Influences of the internet

Do you remember the sex scandal of the 20 year old girl named Tammy more than 2 years ago?
Just because her lost phone got to the hands of a person that also happened to unfortunately be a fiend, her personal 'intimate' video, which is nothing more than an act that any Tom, Dick or Harry would carry out each day, spread more quickly hair lice over the internet, and remained the talk of the town for what felt like a decade.
On a lighter note, most viewed video of all time on youtube - Evolution of dance, has been watched 91 million times and it remains the record for all videos that have ever been uploaded. Here it is:

I'm sure the dancer dude has gained respect and fame for that video of his.
Its really hard to decide on whether the invention of the internet has made a good impact on our lives. Sure, we get quicker access to many things, we never again have to deal with the process of snail mail and it helps us keep in touch with people much more easily. However, with it comes the price you have to pay - Invasion of privacy. Let;s take the Tammy case again for instance. Had the internet not been such a convenient means of trying to ruin one's reputation, the one who picked up her phone would have probably just viewed the video, shook her head or shrugged her shoulders, spread the word to some of her friends and let it go. It would have been forgotten much quicker than it did. Because of the internet, it is now crucial to subconsciously behave yourself a little bit more than you used to; anything could happen, even if it not something you ever imagined. I have seen many other videos on youtube where a hidden camera captured certain peculiar behaviors of individuals i.e in the subway, in the bus...etc. A particular one I remember was one of a girl yelling in the train with a lot of passengers staring at her. Without giving a hint as to why they had behaved that way (maybe a fight broke out before?), they conveniently labelled the video as 'crazy bitch on train'. Sure she did look a little crazy, nevertheless, who's right is it to invade her privacy and publish her on the internet this way, letting it quickly spread out to the rest of the world?? I cannot in anyway justify something like this.
On the other hand, there are many artists these days who, with the help of the internet,. have gained fame and recognition. The publish their work via the internet, and the lucky ones catch people's attentions and ultimately become a recognizable face throughout the world. This must feel accomplishing for them especially when they didn't have to go through all the hassle of signing contracts and negotiating deals. They are simply heard because the internet was readily available as a portal to share their art with the outside world.
Having said that, I still can't decided whether the internet in our generation proves worthwhile, or is it simply an invention that has been exploited time and time again. Maybe its a balance of both.

East meets West

This:



to this:



OR THIS:



Just like the way people say 'chivalry is dead', we can also say that 'decency is dead'. Take two of the video clips i have attached above as examples of that saying in the entertainment world that most people portray as 'glamorous'. Hello Scandalous, bye bye Classiness. Lets face is: Sex sells. Advertising and sex have been tied together since advertising became a big business. The use of sexually suggestive images to sell just about everything really emphasizes the point that sex is a merchandiser's best friend. However, in traditional Chinese Culture, it was less often thought about this way. Think about the Black and White TV era. How often would you see a young teenager prancing around on the stage dancing suggestively while singing in a bikini? These days it seems like the right thing to do if you want to survive as an artiste. The search for real talent doesn't really exist anymore. I bring this up because I only came across Sun Ho's 'China Wine' video a couple of days ago and I was deeply shocked. This is how i remember her:



What happened? As i watched her provocative video, I wonder if she was really a pastor, a councilor and a mother? What does her Church think? A little hypocritical isn't it? I don't know, I guess everybody is entitled to their own opinions, and you might not oppose as strongly to her change of image as I do, but to me, her being a 'devout Christian' who gets full support from her Church is rather hypocritical. Also, this proves how much the West has influenced our Culture. Selling sex probably was epitomized by the late Marilyn Monroe, and since then countless TV shows and Ads have used sexual images in order to boost sales. In traditional chinese culture women are more conservative. Obviously, our homegrown Sun Ho has fallen out of that category. Why then does the authorities in Singapore take such pre-cautious measurements in allowing import products such as TV shows and music? Even our dear local talent has proven that she prefers otherwise. I recall a local TV show called 'Girl-on-Girl' where in each episode some scantily clad girls have to battle out with each other in physical activities. It was quite a bad production, and it proves my point. It is obvious to the naked eye that we are showing signs that we are moving further and further away from our traditions and root cultures. It is just like saying you have decided to cut your friend out of your social circle because she only talks about herself, when all you do when you socialize is brag about yourself. It is contradicting just as it is hypocritical.

