Disaster

At first I decided to write about friendship, but then the idea seemed to carry less significance when I thought about the professor’s hint; “Why is it so important to talk about it now?” So, when I was browsing through the keyword in my mind, suddenly I remember the calls from my mom. She talks about the earthquakes that have been happening throughout the year in Indonesia. And the keyword “disaster” suddenly pops into my mind. The word “disaster” always has a bad connotation when I think about it. According to the OED, “disaster” is “Anything that happens without foresight or expectation; an unusual event, which proceeds from some unknown cause, or is an unusual effect of a known cause.” It implies that all things that relates to danger and is accompanied by casualties. According to Wikipedia, the root of the word “disaster” implies that when the positions of the stars are bad, then bad things will happen. Over the centuries, the meaning of “disaster” has changed. The past, most people think that “disaster” is associated with unnatural occurrence with the nature such as earthquake, landslide or volcanic eruption. But as of today, people tend to think that disasters mostly come from technological aspects. The outcome of disasters driven from technology has gone haywire. Imagine the long term effects of nuclear bomb that can still cause death from the radiation for many years. And also the psychological attack from 9/11 that is keeping us in constant fear from the same incident that might occur again in the future. Moreover, the movie “Terminator” has similar effects about apocalyptic disasters when it comes to technology. In this movie, the machine is portrayed as a “disaster” when they were planning to take over humans. So “disaster” has evolved into a broader context; human disasters.

What else that makes “disaster” interesting to talk about? Even though a lot of people are skeptical about the good outcome from “disaster,” I don’t think they are going to deny that there is at least one good thing from “disaster.” Take a look at the Asian-Tsunami incident in 2004. That incident took the lives of millions of people including the aftershocks. After the incident, many countries, especially in Asia had already taken many precautions concerning natural disasters. Also many people have participated in helping the victims through various charitable donations. From these two examples, we can observe that “disaster” throughout history has changed the way we act, and makes us cautious and careful to what might happen in the future.

So, why does “disaster” is so important to talk about in these days? Well, since the Tsunami incident, there have been lots and lots of natural disasters occurring in the Asian countries, especially in Indonesia, Japan, and China. Furthermore, bombing threats from terrorist keep coming. I think “disaster” is a constant check to us all human because it keeps reminding us that there are some forces in this world that even the most powerful human can’t control. We need to know that our lives are at stake here. The least we can do is to not to be ignorant in today’s disasters and put some effort to make this world be a better place. But here’s a counter argument: if the world is coming to an end, why bother to care for this world?

Privacy

This post is a respond to Justin’s blog about stalking people. I totally agree that lots of people, including myself had taken privacy for granted. Due to the advances of technology, now we have sophisticated cell phones with built-in camera. For stalkers, there are lots of opportunity to stalk or to watch people from afar and discrete. In Justin’s blog, look how easy it is to take a picture without anyone noticing, Justin wasn’t using a silencer for the phone because all the students were packing and ready to leave.

From this point, he had shown how vulnerable we are when it comes to privacy. Another example from the internet is the global social network like Facebook, or Myspace. But I’ll discuss more of the example from Facebook since I don’t use Myspace. In Facebook, there are lots of students who post their crucial information such as cell phone numbers, home address, and other private data. Global network is a land mind that could strike one of its users. Furthermore, just as Colleen had said from class discussions about Facebook, it is true that we don’t have boundaries when it comes to internet privacy. From her example, when she registered into Facebook, she doesn’t have any friends in there, but soon, there were lots of people wanted to befriend her, including Bill Gates. Now we know for sure that he is not the “real” Bill Gates, but why does most of us do accept strangers’ friend invitation in Facebook? Does our mind subconsciously translate lots of friends into coolness? This is something that we need to trace back and think.

Furthermore, the costs and consequences of today’s technology-life coexist as I have mentioned on my Connectivity post. But because of the convenience of today’s technology, people have become blinded by the fact that the cost is our privacy. Think about the camera in convenient store, ATM’s machine, traffic light, and Satellite. It is true that all of these are designed for our safety purposes. But when we look and analyze deeper, some computer genius might misused it for other purposes.

