Last night Gang and I went to a friend's birthday party. He is an Asian American and has been living in the bay area for a long time - he was born here, went to schools here and built up his career after graduation in the same place. But he's planning to relocate to central US for family reasons. We talked for a while, and at the end of the party, we said to him: "come back." He laughed out loud: "My parents said that to me too!" His parents are about my parents' age, probably even older. For me, it's amusing that immigrants from East Asia always find similarities between me and the older generation. My roommate at Princeton, whose parents were also from Taiwan, used to say "my mum said that too" during our conversations.
I do think there are some differences between me and the older generation. Like most of my peers, I view myself as one of a new generation who enjoys the tech booming in the information era, getting news from internet rather than newspapers and learning more from Google than neighbors. I live in a more globalized world in which I can expose myself to different cultures, traditions and ideas. And all these benefits make it easier for me to gain more diversified knowledge than the older generation. Besides, the world is changing so fast that people today care about different things than decades ago. Therefore I have enough reasons to believe that I think differently from my parents. It is probably true - they worried less about climate change and gas price, and my husband spends most of his time on these topics. My parents also keep a higher saving rates than me - a habit developed in 1980s when the Chinese government encouraged people to save to support the "socialist construction".
But other than these, it's hard to identify any fundamental differences. When I say "fundamental", I'm referring to key issues such as values and beliefs, most of which have been kept well across generations for centuries. Although I'm younger than my friend's parents, we share similar ideas towards family because of our life experiences back in China and Taiwan in early years. That's why we both said "come back" because we both believe people should return to their hometowns one day no matter how far away they once traveled, just like falling leaves returning to roots in the end. So neither of us took his relocation as settlement, but more like a long journey in his life. He found the phrase amusing while we found it natural, and this is the discrepancy caused by culture rather than generation gaps.
I can hardly picture what my children will be like, and what they will be thinking in the future. But I'm certain that my life will largely determine how their childhood will be like and what values they will be developed before they leave for college. I will be delighted if one day after school, they say to me: "Mum, I found someone in my class who said exactly the same thing like you."
Showing posts with label My Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Life. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Numbers
In my teenager, some of my friends chose social science rather than science to avoid maths courses in college. The stereotype is that social science, such as history, literature, sociology and political science does not require quantitative skills, but qualitative ones, like writing reports and communicating with people. However this looks no longer true. Economics, together with its loyal partner - statistics, has dominated social science methodologies. The first time I read a political science paper inundated with regressions, I thought I found the wrong paper, but now I'm so used to mathy papers of this kind. Obviously numbers are widely applied in social science research, like developing index to evaluate the quality of democracy/dictatorship evaluating policy impacts, and using numbers to show the demographic changes in history, etc. Recently I even found a "poem-making" software which analyzes Chinese poems from Tang Dynasty, identifies the most popular words and phrases and reorganizes them into new poems. Some people acclaimed that this sort of software will put an end to social science, which sounds like a paranoid sleep talk by those with little idea of arts and literature.
It's true that in an information era, traditional way of studying social science may not be sufficient enough. Case studies, which used to be widely applied, are now considered to be biased samples; and causalities between two events are less convincing without excluding other factors rigorously. Interviewees can lie, interviewers can be biased, and it looks like in research the only reliable source is data. The development of data-processing software also makes it easier to do research with large data set. Therefore social science scholars and students, no matter how difficult it is to quantify their research objects, are trying to establish a database and use statistical models to reach certain conclusions. I won't say it's wrong - I've spent the last few years learning these skills, but there are several things that should be kept in mind in data work, especially for policy students.
One concern is that data can "lie" too. If you've worked with STATA, you may have noticed that conclusions can be very different when you use different regression function forms, different control variables or whether to cluster/stratify or not. From time to time, we need to use our common sense and logic to choose the one most likely to be true. However if we come across something that we're not familiar with, then how can we decide if we've handled data in the right way? It's quite common that people have different stances on the same issue even if they happen to use the same data base. Moreover, data analysis always requires a few assumptions, based on which our conclusions can be developed. However, because so many variables (either measurable or not) exist in the real world, that sometimes it's very hard to exam whether your assumptions hold or not. Tons of arguments arise in this field, and researchers are still fighting against each other when new variable/evidence emerges.
Another concern is that when numbers are large, we can easily be misled. If you think about 0.001% of the population, you may think of only a few people; but when you are referring to 13,900 people in China, that's not a small group. Number itself is not enough to display the full picture. On contrary, numbers can be cunningly used to hide the facts.
In addition, obsession with numbers is almost as bad as ignoring numbers. Though it's important to see policy impact on large groups, and therefore exam its effectiveness by looking into the joint benefits received by the population; single cases are vital too. If you think about how policy changes such as the abortion of racial segregation in the US, or how big event happens such as the start of WW1, a single case makes all the differences. There are a lot of psychological studies on cases vs. numbers, and case studies tend to impress audiences more. This is not surprising: after reading an article/report, which can you remember, numbers or stories?
People talk a lot about big data these days, and sometimes I can't help wondering how I look like in those companies' eyes - maybe a few dummy variables to identify my race, gender and consumption preferences, etc, and a few logit regressions to find out what coupons can induce a new purchase record from me - simple and straightforward.
It's true that in an information era, traditional way of studying social science may not be sufficient enough. Case studies, which used to be widely applied, are now considered to be biased samples; and causalities between two events are less convincing without excluding other factors rigorously. Interviewees can lie, interviewers can be biased, and it looks like in research the only reliable source is data. The development of data-processing software also makes it easier to do research with large data set. Therefore social science scholars and students, no matter how difficult it is to quantify their research objects, are trying to establish a database and use statistical models to reach certain conclusions. I won't say it's wrong - I've spent the last few years learning these skills, but there are several things that should be kept in mind in data work, especially for policy students.
One concern is that data can "lie" too. If you've worked with STATA, you may have noticed that conclusions can be very different when you use different regression function forms, different control variables or whether to cluster/stratify or not. From time to time, we need to use our common sense and logic to choose the one most likely to be true. However if we come across something that we're not familiar with, then how can we decide if we've handled data in the right way? It's quite common that people have different stances on the same issue even if they happen to use the same data base. Moreover, data analysis always requires a few assumptions, based on which our conclusions can be developed. However, because so many variables (either measurable or not) exist in the real world, that sometimes it's very hard to exam whether your assumptions hold or not. Tons of arguments arise in this field, and researchers are still fighting against each other when new variable/evidence emerges.
Another concern is that when numbers are large, we can easily be misled. If you think about 0.001% of the population, you may think of only a few people; but when you are referring to 13,900 people in China, that's not a small group. Number itself is not enough to display the full picture. On contrary, numbers can be cunningly used to hide the facts.
In addition, obsession with numbers is almost as bad as ignoring numbers. Though it's important to see policy impact on large groups, and therefore exam its effectiveness by looking into the joint benefits received by the population; single cases are vital too. If you think about how policy changes such as the abortion of racial segregation in the US, or how big event happens such as the start of WW1, a single case makes all the differences. There are a lot of psychological studies on cases vs. numbers, and case studies tend to impress audiences more. This is not surprising: after reading an article/report, which can you remember, numbers or stories?
People talk a lot about big data these days, and sometimes I can't help wondering how I look like in those companies' eyes - maybe a few dummy variables to identify my race, gender and consumption preferences, etc, and a few logit regressions to find out what coupons can induce a new purchase record from me - simple and straightforward.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Smell of Weed
As a person who's never tried weed before, I don't really understand why the legalization of mariguana in Colorado can be such an excitement to some of my friends. Not only that, the pleasance of enjoying mariguana in the public produces some negative externalities - the smell of weed on Berkeley streets are driving me crazy. I took a walk this afternoon in downtown for fresh air. Beautiful sunshine lightened up the world, when I suddenly came across strong stink at the corner. I trotted a few steps, but the smell made me sick for quite a while. This is not the first time I've smelled weed in Berkeley, the smell is almost everywhere - in downtown, in parks, by stations. What I don't understand is, in a country where public smoking is strictly forbidden, drugs are not treated in the same way.
Freedom has been widely discussed in modern society: the freedom to speak, the freedom to talk back, and the freedom to escalate the quarrel. Sometimes to protect other people's freedom, the government has to put certain limitations on our freedom. For example, to protect people's freedom of accessing public roads, there are traffic rules to guarantee rational use of infrastructure, the broken of which are subject to punishment. This is straightforward, but more controversial cases arise when freedoms are in conflict. Now to protect people's freedom of "getting high", I have to sacrifice my freedom of enjoying clean air. So the question is where is the line?
In a culture where the respect for individual freedom goes too far, any conflict over freedom can evolve into an endless battle of pushing the line back and forth between different groups. For example, one group (let's say some minorities in the community) wants the freedom of celebrating their traditional festivals by taking days off, and another group (let's say their employers) wants to keep them working as their white peers do. Then whose freedom should we respect? If there is no clear rule of defining the line, the entire issue is subject to power balance.
In China, individual freedom is always subject to collective objectives in the name that collective actions will bring "bigger individual freedom". A notorious example is the propaganda for One Child Policy. The logic provided by the central government is that booming population will undermine the survival of current and future generations. Therefore if we enjoy the freedom of delivering more than one child in a family, the result is exhaustion of resources, poverty and scarcity in the future. To save China from "complete annihilation", actions such as forced abortion and whopping fine for the second child are taken to protect "freedom of majority." In this case, the line is mistakenly drawn.
So back to the question, I think the fundamental rule could be "Pareto Optimal": don't harm other people when you enjoy your freedom. Do not enjoy the weed when creating stink for pedestrians; and do not delay your work when you want to celebrate your own holidays. Another rule should be "mind your own business first": don't tell other people how many kids they should have, and don't assign new graduates to positions "as the country needs". Then may we live in a happy and friendly world!