The world and its differences

This funny video clip which I am sure most of the world has seen, is one such example of cultural difference. I asked my boyfriend, who is Canadian, if he used to get beatings from his parents as a child. He said never. I, on the other hand, treated caning as a habit of my parents'. My brother and I used to get light beatings from my mother everytime we talked to much over dinner and not finished our food. It didn't hurt, and we brushed always brushed it off with laughs. Nevertheless, the mere sight of the cane made us quiver with fear.
This is only one tiny aspect of a difference in culture. When I moved to Taipei three years ago, i suffered great culture shock. We were all Chinese and we all spoke mandarin, but their rationale and mentality was something that I had to get used to. Even their slang is different. They use Mandarin words that, prior to my move, I have never heard in my life. If you watch a typical Taiwanese variety show such as :



you will find that there are many words that we do not normally hear on the streets here in Singapore. It really took me a while to get used to it. I did however manage to pick it up and it was really fun trying to adapt to the culture and use their language and learn their mannerisms. I think it is quite important for everyone and anyone to be able to adapt to new surroundings. You also get to learn so much more about different cultures and it is always a fun experience trying to fit in.
When my boyfriend first moved to Singapore, he couldn't really understand why it was so hard to look for a place to stay. Most landlords he called said they 'only wanted Chinese people'. He immediately took this as racist. In the landlord's defense, the government has imposed this rule in HDB areas that a certain quota must be met. And because Singapore encourages, a multi racial environment, certain areas are only allowed to accommodate that many indians, malays, Eurasians and Chinese. I had to explain that to him over and over again but he still insisted that it was clearly racism.
For Christmas last year, I went over to Canada to meet his family for the first time. Because I have eliminated red meat from my diet for over a year now, there were many things that I could not eat over the dinner table. I also tend to be really picky with my food and I try to avoid high calorie foods. As we all know, Christmas is the time lots of desserts and sweet things. As chinese, we do not have the habit of refusing things. Naturally, when a chocolate sticky pudding was given to me, I accepted it politely, only to secretly give it to my boyfriend when we are away from the dining table. He questioned why i had taken it if i didn't want it. I told him i felt it was rude to refuse. He thought i was being silly and reassured me that it was perfectly alright to just say 'no'; no one would have gotten offended. I could go on and on about all the cultural differences I have experience. i spent the last couple of years travelling a lot and I have gotten to experience so many different cultures and places. There are, however, certain cultures that I know even if I tried I would never get used to. Like the openness of plastic surgery in South Korea. I hear that parents there save up so that when their daughters turn 16 they can buy them new eyes, or a new nose or a new chest. It baffles me.

The Wire

One of my favorite TV shows have got to be the HBO series 'The Wire'. It is unlike any other typical 'cop-drama' on air. It is set in Baltimore city, and it really chooses to reflect on reality, rather than just 'for the sake of creating another cop drama'. What happens in this series is what happens in real life. Most of the time we do not see or realize these things are actually going as we walk, talk, eat or sleep. This is because of how the media tries to cover up unpleasant reality. That is why I have given up on watching unrealistic 'good-cop-always-wins' type shows. Endings in those type of movies are often the same. The creator of 'The Wire' has done a good job on exploring 5 different facets of Baltimore City in 5 seasons. There is the Drug-ring, the port, the city bureaucracy and the print news media. Despite its presentation as a crime drama, it is really about the American city. Its about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how, regardless of what job you're in,  you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you are committed to. 

