Podcast: Your Job and Your Money

Does your college name matter?

When it comes to school names, I have to admit thinking one person is smarter than the other based on which college he/she goes to is very superficial and stupid. Yes, as stupid as it sounds, but a lot of people are still willing to pay the unbelievably high tuition. Those who are able to pay their own tuition are lucky, because many others have to take out loans or borrow money from relatives to go to "elite" schools.

So why do students do that? Do school names really matter that much?

Before answering this question, I cannot help but mention Asian students. Asians view school ranking more than anything else. If you have the college diploma from one of the top schools, you are not only more likely to find a job upon graduation but also more likely to get paid better. Isn't this pathetic? But it is true in Asia. It is your school, or the ranking of the school, to determine how suitable you are for the job, not your ability.

Of course the new generation in Asia does not value school ranking as highly as decades ago, but which school a person goes to is still one of the most important things for employers to look at before hiring.

Although big-name schools do not guarantee future success, it is believed that knowing people who are more likely be successful helps you to be successful too. Americans believe so too. It's called the power of networking.

I still remembered when I went to "Your Job and Your Money," a seminar hosted by a Purdue business fraternity, I asked the speaker the same question: Do school names matter? The speaker gave me a very honest answer. "The school you go to does not represent you as a person, but you get more recognition when you first hand in your resume," he said.

It is very true. It might sound superficial and biased because everyone knows graduating from Harvard University does not mean you are a smart person. However, this is how people categorize others, and without categorizing and stereotyping, human will have to spend significantly more time to make sense of the world.

However, many people do not believe in the power of big-name schools. The New York Times opinionators David Brooks and Gail Collins wrote that Americans are obsessed with well-known schools. Collins said students shouldn't choose a school just to make their resumes look impressive. "Kids, you do not need to go to a school with a name that impresses your friends. Go to a school you can afford," she wrote. David Brooks also pointed out that he wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a student from the No.1 school and a student who goes to a No. 100 college. "There are a lot of smart kids everywhere," they concluded.

So, should people continue their obsession with big-name schools or not? I say it depends on individuals. There are definitely benefits of going to a well-known college than a school that nobody has heard of, but it is the students' job to see if the benefits outweigh the costs. If Ivy League schools happen to be the schools that fit your interest the most, and you are able to afford it, I say you should go for it. But if not, I suggest you go to schools that you can afford.

Thanksgiving Dinner at Purdue Dining Court

The Asian Games Controversy and New Media

Many Americans might not notice, but the 2010 Asian Games in China, also known as the "Asian Olympics", have brought up a huge controversy and tension among Taiwan, China, and South Korea over the past week. Not only CNN but also the major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times reported the incident and the following debates and Taiwanese people's fury.

According to the newspapers, Taiwanese Taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-Chun was disqualified after she was leading the bout 9-0 against a Vietnamese Taekwondo athlete because the judges believed she wore illegal socks that had two more sensor panels.

The biggest controversy was that both athletes passed the inspection before the bout began, and the inspectors proved that all the equipment on both athletes were allowed in Asian Games. However, after Yang got 9 points in a row, the bout was halted by a Chinese official and a Korean official because they suspected that there was something wrong with the socks Yang was wearing. After a discussion, they ruled that Yang was disqualified.

Later, as more and more videos got uploaded to YouTube, including this one, Taiwanese people became furious and wanted the Taiwanese government to seek justice. To make things worse, Korean officials and Chinese officials never gave an explanation of why Yang passed the pre-bout inspection but got disqualified after she led by 9 points, and according to CNN again on Nov. 18, South Korean officials published a statement accusing Taiwan and Yang of "a shocking act of deception."

As many people could imagine, the statement triggered the anger of Taiwanese people and brought up the tension that has long been developed for decades among Taiwan, China, and South Korea.

So how does this incident have anything to do with new media? First of all, I received the news not from television or newspapers but from Facebook newsfeed. It's not the first time I got major news from new media. Last summer, I checked my Facebook right before I went to work, and guess what I saw on my friends' Facebook statuses? Michael Jackson's death! The same thing happened when the earthquake hit Haiti. Again in last week, I learned about the deadly fire that killed 42 people in Shanghai because of Facebook.

Looking back at the Asian Games incident, one of the reasons why people responded so quickly to the disqualification of Yang was Facebook and other social media outlets. Take me for instance, I don't follow Taiwan news everyday, so if it weren't because of Facebook, I might still have no idea what's going on. But thanks to Facebook and Twitter, I catch up with the news right after it got published.

New media not only helps to spread the story faster but also generates fury among Taiwanese people around the world in a much more efficient way than it ever did. (Yeah...some people from other countries might hate Facebook for this reason.) Two days after the disqualification, I saw a Facebook group advocating fair treatment and justice. And this CNN article was recommended by more than 15,000 Facebook users within three days.

The results are both good and bad. One of the good results was that the widely shared anger made related officials apologize and even resign. On the other hand, it was easy for some people to perceive the incident as a great excuse to break out their anger in an inappropriate manner. Take a Facebook link that shared by many of my friend for example. A Taiwanese local politician burned Korean flags and threw imported kimchi (traditional Korean vegetable) on the ground in public. To my surprise, I saw so many comments that hail the politician who burned Korean flags.

Being a frequent user of Facebook and other social media outlets, I say new media brought us into this smallest global village of all time, but it also made a lot of things more intense. I'm not saying the inappropriate behavior of burning other country's flags would not happen if there was no new media in the society, but simply looking at the statuses of many Taiwanese Facebook users, it is easy for us to exaggerate people's emotions, their patriotism, and the antipathy to China and South Korea.

It is always good to know immediately what's happening at the other side of the world, but we should be smart users of new media at the same time.

(Picture retrieved from BBC.com)

I thought mine was mine not yours?