Freedom has been widely discussed in modern society: the freedom to speak, the freedom to talk back, and the freedom to escalate the quarrel. Sometimes to protect other people's freedom, the government has to put certain limitations on our freedom. For example, to protect people's freedom of accessing public roads, there are traffic rules to guarantee rational use of infrastructure, the broken of which are subject to punishment. This is straightforward, but more controversial cases arise when freedoms are in conflict. Now to protect people's freedom of "getting high", I have to sacrifice my freedom of enjoying clean air. So the question is where is the line?
In a culture where the respect for individual freedom goes too far, any conflict over freedom can evolve into an endless battle of pushing the line back and forth between different groups. For example, one group (let's say some minorities in the community) wants the freedom of celebrating their traditional festivals by taking days off, and another group (let's say their employers) wants to keep them working as their white peers do. Then whose freedom should we respect? If there is no clear rule of defining the line, the entire issue is subject to power balance.
In China, individual freedom is always subject to collective objectives in the name that collective actions will bring "bigger individual freedom". A notorious example is the propaganda for One Child Policy. The logic provided by the central government is that booming population will undermine the survival of current and future generations. Therefore if we enjoy the freedom of delivering more than one child in a family, the result is exhaustion of resources, poverty and scarcity in the future. To save China from "complete annihilation", actions such as forced abortion and whopping fine for the second child are taken to protect "freedom of majority." In this case, the line is mistakenly drawn.
So back to the question, I think the fundamental rule could be "Pareto Optimal": don't harm other people when you enjoy your freedom. Do not enjoy the weed when creating stink for pedestrians; and do not delay your work when you want to celebrate your own holidays. Another rule should be "mind your own business first": don't tell other people how many kids they should have, and don't assign new graduates to positions "as the country needs". Then may we live in a happy and friendly world!
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
The Perfect Plan
How amazing it would be to develop a perfect plan, follow which we could have a perfect result. Of course the assumption is that everything is controllable: you've included all the "variables" in the plan, find the right way to handle them, and no worries about uncertainties during the implementation. Experiments like this may be carried out in labs (although even the most strictly controlled experiment faces challenges such as contamination/spill-over), but too many omitted variables exist in the real world which makes a perfect plan in the real world almost impossible. As a result, the perfect plan evolves into an imperfect, sometimes even disappointing plan. You may want to describe it as a good experience/adventure years later, but at the moment when things go wrong, it's still not easy to handle.
A possible solution is to go for options that have lower probabilities of going wrong. For example, shop in branded stores with good return policy, go to a tourist attraction mentioned in "Lonely Planet"; or pick a major that can guarantee a job after graduation, and follow seniors' suggestions to avoid mistakes. But things can still go wrong no matter how high the probability of "being successful" is, and it does require extra efforts to get back to the right track, or to even develop a new track. In Tang Dynasty, a talented young man went to the capital Chang'an for an imperial exam, a qualify exam for government officials. He had prepared it for a long time and had never thought he would fail, which unfortunately happened. Frustratingly he went out drinking, where he met a dancing girl who he used to know. The girl recognized him soon and joked: "You're not a government official yet?" The young man wrote a poet as a response:
I left Zhongling ten years ago in drunkenness,
Now I met Yunying (the dancer's name) and her beautiful dance.
I haven't made my name, and you haven't got married,
It's probably we're not so good as others.
Well, he was wrong. He became a famous poet later. (That's how I got to know the poem above.) After the difficult time of seeing his failure in the original plan, he found a new plan of his life.
One can never find a counterpart in one's life to see whether his decision is right or not, or to figure out where the plan goes wrong, even twins rarely serve as a good case for comparative studies. However, it's quite normal to assume "if I had blahblah..." when facing troubles. When I'm frustrated by the job search in the bay area, I do doubt if I made the right decision to leave my comfort zone - quitting my "iron-bowl" job in China, and going back to school in a new country. But when I think of my vagrant experiences across the US in the past few years, everything looks so deserving, even the painful memory of staying up all night to finish reading hundreds of pages of papers or to write policy memos is rewarding. I could have followed my "perfect plan": slowly moved up in the bureaucratic hierarchy and retired with good pensions, however at that moment, my rational choice was to go for an alternative. I guess it's a trade-off: I lost a stable job, but enriched my life in unexpected places.
Maybe there is never a perfect plan. What I can do now is to enjoy the bitterness of changing, take advantage of my depression and produce some poems.
A possible solution is to go for options that have lower probabilities of going wrong. For example, shop in branded stores with good return policy, go to a tourist attraction mentioned in "Lonely Planet"; or pick a major that can guarantee a job after graduation, and follow seniors' suggestions to avoid mistakes. But things can still go wrong no matter how high the probability of "being successful" is, and it does require extra efforts to get back to the right track, or to even develop a new track. In Tang Dynasty, a talented young man went to the capital Chang'an for an imperial exam, a qualify exam for government officials. He had prepared it for a long time and had never thought he would fail, which unfortunately happened. Frustratingly he went out drinking, where he met a dancing girl who he used to know. The girl recognized him soon and joked: "You're not a government official yet?" The young man wrote a poet as a response:
I left Zhongling ten years ago in drunkenness,
Now I met Yunying (the dancer's name) and her beautiful dance.
I haven't made my name, and you haven't got married,
It's probably we're not so good as others.
Well, he was wrong. He became a famous poet later. (That's how I got to know the poem above.) After the difficult time of seeing his failure in the original plan, he found a new plan of his life.
One can never find a counterpart in one's life to see whether his decision is right or not, or to figure out where the plan goes wrong, even twins rarely serve as a good case for comparative studies. However, it's quite normal to assume "if I had blahblah..." when facing troubles. When I'm frustrated by the job search in the bay area, I do doubt if I made the right decision to leave my comfort zone - quitting my "iron-bowl" job in China, and going back to school in a new country. But when I think of my vagrant experiences across the US in the past few years, everything looks so deserving, even the painful memory of staying up all night to finish reading hundreds of pages of papers or to write policy memos is rewarding. I could have followed my "perfect plan": slowly moved up in the bureaucratic hierarchy and retired with good pensions, however at that moment, my rational choice was to go for an alternative. I guess it's a trade-off: I lost a stable job, but enriched my life in unexpected places.
Maybe there is never a perfect plan. What I can do now is to enjoy the bitterness of changing, take advantage of my depression and produce some poems.
夜染繁花处，灯挑旧草庐。
青柏二三树，闲竹五六株。
已知春风早，恨将桃李误。
遥看苔阶冷，郁郁待日出。
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Black Friday
I don't know how many people still go to outlets/groceries on Black Friday given the rapid development of online shopping and regular promotions across the year. After reading all the terrifying stories about queuing, trampling and parking wars on Thursday night, fatigue driving and traffic congestion on Friday, I decide to avoid the war and go on Saturday, which also turned out to be a terrible idea. The newly opened outlet in Livermore was packed with happy shoppers, and it took at least 15 min for us to find a parking space, and another 15 min to get a fitting room in Banana Republic. Impressed with the long line outside ladies' room and the crowd in the food court, we went home with a few new clothes, whose prices were found to be lower through online shopping later.
That's when I started to doubt how important the Black Friday is in nowadays when retailers have thousands of ways to promote sales. I can see in old days, when people learned about sales from local ads and had to prepare Christmas gifts, Black Friday became a good shopping opportunity for the family. But now, as the population booms, the non-monetary cost of shopping on Black Friday has increased, while other choices, i.e. online stores, with good discount and no crowd seem to be a better choice; and following promotions, such as Cyber Monday, also attract a few customers.
But people still flock into stores on the very day, blocking the highways exits and swarming malls. Habit is a second nature. Black Friday, created by shrewd businessmen, has become a tradition over years and taken as an important family activity. Probably people do not come only for shopping, but to enjoy some family time together. Once shopping becomes a tradition, other than a pure economic behavior, it's difficult to abstain from doing it, especially when surrounded by family members and friends. When I think about why we decided to go shopping during the holiday, it was partly because we wanted to show how Thanksgiving looks like in the US to some visiting students from China; and partly because we wanted to enjoy sometime with each other without harassment from work and computers.
Chinese businessmen learned from their American counterparts and turned Nov 11 into Chinese Black Friday. Nov 11 was named as "Single's Day" by college students since a few years ago as "1" is the loneliest number in the world. In the latest Single's Day, Chinese biggest online shopping website, Taobao started a one-day sale, which created a historical sales record of CNY19.1 billion. It looks like Chinese business people learned from the lessons in the US Black Fridays, and carefully avoided stampedes given Chinese big population by offering online sales instead of in-store ones. Nevertheless, the panic online purchase still slowed down internet and created some chaos, though luckily no one was physically hurt. In light of the big success of Single's Day Sale, it may evolve into a new shopping tradition, just as Christmas and Valentine's Day Sale in China.
I used to shop a lot in college, but become much less motivated in recent years. Maybe in the future, when my kids and parents want to experience some craziness in the US, I will still bring them to a mall, and celebrate a Black Friday together.
That's when I started to doubt how important the Black Friday is in nowadays when retailers have thousands of ways to promote sales. I can see in old days, when people learned about sales from local ads and had to prepare Christmas gifts, Black Friday became a good shopping opportunity for the family. But now, as the population booms, the non-monetary cost of shopping on Black Friday has increased, while other choices, i.e. online stores, with good discount and no crowd seem to be a better choice; and following promotions, such as Cyber Monday, also attract a few customers.