Concluding for this response, how do we protect ourselves from stalkers when technology knows no boundaries? Well, I think we can come up with some level of cautiousness in terms of privacy. For example, don’t let your private information leaked out loud on the internet, because some people do like the attention. Because why bother to post in on Facebook if the people in your network could just ask you directly? Technically, they are your friends. Hopefully, this post conveys the message of how important privacy is.

Best English Class (Revised)

And I mean it!!!! This is by far the most fun, exciting, and brain stimulating English class that I have taken throughout my college life. I didn’t mean to degrade my previous English classes, but there are lots of points that I like from this class such as writing blogs, online discussions, and most importantly, the teacher. Just like everybody else, I assumed that this class was probably a typical writing class. Pages and pages of essays due every class meeting. And this is the best time to say “Never judge a book by its cover.” Well in this case, never judge a class based on its title. This class turned out to be very stimulating. The professor has taken this class into a whole new level by ‘blogging.’ On my first day of class, the professor had told us that this class was going to be another experimental class and we were going to write blogs instead of an essay. I thought that this might not work because blogs aren’t the same thing as essays. Essays are supposed to be formal and critical, while blogs are just the other way around; informal, casual….and not serious. But after the second day of class, the professor changed my mind. The topics that we discussed are serious and deep. Blogging is just another method of writing; the important thing is the context. And I would like to thank the professor because he explains that this class is supposed to take a ‘keyword’ and then play around with its context, meaning, ambiguities, and other aspects that contribute to the meaning of the ‘keyword.’

Speaking about the professor, he is funny, intelligent, and a chatty person. I remembered that I paused a little bit when he said “FU*&”, or “SH$T.” Because I don’t think I have ever heard any of my previous instructor said it and I wondered “Wow…is that even legal?” But because of that, I noticed that lots of students are braver to comment about each other’s comments in the class discussion and the blog and we became more open about the ‘keyword.’ I also like the professor’s way of dragging the class into discussion by telling stories about his life or experience and then connects them to the ‘keyword’ that we were discussing. It certainly makes a connection with the students that has the same feeling or same experience.

Furthermore, in the class discussion, we talked about stereotypes, mobility, image, history, etc. The class had a very hot discussion about stereotypes. I realized that I haven’t really participated on that subject in the class. But just by hearing people’s thoughts about it, made me think about different aspects of stereotypes that I hadn’t explored yet because each of the students talked about their experiences on stereotypes and in a sense, I think I can imagine the stereotypical images through their eyes. And this is one of the reasons why this class successfully stimulated us for deeper critical thinking.

About the blog itself, I totally recommend using blogs as a source of an exercise of critical thinking for the audience that read this post. For this class, it totally works because instead of writing an essay to the instructor, now, each student can read and comment to each other’s blog because the audience is not only the instructor, but also the students. Certainly, the instructor can also leave comments that could help the students to write more efficiently.

Of course using blogs also have its drawbacks. I think that even though blogging is fun, it kinda slacks us of with the style of writing. I don’t know why but most people refer the style of writing to be casual and not serious. My best bet is because a blog is defined as a journal about personal thoughts, where as an essay is an analytical composition. But doesn’t everything have its drawbacks?

All and all, I really enjoyed this class and I’m kind of disappointed because I didn’t get a chance to speak my opinion out loud. Oh well, what can I say, I’m a very shy person. But for closing, let me remind the audience of this post about the professor’s basic idea that really helped me to write any blog or essay; any topic is boring if we only write about its definition. What really counts is our ability to go through the back door, and check and explore its ambiguity or problems concerning the topic. Because by doing that, we implicitly already cover most of the things that needs to be written about the topic.

history in relationships (Revised)

This is a post responding to Calvin’s blog about how history repeats itself in relationships. From the moment we were born and throughout our entire lives, we form relationships with our families and friends. Relationships are very important in our lives because with relationships, we are not isolated and we can embrace our existence in this world. I do agree that when it comes to relationships, we should take this matter seriously and carefully because I think relationships are one of the integral parts in our lives. There are many questions and obstacles about relationships that we need to take into consideration very seriously. Although Calvin didn’t mention some of the problems relating to compatibility, there are tons of examples that I am going to mention. For example, should a Christian date a non-Christian? Should an Asian date a non-Asian? Should a girl date a guy who is younger than her? These are some of the factors that might trigger the issue about history repeating itself.

