Accessorizing galaxy

Accessories are telling. In the states, the only device you can be creative (for covers) with is the iPhone. Here, the new Samsung galaxy s3 is king.


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CW
DROID.

No apples here (in hk)

Of course there are iPhones here. But doesn't seem to have nearly the market dominance that it does in the US. 

Electronic stores mainly focus on Samsung (galaxy and note are particularly ubiquitous). HTCs are popular, and Sony and LGs are around. I even saw some Motorola phones.


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CW
DROID.

In Taiwan

I'm not even sure if this is a potent and controversial topic anymore, but about a decade ago (during the era of 阿編), the taiwanese identity as discrete from Chinese was a topic of much frustration and heartache for me, as I frequently heard "I'm Taiwanese, not Chinese."

My parents were both born in Taiwan, but my family is originally from 浙江, a province in the south of china. We still have family there. But I grew up going to Taiwan, grew up with Taiwanese Chinese culture (which is unique unto Taiwan), grew up with Taiwanese Chinese language (which i consider mandarin tinged with taiwan - very distinctive accent and inflection, only found in Taiwan and those families originating from).

Being in Taiwan for the first time without my family here gave me a strange sense of homecoming, even though I had never lived here. And I know exactly why. It's the way people talk. I find taiwanese Chinese the easiest to understand. And no wonder - its what I've been hearing my whole life. I've missed it. In the last decade, I've mostly heard either mainland chinese or Cantonese Chinese spoken around me by strangers and people I have passing interactions with. Here in Taiwan, the dialogue around me is spoken in a way that feels very familiar (to a point where I'm not even raging mad that I got ripped off in the night market for a bag of fruit).

This is why I get frustrated with people who want to make being Taiwanese and being Chinese distinctive. I have no formal claim to Taiwan. I'm not Taiwanese. And yet, I am culturally more connected to Taiwan than I will ever be to the mainland. It boils down to semantics, which ultimately only really matters to the extent that we imbue meanings to words, which is ultimately what the Taiwanese Chinese debate does.

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Sent from Cynthia Wang's iPad
cynthiawang@nyu.edu

Authenticity

I've been watching a lot of Pawn Stars lately (the History Channel) - had never seen it before, but it's fun!

It's interesting, they're so obsessed with authenticity, that authenticity itself is tied to monetary value. Is this signature from Winston Churchill real? If it is, it's worth thousands. But it needs to be authenticated by an expert. Not all of us are experts. So, what's on the line if the store says it's real and it's not? Who would know? What would get hurt? Reputation? Legitimacy?

Interesting framework to think about - the framework of realness, of valuing certain individuals and certain narratives in our history, and translating that to actual monetary value, into capital.

I'd like to see a show about who they sell all this stuff to.

Sickiness

Being sick constitutes a really particular form of temporary social exclusion. There's a social stigma in interacting with normal society when one is in a state of sickiness. People even deny that they are sick by saying things like "oh, I have really bad allergies" or something to that effect in order to be able to continue participating in society.

When one admits that one is sick, it involves telling people around them to excuse them from social niceties like giving hugs and shaking hands. Indeed, in order to not make others around feel too uncomfortable, one must also excuse oneself from social gatherings, furthering the point of social isolation due to sickness. There are also only certain people one can be exposed to while sick, and those usually don't involve the very young (ie: infants) or the very elderly and frail.

It's a bit like coming out of the closet. It's not something you can help, but if you admit to it, you have to face the social stigmas that come along with it...along with being treated a little bit like a freak. I guess the good thing about having a cold is that it's temporary.

That time of year...

It's that time of year when soon-to-be graduates roam campus in their caps and gowns, posing for pictures in the oddest positions (the one in particular I saw was holding the globe on top of the Von Kleinsmid Center at USC). And whereas you look hilariously silly at the moment of the picture being taken, that picture will be pretty cool for the rest of your life. So the next time you hesitate taking a picture because you don't want other people around you thinking you look silly, just think - none of them know you, and the picture you take are going to be with you and bring you (hopefully joyful) memories for the rest of your life.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/advocates-ask-why-do-asian-americans-go-uncast-in-new-york-theater/?pagemode=print

I'll address this, but I'll do it later.

