How do Americans think of Chinese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhp0qZWqrlM&feature=youtu.be

Video games, save the world?

I'm not a big fan of video games. For me, they waste a lot of time and money. The woman in the Ted video gives a interesting topic, but I don't really buy it. For me it's not really true.

First the theory of 10,000 hours is quite right. 10,000 hours means that If you study 6 hours a day, it will take you 4.6 years to learn a thing well. I have tried to learn piano and painting for about 5 years and for me, I'm pretty good at them. However, being good at games is not even a skill that is useful in real life for me! I know I'm being bias but how can  people good at games and spend hundreds, thousands of hours on them solve problems like hunger, climate changes? 

People like to live in an unreal world. Because they can forget the reality. They search for satisfaction in games because they can't feel it within the real world. Games are not like movies. When people watch movies, no matter how they want to live like the characters, they have no way to actual experience this kind of life. However for games, it's different. You spend hours in front of the computer and kind of experience the life. You can get rewards when you solve a mission. You'll have girlfriends if you play well. You will have followers if you have played in a certain level. People just love the feelings of getting the illusion rewards because they can't get the, in real life.

Again, gamers love to play games because the game is not real. Like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Ring, all these stories will never happen in real life. So how can gamers be interested in real life?

Just look at the people who really solve problems of the world. I don't think they play games. And way before games came out, there were people who solve problems. They are interested in the thing they care and that's the problem they want to solve. 

So for me, I don't want people to keep spending times on games. I don't mean stop playing. I mean if your professions are games then do it. But if you're not, you better look up at the real world and stop addicting from video games. These are just my opinions.  

Reality shows, really a reality?

I'm not a big fan of reality TV shows and I haven't watched many reality shows yet. I just don't like how the TVs produce reality shows.   

      First, I think it’s a good idea to do reality shows. Around us, there are a lot of interesting stories and people. Sometimes, they are way funnier than famous people. They don’t have that much of concerns like the celebrities to behave well in front of their fans. They can show who they really are and just don’t have to hide.

      But do the reality shows we watch really reality? I don’t think so. Most reality shows take one stereotype of people and tell stories around them. But in order to make the show more interest, the producer just script the whole show. If we script our life then the life is not life at all. The “real people” in the show for me are more like actors. Like the Duck Dynasty, they talk, dress, act in a certain way simply because they think people from the south do that (though they are people from the south and they used to dress normal).

      Right now, everything is “entertainment first”. People watch much TVs and spend a lot of time on these. I understand that now, people are facing great pressures and they need to find ways to get out. But it’s not the time that I’m concern but the impact. I don’t care if you watch 5 hours of TV a day or you watch none. But some people, their minds are just narrow. They would like to take one stereotype and think the others are the same. This situation is quite serious. I have a friend and she’s a college student like me. She’ll even believe things happen in TV shows. Every time she watches a drama or film, she would get very excited or surprised. For example, she watched a Japanese drama about the dark side of the Japanese hospital. She used to think that the Japanese hospitals are good. After only one episode, she started to curse and shout saying that she was totally wrong and she would never go into a hospital again. I had to tell her that it’s just drama. Besides, things happen all the time. If you have some serious problems, you have to go to the hospital.

    I agree with what the article talks. People turn to think less about the true reality after watching reality shows. They give marks to certain types of people and they think themselves are clever. It’s really not a good thing. Gradually, people might ignore the varieties of people’s personalities.

Binge Watching

I have tried so many times to binge watch dramas and series of TV shows. Last summer I watched “Merlin” in a week (and that’s my final week!). But I haven’t tried to binge watch for a whole night (not because I don’t want to, simply because I don’t stay late often). Right now I like to watch Japanese and British dramas. Most Japanese dramas only have 11 episodes. Some British dramas even only have three!( I did binge watched Torchwood though). Last fall break I watched 3 different Japanese dramas in 3 days. This was a hard work from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm.  I also watched two seasons of “American Horror Stories” in two days.  So glad they are not that long. If I want to watch something like “Orange is the new black” then I’ll be crazy.

I really agree with what we talked in class. The whole shows are out there and I can watch them whatever I want. Why would I binge watch? Binge watching is just so tired.

For me, one reason is that I love to watch TV and sometimes it’s just so hard to find something interest you. If I watch one episode and I think it’s great, I will surely want to know more. Also If I just watch dramas one episode a week, I’ll have more time to think about the story lines. Maybe I’ll think about what’s coming next. But if I binge watch, I turn to think less when I’m watching.

A good example would be my experience when I was binge watching “Dracula”. When I watched the first episode, I thought it’s boring. Everything is just not that right. I would expect more. However at that time I did not have others to watch so I just kept watching. When I watched 5 or 6 episodes, I started to think it’s interesting. I started to know the charms of all the characters, and I was excited about what’s going to happen next. When I finished season 1, I wanted to see season 2. But now I just loose interest again. It’s more like an impulsion, it has to be at that time. This reminds me of “Breaking Bad”, I watched all five seasons together and it was awesome. I did not watch it after Mr. White is going to get caught because I don’t want to see that scene. So I still have 6 or 7 episodes left.