I read an interesting article, What's Mine Isn't Yours, the other day, and it gave me a chance to rethink about who controls my data. Should it be Facebook? Google? Or me?

This article reminded me of what my friend told me a while ago. My friend decided to quit using Facebook because using Facebook is addicting and time-consuming. However, he regreted doing so after a few years, and he decided to come back. To his surprise, he did not have to rebuild anything on his page. Everything was just like how it used to be when he quit. What does this mean? No matter what we do, our info, our pictures, and our friend list are always there. Just like this article said, "Facebook, in other words, is a Roach Motel for your social graph- your data checks in, but unless Mark Zuckerberg approves it, it can never leave."

Keeping all the users' data can be viewed as saving our time to rebuild everything when we accidentally delete all our information or when someone wants to come back to Facebook. But what about my email address and my friends'?

I think Google did a good job informing its users of how we will never be able to erase anything that we import to Facebook today. Many people might be aware of the consequences already, but others like me would never know if no one tells us. Although Google is being criticized of its intention by doing so, I view such action as protecting users' rights of their data.

Natural Montage: Autumn on Purdue East Campus

Photo Gallery: Pakistan Flood Candlelight Vigil

Midterm Elections and Hyper-local News Sites

As the midterm election is the highlight for today and the past few days, I noticed something interesting on the online-only news sites. And here I use TBD.com as an example of the online-only news site since there are way too many sites that feature so many different angles of the elections.

To begin with, I noticed TBD featured related news with the elections not only in the DC area but also from other nearby places such as Virginia and Maryland, although TBD is a well-known hyper-local news site. As other news sites, TBD provides its readers with the most updated information. On its homepage, the most updated votes from these areas are displayed on the top so it's the first thing that readers noticed. The news of Martin O'Malley won another term as maryland governor popped out when I was reading other news, and I personally thought TBD did a good job in providing its readers the most recent update or result of the elections.

I was also surprised to find live videos about the elections from TBD TV. When I clicked on it, I expected to see already-made videos. However, I found myself surprised by TBD again because I was watching a live coverage featuring the elections results and the analysis. I then paid close attention to see if TBD used other channels' videos to put together their own, but I realized TBD had its own staff, anchors, and reporters from Maryland and Virginia. The professional conversations between the anchor and the reporters made me feel like I was watching ABC news, instead of an online-only news site.

In conclusion, I think TBD covered the election well because it not only efficiently provided the most recent updates of the elections but also provided a live TV channel to bring audience from their homes to Maryland, Virginia, and the DC area to listen to the winners' speeches. Of course, people can always argue that TBD did not provide elections results from other major cities. However, being hyper-local is the direction that TBD took when it first launched, and that's also what made them different from national TV channels. In my opinion, if you are looking for a great coverage of the elections from the DC areas and the nearby places, TBD definitely is one of my top choices.

Thoughts on Vietnamese Autumn Formal Video

Since it's my second time to edit a video, I thought it would be a lot easier than the first time. I shot the video two weeks ago, and I had run-down and voice-over transcript prepared before I started editing. Everything went just fine, but after I uploaded the video on Youtube, my boyfriend called me up and said there were some really loud background noises at the end of my interviews.

Everything looked just fine in iMovie,the software I used to edit my video, but somehow the background noise always appeared when I watched it on Youtube. After researching it and trying out many different solutions, I finally figured out that the background noise appeared because I fast-forwarded some of my clips, and it affected my audio tracks and made it appear when it's not supposed to.

After all the troubles I went through at 3 a.m., I finally had it done. This time, without the background noise at all. Yay!

I'm happy that we have assignments like this. We not only took different approaches each time but also faced different difficulties when we tried different editing tools and skills.

Every time when I was done with my videos, I always sent them to my family and my boyfriend so they could give me some critiques. As the number of news videos I edit increased, I felt that my skills of video editing and the whole sense of journalism grew too.

I'm very happy to see the changes, and I look forward to doing my third video!

Purdue Vietnamese 2010 Autumn Formal

How Much is Your Story?

I read this New York Time article today, and I think it deserves a little deeper thoughts about paying for sources. Should journalists pay for their sources? When I first read the story, I thought the minors are being ridiculous and greedy. However, after thinking a little deeper, I come up with different opinions.

First, there's a demand so there's the supply. This is how the economy works, and apparently that's what's happening in Chile now too. From the economic point of view, the accident and the minor workers are now under the spotlight. Everyone wants to know what happened during the time they were trapped underground. But the minors only have limited time (and not to say that they are physically and psychologically tired,) so the demand and supply will reach a balance point where TV stations and journalists are willing to pay, and the minor workers are willing to talk.

Also, if we think we deserve a reasonable income for working, either as a full-time employee or just for a part-time job, the minors think they deserve some money too because they're putting in their time and energy, just like we do at work.

However, these reasons don't back up for the ridiculously high prices that some rescued minors ask from reporters. In my opinion, it is reasonable that they ask for money in return, but beyond a certain amount, the minor workers and their family just make themselves look greedy, especially when they still withhold details after being paid to speak.

Some minor workers are willing to talk for free, while others keep their mouthes shut unless they are paid. It's all their personal choices. I just think people shouldn't judge them just because they ask for money, but at the same time, the minor workers should know that there's only this much that reporters are willing to pay. If the prices do beyond what reporters are capable of paying, the workers won't get the money, and we don't get to know what happened when they were trapped underground. It'll be a lose-lose situation.

C-SPAN Video: World Hunger, Why and What Can We Do?