High and Low Cultures

Thinking about high and low cultures...why is it that things that are considered high culture are always older? Opera, Shakespeare, classical music, Renaissance art? Is there an ageism thing going on here?

The problem with Race, and other controversies in my head

Another platform for me to spew out thoughts.

I got into an interesting conversation about race the other day. Actually, it was a series of conversations with various different people, and these conversations, frankly, have been ongoing for well over a decade for me now. But that aside...

I've been thinking about race. In ways that I think will make me immensely unpopular in any sort of ethnic minority group of which I am a part, or purport to be a part, or seen by members of which to be a part (whatever). I've been thinking about race and human dignity. In particular, I've been thinking about the ethnic minority to which I most closely identify -- Asian American. And for the first time in a very long time, I'm having a problem identifying using the term "Asian American."

What is Asian? Why can't I be American? These questions aren't new. What is new, though, is WHY we want to feel like we "belong" in America. We get so offended when someone asks where we're from, assuming we are foreign. Take a look around, folks. A lot of people with Asian descent ARE foreign - they were born in not-America...yes, we can make the argument that no one would assume a Black/African American (choose your poison) person would speak Swahili. But if you're walking on the street, and you encounter an Asian person, chances are high that person 1) knows how to speak or understand some form of Asian language, 2) was born in an Asian country, and 3) does not consider English their native language. For this particular stereotype, it is based a lot on the truth of the situation. And for this particular situation, it will most likely be ameliorated through time. In a few generations, people with Asian face will likely all speak English (provided they stay in this country and populate it and make lots of babies), and people will stop assuming people with Asian faces are foreign.

And then, there's the question of...why do we feel like we want to "belong"? I think it boils down to the question of human dignity. The question here, though, is, who's the authority on this dignity?

When I say human dignity, I'm not talking about the material or physical. I'm not saying that we should question the atrocities that befell likes of Vincent Chin and others who are physically assaulted for being not-White. I'm not defending the difference in the pay scale for African Americans (or Black Americans) and Latino Americans (or Chicano or whatever words you want to use to identify) - those, under the ideologies of equality in this country, are wrong. I'm also not disregarding the history of colonialism and imperialism and the wrongs the West (and White) have done to Asian countries and societies, nor am I excusing the past grievances of genocide, torture, murder, death, maiming, and other forms of badness that came from White interaction (or, sometimes Japanese) with Asia. I'm questioning human dignity on that transcendant level - the level on which we often speak of love and art, the one with which we can only be concerned with if we have enough food to eat, clothes on our back, and a roof over our heads.

A few more points - let's be Marxist for a sec and boil everything down to the material. Are Asian Americans as a group really economically disenfranchised? No. What's so bad about being the model minority? People think we're smart. Why is this a bad thing? What of the medical field, which is teeming with folks of Asian descent making a great living? How about the fields of engineering? What is it that makes an individual happy? Really happy? Is it some transcendental idea of "belonging" and "equality"? Or is it being able to provide a comfortable life for oneself and one's family?

The argument comes in where people complain about lack of representation in the media. And yes, I agree that in some forms of media and representation, like Broadway, Asians are sorely underrepresented. For the record, the article says Asian Americans make up 12% of the NYC population. Keep in mind that the population of Asian Americans in America is roughly 4-6%. So, what is adequate representation? I would like to conduct a study to see what percentage of characters in commercials, TV shows, films, are of Asian descent. I would venture to guess that we are hovering around 4-6%, if not greater.

Finally, think about it. The desire for racial equality would not be significant if it weren't for a Western ideological, neoliberalist framework. So, is our dignity defined and authorized by the big bad White man?

KaoHsiung International Airport

In an attempt to document all of the traveling I do, especially in light of my research, I'm going to start blogging about connectivity at various airports, and other time-related stuff. Boring, I know, to most people, so just ignore this.

I'm currently sitting in the KaoHsiung Airport waiting for my flight to Hong Kong. I think there is only one terminal, but I found a great wifi spot - it's right outside of the Ever Rich Duty Free store, and all it takes is a one-push button "log in" to access wifi. The connection speed is not bad either. There are some numbered "AIRPORT" wifi networks - I think over 10 - I haven't had a chance to encounter all of them, but their connection speed seems even faster than the Ever Rich one (although it felt sluggish when I was on my iPhone).

