The Ambassador of Peace on LINE

Trying to keep the peace, when members in your group are at each other’s throats, when they get on each other’s nerves, what can you do?  Try to mediate, in a round-and-about sort of a way, so you don’t end up, as the common enemies, but it’s, not that easy!  Translated…

My daughter-in-law one day, chimed excitedly, to the Family LINE group, how there’s, a night market close to her home, and the photo she’d sent to the group was a street, lit up with the lights during the nights, with a world of fried food stands, the arcades, I’d immediately replied back, “be careful as you don’t know the quality of oils the owners used to fry the foods, and the kids shouldn’t be allowed to play those arcades, as they may be easily addicted to these games…………”

As soon as I’d typed all of that, my daughter who’s away on another continent immediately added on, “it’s fine that you go and take that stroll every now and then.”  I was shocked, I’d, immediately recycled my message back.  Thinking about this calmly, if someone rained on my parade, it naturally would, make me feel, awful, and it wouldn’t matter if the words that someone was saying to me was right!  I’d, contemplated, and felt grateful for my daughter’s round-and-about-way of reminding me, so I slammed on the brakes before damages are done.

My friend was once the head of a certain club, he’d shared things on LINE quite a lot.  He’d told, that often, as a subject of discussion was opened for debate, some of the group had started, firing those cannons, some, quite stubborn, to one’s own beliefs, some swayed with how the winds were blowing, some agreed to others’ words, and the words were sharpened, ready for war.  The most often was the fight for the parties in the politics, some debated on the policies, some toward the incumbents, and, it’d, made it difficult, for my friend, who wanted to try and mediate between those who are then, engaged, and, he’d, spoken of his “New Year’s Resolution” aloud via LINE.

He’d said, “from here on out, no talks of politics, no personal attacks.  When we have a difference of opinions, DO delete those emotional words, to keep the conversation flowing smoothly, rationally”, and, for the six months that followed, there’s, more harmony within the group of LINE.

getting into an argument on LINE

illustration found online

With the inventions of the high-tech gadgets, it’d, made people leap into an alternative world, the parents are, disregarding the needs of their children more now, and the problems between the couples, the parents and children, worsened, as our heads, lowered to our high-tech gadgets these days.

But, think on it, it’s not the gadgets that are awful, it’s the mindsets of the users, and the timing.  If one can use the gadgets, and not let these high-tech devices control us, then, we won’t become, slaves.  Like how those who’d retired who don’t live with their children, sliding on their tablets or cell phones, sending the messages, their emotions found a viable outlet, and they’re, able to get some news and new information from everywhere around.  Sometimes, they’re even, having a webcam conference with the children and grandchildren who don’t live close by, the comfort from interaction with one’s own loved ones, although they’re, separated physically, but they’d become, more than, connected psychologically.  To the point when there’s an emergency, the high-tech devices are, very good for sounding off the alarms.

illustration from UDN.com

My friend’s older sister-in-law didn’t get along with her parents, although one live up north, the other, south, they’d still gotten on each other’s bad side over miniscule matters, and, as the two sides were getting heated on the group on LINE, she’d, privately texted her youngest nephew, told him to commend his mother on her cooing, how he’s, looked after so well, so the grandparents who lived faraway, in the southern parts of the island know, that they have a good daughter-in-law.  And, other than posting the messages on how to live well, my friend told her older sister-in-law that her parents had, commended her in their circles of friends, how they’re, so proud of her.  And naturally, the problems between this mother and daughter-in-law pair, slowly, resolved on their own.

Working hard, being the middleman of peace, at first, you may feel, tried, because you couldn’t make the results of the changes you want to see happen faster, but, after awhile, the results will, show.  The communications apps are of various sorts and kinds, with the members numerous, and, it certainly isn’t by chance, that we’d, found each other, in the vastness of the ocean-full of people.  If you can cherish this affinity, and, work hard, as a connector in every group you’re involved in, keeping the peace, for everybody’s sake, as you turn on the apps, it can only bring you joys in the days.