But people still flock into stores on the very day, blocking the highways exits and swarming malls. Habit is a second nature. Black Friday, created by shrewd businessmen, has become a tradition over years and taken as an important family activity. Probably people do not come only for shopping, but to enjoy some family time together. Once shopping becomes a tradition, other than a pure economic behavior, it's difficult to abstain from doing it, especially when surrounded by family members and friends. When I think about why we decided to go shopping during the holiday, it was partly because we wanted to show how Thanksgiving looks like in the US to some visiting students from China; and partly because we wanted to enjoy sometime with each other without harassment from work and computers.
Chinese businessmen learned from their American counterparts and turned Nov 11 into Chinese Black Friday. Nov 11 was named as "Single's Day" by college students since a few years ago as "1" is the loneliest number in the world. In the latest Single's Day, Chinese biggest online shopping website, Taobao started a one-day sale, which created a historical sales record of CNY19.1 billion. It looks like Chinese business people learned from the lessons in the US Black Fridays, and carefully avoided stampedes given Chinese big population by offering online sales instead of in-store ones. Nevertheless, the panic online purchase still slowed down internet and created some chaos, though luckily no one was physically hurt. In light of the big success of Single's Day Sale, it may evolve into a new shopping tradition, just as Christmas and Valentine's Day Sale in China.
I used to shop a lot in college, but become much less motivated in recent years. Maybe in the future, when my kids and parents want to experience some craziness in the US, I will still bring them to a mall, and celebrate a Black Friday together.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Which Story is True
When I started to write this blog, I intended to make it like a diary with daily updates. Unfortunately I seemed to have overestimated my resolution in keeping writing - the last update was about 10 days ago. I did get very lazy during the holiday season. Our Thanksgiving holiday started with a five-course dinner with Leslie, who came to the bay area to spend the holiday with her sister on Wednesday. We joined a friend and her family in having a great seafood hotpot instead of turkey at her place Thursday night, when I cooked HongShaoRou (红烧肉), their most-missed dish from me. The next day was a sunny day, so Gang and I hiked in Point Reyes, and ate apples by the sea (as what we did in Hawaii). Saturday was the "shopping day", when we spent the entire afternoon in the newly opened outlet in Livermore, and finally bought a pair of matching sweaters, one for Gang and the other for me. The long weekend ended with another hotpot last night, when a friend brought all the raw materials and pots over to my place and played SanGuoSha, a popular board game in China for hours.
But the highlight of the holiday, at least in my opinion, is the movie we watched yesterday, Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee. It's the best movie I've watched this year. It's similar to Li's previous movies such as Lust Caution and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in terms of the heated discussion it has already triggered; though it's different in the sense of its new topic. I couldn't help wondering which story is true - the one counting for more than 80% of the entire movie about how Pi co-existed with the tiger during the adventure, or the one explaining how four people in the lifeboat killed and even ate their partners to survive. If the movie had finished ten minutes earlier, I'd happily buy the idea of this drifting adventure with animals, supported by beautiful scenes of the sea and fish stocks. But the second story, if true, turns the entire adventure into a disgusting struggling for survival.
Let's examine the assumptions one by one. If the first story is true, what looks discordant in the movie includes:
- The long introduction of his name, which in my understanding has two implications - 1) it's hard to tell the real story on the face of it; 2) it's hard to understand/explain a human being, just as you can't exhaust writing Pi no matter how hard you've tried;
- The rude French chief and the Buddhist sailor on the ship, who barely appeared later. If the entire story is about Pi and animals, why bother to mention these two in the movie?
- The locked cage and escaping animals. It's clearly shown in the movie that animals are locked in cages, and it's hard to imagine when the ship sunk and most people were unable to escape, these animals could get rid of locks and jumped out.
- On the floating island, when Richard Parker was eating a meerkat, other meerkats didn't get panic or escape. Also, the flower with human tooth and the acid water didn't make much sense in the real world. (There is an article on internet saying meerkats can never appear in that part of the world.)
- Most importantly, if the first one is true, why the movie spends so much time showing how Pi told the second story to the two Japanese investigators with so many details included? Since Pi was only asked to tell a story about the sunk of the ship, he didn't have to provide such a detailed story.
If the second one is true, all the above the irrational plots can be explained. But the only question I have is why? What's the point of telling an inhuman story in such a beautiful way? I'm an atheist, and I simply don't understand how people can still believe in God after surviving this.
Whatever the true answer is, Ang Lee is successful, and his movie makes audience think about the movie, and wonder what's the tiger in their heart. Great movie, recommend without reservation, though it does bother me for a long time.
But the highlight of the holiday, at least in my opinion, is the movie we watched yesterday, Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee. It's the best movie I've watched this year. It's similar to Li's previous movies such as Lust Caution and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in terms of the heated discussion it has already triggered; though it's different in the sense of its new topic. I couldn't help wondering which story is true - the one counting for more than 80% of the entire movie about how Pi co-existed with the tiger during the adventure, or the one explaining how four people in the lifeboat killed and even ate their partners to survive. If the movie had finished ten minutes earlier, I'd happily buy the idea of this drifting adventure with animals, supported by beautiful scenes of the sea and fish stocks. But the second story, if true, turns the entire adventure into a disgusting struggling for survival.
Let's examine the assumptions one by one. If the first story is true, what looks discordant in the movie includes:
- The long introduction of his name, which in my understanding has two implications - 1) it's hard to tell the real story on the face of it; 2) it's hard to understand/explain a human being, just as you can't exhaust writing Pi no matter how hard you've tried;
- The rude French chief and the Buddhist sailor on the ship, who barely appeared later. If the entire story is about Pi and animals, why bother to mention these two in the movie?
- The locked cage and escaping animals. It's clearly shown in the movie that animals are locked in cages, and it's hard to imagine when the ship sunk and most people were unable to escape, these animals could get rid of locks and jumped out.
- On the floating island, when Richard Parker was eating a meerkat, other meerkats didn't get panic or escape. Also, the flower with human tooth and the acid water didn't make much sense in the real world. (There is an article on internet saying meerkats can never appear in that part of the world.)
- Most importantly, if the first one is true, why the movie spends so much time showing how Pi told the second story to the two Japanese investigators with so many details included? Since Pi was only asked to tell a story about the sunk of the ship, he didn't have to provide such a detailed story.
If the second one is true, all the above the irrational plots can be explained. But the only question I have is why? What's the point of telling an inhuman story in such a beautiful way? I'm an atheist, and I simply don't understand how people can still believe in God after surviving this.
Whatever the true answer is, Ang Lee is successful, and his movie makes audience think about the movie, and wonder what's the tiger in their heart. Great movie, recommend without reservation, though it does bother me for a long time.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Digital Era
Probably no one has expected an investigation of Ms.Kelly's email account would result in the resignation of the C.I.A director. This is another typical lesson about how private information can be leaked in an information era. Internet seems to be good at preserving information for a long time, even if you mean to discard it. When people search information they may come across some surprises, just as what the F.B.I found out this time.
Actually email is far from the biggest trouble, at least normal people won't have access to your email account and your correspondence should be relatively safe, unless the Big Brother keeps an eye on you and the email service provider spinelessly concede; or like in this case, they get your permission to check emails. Private information can be collected in a much easier way. Social media and smartphones make it much easier for people to share their thoughts, status and locations in the public as long as there is wifi or 3G/4G. People always like to talk about themselves, therefore it's not surprising to see how much information can be collected from one's facebook and twitter account. And to gather this information, you don't need any search warrant or permission, Googling is enough. I have some Facebook friends that I've never met, but I do feel like knowing them for a long time - I know their families, friends, hobbies, education background, work, and even weekend plans even though I never intentionally do the research, all the information just appears automatically on my Facebook timeline. When we meet in reality, we talk like old friends.
It's nice to start a conversation with a real life stranger who happens to be a Facebook friend by avoiding unpleasant topics based on what you learned from his/her Facebook, but problems are created in the same place. We're happy to share information within certain groups, but may not want to be heard by outsiders. There was a kidnapping in China months ago when the criminal collected information about the kid from his mother's Weibo account, an figured out the best timing and place to take him away. Another case reported by a Weibo user also showed that traditional phone fraud also improved its performance by providing more detailed information of children when swindling their parents: he planned a trip to Japan with his girlfriend, and was very excited to share his plan on his Weibo. During his trip in Japan, of course he turned his Chinese cellphone off, and his parents and friends in China were not able to reach him. That was when frauds called his parents, saying he got in trouble and needed money to come back. Luckily his parents didn't buy the story and freed themselves from monetary loss, but they still suffered a lot from anxiety. Private information can induce great damage if it's obtained in the wrong hands.
There is a grey area between private lives and public ones, where the private information can be shared with the public but does not have to. In a digital era, there are tons of tools to fill up the grey area. You may not want to mention pillow talks on Facebook, but you probably will upload a weekend hiking photo there, and you never know how those browsing your Facebook will find out about you as fragmented information like this build up. We can't blame the tools for being too convenient to leak private information, as it's us who decide the line for disclosure. At Princeton, we were warned to take off all the "improper" photos and comments on Facebook by the career adviser who strongly believe interviewers will check candidates' profiles before talking to them. I guess that's Ann was trying to tell us: no one is perfect, so don't be so eager to show people everything.
Actually email is far from the biggest trouble, at least normal people won't have access to your email account and your correspondence should be relatively safe, unless the Big Brother keeps an eye on you and the email service provider spinelessly concede; or like in this case, they get your permission to check emails. Private information can be collected in a much easier way. Social media and smartphones make it much easier for people to share their thoughts, status and locations in the public as long as there is wifi or 3G/4G. People always like to talk about themselves, therefore it's not surprising to see how much information can be collected from one's facebook and twitter account. And to gather this information, you don't need any search warrant or permission, Googling is enough. I have some Facebook friends that I've never met, but I do feel like knowing them for a long time - I know their families, friends, hobbies, education background, work, and even weekend plans even though I never intentionally do the research, all the information just appears automatically on my Facebook timeline. When we meet in reality, we talk like old friends.