Fortunately, I agree in that history doesn’t repeat itself in relationships because the experience in every relationship is different from one and another.

From my personal observations, history from previous relationships is very important. We all have a relationship history; it was made from our decisions in the process and we learned from them. These kinds of history are big influences in our decision making for future relationships. Learning from our previous mistakes can help us to choose better partners and thus, not repeat the same mistakes.

As this moment, I still have a very close relationship with my girlfriend (thank God). From my previous relationship, I have three effective tips that I wish to tell so that we all can create a positive history in our relationship. First, remember carefully what does and doesn’t work from previous one. Next, take action when something goes wrong. Don’t just stand there and assume that this one is the perfect relationship. If you think that way, WRONG!!! Most people just assume that even though they are in a relationship with a totally different person, they could not have the same consequences on their action. Yes, it is true that every person is unique; every person will have different reactions for every action that we make, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that they could have the same reaction. And the last one, keep in mind that you are trying to change and improve your relationship, so do it right!

Lastly, there are other unknown forces that contribute to the issue of history repeats itself. No matter how hard or how long we try to make a relationship work, somehow it doesn’t. Somehow it seems inevitable that we keep repeating the same mistakes. My best bet is that it is probably our personality and the way we look into things does change over time. And possibly deep down unconsciously, we realize that this relationship will never work; we just chose not to take it into account and just ignore it. So for closing, how does one decide or choose the right person for his or her better ‘half?’

Images (Revised)

I decided to analyze this picture for this week’s assignment because when I was browsing through my picture album, it looked so innocent, happy, and peaceful. To give a little bit of description, the little boy in the picture is my nephew, Dylan Kwok and the person right beside him is me. The picture was taken on July 6^th 2007 in his house. As you all can perfectly guess, this picture was taken on his birthday. Like my father said, a picture can capture the essence of the moment and we can always remember the moment. From this picture, we can see a lot of happiness going on because of the expressions, the brightness, and the items from the picture.

I remember how hard it was to get a picture with Dylan since he was 3 years old at that time that he couldn’t really stay in one spot for a minute and he ran around the house. Luckily, I bought him a gift and told him that I would give it to him if he took a picture with me (Children are so easy to be bribed…). It was a set of Legos that we could assemble into a big ship.

Furthermore, as you can see from the picture, it was his 3^rd birthday. We can see it from the cake. It was filled with many cute toppings and a big number “Three.” A lot of friends and families came and celebrated with us, and so we needed to dress appropriately. Dylan wore a nice blue T-shirt with Mickey surfing on it and matching blue jeans, while I wore a casual red shirt.

So what can we tell about the atmosphere and feeling from this picture? Well, I could tell one thing about the feeling when I first saw this picture: happiness. When we look at the birthday cake, the feeling that comes to mind is something that is definitely positive because birthdays are something that we generally celebrate every year. The atmosphere from the picture has a hint of pureness. There is a crystal white desk, bright yellow chairs next to it with lily flower on top, and white wallpaper. All and all, the colors from this picture contribute happy moods and created a positive interpretation.

In conclusion, I think this picture captured the heart and meaning of happiness because this picture is happiness from expression to the atmosphere.

Connectivity (Revised)

After reading Sam’s blog about the T-mobile sidekick, I am very intrigued about the issue of connectivity. The first problem that I would like to address is the idea of cell phones symbolizing connectivity. Several years ago I started to notice parents giving cell phones to their children, especially to their daughters. Lots of parents had been concerned about their children’s safety and worried that it’s hard to reach their children without a cell phone. With a cell phone, parents can locate their children just by calling or texting them. So, the question that I would like to ask is “Does a child need a cell phone?”