BTW if anyone knows exactly what a website like speedtest.net measures, I'm all ears.

Bizarre Gaga video

This video of old folks dancing to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance has gotten a lot of circulation on the interwebs, and has been made fun of a lot. I'll spare you the expected rants about Othering Asians by making fun of them, although I think that is a pervading element of it - by not understanding, it is easier to make fun, and make inferior another racial/ethnic group. Blah blah.

My good friend, Dawen, suggests that "ga ga" might be a way to say "elder" in some form of Chinese dialect, and that the song itself is nowhere near a direct translation of Lady Gaga's song, and the song might be some sort of elder people showing of solidarity through song, a common commiseration. Why don't my kids pay attention to me? Poignant?

test

testing networked blogs

Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination | David Graeber | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/25/occupy-wall-street-protest?newsfeed=true

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Sent from Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cyndaminthia@gmail.com

Fwd: Telecommute Nation: If Half of Us Could Work Remotely, Why Don't We?

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Sent from Cynthia Wang's iPhone

cyndaminthia@gmail.com

Begin forwarded message:

From: Larry Gross <lpgross@usc.edu>
Date: July 27, 2011 10:58:44 AM GMT+08:00
To: "' (LARRYLIST-L@usc.edu)'" <LARRYLIST-L@usc.edu>, "'Sept11 List'"@listproc.usc.edu
Cc: DnD <DnD@asc.usc.edu>
Subject: Telecommute Nation: If Half of Us Could Work Remotely, Why Don't We?
Reply-To: lpgross@usc.edu

 

Telecommute Nation: If Half of Us Could Work Remotely, Why Don't We?

By Derek Thompson

More than 34 million people -- equal to the population of Texas and Pennsylvania combined -- work from home occasionally. Twice as many could if they wanted. In the next few years, maybe they will.

You know, this would be a good day to work from home. The heat index is 114 degrees today in Washington, D.C. I have to walk half-an-hour to and from work to an office with no better Internet than my living room. Everything I need to write I can fit into a laptop bag, or on a couch.

So why am I writing this article from the desk at The Atlantic's office?

***

Telecommuting, or working from home, is one of those trends that most people talk about as much in the future tense as the present. Only one in twenty formally employed Americans works consistently from home, but the fact that so many of us could work fills demographers' eyes with visions of empty cubicles and broadband-blazing living rooms.

Fully 75% of the workforce will be mobile by 2012, the research firm IDC predicted in 2008. Not to be outdone, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation predicted in 2009 that the number of jobs filled by telecommuters would grow nearly four-fold before 2020. Other studies hold that half of all jobs are receptive to telework, including the vast majority of information technology positions.

That's a lot of stats. In a nutshell: Half of us could work remotely if we wanted. Far less do. Why?

Even if we're technically more productive at home, we feel more conspicuously productive at work.

The answer might have more to do with psychology than economics. Even if we're technically more productive at home, we feel more conspicuously productive at work. You might think a recession would lead to more telecommuting since it reduces overhead and increases work hours. Instead, telework among the formally employed has slowed in the last three years. Ted Schadler, a telecommuting expert who is vice president and chief analyst at Forrester Research, suggests the answer might be psychological.

"Some bosses think if they can't see you working, you're not working," he says. "If you're worried about losing your job, you're going to come into the office every chance you get."

For me, it comes down to people. The best social technology increases social connections. Facebook keeps us in touch with far-flung friends. Twitter broadcasts our internal monologues to the world. Email, texts, and phones keep us connected even when we're remote. But none of these things forces us to not be with real live people.

Telecommuting is a choice to be alone. It reduces connections between workers. It removes us from the world of work and makes it indistinguishable from the period before and after, which we could simple call life.

***

Still, telework has clear benefits. For the employer, it can save office space, utilities and overhead for employee services. From the worker, it creates more hours for life or desk work. It reduces travel costs. It has external benefits, like less traffic and quicker travel for commuters. We talk a lot about building more efficient public transportation, but the most efficient public transportation is the technology that lets you work from where you sleep.

Telecommuting is a choice to be alone.