This time, I found a very interesting and meaningful video from the C-SPAN online library. The speaker is David Beckmanna, the winner of the World Food Prize. I chose this video because the issue of world hunger is not often concerned by Americans as politics or economic issues, yet it affects millions or even billions of people's lives. Perhaps the issue is not as highly concerned is because most people feel more connected to U.S. politics or economic issues than world hunger. Very true, as a student who is busy with school works and GRE, world hunger will probably not be on the top of my list to pay attention to. However, listening to Mr. Beckmann's speech makes me notice something that I did not notice before. So, even though the video is an hour long, and it doesn't provide as much entertainment as Hollywood movies, I encourage you to spend a little time to listen to what Mr. Beckmann said about world hunger.

Through the whole speech, Mr. Beckmann talked about his experience in remote Africa, and how he believed that Americans should be more active not only in providing foreign aids but also in urging the government to do so. According to Beckmann, the world has made a huge progress in reducing poverty and hunger than in 30 years ago, but more needs to be done. One way to do so, Beckmann said, is through Congress.

Unfortunately, hunger is not an issue only in remote Africa, it's also happening in the United States. I was really surprised when Beckmann provided a statistics that one out of four American kids is living in the household that runs out of food sometimes. Beckmann pointed out that not only foreign assistance is needed but also domestic hunger issue should be concerned. According to Beckmann, the Child Nutrition Bill will expire at the end of this month, and it is important for people to let the Congress know that it is the issue they pay attention to so more can be done for the kids, and also for the poor people.

As I said before, I didn't really pay that much attention on the issue of world hunger. Because of our environment and also because we're so lucky that we never run out of food, we sometimes pay even more attention to the problem of obiesity than hunger. How ironic! We learn how to live healthier by eating a little less or eating more vegetables, while millions of people- including some American kids, according to the speech- have to worry about where they can get enough nutrition to make their bodies function well.

There might not be much that we, as college students, can do to eliminate world hunger for now, but simply by knowing how things are different from our everyday lives makes us less naive, and perhaps we can do little by little to help eliminating world hunger, and to make this world a little better.

C-SPAN Digital Bus Came to Purdue!!!

I know this happened last week, and I should have uploaded this a few days ago, but it doesn't mean that I should just skip this one and keep the exciting experience to myself.

The brand-new C-SPAN digital bus came to Purdue on Oct. 7, and thanks to Maura, we all had the chance to get on the bus and had a tour with a C-SPAN representative.

We went into the digital bus, and i was so amazed by its interior design. There were comfortable coaches and several touch-screen computers. So the digital bus itself is a perfect conference room, but it also serves as an office with internet connection.

Here are some pictures I took during the tour. If the bus is coming back again, I wish we could see how reporters do their jobs in the bus. I'll be extremely excited to see that!

Thoughts on My First Media Project

As I watched many other people's videos today, I had to say I really enjoyed watching them. Maybe we're not as good as professional video editors, and perhaps many of our cameras were set too low for interviews, but as students who just learned to do things like this, many of us at least made the first step.

One thing I want to note here is that the editing process is really fun, but it took longer than I thought. I knew that a beginner like me would take a lot longer to complete one piece, but I didn't expect that even the software I used would give me a hard time.

I decided to use iMovie to edit my first piece because Finalcut seemed too complicated to me. But when I was ready to edit my footage, I realized that all my videos were playing twice in speed. All the badminton players, as well as all the people talking in my video, all looked like hyper cartoon characters. I couldn't figure out why, so I uploaded again. However, it didn't make any difference. After doing some research on it, I realized that iMovie'08 didn't work well with my camera. Yes, not any Panasonic camera, but the specific type of Panasonic camera that I was using.

Thanks to my boyfriend, who downloaded a new version of iMovie for me, I was finally able to play my raw footage in a normal speed.

I didn't face too many difficulties when I was actually editing the video since I wrote down a complete rundown with separated video and audio elements, and a transcript for my voiceover.

Like other people said, video editing could be very frustrating and time-consuming, but when the work was done, I really felt that all the efforts were worth it. It doesn't matter if the video looks professional itself, but just the feeling of achieving something is good enough to keep a smile on my face.

My First Video Project-Purdue Badminton Club

My First Video Project-Purdue Badminton Club

So, after going through all the technological difficulties and hours of uploading, editing, deleting and being frustrated, I finally finished my very first video project!

I know I sound very weird in the voice-over. But please kindly ignore my accent as I believe with more practice and experience, my works will be a lot better in the future.

Iran's "blogfather" was punished for blogging

I read this article on CNN this afternoon and found it very shocking.

In summary, a Canadian-Iranian person who was nicknamed Iran's "blogfather" was arrested and sentenced for almost 20 years in prison because the Iranian government found him "making propaganda against the government."

This reminds me of a news I read in high school. It was about a Harvard graduate, a highly educated woman from the Middle East who got assassinated by her government because the government claimed that she promoted revolutionary ideas and thus disgraced the Islamic system. Of course, from the government-owned newspaper they claimed that she was simply unlucky to be hit by a car.

This also reminds me of my experience in China a few years ago. I went to China with a group of Purdue students. I had no problem accessing Facebook when i first arrived in Beijing. But one day, when I wanted to see my Facebook page, I found out that the site was completely blocked. When I went back to Taiwan a week after, I realized that Facebook was shut down in China because the Chinese government found someone criticizing the government and uploading pictures that the government did not want its people to see.

Perhaps because I was born and raised in a country where people have the absolute freedom of speech, I found these kind of news astonishing and ridiculous. For many of us, the freedom of speech is the basic human right, and we all take it for granted. However, only when we read news like these could we realize that things may work very differently at other corners of the world.

I'm not here to judge which kind of government system is better than the other, I just suddenly realized that we should be thankful for things we have. If the U.S. government was like the Iranian government, I guess all my classmates and I would be in prison already.

Allowing Comments, Good or Bad?

Because of the advanced technology, we have embraced online newspapers and online news sites for many years. Many benefits come with the launch of online news sites; one of them is the immediate response from readers. However, not everyone - or every newspaper- is happy and open to see that happen.