In today’s 21^st century, young children are evolving into a new lifestyle that is based on cell phones and they are too dependent on them. Cell phones are losing their basic purpose; connectivity and it becomes clear that cell phones are becoming more of an “obsession” instead of connecting people. Nowadays, children can chat, play games, listen to music, and browse the internet with their cell phones. For some parents, this could be problematic because children are spending more time with their cell phones texting and calling their friends instead of talking to their parents at home. The ironic part about it is that cell phones are designed to connect people and yet, cell phones are distancing children and their parents.

For the second issue, I agreed with Sam’s opinion that by using cell phones, we are losing our sense of seclusion from the outside world because it’s almost the same as using computers that we known as “Cyber Worlds.” When we are “talking” using cell phones or computers, there are certain degrees of human expression that are limited. For example, we wouldn’t know who is texting or chatting with us; it might not be who we expected it to be.

Furthermore, critiquing the technological side from cell phones, our computer technology develops at a breakneck rate. According to Moore's law, computing power doubles every 2 years or so. Take the Iphone for example. It pretty much covers anything a normal person can dream of. It has internet capability, and with google almost the entire information known to man is accessible within our pockets. It also has mapping and GPS, and we will never be lost again so long as we get a reception from the satellite. It plays MP3s, hours if not days of music to our ears. Above all, it's one sexy device with its touch screen capabilities. But here's the problem with cell phones: battery life. All that power needs battery power, and that's where the technology is stuck in time. The battery technology for cell phones hasn't changed at all since we discovered the first battery.

Overall, critiquing the connection between the connective and recreational aspects of cell phones, I think that people need to embrace the consequences of cell phones technology current state. Sure there are lots of issues that I haven’t mentioned here, but just like Truman had said from his comment, they will always coexist in our everyday life.

Children and Stereotypes (Revised)

One of the things that are interesting from the video is that we as a society have been taught to be discriminative when we are still children. The video is about opinions from children about other races such as Arabian, Chinese, and Black. I was quite surprised of the reaction from the children when they are to compare between an Arabian and an Asian. They said that the Asian guy is more kind than the Arabian. ‘Weird, mean, and scary’ contributes to Arabian and black races, while ‘nice and smile’ contributes to Asian and White races. This shows that even though the children have not been exposed by the tragedy in this world such as ‘911’, the children is exposed implicitly by our society. The children managed to discriminate by the differences in skin colors, and also face expressions. This video follows up the discussion from class about something that our ancestors did in our past and we are the ones who live with the “karma.” Imagine if children were exposed to the tragedy of ‘911.’ I think they would stereotype Arabians even more. The only thing that crosses into my mind about this behavior is that the brown and black has negative or a conflict theme, while white color represents and symbolizes purity, cleanliness, and innocence. I think the children saw the parallel connection between the races and explicitly convert it to two sides, the good and the bad ones.

My own stereotypes have definitely comes from the part of the society that I have been exposed to since childhood. Basically, it all came from my own parents. They always have told me not to talk to strangers, which mean that I already discriminated people when I didn’t know them. In Indonesia, we have not been exposed to different races not as much as Americans are. So, we tend to show more discrimination. I think that we can’t get rid of our discrimination as long as we still have differences in this world. When a person is from different societies, people will have different opinions and thoughts about that particular person and that behavior shows discrimination. That is why we can’t truly get rid of our stereotypes.

Powerade

After searching ads for quite a while, I found an ad from “US Weekly” magazine. I think it contains one of the important values of mobility. The ad is about a sports drink that could replenish our energy after we drink it. In the ad, I noticed several things that contribute to a message that we as humans have no limits to our mobility.