This is on, being, THE middleman, and, this woman has some valid points, but, I don’t, necessarily agree with her on everything.  I mean, it’s important, that you want to keep the peaceful flow of conversations on your LINE accounts, sure, but sometimes, you just, can’t ignore how someone’s words made you flare up, and, if you don’t find a valid way to get the angers you feel out, then, it will surely, damage you, and not just your relationship with that other person.  And yeah, a middleman who will help, diffuse this, lit up bomb, may be necessary in these cases, but not always.

Purpose of Age-Progressing One’s Child

Thanks to the modern day technologies, now, you can get a first look at what your infants will look like when they’re ADULTS, but, why the HELL would anybody want to do that?

The purpose of age-progressing one’s child is, uh, let me think, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, wow, I’m STUMPED!  And, you have to ask yourselves: What the HELL are those god DAMN parents thinking of?  And, don’t they KNOW, that the childhood years are the most precious of all, so, why the HELL are they, RUSHING to see what their kid would look like AT age eighteen (as that, is the “marker” for adulthood?).

It’s just one of those POINTLESS things that people do, like use that photoshop program, to see what the two of your children will look like, when you have yet to tie the knot!

Note-Taking on the Laptops, the College Students’ Writing Abilities Had Deteriorated

Just like I had said before: as the technologies got smarter, people become DUMBER!!! From the Newspapers, translated…

The electronics had invaded the college campuses, in class, the students no longer put their pens to paper, instead, they’d lowered their heads, kept their eyes on their laptops, as they took notes, as they’d gone into the classrooms, they’d sat down, take out their laptops, iPads, cell phones, those who were typing, “sliding”, filming are all in action. There are even college students who pointed out that almost HALF of their classes are now, composed of those who used electronic devices to take notes in class.

The technical university student, Yang stated, that there are almost half of the members of his class who are using cell phones, to record the professors’ lectures, or used their iPads, their laptops, to take notes, and, only a quarter of his classmates are still writing the notes by hand.

A student from Danjian University, Wu pointed out, that out her class of ten, only three are still taking notes by hand in class, the rest are using iPads or laptops to do it. But now, some of the professors had stated that the students can’t use their laptops for their research reports, and even IF you’d found the answers on google, you still must write the answers down by hand, “at least, go through the processes of reading, and recording down one’s findings.”

The Taiwanese Teacher’s University grad student, Huang said, some of the instructors at the graduate level would NOT allow their students to bring a laptop to class, fearing that they might be working on something unrelated to the class, or, surfing on Facebook, but, on the undergrad level, it would be harder, for the professors to keep track.

The student, Chen from Poli-Sci University, said, the students who are easily distracted in class, it wouldn’t matter IF they have a laptop or not, using a laptop to take notes in class, it’s easier, to e-mail it to the classmates, and, one can look up materials that the professor’s lecturing on for further understanding, “back then, we’d lowered our heads to take notes, and, every time we’re done writing, we’d forgotten, what the professor just lectured us on.”

The NTU graduate student, Jiang stated, that in graduate course, half of his classmates are typing up the notes, and, in the in-class presentations, they’d used powerpoint. After you’d gotten used to typing, it would take you longer, to write every single word out, other than not being familiar with the writing tools, you must think hard, on how to write some of the characters too.

We’re writing less and less by hand, a lot of college students don’t have great penmanship. A student, Wu, from a private university in the southern strips told, that over seventy-percent of her classmates are using laptops to take the notes in class, and, during the day, other than signing for the delivered packages or filling out the doctor’s slips at the health center, there is little opportunity, for one, to write, “My hands would start to tremble when I write, and I’d write so illegibly.”

Yang told, that typing up the characters will cause the handwritings to become slow, and it’d made our language abilities deteriorate too.

He’d stated, that some friends’ writing are truly illegible, and the fonts are varied, “they wrote like kids who’d just begun to learn how to write”. A lot of college students loved writing online, but, they couldn’t use the characters in the right ways.