I think it is important to portray reality in the media . Unfortunately, a lot we see on TV these days are just a fragments of a fantasy world. Media has shaped culture. We think or hope that everything in the world we live in is like what we see on TV and the movies. We forget that as we worship a celebrity walking down the red carpet, say, at the golden globe, another person is dying from starvation. Take Sex and the City for instance (just because that was the latest movie that i watched ).  Yes, it defines the importance of female friendship and brings out the underlying moral that as a girl, nothing is more important than your girlfriends. But is life really that simple? If that had been reality, like at the beginning of a movie, would a penthouse right in downtown Manhattan be purchased without a mere consideration? Or would everything end up the way it did in the movie? It is like a beautiful painting. It is attractive to your senses but but it is not real.If you haven't seen it, you can read the synopsis for the movie here. 

I guess in most of the things we see on TV, its main purpose is solely to entertain. Nothing much else. We all need forms of entertainment, I do not deny that, but if entertainment is always about good looking people, happy endings and unrealistic goals, then the media would shape our culture in that way and it makes us not look beyond that. It makes us not look deeper into sociological problems that we might or already face.

Hence, I am hoping to see more of 'The Wire' type shows on TV. I am still in search of them.

SIA slapping incident

I was browsing through archives or newspaper articles recently and came across that article involving the SIA 'slapping incident'. Just for re-cap, you can view the article here.

Last I heard was that they settled outside of court and it had been treated by SIA as a private matter.

Many people have their different viewpoints on this matter. Some might view it as unjust. They might ask if treating this as a 'private matter' is actually fair? We all know that this incident is considered a case of battery and assault, and that it has cause the SIA stewardess humiliation. If someone was caught in public assaulting another person, will that person be let go of without being pressed for charges? As i see it, its highly unlikely. So why was Mdm Tan ( the rich man's wife who assaulted the air stewardess) allowed to settle this matter out of court? Is it because of status? In an article it states that her husband, Mr Wong, sits in one of the subsidiaries of Singapore Airlines and is one of Singapore's richest man. Is inequality happening because of high status and class? If Mr Wong had not been of such high status, would his wife have been let off this easily? What about the stewardess's distress after the incident? It is a highly embarrassing situation to get slapped by another woman for 'talking' to her husband. What is the big deal with 'talking' anyway? Mdm Tan had to have been a very insecure person in that case.

Of course, we do not know in details what had been going on that that particular moment. We can only read about it, but we cannot judge and give our reasons why Mdm Tan had behaved this way. Maybe there was a little more to just 'talking' that we don't know of. Many times couples fight because they do not realize what kind of signals and gestures they are giving out. The male might just been helping another girl out of a car out of common courtesy and kindness, but his girlfriend might interpret it the wrong way and get jealous and angry. A girl might be staring at a handsome guy because he looks familiar and thinks she might know him, but her boyfriend might interpret it the wrong way and accuse her of staring at other boys when he is right beside her. Many little misunderstandings like these happen with two people, and in this case, the air stewardess might have been giving out wrong signals by using misleading gestures.  I am not in anyway trying to defend Mdm Tan. She had no right to get physical with a stranger and is definitely in the wrong. All I am saying is that maybe there is a little more to why she got so angry than we know of. Perhaps beyond the stewardess's conversation were things that she had been unaware of. Perhaps it is in her nature to be touchy when talking to people and Mdm Tan had not appreciated that. Perhaps she had used a flirtatious tone to speak to Mr Wong which had irked Mdm Tan. Sometimes we do things without realizing that we provoke others. Be it in our hand gestures, our tone, our eyes... they have tendencies to send out mixed signals if we are unaware of the situation. 

 

Treating this as a private matter will disallow the public eye to get further insights on this situation. We will never know what really went on, as we know, the Singapore media is heavily controlled by those with the power to do so. So is treating this as a private matter just? I still cannot decide for myself.

A second chance for a change in perception

Before you read any further, please watch this video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

What do you think when u watch this clip? 