In my opinion, the ad is not artistically beautiful, but I like how straightforward and directly the ad portrays to its meaning. The first thing that is noticeable in the ad is the color combination from the three bottles which merge into one color. The ad also includes a tennis player who is running to catch a ball. From these two descriptions, the first thing that pops into my head is the “FLASH.” I’m pretty sure everybody knows what the “Flash” is. He is the fastest man alive in comic books. I like how the ad draws a parallel between the “Flash.” It creates a feeling that after I drink it, I could become faster like the “Flash.” The ad also suggests that I have no limits in mobility when I drink Powerade.

Moreover, the words in the ad also help advertise powerade to the audience. The ad says “Zero Calories” and “Zero Limits.” Why does it say that? I think it helps to convince the audience that they could receive all the benefits from powerade with no disadvantages. I like how the ad presents the colors that correspond to the flavors.

Overall, I think the ad successfully sends a clear meaning that most people can relate to; no limits mobility. The main activity the ad resembles is sports. Sports are very fun and exciting activities. After we do sports, our mobility is limited because of exhaustion. It is very convenient that our mobility could be restored just by drinking this water and we could expand our mobility limitation to a point where we could extend our physical abilities to enjoy them longer than the usual time.

Kemper Hall(Revised)

I would like to describe the Computer Science Instructional Facility (CSIF) or “The Cave” as we call it in Kemper Hall. We named it because it is located in the basement (underground) of Kemper Hall without any view to the outside which makes telling time really hard, causing the room to resemble the literal meaning of a cave. “The Cave” is the place where all computer science and engineering undergraduates do their homework most of the time, unless they install the appropriate software in their computer. When I take a look at this room, it always frustrates and depresses me for three reasons. First, the idea of the word “cave” already makes me feel isolated from the outside world. Second, there is no single interior design that could lift up the depressing feeling created by the atmosphere. There are three rows with approximately eight to nine computers per row with a whiteboard, making it look like a classroom I had hoped to escape from, by this time of day. Third, the “confused” and again “depressed” expression from students who couldn’t solve the programming assignment. All of this contributes to my inability to enjoy the time I spend in this room.

Most of the time, the room is very quiet with small interaction between students because each of them is concentrating on their work in front of their computers and they look like they live in their own world. Most of the sounds that you can hear from this room are the keyboard typing and mumbles from students that are still solving the problems; the movement that I typically see in this room are students getting up from their chairs, going outside, and returning with a soft drink in their hands. From these descriptions, I could say that most of our activity in this room is like a “zombie” where each student walks into the room, looks for an empty chair, sits, and starts to program in front of the computers and then go home. The computer lab is the place where every programmer solves problems and creates more productive software in the name of technology. That is why “The Cave” one of many, is a point of Diaspora, where every person gathers around to solve problems.

CULTURE (Revised)

I like to travel, that is why I went to study abroad in Japan the summer of my first year in college. Being in Japan certainly has its good and bad moments. I stayed in Japan for three months and took Japanese classes. Even though I read some books on Japanese culture, I still didn’t know the actual meaning of why the Japanese act in that particular way. For instance, every time I went to stores or restaurants, it is customary for the waitresses or the staff to say out loud the words “Irrashai-mase” which means “welcome to our store or restaurant.” At first, it sounds very refreshing because as we all know, Japanese people are very polite. But then, it started to annoy me. Every single time I met with a staff including the ones that I have met before, they quickly shout the word “irrashai-mase.” I responded in my mind, “Back off people!!!!! You don’t need to say welcome more than once, that is so annoying!!!!” I ended up walking away outside the store in less than 5 minutes from the frustration.

After that experience, I asked my instructor why the Japanese behave this way. The instructor responded that every culture has different ways of expressing their appreciation to the customers. In Japan, it is customary to say it because the staff is deeply honored for my time and my kindness to walk into and visit into their stores or restaurants. After that explanation I was so ashamed of my behavior and was impressed by their level of appreciation because I have never thought about it that way.

In the end, I realized one thing that matters most, I am a tourist. Of course I will have strange reaction to other people’s culture that is different from mine because they could say the same thing to my culture. Who am I to judge that one’s culture is better than the other one? What really matters is the way we act, so that we as individuals can be accepted in today’s society.