It's nice to start a conversation with a real life stranger who happens to be a Facebook friend by avoiding unpleasant topics based on what you learned from his/her Facebook, but problems are created in the same place. We're happy to share information within certain groups, but may not want to be heard by outsiders. There was a kidnapping in China months ago when the criminal collected information about the kid from his mother's Weibo account, an figured out the best timing and place to take him away. Another case reported by a Weibo user also showed that traditional phone fraud also improved its performance by providing more detailed information of children when swindling their parents: he planned a trip to Japan with his girlfriend, and was very excited to share his plan on his Weibo. During his trip in Japan, of course he turned his Chinese cellphone off, and his parents and friends in China were not able to reach him. That was when frauds called his parents, saying he got in trouble and needed money to come back. Luckily his parents didn't buy the story and freed themselves from monetary loss, but they still suffered a lot from anxiety. Private information can induce great damage if it's obtained in the wrong hands.
There is a grey area between private lives and public ones, where the private information can be shared with the public but does not have to. In a digital era, there are tons of tools to fill up the grey area. You may not want to mention pillow talks on Facebook, but you probably will upload a weekend hiking photo there, and you never know how those browsing your Facebook will find out about you as fragmented information like this build up. We can't blame the tools for being too convenient to leak private information, as it's us who decide the line for disclosure. At Princeton, we were warned to take off all the "improper" photos and comments on Facebook by the career adviser who strongly believe interviewers will check candidates' profiles before talking to them. I guess that's Ann was trying to tell us: no one is perfect, so don't be so eager to show people everything.
 |
| http://goo.gl/VVqTv |
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Painting
Later I bought some crayons at Walmart at around $4, and tried to color some of my paintings. I did a portrait of Okitasougo, a character in Gintama. He has light brown hairs and black eyes, and always wears a dark purple uniform. This picture is about him getting angry, which turns his eyes into scarlet. Crayons help to create a more colorful world, but lack the freshness and softness in oil painting or gouache, which make the color look less authentic. If not applied well, crayons can cover the original lines and make the final product even worse than the sketch. But I slowly get a sense of coloring through these crayons.
After I have a better idea of colors, I try to use them more. This time when I did painting with Carol, I tested oil pastels in traditional Chinese painting. In general oil pastels have brighter and stronger colors than crayons: actually they are so strong that sometimes it's hard to tell whether a painting is performed with oil pastels or brushes. I enjoyed the experiment very much, and for the first time in my life I realized that traditional Chinese paintings can be copied without brushes. Later I looked at more similar paintings, and found that traditional Chinese paintings rarely have strong colors, but prefer to create room for imagination through light colors and clear lines. It came to my mind that I should use crayons instead of oil pastels. That was why I decided to paint "Mountain Streams and Pines" (松涛山涧) as below. Crayons are unable to show details (they're just too thick), but can do a good job in light coloring, which is exactly what many Chinese landscape paintings are about - or in their words, the art of space.
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Thursday, November 8, 2012
Happy Birthday, Milo
27 years have passed since 1985 when Shueisha started to serialize Saint Seiya (SS) by Kurumada Masami, one of the most influential comic artists in his days. Five years later SS was animated and won hundreds of thousands of young audiences in China after the CCTV bought the its copyrights. In days when Chinese cartoons were far less developed, SS attracted many Chinese children with its glaring pictures and extraordinary characters. Almost every student in my class watched it, and knew fictional things like "burn my cosmos" or could do a few fighting moves. I was one of the kids, and inevitably I got obsessed with SS for years. But my dad didn't allow me to watch SS too much for fear that the glaring pictures would hurt my eyesight.
20 years later, Chinese cartoons were still as poor as two decades ago, but Japanese cartoons were much more developed, and many of them were introduced to the Chinese market. The new cartoons made the SS look like a rough and childish one to its old audiences, who were young adults now. But the SS as part of our memories of childhood, is always missed. That was why they made Saint Seiya Hades, a new series of SS with better computer-made stunts and more gorgeous pictures. (Actually it was the most expensive TV- animation at that time.) In comparison to the old SS which was mainly about Bronze Saints, the new episodes were more about Golden Saints who are also stronger and prettier. This time I was a college student. I watched SS Hades with other SS fans, not worrying about its glaring pictures. The new SS Hades created a strong reminiscent mood among SS fans. New online forums, clubs, cosplays, fan comics and novels could be found everywhere. Even I ordered a SS T-shirt from the fan club in Peking University.
After the SS Hades, Golden Saints beat their Bronze peers and lead the popularity rankings, and one of the most popular Golden Saints is Milo, the Scorpius Saint. He is the youngest one in all the twelve (and later thirteen) Golden Saints, and is also viewed as one of the most emotional and caring saint in the SS. His fans always celebrate his birthday on Nov 8, based on officially released bios. In 2004, I drew a short comic about his birthday, the only comic I've ever made. One year later, I put all my fan novels of Milo into a book, and then decided it's time for me to grow up.
The moment of SS has largely gone. Its following episodes never became popular as the SS Hades. Now most SS online forums are closed, few people are still drawing or writing about SS. Days when we got together to celebrate Milo's birthday will never be back. But Japanese cartoon fans are still growing, with more new animations showing every season and old ones never coming to an end. As long as this industry grows and the Chinese cartoons continue sucking, there will be more Chinese children and teenagers becoming Japanese comic fans, and crazy about the characters in them. You can call this a cultural invasion, but I need to say cultural products like this are truly powerful.
20 years later, Chinese cartoons were still as poor as two decades ago, but Japanese cartoons were much more developed, and many of them were introduced to the Chinese market. The new cartoons made the SS look like a rough and childish one to its old audiences, who were young adults now. But the SS as part of our memories of childhood, is always missed. That was why they made Saint Seiya Hades, a new series of SS with better computer-made stunts and more gorgeous pictures. (Actually it was the most expensive TV- animation at that time.) In comparison to the old SS which was mainly about Bronze Saints, the new episodes were more about Golden Saints who are also stronger and prettier. This time I was a college student. I watched SS Hades with other SS fans, not worrying about its glaring pictures. The new SS Hades created a strong reminiscent mood among SS fans. New online forums, clubs, cosplays, fan comics and novels could be found everywhere. Even I ordered a SS T-shirt from the fan club in Peking University.
After the SS Hades, Golden Saints beat their Bronze peers and lead the popularity rankings, and one of the most popular Golden Saints is Milo, the Scorpius Saint. He is the youngest one in all the twelve (and later thirteen) Golden Saints, and is also viewed as one of the most emotional and caring saint in the SS. His fans always celebrate his birthday on Nov 8, based on officially released bios. In 2004, I drew a short comic about his birthday, the only comic I've ever made. One year later, I put all my fan novels of Milo into a book, and then decided it's time for me to grow up.
The moment of SS has largely gone. Its following episodes never became popular as the SS Hades. Now most SS online forums are closed, few people are still drawing or writing about SS. Days when we got together to celebrate Milo's birthday will never be back. But Japanese cartoon fans are still growing, with more new animations showing every season and old ones never coming to an end. As long as this industry grows and the Chinese cartoons continue sucking, there will be more Chinese children and teenagers becoming Japanese comic fans, and crazy about the characters in them. You can call this a cultural invasion, but I need to say cultural products like this are truly powerful.
 |
| Scorpio Milo |
Monday, November 5, 2012
Lost in BART, and Everywhere Else
This afternoon I took BART back to North Berkeley from Lafayette. I should first take the train to SF, transfer at MacArthur and then another train to Richmond; and I did plan to do so. However when I got off one platform and headed for another at MacArthur, I made a mistake - instead of catching the train to Richmond, I got on the one back to Pittsburg. (And I strongly believe putting two platforms so close is a design flaw.) It was very crowded on the train, I finally found a holder and stabilized myself. I didn't realize my mistake until I got to the next station. Frustrated but amused, I got off the train and went back to MacArthur again, where I finally figured out the right platform for BART to Richmond and got home in the end.
This was not the first time that I got lost in BART. About one month ago, I took BART from Powell Street to North Berkeley, and was messed up by a misleading timetable which led me to the wrong train. I was obsessed with reading on the train, and didn't realize what was going on until Gang called me, saying I was on the wrong train. Obviously he tracked my place with "find my iPhone", and found his wife going somewhere unknown. Warned by Gang, I got off the train and returned to MacArthur where I found the right train to ride on.
BART is probably one of the most convenient transportation in the bay area, and therefore I only lost twice on it. Buses are much more confusing. When I was living in the south bay, I once saw Gang off in the Caltrain station. Later I took a bus home. Though I had studied its path carefully before making the "trip", I still got off the wrong stop, and had to walk another ten minutes back. Coincidentally Xujing has witnessed my poor sense of direction during her visit to Stanford University as well. After showing her around the campus, we took a campus shuttle to the Caltrain station. Unfortunately though I got the name of the line right, I got the direction wrong. Instead of going two stops, we had a great shuttle tour of the campus and arrived at the Caltrain station more than half an hour later.
For people like me, map is nonsense. I noticed this when I went to college in Peking University. on the first day, all my roommates had no difficulties with walking to classrooms with a map except me. Later my roommate took me to classroom everyday until I was able to do it by myself about two months later. Years ago, I once showed Xinxin around Stanford with a map during her visit, which however didn't give me a clue about the locations of several places. Anyway I guided her for quite a while but had to admit I was lost in the end. So Xinxin took the map over and showed me the way back to bus stations.
