid in some house….

These are the hands of a woman who lives in hell…. These are the hands that seem to have been to war or hands of someone who lives in torture… These are hands of a woman who works with her hands..

She’s my sister! We used to eat from your hands and we wouldn’t like it… Please forgive me!

This is my daughter Marwa! I don’t believe that these are the hands of my daughter! Is that you for real?

This is my mother. I can’t believe these are the hands of my mom…I love you very much. 

It’s my wife!……

1- Every student is required to respond to each week’s discussion board question(s) and interact with two other responses from other students. 

2- Please respond to at least two postings of two of your fellow students. Try to choose students who you have not yet interacted with. In a few sentences, explain why you agree or disagree with them. As you respond, please keep in mind the guidelines for good online communications

*** respond to two other students’ thoughts***

Member 1

I think this short film is about how women can work just as hard as men. In the beginning, the men thought it was a man’s hands because they mentioned “manly” jobs that work hard and have wrinkles in their hands. Then they find out it was a woman’s hands that they know. I think they were trying to show the capability women have and the respect that they deserve for working so hard.

Even though I don’t speak Arabic, I was still going through the process with them. I put myself in their shoes trying to figure out whose hands those are. Watching their expressions and tone of voice, I could figure out their emotions. Their body language also gave a lot of context clues. The music was very heartwarming. Finding out whose hands those were evoked the same feelings the men had in me. I really enjoyed this short film, I think it shows how language isn’t a barrier to emotions or expressions. 

I think the men were so surprised because they didn’t expect it to be a woman’s hand, especially of a loved one. I think it’s because women are portrayed to be delicate and beautiful all the time they assumed it was a man’s hands because it was dirty and wrinkly. 

It’s hard to learn/know about something you don’t understand, so we usually try and look at all the details to figure it out. I think as humans we can easily recognize certain things that we’ve experienced before and that was something that helped to understand what was going on in the video. It shows us how knowledgeable we can be because if we can comprehend and recognize what’s going on without fully knowing what is happening, we have the ability to communicate in other ways.

Member 2

Watching the short film prior to reading the translation, I figured it to be about men who had to guess who’s hands were shown on the screen, knowing the kinds of options that they had. I thought maybe they were guessing that those hands belonged to someone they each knew, but as it turns out, they made conclusions that didn’t match the actual reality of what was going on. I understood parts of the situation, although I didn’t understand why they were shocked to see who the hands actually belonged to, since I initially thought that they knew. The men were surprised at the end because they each predicted the hands belonging to some kind of male workers in their mid 50s, or maids, farmers, or other women suffering from working conditions. As it turned out, each one of those pair of hands belonged to members of their own family, and they had no idea. What this tells me in terms of “knowledge” is how little we pay attention to details like this on a daily basis. People don’t typically think twice about the way hands of other people look like, even if they belong to their family members. It also says a lot about the confidence we might have in regards to certain things, and then end up being completely wrong when looked at the full picture. I think this scenario could be a metaphor for making predictions in relation to what we think reality is with the information that we are given, but in reality, the circumstance could be the polar opposite.