Entertainment

As you can see from this week blogs, I think you all can categorized myself as a TV addict. I watched a lot of TV series and movies. I downloaded every episode before I bought it on DVD, I watched a lot of movies at the Cinema, and I also sometimes watched re-runs on TV. That’s to show how much I loved them. As you all can imagine, it will pissed me off when a show is on break for several months before returning on fall season. In fact, every TV series in United States does that, except “24” that run continuously for 24 episodes.

The thing about TV series is that it could get really boring without twist at the middle of the season. That is why a lot of TV series doesn’t survive for a season. Shows like “Smallville” and “24” always keep up the satisfaction because they all have survived for more than 6 seasons and I think it’s really hard because after a couple of seasons, the audience might be bored of the surroundings and characters. That is why it is important to update the story and the characteristics while maintaining the originality of the show.

Moreover, I like series that contains action and suspense compared to shows that focused on love stories because they tends to be slow and boring throughout the seasons. I’m not saying that action series is better than love series, it’s just we all have different taste in stories.

Sometimes I wonder why I watch a lot of this stuff. Well, I only have a simple answer for that, because I like it. Those series that I mentioned above has a very interesting and great story. Not only they covered aspects from love, but also politics in government.

Watching TV certainly has its advantages and its blowback. Watching TV might be informative because sometimes it depicts events that is important in today’s issue.

Superman

History has a way to repeat itself. A good example is Hollywood movie that is being remake every year for our pleasure. During our discussion on Monday, I think the professor mentioned someone’s blog about Superman. And it occurred to me that that Hollywood does make a Superman remake titled “Superman Returns.” Superman exists everywhere from cartoons, televisions, and movies. And every decade, there will be at least one remake of Superman that is portrayed in cartoons, or television.

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman

At this age, who doesn’t know Superman? The most discussed character that is ever made. The question that we have to ask to ourselves is why does the studio make remakes? And why do we even bother watching it, since it’s still has the same story, Superman catching the bad guys and the world is once again save from criminals. The answer is big budget. Hollywood studios have the budget to re-create the movie with bigger special effects, music, actors, and advertisement compared to the movie back in the 70s. With new invention such as HDTV and CGI-effects, now, the audience can enjoy it with even bigger expectation. So does history repeat itself? I don’t think so. Sure the story is the same, but I think people expect different experience when they are watching Superman, that’s why people will not be bored while watching it. Some people might have the experience to re-live the moment when they watch re-makes movie to the point where they still remember the feeling of watching the old Superman.

Another reason the studio made a remake is that in many ways, it is easier to make a remake since the script is there, just need a little polish to create a remake movie. By doing that, the movie will definitely make a huge success in a box office.

In conclusion, we see that even though remakes act like history repeats itself, but I don’t think it does. As we all know, we all take parts in making history, we can still use the resources from previous material, but it will definitely are different the experiences compared with previous movie.

TV series addict

We all know what it’s like to be a fan of TV series. “Wow, this one looks like an interesting series,” comes to mind the moment we watch its trailer on TV. For me, the hunger to watch more episodes and those one week time gaps make me want the days to go by faster. Question of the century: are we consumed by TV series? Consumption is one of the integral parts in our everyday life, assuming the needs for entertainment still exist. But there are some points where want becomes need. Wanting to watch TV series becomes the need to sit on the couch at the scheduled TV series time.

I have been watching series like, “24”, “Prison Break”, “Smallville”, “Supernatural”, and “Heroes” from the moment they aired on TV. Even though we have this new technology that could record every single thing from TV that is called “TIVO,” I admit that I will watch it (not prefer) when it originally airs. Now why does that type of thinking occur in my brain? Wouldn’t it be the same if I were to watch it some other time with my TIVO? The answer is simple. I have been consumed by the need to watch. It’s not about being a fan of the story, or the actor, but it was a necessity to watch because if I don’t, there comes that feeling of emptiness. The reason is probably similar to that of the bottled water we discussed in class: why most people prefer Smart Water rather than regular water that is cheaper, or why do we need bigger TV because technically, they are the same thing.