And once again, this, is the EFFECTS of being TOO reliant on modern day technologies, you’d become DETERIORATED, in what you should know how to do, and, if this “trend” keeps going, then, the world is totally SCREWED here!

The Earth Had Stopped Breathing

Translated…

No matter how many times I’d pressed down on the keys, there’s only darkness on the screen. Flipped open the papers, the world is poisoned, and, nobody escapes.

Airplanes, High-Speed Railways, MRTs, elevators, gaming software, blog, Facebook, weblogs, everything you can think of and imagine, in this age where everything IS controlled by computers, could not function at all. The world had stopped breathing.

This, is actually, really sad, because everything we do is TIED to the internet and technologies these days, and, if things got fried, like the connections on your computer can’t be established, or the lines are down, then, everything STOPS functioning.

Insecure without My Hi-Tech Devices

Is that, an A-D-D-I-C-T-I-O-N???  Of course it IS!!!

Insecure without my hi-tech devices, when I left without my PDA, my cell phone, my I-Pad, etc., etc., etc., because they’d become extensions of who I am, and, how can I sever myself away from the vital parts of who I am?

Insecure without my hi-tech devices, I know that that sounds like an addiction, but it is not, I know I can control this panic that’s slowly coming over me, when I don’t have my cell phone in my bags.  Insecure without my hi-tech devices, I’d fly into high panic mode, whenever I felt around in my pocket and couldn’t find my cell.

So, am I addicted?  I don’t think so, but, I need a second opinion here, can someone help me out with that???

Insecure about my hi-tech devices, I don’t know how I will cope, for a week (b/c that, is how long I’m in here for) without my cell phone, my flat screen, I’m basically, CUT off from the outside world here, and I KNOW I will have difficulties, adjusting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shake it…Making Friends with Her Cell Phone, an Adolescent Girl Lost Her Virginity

The prices of virginity, is still getting C-H-E-A-P-E-R by the nanosecond here, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

A fifteen-year-old adolescent girl in Tainan, at the start of the month, used her cell phone program to make friends, and connected with a male college student, the adolescent saw that the college guy looked gentle, and resembled a Korean movie star, they started going out together, later, she was lifted to the man’s rental home to watch porn, and forced to have sex with him, afterwards the adolescent female told her parents, and the parents got mad and went to the police.

The police chased the leads and found the man, and he was charged with obstruction of sexual freedom.  The police estimated, that during the summertime, it’s the peak of incidences of rape for adolescent girls, since the start of the summer vacation, the city of Tainan had found eleven reports of rapes on adolescent girls, and four of these cases, the young women had used friendship networking applications on the cell phones and made friends with strangers, and then, were raped, and, the online community had implied that the cell phone friendship programs are a “sure thing for ‘scoring’”.

The police found that this middle school age girl enjoyed using the widely used friendship making program, at the start of the month when she went shopping at the city’s malls, she used the “Shake it” application, to search for those who are using the same application as she, and, there was a good looking, college male in his twenties who’d sent out an application to her, she saw that he looked like a Korean movie star, and she was so glad that he’d invited her.

The young woman cried and told the police, that the man was gentle, first, he’d taken her to places to visit, they’d even shared a candlelight dinner, which he had paid, after the meals, he’d invited her to his rental home, to watch a movie, she didn’t suspect, and followed him home, and he’d put on an X-rated film, had forced her to watch it with him.

The young girl described that the man had “changed completely” as they’d arrived to his home, first, he’d locked the doors, then, after he stripped down, he’d told her to do the same, and after he got his way with her, he’d allowed her to take the bus home.

There are warning signs that cell phone programs have, to stress the dangers of “meeting up with strangers”, and, the users can use that application and then, the cell phone will search other users in the vicinity, and the “shake it” function allows the users to find other users in the area, but, most of the naïve young adolescent girls, if they’d met up with bad people, then, they wouldn’t know how to handle it.