Why? I first did not understand why someone did not want to hear from their readers. Then I listened very carefully in my class discussion today, and came to understand their difficulties and concerns about readers' comments.

When thinking about online comments, I cannot ignore the fact that a good number of them are emotional and aggressive comments which attack the authors or publishers for no reason or simply for fun. The most outrageous comments I've ever seen are mostly on Youtube. A simple news coverage on Youtube could result in people giving abusive speeches and insulting one another in comments. Because of these uncontrollable reasons and people, I understand why some newspapers or news sites do not allow comments on their news articles.

The Exponent is one of those who do not allow readers' comments on their websites. It may seem just fine when nothing serious happens. But what about when an incident occurred last Friday that the "Sex Position of the Week" provoked a massive anger of Purdue students? According to many of the Exponent writers, they published the sex position on Friday and received angry emails from readers right afterward, but since the newspaper didn't run in weekends, they had to wait till Monday to file an apology.

I could imagine that things could get worse if they had allowed readers' comments on their website. One of the possible consequences is that the sudden huge flow of comments might crash the website or cause online traffic. However, not allowing comments on their websites didn't mean that people would just shut up. Instead, people commented on their blogs and on Facebook like they did over the past weekend. From the way I see this incident, not allowing reader's comments did not protect writers from receiving angry comments. Instead, they limited themselves from responding immediately to the offended readers.

I'm not an expert on this issue. I just think it might help if the Exponent could establish a place in which Purdue faculty and students could express their opinions and exchange thoughts. Because, after all, if you do not let them talk on your website, people will always find ways to express them.

C-SPAN: Retirement and Health Care Issues Video

Today when I was choosing which C-SPAN video to write about, I was going to choose some videos that are more related to my ethnicity. However, I ended up choosing this video, Retirement and Health Care Issues, to write about. Why? It's not specific to any ethnicity, and I have not even started working yet, which makes the issue of retirement seem too far away for me to concern. Well, what really interests me is not the content of the video, but how this video was produced as well as how its elements were presented.

To begin with, I chose this video because it's a call-in video. None of the C-SPAN videos that I watched before contains this element. I found that the call-in period of this video very interesting because anchors and people in the show never know what will happen and what those call-in people will say. For example, the first call-in audience in this portion that I embed was forced to hang up because his dog was barking and made his questions hard to hear. Maybe some people will say watching this is completely wasting their time because we could hardly hear what the person was saying. However, in the setting in which everyone addresses his or her opinion so expressively and clear, a call-in portion in which a dog was barking in the background makes the video more humanized, and it further demonstrates that it's live.

Also, as I watched this video, I noticed that the editor made this video more comprehensive by adding a lot of visual aids. Take the portion that I embed in here for instance. While the anchor and Lawrence Hunter taking the second phone call, Hunter found that he was not able to explain why the audience's brother received the money from the State government, but he suggested that people who had the same questions could go to their website and look for answers. When he mentioned the website, we saw a video shot of the real website in which the pictures were still moving.

Compared to other C-SPAN videos that I watched before, the content of this video may not seem so interesting to me, but the format and the call-in element more than enough make up for it. I learned a lot from this video, mostly about the call-in portion and the visual aids. If I'm editing a video in the future, I will definitely consider what I learn today from this C-SPAN video.

TBD.COM-A New Site to Get the News You Want

A newly launched news-site was introduced in my class: TBD.COM

Unlike the Washington Post, TBD features only local news in the D.C. area. One thing I like about the site is that you can type in your zip code and get the local news that's near your home. I think I would be fascinated by this if I lived in the D.C. area.

However, I don't live in the D.C area. So why would I care about what happens in there over what happens in Indiana? Maybe I'll be interested in the scandal of Adrian Fenty, but what about the local news that won't ever affect my life?

Maybe I exaggerate the importance of the national news and the unimportance of the local news, but my point is, living in the days that there's so many stories going on everywhere, but we only have limited time to consume the news, I would pay more attention to stories that happen near where i live or my hometown rather than in D.C., and I believe I'm not the only one feeling this way.

Yet again, TBD.COM is fairly new and it's something that we have never seen before. It's too early to say if it will become a big hit or turn out to be nothing. We'll see!

Wearing Veils=Attack of One's Human Dignity?

On July 13th, 2010, French parliament passed a ban on facial veils. I found a video on the C-SPAN video library featuring a speech made after the bill was passed. I found it particularly interesting because banning women from wearing facial veils is not just about giving people the freedom to be themselves, it includes respect on different cultures and religions too.

According to the C-SPAN video, the bill will have to pass the French Senate in order to become law. But once it becomes law, people who wear veils in public places, as well as people who force others to wear veils, will be fined.

While listening to the speech of Michele Alliot-Marie, the French Justice Minister, I gained some understandings of why the parliament passed the bill. According to Alliot-Marie, forcing women to wear facial veils means the attack of human dignity, and it contradicts with the constitutional values of France. Wearing veils voluntarily is also banned. Women who volunteer to cover their faces tend to separate themselves from the society, Alliot-Marie said.

Alliot-Marie made herself clear in the speech, but I personally think the debate deserves a more careful consideration. According to her, whether or not wearing veils is done voluntarily, lawbreakers will be fined or even jailed. I agree with the French parliament if people are forced to cover their faces in the public. However, why did they decide to punish people who volunteer to wear veils? If fining people who force others to cover faces is considered attacking one's human dignity, than wouldn't it be the same if wearing veils voluntarily will get penalties?