What makes google map on smart phones so precious is that it shows your real-time location on map. Ever since I had that iPhone 4, I never got lost on Princeton campus, although it took me a few months to be able to walk to Robertson Hall from GC without referring to iPhone, and I did once have a difficult time to go back to Magie because even the roads on google maps were very confusing. Another invention that I'm very grateful of is GPS navigation systems in cars. I used GPS everytime I drive, even to a Safeway which is 1 mile from my apt. The logic is that if I can't tell directions when I'm walking, there is no way for me to tell directions when I'm focusing on driving.
I had some problems in finding ways abroad when 3G on my iPhone was blocked, but luckily I was always traveling with someone who could tell directions. So far I didn't make a single emergent call for help with road guidance. So at least there is something that I can be proud of.
This was not the first time that I got lost in BART. About one month ago, I took BART from Powell Street to North Berkeley, and was messed up by a misleading timetable which led me to the wrong train. I was obsessed with reading on the train, and didn't realize what was going on until Gang called me, saying I was on the wrong train. Obviously he tracked my place with "find my iPhone", and found his wife going somewhere unknown. Warned by Gang, I got off the train and returned to MacArthur where I found the right train to ride on.
BART is probably one of the most convenient transportation in the bay area, and therefore I only lost twice on it. Buses are much more confusing. When I was living in the south bay, I once saw Gang off in the Caltrain station. Later I took a bus home. Though I had studied its path carefully before making the "trip", I still got off the wrong stop, and had to walk another ten minutes back. Coincidentally Xujing has witnessed my poor sense of direction during her visit to Stanford University as well. After showing her around the campus, we took a campus shuttle to the Caltrain station. Unfortunately though I got the name of the line right, I got the direction wrong. Instead of going two stops, we had a great shuttle tour of the campus and arrived at the Caltrain station more than half an hour later.
For people like me, map is nonsense. I noticed this when I went to college in Peking University. on the first day, all my roommates had no difficulties with walking to classrooms with a map except me. Later my roommate took me to classroom everyday until I was able to do it by myself about two months later. Years ago, I once showed Xinxin around Stanford with a map during her visit, which however didn't give me a clue about the locations of several places. Anyway I guided her for quite a while but had to admit I was lost in the end. So Xinxin took the map over and showed me the way back to bus stations.
What makes google map on smart phones so precious is that it shows your real-time location on map. Ever since I had that iPhone 4, I never got lost on Princeton campus, although it took me a few months to be able to walk to Robertson Hall from GC without referring to iPhone, and I did once have a difficult time to go back to Magie because even the roads on google maps were very confusing. Another invention that I'm very grateful of is GPS navigation systems in cars. I used GPS everytime I drive, even to a Safeway which is 1 mile from my apt. The logic is that if I can't tell directions when I'm walking, there is no way for me to tell directions when I'm focusing on driving.
I had some problems in finding ways abroad when 3G on my iPhone was blocked, but luckily I was always traveling with someone who could tell directions. So far I didn't make a single emergent call for help with road guidance. So at least there is something that I can be proud of.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Things That Are Unexpected
Gang and I are browsing the latest news and pictures about Sandy, which turned New York City and its neighborhood into an empty area overnight. Friends on the east coast have been updating their status on Facebook and Weibo, such as "out of power" and "on vacation", etc. We luckily are enjoying sunshine in California and have access to electricity, water and internet, but many people have their normal lives interrupted by the hurricane. They may plan to celebrate their birthday or anniversary tonight, or have already invited friends and relatives over for weddings on Monday, or need to close a big deal with overseas partners as soon as possible. However unexpected natural disasters prevent them from following original plans, and force them to go for alternatives - stay in the dark, read or play board games by candlelight while waiting for Sandy's pass.
I always view myself an organized person with strict agenda of getting things done at different times. Unexpected situations can be very annoying. Small changes to plans are tolerable: such as one more problem set due this week, another party to go tonight, or new paper topics. Some changes, though big, leave enough room for me to react and therefore are easy to accept as well, such as marriage and new jobs.
What can be really troublesome is big sudden changes. Last year I went on a field research with five classmates and a professor from Princeton University. We spent three days in Namibia and then went to South Africa, where my luggage were stolen the night before we were about to leave. Everything seemed to change overnight. For all the past two months, I collected data from all the SARB MPC reports, surveys and other database, recorded information through interviews with local government officials and entrepreneurs during the field trip, and wrote my paper day and night, in hope to finish most of the paper by the end of the month. Suddenly my laptop and interview notes were stolen without a copy of my paper or excel files saved online. In other words, I had to repeat the work that I'd already spent two months on. What's worse, my passport was taken away as well, which meant I did not only need a new passport but also a new US visa to go back. Without a penny in my pocket, I was worried that I would spend weeks here miserably and missed all the courses in the rest of the semester without a laptop to either continue to work on my paper or download online readings and lecture notes for other courses. Luckily, with the help from alumni and friends, I received both my travel document and visa in a week, and finally got back. But I remember when I was told by the US consulate that they couldn't issue visas on a Chinese travel document and my only choice was to go back to China to get a new passport and then a US visa there, I did start to plan how to take the rest courses in China and how long should I postpone my graduation in case I couldn't get enough credits by the end of the year.
Sudden disasters brought challenges, but also made us feel better about our lives when they were over. I was stressed by all the qualifying exam and job search stuff before I left for Africa. But after all these happened, I only felt lucky that I didn't wake up when the guy was lurking into my room and thus protected myself from any physical hurt; and I found it so unworthy to worry about things like jobs and exams when I was facing the danger of deferment. I guess that's the biggest thing I learned about things that are unexpected: they remind us what we should be grateful of.
I always view myself an organized person with strict agenda of getting things done at different times. Unexpected situations can be very annoying. Small changes to plans are tolerable: such as one more problem set due this week, another party to go tonight, or new paper topics. Some changes, though big, leave enough room for me to react and therefore are easy to accept as well, such as marriage and new jobs.
What can be really troublesome is big sudden changes. Last year I went on a field research with five classmates and a professor from Princeton University. We spent three days in Namibia and then went to South Africa, where my luggage were stolen the night before we were about to leave. Everything seemed to change overnight. For all the past two months, I collected data from all the SARB MPC reports, surveys and other database, recorded information through interviews with local government officials and entrepreneurs during the field trip, and wrote my paper day and night, in hope to finish most of the paper by the end of the month. Suddenly my laptop and interview notes were stolen without a copy of my paper or excel files saved online. In other words, I had to repeat the work that I'd already spent two months on. What's worse, my passport was taken away as well, which meant I did not only need a new passport but also a new US visa to go back. Without a penny in my pocket, I was worried that I would spend weeks here miserably and missed all the courses in the rest of the semester without a laptop to either continue to work on my paper or download online readings and lecture notes for other courses. Luckily, with the help from alumni and friends, I received both my travel document and visa in a week, and finally got back. But I remember when I was told by the US consulate that they couldn't issue visas on a Chinese travel document and my only choice was to go back to China to get a new passport and then a US visa there, I did start to plan how to take the rest courses in China and how long should I postpone my graduation in case I couldn't get enough credits by the end of the year.
Sudden disasters brought challenges, but also made us feel better about our lives when they were over. I was stressed by all the qualifying exam and job search stuff before I left for Africa. But after all these happened, I only felt lucky that I didn't wake up when the guy was lurking into my room and thus protected myself from any physical hurt; and I found it so unworthy to worry about things like jobs and exams when I was facing the danger of deferment. I guess that's the biggest thing I learned about things that are unexpected: they remind us what we should be grateful of.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
A Car Accident
My car was hit when a Civic tried to overtake me from the left. The driver drove so fast that her car caught up from the behind soon and forced to change the lane before fully overtaking me, leaving scratches and a dent on the left side of my new Honda.
We've maintained a great driving record since moving to the US, and no accident has ever been reported. The result was that neither Gang nor I knew what to do after the accident happened. I called 911, and was suggested to exchange our insurance information with the driver and report to my insurance company. So we got the insurance information and the driver license number done, and took pictures of scratches on each car. The young lady seemed to be driving her parents' car, whose insurance was under her parents' names and expired three days. I contacted my insurance company and was told that because today is Sunday no one was there to provide service. Reluctantly we let the young driver go. And just before we were about to leave, Gang saw a police car coming. We stopped the car, and asked the policeman for advice to handle issues like this. He said the same thing: let the insurance company handle this.
Things look surprisingly simple. There was no shouting at each other or complaints. Both parties were busy making phone calls, writing down information and taking photos. Thanks to iPhone which makes all these things very easy. But for sure driver license should not be issued to careless young drivers like this. I don't know how the auto insurance company with handle this - since it is difficult to find witnesses for what happened this afternoon, I have no idea about how they could figure things out. But at least we've experienced one more thing in the US.
We've maintained a great driving record since moving to the US, and no accident has ever been reported. The result was that neither Gang nor I knew what to do after the accident happened. I called 911, and was suggested to exchange our insurance information with the driver and report to my insurance company. So we got the insurance information and the driver license number done, and took pictures of scratches on each car. The young lady seemed to be driving her parents' car, whose insurance was under her parents' names and expired three days. I contacted my insurance company and was told that because today is Sunday no one was there to provide service. Reluctantly we let the young driver go. And just before we were about to leave, Gang saw a police car coming. We stopped the car, and asked the policeman for advice to handle issues like this. He said the same thing: let the insurance company handle this.
Things look surprisingly simple. There was no shouting at each other or complaints. Both parties were busy making phone calls, writing down information and taking photos. Thanks to iPhone which makes all these things very easy. But for sure driver license should not be issued to careless young drivers like this. I don't know how the auto insurance company with handle this - since it is difficult to find witnesses for what happened this afternoon, I have no idea about how they could figure things out. But at least we've experienced one more thing in the US.