Would you feel embarrassed for her or would you put yourself in her shoes and try and justify her stupidity by blaming the fact that she was on National TV and was nervous?

I guess both are valid.

Both ways, this poor girl has to try hard to prove her cleverness to the judgmental public.

As human beings, it is in our nature to make quick judgments about things. We walk by a store and almost immediately after a mere glance we know what has potential for us to make a purchase and what does not. Most of the time we make decisions on our judgement. Seldom do we dig deep for the root of things. If we enter a new classroom full of people we are not acquainted with, we use judgment to lead us to people who we want to talk to, or away from people we do not feel like being associated with. People say that attractiveness is skin deep. By attractiveness i refer to any aspect of mankind. I couldn't agree more with that sentence, however, people who try to lie to themselves and say that first impression doesn't count are in denial. When have you ever approached somebody who did not at all give you a good vibe or attracted you in any way and repeated to yourself in your head that if you gave him or her more time, he or she MIGHT have a wonderful personality. Let's face it. First impression plays a big part in determining our social circle and we know it. 

So what has poor Miss Teen South Carolina have to deal with for (at least) the next few years in her life? Before that question was thrown in her face, a pretty face like hers definitely had the potential for a lucrative modelling career. Maybe even acting and if she could carry a tune, singing could also be an option! But no, after she went on that crazy rant, with her out-of-the blue random throwing in of words, would people be willing to take the risk and invest on this girl that everyone has such a bad impression of? This could cause serious impediment to her career. Yet an element of our brain is persistent in keeping the first-impression of her strong. If someone asked you what you thought of her, would you go ' I believe deep down inside her she is really smart, we just haven't seen it yet'? Things like this are left for her friends and parents to say. For people like us, we know this girl cause of her embarrassing clip that has been circulating around.  There is no time for us to try and 'search ' for her cleverness as we have much more important things to do.

People are being dishonest when they say they are not judgmental. To a certain extent we all are. If we don't want to be that way, we can start by giving people who have humiliated us or annoyed us once before another chance, or start talking to that weird guy or girl who makes us uncomfortable by staring at us in the Bus or train. Maybe if we get to know them well enough we would realize they are not so bad afterall!

Just for a good laugh, I found this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR75L08SBHo

What we are becoming

As i was walking home after a nice dinner one day, I made my usual stop at the convenient store to stock up on chocolates and snack. Uncontrollably my wandering eyes led me to the magazine corner to check out what was new. Nothing. As i was about to turn to walk away, up on the right corner on the shelf my eyes widened as I caught a glimpse of the word 'COSMETIC' in bold letters. Naturally intrigued by the mere thought of this word, I pulled that particular magazine out. To my horror, I noticed in small letters at the bottom of that bright bold word it read 'Surgery and Beauty - BECAUSE NOBODY'S PERFECT'.

I was stunned. So it wasn't about cosmetics. It was an entire full sixty-page magazine about plastic surgery. For a split second there I thought I was seeing things. I couldn't get myself to open it to check out its ludicrous contents - 'BECAUSE NOBODY'S PERFECT'. Yes, I thought to myself, and i suppose... plastic surgery makes one impeccable? I found it absolutely ridiculous. A little disappointed that that convenient store had actually imported that in to sell. I am not saying plastic surgeons should go to hell, or that we shouldn't support that industry at all. Fact is I believe everyone has the right to do what he or she wants to his or her body if need me. Whatever makes them happy I guess. I am just saying - what has the media done to us? Have we all been sucked into the superficial world? I thought we are all beautiful for who we are? We kind of a slogan is 'BECAUSE NOBODY'S PERFECT'? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Everybody needs a little bit of imperfection. Its our imperfections that make us who we are. If i was free from flaws and mistakes, I wouldn't be me. Each time you look in the mirror you should be reminding yourself that being yourself is essential in life. And nobody should be allowed to tell you otherwise.

If you happen to see that magazine on the streets, please boycott it. If not for yourself then do it as a favor for me =)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U