The question becomes a more serious one when it comes to respecting other cultures and religions. We might not think showing our bodies in the summer by wearing bikinis is a big deal, but in some cultures, especially in the middle-East, girls wearing only bikinis is considered sluts. Same thing with the veils. We might think this tradition of wearing veils is out-dated, but from the perspective of the middle-East cultures, it might have other meanings.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my friends from Dubai a few years ago. We were talking about if girls would be happy if they heard people complimenting their physical beauty. I said I would be definitely happy if someone told me I'm pretty. However, right after I said so, all my friends had this weird look on their faces. I asked them why, and one of them asked me, "Imagine you were a man, would you be happy if someone told you your wife is pretty?" I said yes, but they all looked at me as if I was crazy.

Many people might think my friends are the crazy ones, but I understand it's just depends on which perspective you take. French parliament think wearing veils, even if it's done voluntarily, is an attack of human dignity; Middle-Easterners think girls who wear bikinis are all sluts. Americans eat beef everyday, but the Hinduism believers treat cows as the most noble animal. There are too many examples out there that tell us we cannot judge one's behavior based on our own culture and beliefs.

So, who will be affected if the bill is passed? As everyone can think of, the Muslim women. However, I do know some other people who don't believe in Allah but will still be affected: Asian women like my mom who believes pale skin makes a woman pretty.

She always try to cover her whole face by preventing getting tan, and I told her this when we were enjoying the sunshine at the beach this summer: "Mom, if we were in France, you will be taken to the police department already."

To watch the C-SPAN video of this speech, please go to

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/295270-1

New Semester, New Start

It's a whole new semester again!!! For some people, the summer might be a little bit too long, but for me, it seems that the summer just came to the end without I even noticed it.

See that beautiful picture up there? It's Victoria Harbor of Hong Kong. I spent most of my summer in Hong Kong doing my internship, and I have to say Hong Kong is such a wonderful city for those who are seeking working experiences in international firms. Or, for those of you who just want to enjoy the best food in Asia, Hong Kong is definitely the No. 1 choice too.

So, in addition to the working experience as a PR, what else did I gain? Well, I gained weight! But more importantly, I gained this strong desire to learn more about journalism and other related skills. I believe I will sharpen my skills from classes, and I will become better and better in the field of journalism, especially when reflecting both what I learn in school and from the internships.

It's a new semester, and also a new start. I'm excited, and I know I will do well!

Robot? Human? or Cyborgs?

If you can choose, will you choose a robot to be your surgeon, or will you still prefer a team that involves only human to perform your open heart surgery?

Before you answer this question, think about the advantages and the disadvantages. Human makes mistakes, but robots are not as capable as human beings to deal with unexpected things. So will you be more worried if the doctor's hands are shaky and accidentally cut off the wrong part of your organ? Or will you be more afraid that the robot does not react as accordingly as human doctors when anything goes wrong?

I"ve never had any huge surgery, but my relatives had, so I know how important the doctor's skills are. If your surgeon does not have mature skills, you not only have longer healing process after the surgery, but also have higher risks during the surgery. Also, the surgeon's condition on that day makes a difference too. Furthermore, if you are one of the poor people in the developing countries where surgeons treat patients differently based on the money they receive, you probably won't be recovered from the surgery as fast as those who pay surgeons a lot of money.

Adding all the factors up, not many people can be sure that the performance of their surgeon is absolutely the best, and no one can guarantee that the patient receives the best care. Compared to human surgeons, robots seem more reliable in some perspectives. First of all, they do not get tired as human doctors. Also, because of the way they are programmed in performing such task, they can probably perform a better job in a shorter period of time than human doctors.

On the other hand, I will be worried if there's no human involves in the medical team that is going to remove a tumor in my body. I believe a lot of people are thinking about the same thing too: What if anything goes wrong? Will the robots be able to respond just as human doctors? Will they be able to stop the bleeding and save my life?

These questions brings up a perception that is commonly shared with people nowadays. No matter how fast the technology grows and how well those robots can perform human tasks, we still trust human beings more than robots. Why? Because they are not us.

People's perceptions about technologies is not static. It's always changing. Today not many people trust the medical team in which no human is involved, but hundreds of years later, perhaps our perceptions of the same thing will move toward the opposite end. I don't know how the future technology will be like and how people in the future will cope with all the ethical problems and the lack of trustworthiness that come with the technology. But one thing I'm sure now is that I still prefer a team that involves both robots and human to ensure the high quality of the surgery. Maybe hundreds of years later, when robots can totally replace human surgeon's job, I won't even notice that my doctor is actually just a robot. Who knows?

When you don't expect to see yourself on the magazine cover

"How do you define privacy?" This is a very interesting question that I've never thought of. I've always thought that if anyone uses any of my information that makes me uncomfortable, that is an invasion of my privacy. But in our discussion today, I realized the term "privacy" deserves a deeper thought.

The presenting group told us a little story of a couple engaged in some romantic activities in the public and was taken photos of. Those photos later appeared on national magazines, but the couple felt that their privacy had been invaded. I understand why the couple felt that way. If you don't expect to see your photos appear on national magazines, especially photos in which you engaged in romantic activities or pictures that make u look bad, you probably will be shocked and pissed. On the other hand, I totally understand the photographer's point of view of using those photos. People usually do not expose certain parts of life in the public if they don't want other people to see. The photographer's perspective is simple: If you show it to the public, you don't care about letting others know, so it won't be a big deal for me to make use of it.

Well, both are correct, but at the same time, I feel that both parties fail to put themselves in each other's shoes. I would not dig my nose in a department store to begin with if I don't want others to see it. But if I were the photographer, I would at least notify the people that i'm taking pictures of before I use them on magazines.