Widespread adoption of telework requires three things, Schadler tells me. First, you need to work in the right industry. The growth of high-tech information technology jobs should lead to a growth in telecommuting, which would allow employers to hire the best workers in Florida or Oregon. Within industries, management culture matters. "In pharma sales, everybody works at home," he says. "In pharma marketing, everybody works in the office."

Second, to make remote working really work, you need performance metrics, because bosses can't manage what they can't measure. "If employers could measure output [posts per day, tasks per week, etc] they don't care where you work, or how long you work, as long as you produce the output," Schadler says.

The third factor is the most important and the hardest to quantify: it's personal motivation. I could have called Ted and written these paragraphs from my couch, or the coffee shop across the street from my apartment. Instead, I chose to walk 15 minutes through the tropical heat because ... well, I like my colleagues. I like my desk. I like that it is not the same table where I eat dinner and find funny YouTube videos with my roommates. If telework increases work-time and "life"-time, it does so at the expense of a work-life balance.

Tens of millions of Americans obviously disagree. If you're one of them, leave a note in the comments section. Why do you prefer to work without "coming in to work"?

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/telecommute-nation-if-half-of-us-could-work-remotely-why-dont-we/242382/

Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

************************************************

Larry Gross

Professor and Director

School of Communication

Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA 90089

213-740-3770

 

Editor, International Journal of Communication

President, International Communication Association, 2011-12

************************************************

 

Summer in Asia quick update

You know the Knight Bus from Harry Potter? Well, the buses here are like that. We just got back from Kawasan Falls last night - it was a 3.5 hour trip there, and another 3.5 hour trip back, and we took a public bus. This bus isn't huge, but it isn't small and agile either, by any sense of the words. I mean, it's a bus. But the road can be completely blocked, and this huge bus will still find a way to get where it needs to be.

Wait, I figured, I should probably blog about our entire Kawasan trip. Or well, my Whac-a-Mole Where-in-the-World-is-Cynthia-going-to-turn-up-next travels thus far.

I've been traveling almost non-stop since July 3rd, where I left NYC and flew to LA, spending about 40 hours there and fitting in a dinner and a brunch (at Doughboys -delicious stuff), and an almost-complete episode of the Bachelorette (we HAD to see what Bentley had to say when he met up with Ashley in HK!) before hopping on a plane to HK. After a rather painless 14 hours, I landed in HK very early in the morn, where I missed the first bus back home, resulting in my poor mom waiting aimlessly for about 40 minutes outside the MTR station where our apartment is.

Upon arriving at home, after lamenting my weight loss since she last saw me, Mama took me to dimsum, where we gorged ourselves with discounted HK breakfast goodies. The next 40 hours or so were laying around lazily and repacking for Cebu, and meeting up with Phong, who I’m apparently chasing around the world (we had met in LA, had dinner in NYC, and now lunch in HK).

Let’s get onto Cebu, because that’s probably more interesting than HK. I was under the impression that my flight was at 1:35pm, because the flight itself was only about 2.5 hours, and my ticket said departure at 0135H, arriving at 0410H. It wasn’t until about a week ago that I looked at the ticket again, and my return flight departs at 2250H. Hrm, I thought. Is this on MILITARY TIME? Yes, indeed, it is. I was going to be leaving at 1:35AM, not PM…and this is their idea of a red-eye flight. WTF.

I whiz thru customs, and Roselynne meets me at 4am right outside the airport entrance. I’ll save you all the sap and mush (unless you really like oatmeal with maple syrup, in which case, ask me privately), but let’s just say seeing her was much needed. Slept for a few hours before she had to get up to go to class. I slept for most of the day, and immediately the next day, we headed to Kawasan Falls for the weekend. The traveling just doesn't stop. Kawasan was amazing, but I'm very happy to be home and still for a while.

So, I'm chilling in the apartment now while she learns some sort of choreographed dance. I've only gotten two mosquito bites so far, but bracing myself for more...

Soreness and Waterfalls

R was laughing at me earlier because I was writhing around in pain from lactic acid buildup in my left leg from hiking and swimming this weekend. Laughing, because she knew exactly what it was, it wasn't life-threatening, and there was nothing either of us could to do make it better. Only time. I'm still limping all over the place.