Furthermore, ‘It is noted that the average person spends about five hours a day sitting in front of the TV set’(“A Growing Problem,” 2002). This shows that television is one of the biggest consumptions. The sad part about this is that people are willing to sit and watch television for what is half of their leisure time, rather than doing something productive with their lives. Television has indeed transcended to a new level where it is not an entertainment, but a necessity.

First Impression

I have totally different impression of what to expect from this class. At first, the one word that I could think about is essay, essay, and essay…..But that thought vanished when I heard the word “Blog” coming out of the professor’s mouth. I am going to write a blog for this class? Is this a dream? Certainly not because I am writing one now. I like the professor’s idea of turning this class into a fun class by writing a weekly blog and at the same time maintain the level of sophistication of writing skills. I also like how he drags the class with stories and support for participation from the audience. This class is much more entertaining and brain stimulating compared to the other English classes that I have taken so far that is monotone and boring.
I have learned a lot from this first week of class because of the idea that each group clusters have to come up with a keyword for the blogs. So far the keywords that we have discussed are culture, technology, and deconstruction. My favorite among those three is culture, since most of my blog revolves around the world culture. As Raymond Williams said, “I’ve wished that I’ve never heard the damned word” (R. Williams, 1979: 154), explaining the complexity of the words because there are a lot of subdivision of cultures that we already have encountered. It is interesting to learn about the word culture because from there, even though not directly, at least I got the idea that culture plays an important part of creating a persona for each society.
In conclusion, the professor’s idea of experimenting with online blogs certainly are effective because as one of the student have said in the class, now we all can read, compare and comment on each other’s blog.

CULTURE

I like to travel, that is why I went to study abroad in Japan the summer on my first year in college. Being in Japan certainly has its good and bad moments. I stayed in Japan for three months and took Japanese classes. Even though I read some books on Japanese culture, I still didn’t know the actual meaning of why Japanese act that particular way. For instance, every time I went to stores or restaurants, it is customary for the waitresses or the staff to say out loud the word “irrashai-mase,” which means welcome to our store or restaurant. At first, it sounds very refreshing because as we all know, Japanese people is very polite. But then, it started to annoy me. Every single time I met with a staff including the ones that I have met before, they quickly shout the word “irrashai-mase.” I responded in my mind, “Back of people!!!!! you don’t need to say welcome more than once, that is so annoying!!!!” I ended up walking away outside the store in less than 5 minutes from the frustration.
After that experience, I ask my instructor why Japanese does that kind of behavior. The instructor responded that every culture has different ways of expressing their appreciation to the customers. In Japan, it is customary to say it because the staff is deeply honored for my time and my kindness to walk and visit into their stores or restaurants. After that explanation I was so ashamed of my behavior and was impressed of their level of appreciation because I have never thought about it that way. In the end, I realized one thing that matters most, I am a tourist. Of course I will have strange reaction of other people’s culture that is different than mine because they could say the same thing to my culture. Who am I to judge that one’s culture is better than the other one? What really matters is the way we act, so that we as an individual can be accepted in today’s society

E-books

I would like to dedicate my first blog to inform other students the alternate way that is faster and more efficient for purchasing our class text, New Keywords. When the class ended, I’m still surprised there were a lot of students who were very concerned about not getting the book on time. Sure there is reserved one on the library, but I doubt people are going to borrow it since there is only one book available. The alternate way that I talked about is by downloading it from a website. The file is called “E-book” which stands for electronic book because we download it from a website and will be read from our personal computers. The E-book is less expensive because it contains a text file rather than papers and hardcover materials from physical book that I buy. Below are some information about E-book if anyone is interested, “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebook,” and the site for downloading E-book, “http://www.ebooks.com.” My experiences using E-book are positive so far because I could save time from going to the bookstore and waiting in line, and is more space convenient because it uses less physical. Hopefully, when other people are more familiar with E-book, they will look forward to read more books in the future.