This reminds me of my experience in China last summer. I went to China with friends. While we were taking photos of the Forbidden City, other Chinese tourists were taking pictures of my white friends. Not "with", but "of" my friends! They didn't come ask us if it's ok. Instead, they just took the pictures right in front of us, and some of them were so close that I was worried their camera would hit our faces. My friends found it interesting of how curious Chinese people were to foreigners. None of them got mad because people were taking pictures of them without asking first, but I believe they would be shocked if they saw their pictures on Chinese national magazines the next day, especially if those pictures made them look bad.

As our guest speaker said today, it's very hard to define privacy. An incident that some people think as an invasion to the privacy might seem just normal to others, just as some couples won't mind their pictures being posted on magazines while some got mad. I'm not an expert of this issue, and I don't know how to give the most complete definition of privacy, but one thing I learned from my experiences is that it's better to ask first than being accused of invasion of others' privacy. As for the difficult part of defining privacy, I'll just leave it to those cybersecurity experts then.

Cultural Imperialism and Ladakh

We're so used to having access to the Internet in our homes and schools, and now thanks to the iPhone, I can even go online without a computer. Because everyone in this nation has Internet access, it's really hard for us to imagine "the outside world" where people have to walk 3 hours to an Internet Cafe, and pay his or her whole month salary to use the Internet.

It sounds unbelievable? But that's what I saw in Ladakh, a province of India that is located near the Himalayas and the border with China. The capital city of this province is called Leh, and that was the only place that I could possibly get Internet access. Aside from Leh, every other villages were separated by mountains. In the American way of thinking, you might think every household has a car. However, it was not happening in Ladakh. Cars were usually too expensive for a typical Ladakhi family, so they either walk for hours or sometimes even days to go to Leh, or they had to take the bus which was available only once a day, or for some areas, once in a couple of days.

The incomes of local Ladakhis are very low. They are probably not as poor as the migrant workers in China, but having the Internet access is definitely out of what they can afford. The younger generations might have seen computers a few times in schools, but many old Ladakhis have never seen a computer in their entire life. This comes to a question of whether or not people from the developed countries like us should offer them some devices to eliminate the digital divide.

As a person who lived there for weeks and adopted their way of living while living there, I say we should not force them to change the way they live. We might think we have more money, we have the Internet access, and we can go online and search for whatever we want to know. But before we claim that helping them to have better lives is the responsibility of us, the rich people from the rich country, how many of us have ever thought of what they really want?

When I lived in the local temple with many of my little lama students, I realized we can never judge other people and their culture by the standard we have in the US. They may not be as rich, they may not know what Google is, or they may not even heard of the term World Wide Web, but they are just as happy as we are, or even happier and more satisfied with their lives because they are not as greedy as many of the Americans.

The GPS and my poor sense of direction

Many people might be wondering, how are these two things related to each other? Actually, I was born with a very poor sense of direction. I'm never the kind of person who can go on a road trip with a map bought in a gas station. However, my sense of direction got even worse because of this new technology that was designed to help people.

I started using the GPS when I started driving. There was a built-in navigator in my mom's car, and I fell in love with it immediately because I knew I would never get lost again with this amazing device. I was right about it most of the time, but things were a little different when there was construction on the highway or when the navigator didn't work. Because I was so used to using the navigator whenever I drive, I never paid attention to the road signs or where I was.

I didn't change this bad habit of completely relying on the GPS even when I came to the US. My parents came to visit me a few years ago when I bought a new car, and they wanted me to show them around Purdue campus. They couldn't believe that I turned on the GPS when getting into the car ,and they started to question me if I knew the roads on campus. In order not to be laughed at, I pretended to know the way from Walmart to the campus. "I turned it on just in case I get lost," I said. But I was not very sure if I should make a right near the stadium or keep going straight without the GPS.

I didn't think depending on the GPS was such a big deal until it stopped working one day. That was a relaxing Sunday afternoon. My boyfriend was taking a nap, and I wanted to go pick up our dinner in a restaurant near the Tippecanoe Mall. My plan was, I go pick up the food, and by the time my boyfriend wakes up, there will be delicious food on the table. However, my plan was ruined when my GPS lost its satellite signal. It couldn't even locate where I was. I thought I knew the way, but I started to worry when i noticed that I passed by the same building three times. I eventually figured out how to get there by calling friends, but I also realized I should prevent the same stupid thing from happening again.

I wasn't the only person in the world that depended on GPS so much. Many of my girlfriends did that too, and so did my mom. She decided to stop depending on her GPS as much a few years ago, but her reasons was "GPSs are too stupid to point out the fastest way."

So, no matter what reasons people have, I say we should always at least pay attention to where we are. Why? Because the feeling of being lost in the small town that you have lived for years wasn't that good at all.

When your phone rings at 3 o'clock in the morning

I believe the scenario is familiar with everyone: You go to to bed after a hard-working day, and you set the alarm clock to make sure you don't oversleep the next morning. Just when you are having the sweetest dream ever (either you win the lottery or being in a vacation enjoying the sunshine and the beach), the phone rings! You thought it was time to get ready for school, but just when you are about to get up, you noticed something's wrong: Why is the sky so dark?

Then you go from "it might be raining" to "wait, this is too dark for an 8 o'clock!" before you realized that it was not the alarm clock. It was simply a text message you just received or an email that just went into your mailbox. And it was 3 o'clock in the morning!

This actually happened to me so often that I did not get disturbed at all and could go right back to sleep. I can do it because I'm still young, but what if this happens to my parents or older people who cannot go right back to sleep once they get interrupted?

The mobile technology has brought us many benefits that the previous generation could not even imagine decades ago, but it also changed the way people coordinate the everyday life. We hear mobile phones ring during the movie, during the lecture, during someone's presentation, or even during our sleep.

You might not get mad for the first time when someone's phone rings in a movie, but what if the same thing happens again and again?