Monday, October 22, 2012
English is Hard
Most Chinese students start learning English in middle school, taking 4-5 English courses per week and dealing with piles of homework and exams. After six hellish years in middle school and high school, some of them decide that they've had enough, and will never read or speak English; and some decide to continue their English studies by taking more English courses and having more assignment and exams. I'm one of the latter: English courses were compulsory for students in my school, and I took at least one English courses per semester. Some English courses were taught by native speakers, and what we did in class was basically watching TV shows or playing games; some were taught by Chinese professors, who showed great interests in tangling with jargon in political science.
My point is I had been learning English successively for ten years before coming to the US, and I still found it difficult to communicate with local people! One day I went to do laundry, and a friend of mine was in the laundry room too. She asked me if she could use my "detergent". I stood still and looked at her in confusion, holding the detergent in my hands. "Sorry, what's deter...?"
She pointed at the bottle in my hand, "Can I use this?"
"Oh of course, help yourself." I finally understood the meaning of "detergent".
Yes, don't laugh, I know what "authoritarianism" is, but I didn't know what "detergent" is.
Some English words are translated into the same Chinese word, but they do have different meanings in English. This story happened during my second year at Princeton, when my roommate Leslie and I were preparing a surprise Birthday party for Vanessa, the other roommate. Our plan was to have her husband come over from NYC and celebrated her birthday with friends at night - after our class on impact evaluation at 9pm. Leslie was running some errand in the afternoon, therefore she left the apt key under mat for Vanessa's husband, who would have access to the apt when Leslie was away. Things do not always go as they are planned. Vanessa went back to apt in the afternoon before her husband arrived, and found the mat was kicked away by someone and the key was left outside. So she asked Leslie, who happened to be with her at that time. Leslie answered calmly:" Oh it's Keqin's key." And she soon called me, saying her key under the "mat" was found by Vanessa, she claimed it to be mine, and she wanted to make sure that I wouldn't give her away. I caught the keyword "mat", but unfortunately the first thing came to my mind was the rug in the living room. I wanted to ask Leslie why she hid her key under the rug in the living room, but she hang up. Later that night, I was assigned the task of walking back to the apartment with Vanessa after the evening class, and slowing her down so that other people would have enough time to set up. I thought for a while, and found a perfect excuse (I thought). So I asked Vanessa: "I left my key in the apartment, can I go back with you?"
Vanessa looked confused: "I thought you left the key for someone under the mat."
"Yes, that's why I don't have it..." Then I realized the true "mat" that Leslie was talking about.
Vanessa looked at me in suspicious. I stood there awkwardly, having no idea of how to explain it. Later she told me she sensed the party a little bit by my mistake. And I learned the difference between mat and rug.
The other day I drove my car for smog check. After the check was done, the mechanic was typing something into his computer. I asked him if I could get a "hard copy" of the smog check report so that I could bring it over to DMV. He looked at me strangely and said: "Well, then I have to make it."
I said to myself, "this guy is so lazy, he doesn't even want to print it!" So I replied, "then can you make it?"
The mechanic paused for a few seconds, and said: "Sure... but it might take a while."
I felt he was reluctant to make the "hard copy", but I couldn't figure out why, and I didn't understand how printing a copy could "take a while". So I explained to him that I knew usually the report was sent to DMV's database directly so it wouldn't be a big problem if I didn't have to hard copy with me, but in case things went wrong, it was always better to obtain a hard copy.
"Oh!" He laughed, "I thought you wanted a 'hot coffee'!"
These are some of my wonderful memories with English. A lovely language!
My point is I had been learning English successively for ten years before coming to the US, and I still found it difficult to communicate with local people! One day I went to do laundry, and a friend of mine was in the laundry room too. She asked me if she could use my "detergent". I stood still and looked at her in confusion, holding the detergent in my hands. "Sorry, what's deter...?"
She pointed at the bottle in my hand, "Can I use this?"
"Oh of course, help yourself." I finally understood the meaning of "detergent".
Yes, don't laugh, I know what "authoritarianism" is, but I didn't know what "detergent" is.
Some English words are translated into the same Chinese word, but they do have different meanings in English. This story happened during my second year at Princeton, when my roommate Leslie and I were preparing a surprise Birthday party for Vanessa, the other roommate. Our plan was to have her husband come over from NYC and celebrated her birthday with friends at night - after our class on impact evaluation at 9pm. Leslie was running some errand in the afternoon, therefore she left the apt key under mat for Vanessa's husband, who would have access to the apt when Leslie was away. Things do not always go as they are planned. Vanessa went back to apt in the afternoon before her husband arrived, and found the mat was kicked away by someone and the key was left outside. So she asked Leslie, who happened to be with her at that time. Leslie answered calmly:" Oh it's Keqin's key." And she soon called me, saying her key under the "mat" was found by Vanessa, she claimed it to be mine, and she wanted to make sure that I wouldn't give her away. I caught the keyword "mat", but unfortunately the first thing came to my mind was the rug in the living room. I wanted to ask Leslie why she hid her key under the rug in the living room, but she hang up. Later that night, I was assigned the task of walking back to the apartment with Vanessa after the evening class, and slowing her down so that other people would have enough time to set up. I thought for a while, and found a perfect excuse (I thought). So I asked Vanessa: "I left my key in the apartment, can I go back with you?"
Vanessa looked confused: "I thought you left the key for someone under the mat."
"Yes, that's why I don't have it..." Then I realized the true "mat" that Leslie was talking about.
Vanessa looked at me in suspicious. I stood there awkwardly, having no idea of how to explain it. Later she told me she sensed the party a little bit by my mistake. And I learned the difference between mat and rug.
The other day I drove my car for smog check. After the check was done, the mechanic was typing something into his computer. I asked him if I could get a "hard copy" of the smog check report so that I could bring it over to DMV. He looked at me strangely and said: "Well, then I have to make it."
I said to myself, "this guy is so lazy, he doesn't even want to print it!" So I replied, "then can you make it?"
The mechanic paused for a few seconds, and said: "Sure... but it might take a while."
I felt he was reluctant to make the "hard copy", but I couldn't figure out why, and I didn't understand how printing a copy could "take a while". So I explained to him that I knew usually the report was sent to DMV's database directly so it wouldn't be a big problem if I didn't have to hard copy with me, but in case things went wrong, it was always better to obtain a hard copy.
"Oh!" He laughed, "I thought you wanted a 'hot coffee'!"
These are some of my wonderful memories with English. A lovely language!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
App's App
As iPhones and iPads further consolidate their monopoly in the smartphone and tablet PC market, more Apps are available in App Store as well. I used to check App Store once in a month, and always found the same games ranking in the Top 25. But now the market is much more competitive, with new popular games emerging every week. Especially as the format of App Store changes, more opportunities are offered to new games. But how to direct consumers to "good and cheap" ones? That's the job for App's App. Several App's App serve as categories for the hundreds of thousands of Apps in the store. They rank Apps in the same category by reviews, show the price change of paid Apps and recommend similar or complementary Apps by detecting users' current Apps. They are helpful in choosing Apps, but now people obviously find out that App's App has become a big market itself, thus more and more App's App are developed to cater different customer groups.
I have more than fifty Apps in my iPad, and less than 20% of them are used frequently - as a woman staying with a WiFi-equipped laptop for the most of the day, I don't need to use iPad that much. Every time I came across a new App, I said to myself "this is fancy" or "it must be useful", but it always ended as a disposable App whose function I couldn't even recall after a week, let alone using it any more. Over time, my iPad and iPhone are packed with Apps and I have to clean them periodically. App's App improves my addiction to downloading new Apps thanks to their luring introductions, but also speeds up my cleaning frequency. Sometimes I find myself an idler who are more fond of exploring new App ideas rather than finding really useful Apps.
When I reckon how much iPhone and iPad reshaped my life in the last two years, the change was silent but obvious. Now I can't think of traveling without a "map" App (well Apple's map almost pushes me to use paper maps other than that in iPhone), or waiting in the bus station without checking "Facebook" or "twitter", or failing to take photos when seeing something funny around. Now I'm used to checking emails, taking photos, recording information and playing games everywhere - at home, on bus, in shopping mall, at a coffee shop, etc. I also believe I'm not alone. People used to talk or read on BART, but now they play iPhone. When demands are created, they won't vanish until better replacements are found.
In the presence of booming Apps, people can easily get lost when they have too many options. App's App is hardly the solution - itself is getting into trouble because of the large numbers, and neither is App's App's App. What truly serve the customers' interests is a better categorized App Store, with a review ranking system and detailed introduction of each App - some of them have such fancy names that you can figure out their true functions until downloading them. We are just dumb consumers who pay for anything that looks good in App Store, so please at least make our shopping experiences better.
I have more than fifty Apps in my iPad, and less than 20% of them are used frequently - as a woman staying with a WiFi-equipped laptop for the most of the day, I don't need to use iPad that much. Every time I came across a new App, I said to myself "this is fancy" or "it must be useful", but it always ended as a disposable App whose function I couldn't even recall after a week, let alone using it any more. Over time, my iPad and iPhone are packed with Apps and I have to clean them periodically. App's App improves my addiction to downloading new Apps thanks to their luring introductions, but also speeds up my cleaning frequency. Sometimes I find myself an idler who are more fond of exploring new App ideas rather than finding really useful Apps.