Yeah, and ALL of this SHIT happened because???  Oh yeah, the MIDDLE school girl (you ARE in your teens, aren’t you?  And, had you NOT been watching the N-E-W-S???  Or, is it the Invincibility Fable, working ITS magic here???) has NO clue, because she’s inexperienced, and, too D-U-M-B to know better, I mean, we would have the TWO-sense, but, not this group of kids from the younger generations…

The Parents Got Too Taken with Their Cell Phones, the Kids Learned to Become Aloof

Call it chain reaction here, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

“Teacher, after I watched the nightly news last night, I couldn’t fall asleep.” “I will feel unsafe when I have to ride on the MRT from here on out”………these couple of days, I’d often heard the conversations of the children, filled with unsettlement and fear.

This event that SHOCKED the society had affected the elementary school children, made them fearful, and it’d damaged their psyche too.

After the events, there had been many discussions, and, other than being scared, the elementary level children had copied the words from the media, “Did you HACK anybody today yet?”, it’d made the instructors worry: the media’s detailed descriptions of the events had become something that the children modeled after.

On top of that, other than talking about violent games, we should also look into parent-child interactions.  The child had mentioned, “I’d ask dad to play ball with me, he told me he was busy, but I saw him playing games on his cell.”  If the parents are taken with the world of cell phones, and coldly rejected the child’s invitation to play, how, can the children NOT model after the parents’ behaviors?

I’d often seen in the restaurants, two to three year olds, playing on the tabloids, sitting quietly by the parents’ sides.  Can cell phone really replace the accompaniment of the parents?  Or, did it create a less emotional, a more distant next generation of children?

Other than, “How did you do on your exams”, “Did you finish your homework”, “Did you eat yet”, what’s remaining of the conversations between you and your offspring?  The parents should consider this: how long ago was it, that you had a heart-to-heart with the children?  Did you spend more time, playing on your cell phones than accompanying your offspring?

As an elementary school instructor, I suggest that parents spend MORE time, talking with their children, use a positive attitude, to help and accompany children through the difficulties in their lives.  The functions of the parents are irreplaceable, do NOT give your kids to the cell phones and the cram schools.

And so, this instructor’s worries ARE warranted too, I mean, a LOT of parents now are playing on their cell phones, and NOT interacting with their children, and, guess how those kids who were raised by those kinds of parents would turn out?  Will they, uh, talk to their kids?  Read them their bed times?  I think N-O-T, because children still learn from W-A-T-C-H-I-N-G their adult counterparts, and, AS their primary attachment figures (yes, I’m talking to Y-O-U: mommies AND daddies out there!!!), start paying attention to your offspring, and yeah, that, is an O-R-D-E-R!!!

When Books Have NO Flippable Pages…

Let’s just SAVE the I-N-K, and the binding too, shall we???

When books NO longer contained flippable pages, then, the ENTIRE “species” of books might as well head STRAIGHT into E-X-T-I-N-C-T-I-O-N, I mean, that, is where we are headed next, you DO know that, don’t you?

What, with those I-Pad, I-Reader, I-whatever being developed currently, the need of books with the pages will become reduced, and, based off of the BASIC law of economics (we’re still talkin’ ’bout SUPPLY AND DEMAND!!!), books WILL become E-X-T-I-N-C-T.

When books NO longer contained flippable pages, can you imagine it?  Everything gets so fucking (oopsy!!!) condense onto that smaller than letter-sized screen?  What’s to become of literacy?  What’s to become of education of the younger generations?  And what’s M-O-R-E, how do we teach children, in a world, without B-O-O-K-S???

And, we’re still going “hi-tech” right now, and, eventually (I’m led to believe), we won’t even NEED any W-O-R-D-S for communication anymore, and the world falls S-I-L-E-N-T………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Optimistic Psychologist’s View of the Society in the Future

Translated…

In the past, the instructors would reward those goody-two-shoe students, and they’d labeled those who couldn’t handle the way that they were instructed, and, those who are so totally focused, sitting in those classrooms have a brand new “diagnosis” of “Stubbornness of Attention Syndrome”…

The Dumbest Generation Ever?