Similar to the disruption in the theater, my biggest interruption of sleep comes from my iPhone application. I downloaded the CNBC news application so i could follow the latest news. However, I soon realized it woke me up in the middle of the night way too often. This application not only sent out breaking news alerts but also made a very loud, fire-alarm-like sound. For over a year, I've tried to figure out if I could turn off the application sound while leaving the phone on so I could hear the alarm clock the next morning. But I never found the way to do so. Then I realized that being interrupted during my sleep was the price I had to pay if I wanted to enjoy the convenience of having everything reachable in my phone.

On the scale of convenience and uninterrupted sleep, I soon chose the later one. And I'm very glad that I made such decision to ensure my high quality sleep.

How mobile technology changed me, and everyone else

I got my first cell phone when I was in elementary school, and that was pretty early for a Taiwanese kid back in the days. When I was the only kid in the school to own a cell phone, I didn't feel the impact of mobile phones that much. But when more and more of my friends started using mobile phones, the impact became more and more obvious.

One of the categories of mobility that we talked about today was mobility as "connected presence", and it just pointed out the biggest difference that I could feel on me. I remembered back in the days when my friends and I did not have mobile phones, we seemed more patient. I did not get frustrated if I could not reach my friends. It seemed so normal that everyone who wanted to talk to her on phone had to go through her mom, and sometimes her grandparents, and when she was not home or when I had no way to reach her, I just waited without being annoyed.

However, this totally changed when we are so used to having mobile phones with us, no matter where we are and what we are doing. One thing I notice is that people become frustrated so easily when they cannot reach their friends. I actually had this experience just yesterday. I called my boyfriend several times but he did not pick up, and as you could imagine, I became frustrated and annoyed. Before we are so used to the convenience of mobile technology, we did not blame on our friends if they weren't home, but nowadays, we blame on them if they don't pick up the phone.

In addition, I become more connected and more attached to friends even though I don't see them all the time. I text my friends when I think of them, and i receive more than 30 text messages in a day, sometimes even more than 50. This feeling of belonging actually became stronger especially when I started using iPhone. Because of the internet connection and the 3G network, I can view my friends' facebook whenever I want, and we can comment on one another's photos even when some of us are in class. Because we are so used to being reached, and constantly communicating with friends, we get insecure when our friends don't respond right away. I noticed that I checked facebook no more than five times in a day before I had iPhone, but after I switched to this magic phone, I now check my facebook a lot more than i used to do. Sometimes I check it too often that I see no new notifications on my homepage, I feel kind of lost. I sometimes start worrying if I'm not as popular as before: How come no one comments on my new status? How come no one "like" my photos? And how come they don't respond when I tag them in my album?

I was shocked when i noticed that I became such a paranoid person and such an impatient person just because of the convenience of the new mobile technology, but if you pay attention, you will notice that I'm not the only one who feels this way. A lot of people are just as paranoid and as impatient.

Because I noticed how impatient I was, I adopted a new way to deal with those negative thoughts. Think of how convenient our lives have become because of the mobile technology. I should be thankful for whatever I have now, instead of complaining about my friend who did not pick up the phone or no one responded right away to my new status on facebook.

Sometimes I still get frustrated if I call my friend for a hundred times before she finally text me back and say "sorry I put my phone on silent", but I'm moving toward that direction of being thankful and as patient as I used to be. And i think a lot of young people should go the same thing too.

You don't get as much benefits from gaming if you are old?

When we picture game players, we always think of children, teenagers, or young adults. Young children play to learn, and teenagers become more interested in high technology if they play video games frequently. What about adults? or the elder people? Do they get as much benefits from gaming? Is there an age where games lose their benefits?

I have never thought of this question before, but the more I think about it, the more I believe there's no such age where games lose their benefits.

First of all, playing games is always entertaining and helpful in releasing stress. Take my dad for example. He was in the school tennis team from high school to college. It is undoubtable that he not only played tennis well but also enjoyed it very much. He told me that playing tennis gave him the chance to release the stress from school, and from work in his later life. Did he lose such benefit even when he turned 50 this year? No. He might not be able to run as fast as he could, but playing tennis is still an effective way for him to feel less stressed in life. In addition, he can now play with me and my brothers, so I say he probably have more fun playing tennis now, compared to 30 years ago when he could only play with his coach.

Now, let's not talk about sports. Everyone knows doing exercise is good for people from all ages. What about other games?

When it comes to games that benefit human brains, I always think of my grandfather. He has been a famous, semi-professional Mahjong player for as long as I can remember. I always thought playing Mahjong was simply a game to kill time or to hang out with friends, but later I realized that it is actually more beneficial than I thought. Several years ago, my grandma started to have the symptoms of memory lost. I could still remember that evening when everyone was worried, because grandma's phone was off, and she had been out for almost 3 hours. Later she came home and told us that she suddenly forgot where she lived after she went grocery shopping, so she could only walk around and try to figure out the way back home. Everyone was shocked when they heard this. My mom was worried that my grandpa would be the same in a few years, but my dad said he was not worried at all because grandpa had been using his brain constantly because of Mahjong. It is less likely for him to have buildups blocking the transmission of the brain and the nerves. Giving that my dad is a physician, I totally believe that playing games, especially games that can stimulate thoughts like Mahjong, is actually beneficial for elder people.

So, because of the living examples in my family, I don't think there is an age where games lose their benefits. Looking back at what happened to my grandparents, I say certain games probably have more benefits to older people because keeping the brain active is like doing brain exercise. I do not know if playing Mahjong or chess can reduce people's chance of getting Alzheimer's disease, but I do believe that poking your brain once in a while by playing game is good for you, and you don't get less benefits from games just because you grow older.

Video Gaming: Benefits outweigh costs?