When I reckon how much iPhone and iPad reshaped my life in the last two years, the change was silent but obvious. Now I can't think of traveling without a "map" App (well Apple's map almost pushes me to use paper maps other than that in iPhone), or waiting in the bus station without checking "Facebook" or "twitter", or failing to take photos when seeing something funny around. Now I'm used to checking emails, taking photos, recording information and playing games everywhere - at home, on bus, in shopping mall, at a coffee shop, etc. I also believe I'm not alone. People used to talk or read on BART, but now they play iPhone. When demands are created, they won't vanish until better replacements are found.
In the presence of booming Apps, people can easily get lost when they have too many options. App's App is hardly the solution - itself is getting into trouble because of the large numbers, and neither is App's App's App. What truly serve the customers' interests is a better categorized App Store, with a review ranking system and detailed introduction of each App - some of them have such fancy names that you can figure out their true functions until downloading them. We are just dumb consumers who pay for anything that looks good in App Store, so please at least make our shopping experiences better.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
My Teeth
Two years ago, one of my teeth ached for a few days. I didn't pay much attention at the beginning but it finally came to the point of unbearable. Therefore I went to see my dentist for the first time in the US and had that naughty baby extracted. My dentist is a nice gentleman, he did my first deep teeth cleaning and suggested me to use floss, which helped me maintain the health of both teeth and gum a lot. Also for the first time of my life, I got an X-ray of my teeth, and found out I actually have 32 teeth (well, 31 half an hour later), four of which are wisdom teeth. Later I had other two teeth extracted even though they were not infected for the sake of prevention. The last wisdom tooth was troublesome: it's deeply buried in the bone and then firmly covered by gum. So my dentist explained to me that he was not able to extract that one, but if I'd like he could refer me to a specialist.
I did go to see the specialist, who checked my X-ray and mouth, and told me he could do it. I made the appointment, and finally cancelled it because of the lack of courage to have my bone cut. The fourth wisdom tooth had no idea its life was changed in a minute, and still stayed quietly in the past two years as it did before. Recently I read articles about how hormones might affect oral health and made wisdom teeth brisker than usual. Not surprisingly I thought of getting rid of this last potential trouble. Again, I got a referral from my dentist (a new one), and went to see the specialist this afternoon. This was my best dental experience ever: the doctor explained to me the pros and cons of extracting such a deeply imbedded tooth, how the infection happens and why I didn't need to worry about the tooth which has no opportunity of touching either saliva or air. After so many dentists pushing me to extract this obedient tooth, I finally heard something different. And it looks like Dr. Krey did care a lot about patients rather than charging for another surgery.
I remember when I was a little kid, my mother once brought to a dentist for tooth decay (yes I liked candies). The dentist extracted my decayed tooth and told my mom to buy my an ice-cream to help stop bleeding. I was scared to see the dentist and have the surgery, but was delighted to know that I could be awarded with an ice-cream for my brave behavior. Later that day I got an expensive ice-cream with raisin in it. That ice-cream changed all my impression of dental surgery ever since. After that, my teeth have been growing neatly and healthily, therefore I stopped visiting dentists anymore. In China the oral health care is in general much less developed. Very few use floss or clean teeth regularly, and most people have no X-ray pic of teeth through their whole lives. In recent years, people start to understand more about the importance of oral health, and start to clean teeth or wear braces if needed. These hidden babies are taken better care of.
I did go to see the specialist, who checked my X-ray and mouth, and told me he could do it. I made the appointment, and finally cancelled it because of the lack of courage to have my bone cut. The fourth wisdom tooth had no idea its life was changed in a minute, and still stayed quietly in the past two years as it did before. Recently I read articles about how hormones might affect oral health and made wisdom teeth brisker than usual. Not surprisingly I thought of getting rid of this last potential trouble. Again, I got a referral from my dentist (a new one), and went to see the specialist this afternoon. This was my best dental experience ever: the doctor explained to me the pros and cons of extracting such a deeply imbedded tooth, how the infection happens and why I didn't need to worry about the tooth which has no opportunity of touching either saliva or air. After so many dentists pushing me to extract this obedient tooth, I finally heard something different. And it looks like Dr. Krey did care a lot about patients rather than charging for another surgery.
I remember when I was a little kid, my mother once brought to a dentist for tooth decay (yes I liked candies). The dentist extracted my decayed tooth and told my mom to buy my an ice-cream to help stop bleeding. I was scared to see the dentist and have the surgery, but was delighted to know that I could be awarded with an ice-cream for my brave behavior. Later that day I got an expensive ice-cream with raisin in it. That ice-cream changed all my impression of dental surgery ever since. After that, my teeth have been growing neatly and healthily, therefore I stopped visiting dentists anymore. In China the oral health care is in general much less developed. Very few use floss or clean teeth regularly, and most people have no X-ray pic of teeth through their whole lives. In recent years, people start to understand more about the importance of oral health, and start to clean teeth or wear braces if needed. These hidden babies are taken better care of.
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Monday, October 15, 2012
Sore Body
I went hiking with Gang and several friends yesterday in Mission Peak Reserve. It has been two years since my last visit. I didn't do well last time - I hiked for about one hour, then realized the peak was still far away, so I decided to go back. This time I had no motivation for a better performance, however all my friends seemed determined in reaching the peak. Finally peers' pressure pushed my all the way up. Hours later, I stood on the rocks and looked downhill with my heart beating crazily.
Luckily it took less effort to go down. Tired and exhausted, I had a wonderful sleep after a big dinner last night. All the pain happened this morning. I woke up with a stiff body, every joint was aching and sitting up became extremely challenging. I slowly got off the bed and dressed myself, acting as if I were seventy years old. My legs were particularly out of control: lifting legs and stepping forward was killing me! I did a little stretch in the room, and walked slowly to the school later.
I always know I lack exercises, and the cost of occasional exercise is a sore body. In my high school, PE was compulsory. Therefore no matter how much I hated it, I had to pass it to graduate. In that sense, I did exercise regularly, at least twice a week, and built strong body. College life was far more relaxing. Only 4 credits of PE was required out of more than 136 credits to own a bachelor degree. I learned swimming and dancing there, both of which were not very intense. There was only one semester, in which all the female students were required to pass a 1,800 meter running exam. I did get sweaty in that year. I guess my most strenuous exercise since then was walking - walking from home to work place, or from dormitory to classrooms. Sometimes I went to do yoga with friends, contorting my body as Chinese dough twists (麻花). But that was hardly an exercise either.
I knew I have no luck to be athletic in the future since I was five, when my parents desperately found out I couldn't accomplish some gymnastic movements, such as bending down to press head against thigh, etc, like my peers. I told them that was because I'm an unyielding woman. Anyway, I guess advantages and disadvantages of our genes shaped our lives in early times - I got C in PE and A in math.
All that said, it's not a good idea to give up what you're not good at. Otherwise they will revenge, e.g. with a sore body.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Sunday Streets Berkeley
This Sunday saw the first Open Streets in Berkeley. Shattuck Ave was blocked from autos and reserved for the activities. Gang and I walked there at noon and looked around. It was nice to see so many people hanging out in weekends, and also quite exciting to get a taste of connections in a community.
We arrived there at around 11:30am. Obviously the Sunday Streets in Berkeley followed a Berkeley time - i it was supposed to start at 11:00am, but very few people were wandering around on our arrival. We passed several vendors and campaign stalls before we found a tent to promote local communication. Two lovely volunteers, both around 5 to 6 years old, were distributing cards to pedestrians. They looked at you sincerely, and asked with that special children's tone: “Would you like to take a look?" No one could reject them. Yes they were probably the most successful flyers today.
At the cross of Shattuck Ave and Lincoln Street, a young lady was giving away her oil paintings for free. She showed me the oil paints and palette she was using, and the ideas of her painting. Her paintings had luscious colors and dynamic compositions. It looked like she enjoyed the creative work, as she said, "you can understand my paintings as you like." I didn't pick one on our way to the Cheeseboard, but when we were back, all her works were taken away. Not too far away from her, there was a face painting workshop where children were waiting in queue. A little girl just had her face painted as a cute cougar. Artists are everywhere.
Interesting activities, such as a minivan theater, human-sized chess games on the floor (like the one in Harry Potter), Hula-hooping and Yoga classes, as well as drumming workshops, attracted big crowds, children in particular. But the highlight of the day was a pedal-powered concert. A band was playing music, with about 8 people, most of whom were volunteers riding bikes around to generate electricity for the audio equipment. Both Gang and I tried for a while. It might not be easy for one person to provide enough electricity supply for the entire performance. But since the crowd found this new green performance interesting, people kept joining in, and helped the performance continue.
After a big lunch at Cheeseboard, we headed back. Shattuck became more packed with pedestrians and cyclists. Children were having fun in different craft workshops and games; parents could relax with their fellows by looking at their children; all sorts of organizations seized the opportunity of advocating/opposing certain bills, and very luckily that the bay area is so blue that no one even bothered to campaign for Obama.
At the cross of Shattuck Ave and Lincoln Street, a young lady was giving away her oil paintings for free. She showed me the oil paints and palette she was using, and the ideas of her painting. Her paintings had luscious colors and dynamic compositions. It looked like she enjoyed the creative work, as she said, "you can understand my paintings as you like." I didn't pick one on our way to the Cheeseboard, but when we were back, all her works were taken away. Not too far away from her, there was a face painting workshop where children were waiting in queue. A little girl just had her face painted as a cute cougar. Artists are everywhere.
After a big lunch at Cheeseboard, we headed back. Shattuck became more packed with pedestrians and cyclists. Children were having fun in different craft workshops and games; parents could relax with their fellows by looking at their children; all sorts of organizations seized the opportunity of advocating/opposing certain bills, and very luckily that the bay area is so blue that no one even bothered to campaign for Obama.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Parenting
I've been watching Modern Family these days, which is about three related families - how they deal with each other, and more importantly how parents deal with their children. I must say I don't feel confident about becoming a cool parent in the future after watching it. To be a cool parent, you need to understand your children, be sensitive to their emotional demands, but not too sensitive if they don't want so; you need to acquire some sports skills - football (or soccer in the US), basketball and baseball to cope with their constantly changing interests; and you probably even need to be strong enough to take crazy rides at Disneyland with them. To put in short, you have to be omnipotent as they demand, and disappear when you're not in need. What's worse, you pay for your own work.