This weekend was amazing. We (me, R, her cousins, and her friend Maricar and Maricar's friend Joper) hopped on a non-ACed overly-bumpy public bus and rode it to Kawasan Falls. I'm not even sure how to describe it. A resort? A national park? Something like that. Basically, there are 8 or so levels of waterfalls. We stayed in a rather spacious room at Level 1 (the lowest), but hiked up to Level 3 and went swimming in the pool there. Waterfalls everywhere. We also didn't bring swimsuits, so not only did I do some pretty adventurous hiking in flip flops, I also braved waterfalls and fish and iguanas (more on this later) in regular clothes. Long story short, though, lots of activity = lots of soreness = pain right now.

Maximum Punishment, and a new country

Have you noticed those signs that prevent you from doing something? Like smoking or littering? And how they always come with a "maximum punishment"? For example, if you smoke in the airplane lavatory, you'll be fined a few thousand dollars, and possibly spend a maximum of 2 years in prison. I often wondered about why the signs attempt to make would-be criminals feel better about committing the crime. It's almost like saying, "Oh, you can go ahead and commit this crime because the WORST that can happen to you is so and so." Shouldn't the signs be more scary in order to better deter people from doing that which the establishment does not want them to do? Like, "if you smoke in the lavatory, you will be fined a MINIMUM of $200 and do 30 hours of community service."

Anyway. In the Philippines now. Yes, that means I have a Philippines stamp in my passport! Booyah! Oh, I mean, I get to see my girl. Booyah as well. :)

It is hot here (but not overwhelmingly so) and there's an...odor...in the air. And I took one of the very few cold showers I ever have in my life. R says I'm spoiled. I don't disagree. Actually, it's not even a shower. You have to fill up this bucket, which R humorously calls "The Reservoir" and pour water over yourself in order to bath. And in true Asian form, the shower part itself isn't separate from the rest of the bathroom, so the entire bathroom gets wet in the process. Let's just say, for me, a person of much creature comforts, this is a humbling experience.

Everyone's a germaphobe here. There are sinks in the restaurants (not even in the bathroom area) to wash your hands before and after a meal. Otherwise, Cebu feels a lot like many of the Asian cities I have been to, possibly with the exception of Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is....a different experience altogether. But it feels a lot like Taiwan and parts of China. And most everyone speaks English, although R isn't letting me wander the city on my own. Yet. I'm convinced that she can be persuaded...there's a fort and other touristy-type sites I want to visit if I can...

Ok, more about this later. It's time for a nap.

History of China in 3 1/2 Minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCH7B9m4A4M&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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Sent from Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cyndaminthia@gmail.com

哈哈!

My mom sent this one to me. Hilarious. Harry Potter versus 金庸. I'm not quite sure who won...

一位中年人問年輕人：「你有看過金庸的小說嗎？」 年輕人說：「沒有，只有看過
電視劇。」


中年人說：「那你知道金庸寫的14部小說的書名的第一個字，串起來會成為一首詩：


『飛雪連天射白鹿，笑書神俠倚碧鴛』嗎？」

年輕人說：「嗯…不知道，但是我有看羅琳（哈利波特作者）的小說，你知道這七本
小說書名的第一個字串起來是 什麼嗎?」





中年人:嗯… 不知道耶


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年輕人:哦，她寫的七本小說書名的第一個字串起來是 『哈哈哈哈哈哈哈』！

grad school = death to thinking?

I've been procrastinating on writing this paper and reading old xanga entries. And I had good thoughts! Good questions! Like this one:

I've been thinking about this concept of heaven, and eternal happiness, and all that. And I have some questions.

First off, if I ever get to heaven, how old am I going to be, for eternity? If I see my grandparents, my great grandparents, how old will they be?

Secondly, scenerio: I am deeply in love with someone. A live-by-this-person, die-by-this-person sort of love. And this person dies in a freak accident. My world is crushed, but I live on. And I eventually meet someone else, with whom I fall deeply in love, and spend the rest of my life with, but I am still in love with person #1. Who am I going to spend eternal paradise with - my first true love, or the true love that I spent my whole life with?

How does it work?

>>>>

That's a good question, right?? I mean, and now, in grad school, all of my questions are like "what are the hegemonic implications of the totalitarian system under which our government idealizes certain values and norms by which all individuals within the system must function?" or something like that?