I"m not a person who's good at computer stuff, and I've only played a few video games. Because of the society that i grew up from, I had this stereotype of people who play video games in Internet Cafe. I always thought video gamers in Internet Cafe were all bad kids who skipped classes and played video games 24/7. However, my perception of video gamers changed when I met my boyfriend. He was the championship of a video game when he was in high school, and he was so good that whenever he played in the public, he had different kinds of companies to sponsor all the equipments he needed. He never had to buy the screens or mouses, or even computers.

One thing I noticed the difference between me, an old school person who knew very little about video games, and him, a professional gamer, is that his hand-eye coordination is a lot better than mine. Also, the way he thinks is a lot faster and more practical than me. In general, he is a more intelligent person in general compared to me.

On the other hand, because of all the media theories that I studied in my other communication classes, I know that many scholars have claimed that video games have negative effects on not only the players but also the society. Some say kids may be more violent because of violent video games, while others claim that players might become anti-social because of the large amount of time in playing the games. Still others say children are less intelligent because they have less time to spend on reading.

This is a debatable issue that everyone is interested now. Although I do not play games, or I play very few games (the only game I play is Little Big Planet from PS3), I'm more on the side of the gamers. In my opinion, gaming has more benefits than costs if people play it in a moderate level. Let's not talk about video gaming just for now. Everyone knows that drinking water is good for human bodies, but what if a person drinks too much water? I actually read a news about a person who drank too much water for too long, and he eventually died from this. I also know from my HK classes that if a person work out too much or too intense, he or she might have body damages. There are so many examples out there that tell us the lesson. Doing something in a moderate level is usually good for people, but when we do it too much, it will backfire like the water example and the workout case.

Playing video games is the same in my opinion. People who play video games in a moderate level have better hand-eye coordination, shorter reaction time, and they are more intelligent in some perspectives. On the other hand, if a person spend too much time on playing games instead of doing what he/she has to do, the negative effects are unavoidable.

So, at the end, I have one question to those addictive gamers: Don't you feel sick after sitting there for 12 hours straight?

I guess not everyone can do this. At least you'll need a very strong bladder first.

Virtual vs. Organic Community

Today in class we talked about different views of whether or not virtual communities can replace the actual, real-life communities. Rheingold said yes, but Van Dijk said no. In my opinion, both are correct in some perspectives, but looking at my personal experiences, I have to say i agree with Van Dijk more than with Rheingold.

According to Van Dijk, virtual communities can "supplement but not replace" the real communities. From this point of view, I totally agree with Van Dijk. I remember one of my teammates asked the class one question today. He asked, can the Internet (or the online community) replace the actual job interview. While standing there and listening to the class answering this question, I formed my own response in my mind. In my opinion, the Internet or the online communities cannot "replace" the real interaction. However, it does provide a medium for people to keep in touch with, or to reach out for, their potential employers. Take myself for instance. I got my summer internships with two companies in Asia this year. None of the company had face-to-face interview with me. I first used the Internet to submit my resume to them, and after the back and forth emails between the recruiters and me, we had phone interviews. I believe this process sounds familiar with many college students. Without the medium provided by the Internet, I would have no chance to get the information from these Asian companies, and it would be more difficult for me to start the "please hire me" process.

However, I didn't get the internship simply by contacting the recruiters online. They had to get to know me in a more personal level before they decided to hire me. So, this is when the new technology cannot replace the real human interaction. People might argue, now we have Skype that we can use to have the face-to-face conversation with people on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so new technologies do replace the real communities. To be honest, I do not think so. Even if today I can have a job interview with my potential employers through Skype, I would still react differently from what I would do in a real job interview. Why? the reason is simple. I can imagine I will be a lot more nervous when sitting in front of a recruiter in his/her office than sitting in front of my Macbook in my own bedroom.

I believe the difference depends from individual to individual. Some people might claim that they do not feel any difference, but I still believe that there must be differences between a virtual community and a real community, based on the technology we have nowadays.

I don't know how the future technology will be like, and how it will make the virtual community similar, or almost the same, with the real one. But for now, I believe the virtual communities cannot replace the real one.

Social media= the social watchdog?

Online indentity has been a hot topic of mass media researchers. Some say people are more likely to attack others because of no face-to-face contact, while others say because the face-to-face contact is lacking, people tend to be more friendly.

I believe it depends on individual and situation, but I do notice that there's something out in the cybrespace somewhat regulating what people say and do.

People might think there's no self-regulation at all in the cyberspace. However, a news story that I read last year told me there might be still some regulations that forced people to behave accordingly, or at least apologize for inappropriate behavior.


Right after the Sichuan Earthquake, a Chinese girl from another province created a video and posted on Youtube. It was like a normal video that people created to share their music. However, instead of sharing music, she was sharing her complaint about how the whole country was grieving for those earthquake victims. She said in the video that Sichuan people should keep the grief to themselves because she's sick of everyone grieving for those dead people. She also stated that Sichuan people deserved the disaster.

As you can imagine, people got mad and started to search for who she was and everything about her. Within a few days, her identity as a university student, her social security numbers (as in China), her boyfriend's name, and even her school grades were made public. She not only received a lot of angry calls and angry comments online but also got criticized in her real life.

She posted another video later to apologize for what she did, and to ask for forgiveness from the earthquake victims, their families, and the whole nation.

This news may be forgotten by now, but I see the same thing happen over and over again, in China, in Taiwan, or even in the U.S.. My point is, online users might attack other users or celebrities because of no face-to-face contact, but because of the large amount of people online, and because of the easy access of the Internet, online users automatically form an environment to prevent such incident from happening again. Such regulation may not apply everytime when someone posts something ridiculous online, but I see these actions moving toward forming self-regulation. It might take a long time for online users to form such regulation of what they do or what they say, but at least there's something out there to regulate people not to do stupid things like the Chinese girl.

After all, would you do the same thing when you found out how badly the girl was criticized in real life and how much pressure she felt?