Gang and I have been talking about pregnancy for a while, and I start to read related books. There seems to be enough problems when you're pregnant, but now I'm reminded that the worse is afterwards. After the short joyful moment of bringing a new life to the world, you start to make all sorts of efforts to raise him/her up in a healthy and happy way. I can hardly picture myself a capable mother, who can understand what infants are trying to express through their waving hands and babbles, teach them a language which is not even my mother tongue, start a conversation on sensitive topics or teach them how to dance in proms. There are simply too many skills to learn to help them grow up, which is almost like having a new growth experience for myself. I've never taken any course on how to bring up an Asian baby in the US, and I have 0-year experience in this field, I can't say I can do it.
Parents never stop worrying. When children are still infants, you worry about whether they will grow up healthily, and watch your words and behaviors to immune them from inappropriate impacts; when they're kids, you worry about whether they can do at least average in schools; when they grow up, you worry about how they deal with their peers, and if they're too close to some of them; and even when they finally get a job and start a family, your pains are not ending - it's time for them to remind you of all the peccadillo you've made during their growths. Sometimes I get frustrated because of the problems out of my control, and I can see how this kind of frustration become more frequently in the future when dealing with an infant, a kid and a teenager.
At the end of the blog, to clarify, first I'm not a control freak, second I'm not pregnant yet. I guess I'm just a little bit worried about my future baby who's gonna to be raised by two nerdy parents, both of which knowing more about Confucius than "row row row your boat."
Gang and I have been talking about pregnancy for a while, and I start to read related books. There seems to be enough problems when you're pregnant, but now I'm reminded that the worse is afterwards. After the short joyful moment of bringing a new life to the world, you start to make all sorts of efforts to raise him/her up in a healthy and happy way. I can hardly picture myself a capable mother, who can understand what infants are trying to express through their waving hands and babbles, teach them a language which is not even my mother tongue, start a conversation on sensitive topics or teach them how to dance in proms. There are simply too many skills to learn to help them grow up, which is almost like having a new growth experience for myself. I've never taken any course on how to bring up an Asian baby in the US, and I have 0-year experience in this field, I can't say I can do it.
Parents never stop worrying. When children are still infants, you worry about whether they will grow up healthily, and watch your words and behaviors to immune them from inappropriate impacts; when they're kids, you worry about whether they can do at least average in schools; when they grow up, you worry about how they deal with their peers, and if they're too close to some of them; and even when they finally get a job and start a family, your pains are not ending - it's time for them to remind you of all the peccadillo you've made during their growths. Sometimes I get frustrated because of the problems out of my control, and I can see how this kind of frustration become more frequently in the future when dealing with an infant, a kid and a teenager.
At the end of the blog, to clarify, first I'm not a control freak, second I'm not pregnant yet. I guess I'm just a little bit worried about my future baby who's gonna to be raised by two nerdy parents, both of which knowing more about Confucius than "row row row your boat."
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| Modern Family |
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Price Hike
Gang and I went to Costco today, and got surprised at the gas price. About two months ago, a fire at a refinery in Richmond pushed the gas price to above $4 per gallon, which was bad enough but we gradually got used to. Recently it seems to get worse - now it's around $4.8 per gallon. Even Costco Gasoline, which has a reputation for offering lower-than-neighbor gas prices charges at $4.4 today. We checked on Google later, and it seems that the gas price has been increasing by 10c per day since Oct 1st due to a blackout of a refinery in Torrance. California is not the only state which suffers from high gas price, but it tops the list by an average price of $4.61 per gallon. If all these changes in price happened two months ago, I'm not sure if we'd still go for the current Honda Accord, or choose a compact with higher MPG at the cost of convenience.
I probably shouldn't be worried since gas price fluctuates all the time, since we may be just not lucky enough to see several accidents hitting the fragile energy system in California. By contrast, the price hike in living goods is more stable and continuous. The price of items at Costco has increased substantially since my first visit. I remember I once bought great cherries at around $1.2 per pound, but this summer the cheapest package asked for $3 per pound. Other daily necessities have increased by a few bucks as well, vegetables and fruits in particular. The straw that breaks the camel's back is Kirkland's caramel almond vanilla ice-cream, which totally changes my consumption preferences for ice-cream. Luckily the cheesecake and tiramisu are still good.
So, high inflation and high unemployment - this is not what Phillip curve told us. (Btw, I don't really buy the idea of the adjusted Phillip curve: you never know where the π* and u* are in the real world!) Maybe the economy is recovering, in an unobservable way; or it's a good idea to have Bernanke to adopt an inflation-targeting policy and get prices fixed first. Whatever it is, things do look good right now. If cities are equipped with good public transportation system, I'm always happy to go by bus pass; but if the government can't have enough buses running, I do not see why people should be happy with paying $4.8 for a gallon.
I probably shouldn't be worried since gas price fluctuates all the time, since we may be just not lucky enough to see several accidents hitting the fragile energy system in California. By contrast, the price hike in living goods is more stable and continuous. The price of items at Costco has increased substantially since my first visit. I remember I once bought great cherries at around $1.2 per pound, but this summer the cheapest package asked for $3 per pound. Other daily necessities have increased by a few bucks as well, vegetables and fruits in particular. The straw that breaks the camel's back is Kirkland's caramel almond vanilla ice-cream, which totally changes my consumption preferences for ice-cream. Luckily the cheesecake and tiramisu are still good.
So, high inflation and high unemployment - this is not what Phillip curve told us. (Btw, I don't really buy the idea of the adjusted Phillip curve: you never know where the π* and u* are in the real world!) Maybe the economy is recovering, in an unobservable way; or it's a good idea to have Bernanke to adopt an inflation-targeting policy and get prices fixed first. Whatever it is, things do look good right now. If cities are equipped with good public transportation system, I'm always happy to go by bus pass; but if the government can't have enough buses running, I do not see why people should be happy with paying $4.8 for a gallon.
Friday, October 5, 2012
They Are Back
By "they", I mean The Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother and 2 Broke Girl. After a long summer break, all these comedies finally came back with the latest season. I've been trying to catch up with the first few episodes these days.
I started to watch American comedies in college, starting with the 10-season Friends. Actually I've watched it for so many times that I'd still remember many dialogues and scenes from the show. Later I watched Growing Pains, a family comedy from 1980s. When I ran out of American comedies and looked for replacement, I found that BBC had produced great (actually even better than its American counterparts) comedies, including the Black Adder, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. After exhausting comedies, I switched to detective ones, CSI, the Monk, etc. Farah introduced Hulu.com to me weeks after I started school, which provides me with tons of latest episodes ever since: The Simpsons, South Park, The Family Guy, Two and A Half Men, and all the other 20- to 30-min TV shows that bring great joy to me.
Most of my friends joined me in watching these American TV shows when I was in Beijing, hoping to practice English while having some fun. Well, it didn't really work. But I did find them revealing a taste of how lives on the other side of the earth could be like. Feelings became more real after my arrival in the US: I'd tell some scenes in the show (actually it's ironic to talk about "scenes" since most of them are sitcoms). When I was watching the Monk, though I knew it wasn't a top detective TV show, I never missed a episode because I loved the rolling streets in San Francisco and intensive meters. Years after I first watched the Friends, I wandered around the Central Park, and couldn't help thinking lovely young people like Chandler were living in this lively city. Most American TV shows, though not helpful in improving my language skills, familiarized myself with a different culture.
But most American comedies are not comparable to their peers in Britain. I'd rank Black Adder, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister has occupied my top three comedies for a long time. BBC seems to be better at sarcasm while Americans seem to enjoy humor of everyday life. Thank god I learned some English, therefore I still get things to watch when Chinese TV shows have been sucking for decades.
I started to watch American comedies in college, starting with the 10-season Friends. Actually I've watched it for so many times that I'd still remember many dialogues and scenes from the show. Later I watched Growing Pains, a family comedy from 1980s. When I ran out of American comedies and looked for replacement, I found that BBC had produced great (actually even better than its American counterparts) comedies, including the Black Adder, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. After exhausting comedies, I switched to detective ones, CSI, the Monk, etc. Farah introduced Hulu.com to me weeks after I started school, which provides me with tons of latest episodes ever since: The Simpsons, South Park, The Family Guy, Two and A Half Men, and all the other 20- to 30-min TV shows that bring great joy to me.
Most of my friends joined me in watching these American TV shows when I was in Beijing, hoping to practice English while having some fun. Well, it didn't really work. But I did find them revealing a taste of how lives on the other side of the earth could be like. Feelings became more real after my arrival in the US: I'd tell some scenes in the show (actually it's ironic to talk about "scenes" since most of them are sitcoms). When I was watching the Monk, though I knew it wasn't a top detective TV show, I never missed a episode because I loved the rolling streets in San Francisco and intensive meters. Years after I first watched the Friends, I wandered around the Central Park, and couldn't help thinking lovely young people like Chandler were living in this lively city. Most American TV shows, though not helpful in improving my language skills, familiarized myself with a different culture.
But most American comedies are not comparable to their peers in Britain. I'd rank Black Adder, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister has occupied my top three comedies for a long time. BBC seems to be better at sarcasm while Americans seem to enjoy humor of everyday life. Thank god I learned some English, therefore I still get things to watch when Chinese TV shows have been sucking for decades.
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