There is a man, Bauerlein, who wrote a book, with the title of “The Dumbest Generation”, and it challenged the American youth population of eighty-seven million………no, it’d also challenged those who are NOT among the youths too.  Why did he think like that?  When answering the inquiries of the reporters, he’d said, “Because they’d spent all their time on Social Networking websites, IM-ing, and writing text messages on their cell phones.”

Is it really so?  I’d gotten my newly bought smart phone and saw this message from a friend, and I’d googled the writer immediately, and I’d found information on him on Wikipedia, and found ALL of his works on Amazon.com.

Mark Bauerlein, was originally an English literature professor in Emory University, born in 1959.  And this book, was originally published in soft cover in 2009, and it’d gotten three stars from the readers on Amazon.  Before this book got published, Bauerlein’s work are mostly written on his area of expertise in English literature. “The Manual for English Literary Terminology” (2008), “The Phobias Toward African Americans: the Race Riot in Atlanta in 1906” (2001), “Literary Criticism” (1997), etc., etc., etc.,

Born in 1959, what an awkward generation, and the reason why I said that, was because I can relate very well.  Only because I was born, a year later than he was, back in 1960, I grew up in an age where there was NO computers, and only black-and-white television sets.

………

Are the Constructions of the Future Societies Be Based Off of Social Network in the Future?

Jia-Jia Ma was the top scorer of the national examinations from Yunnan in 2008, the day she’d graduated from college back in 2012, she’d opened up a creative sex toy shop close to the school.  This, was the FIRST of its kind, using a positive way to look at the tabooed field.

………

Jia-Jia Ma believed that the complex of strong love toward one’s homeland is slowly dissipating, plus the openness in attitudes of love, it’d made the institution of marriage dissipate, “The traditional housing market for post-1990 meant: 1. The Focus on Capitals, and NO spare money for anything else; 2. The Rate of return plus the total lack of insurance for one’s assets; 3. The restriction of freedoms, unwillingness to stay put in one place; 4. No Longer Will to Be Bound by the Traditions of a Marriage.”
Her statements are all-too-optimistic, to the oncoming of the future, even this ten-speed changing time, not only did the older generations not fear the loss of morality, instead, they’d rationalized the accusations of morality, instead, people are embracing the ideals, with their arms, wide open.

And here are the “predictions”…

The Trainers in the Carnegie Institute Will Be Losing Their Jobs

Prediction one: in the future, before everybody enters into the workforce, they will go through the adaptability test of the real world.  This training will allow you to learn about interacting using simulations, to give oral presentations formally, and the way to act and react, to the various forums of learning.  This learning process would be like playing Wii, you MUST stare into the eyes of the characters, in order to score; if you can keep focusing in staring, then, you’d score like very getting golden coins from a game.  This will NO longer BE a fairytale, experimenters are already using this method to treat social anxiety disorder now.  And, as you can imagine, those who work for the Carnegie Training Forums, including Mr. Yo-Long Hai, will be, OUT of a job.

And, the article goes on in saying how everything we know today, like teachers, yapping inside of a classroom, writing on the board, for kids to copy down notes, along with books, will eventually become obsolete, because with the advances in technology, we won’t even need to leave the house for work anymore, we just have to FLIP on our webcams, dress ourselves in our business suits, and we can conduct a virtual business meeting, eliminating ALL face-to-face interactions, and that, is still NOT a good thing, IF you ask me, but hey: who asked Y-O-U???  Exactly!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Dignity

Problems that come with modern day technologies, I’m afraid, translated…

In This Day and Age

The Poor Still Hold Their Dignities

Without the Money to Buy the Smart Phones

But, in a Crowd

Everybody Lowers Her/His Head to You

And so, this is kinda paradoxical, I suppose, making fun of how we are so side-tracked and so distracted by what we have in our hands, along with the modern day advances of technology and what not, it causes problems.