Princess culture - parents are important

    I was born in China, and to be honest, I started to watch Disney films at a very late age. When I was around 8, I first started to know Disney and watched all princess films. Maybe because I was already 8 and was no longer a little kid, I did not get too affected in terms of trying to be a princess by these films. To be surprised I was more interested in painting after watching all the films rather than becoming a princess. This reminds me of a TV show. I believe it’s called the Nanny. It is about some experienced nannies go to some families that have problems of educating kids. Some of the kids are not polite. They yell at each other, and they don’t listen to their parents. I did not blame all the kids in this TV show. Instead of saying how bad these kids are, I think the problems are the parents. A lot of families have a lot of kids and they don’t have that much energy to take care all of the kids. They have jobs and other things to do which will reduce the time that they spend with kids. Parenting is really important for children especially when they are young. Parents need to set a role model for their kids and that’s how children learn all the social skills. If you don’t spend time with your kids and just let them watch TV or play by themselves, you don’t know what kind of things they will learn.

    This is just one type of the parents. Another type is that parents don’t know how to punish their children. Punishment doesn’t mean beating or yelling. There is something that the kids must know what they shouldn’t do. If they are getting over, you need to stop and tell them don’t do this. A lot of parents only know how to courage their children and they give whatever they want. This action just spoils the kids and their personalities can turn very bad when they grow up.

    Back to the princess culture, I don’t think these cartoons are evil or bad or they are on purpose to make these stories. There’s always another way to see these stories, just like what we see in class. If the parents just leave the kids with all the cartoons without sharing with the children, the children will just get excited about the princess, the fairies and the beautiful dresses the princess have. And if parents start to dress the kids like a princess, the children will want more. If the parents can spend some time watching cartoons with their children and tell the kids the good things about these cartoons, I believe children will not just focus on the colorful life a princess have but more into the good personalities or behaviors a princess has.

    Princess culture is just one small part of the popular culture. Actually there are a lot of problems with educating kids. TV violence, video games, internet……All these can heavily impact on children. For me, the things out there are not the main case of the problem. Think about who stay with children most, who care children most. Parents are one big chain of the entire life of a child.

Some thoughts about what is cool and branding.

I read the article about the culture of cool and why we hate hipster and they remind me of some of my friends. I have one friend in China who is really cute and popular. We all think she is from a higher class because she always wears the newest fashions and always talks about beauty and makeups. Until one day we came to her home and found out that she’s actually from a home that is not that rich. Both her mom and dad are workers in a factory. And I started to think why she would act like that, wearing beautiful clothes and just chasing the popular so that everyone thinks she’s cool. But actually, there is no such thing as “cool”. She is like chasing a shadow on the wall, but the shadows keep changing because of the sun. Chasing popular and trying to be cool really is a hard job. You will spend a lot of time and money on this. For example, you bought dark red fashions last year because the popular color last year was dark red, then this year the popular color becomes yellow. So you buy a lot of yellow fashions and throw away some of the old clothes. But maybe after 5 years, dark red becomes popular again, and you buy a lot of dark red fashions again. You don’t even remember you actually had them before.

For me, there are two ways for people trying to be cool. One is trying to know the fashion, the trance and catch up with all the popular culture. The other is the opposite. You do whatever different from the others, and if you are lucky, people will think of you as “being cool” rather than “weird”. Most of my friends are the first type. But when I think of the second type which is trying to be “different”, they are not actually “different”. Fashion is a circle and you will not go over with it. You consider yourself “cool” and “special”, maybe a month later all the people start to imitate your wearing. So that’s the point of the video we watched in class.

As hipsters, at first I did not know what it is. So I searched on line and found a lot of pictures. I was surprised that I actually think they are normal. I don’t think they are wearing something different. Maybe not many people on street will wear things like that but I have seen a lot of people wearing like hipsters and posting their photos on line. In Japan this style is actually kind of popular. But when it comes to the behavior, I haven’t met any hipsters by far.

For branding, I have to say I’m a person who believes in brand, but only in other countries not in China. As we all know, a lot of things are made in China. Sometimes I’m frustrating because these made in China products are way better than the products actually selling in China. There are just a lot of problems with the market. People make fake stuffs and sell them to the citizens. A lot of problems appear. The food industry, for example, is a big problem. Even the milk powder has problems and a lot of babies died because of using the powder. And this company is the number one big milk powder company in China. So I don’t trust any of the companies in China right now. So if I think of American branding, I buy more branding clothes than non-branding clothes. For example, if you see clothes selling in Walmart, they are just bad. If you buy a good one, you can always wear them. This is actually saving a lot more money.

Some interesting facts about Chinese social media

As we all know, Chinese government blocks Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from their citizens which I think is really a stupid act. However just like the article of Stone, we can actually find ways to get access to them which is called “jump over the wall”. In this way, we Chinese people can use these social media and thus find more truth of our own country. On YouTube, I’ve seen videos that were forbidden by the government long time ago. I can see other people’s comments and opinions about China and see how I was fooled by the government before. I start to understand, why Chinese government would block these social media. Because if they let these social media open to the citizens, there will be a revolution. So I really agree with Stone, with his theory of online activism. Online activism is really a good way for people to participate, to join and to know. Sometimes not all people are willing to run in the first. That’s great risk. People may die for this. However, if we can gather people’s ideas from internet, and kind of spread this idea to more people using internet, the group will grow bigger and bigger. And I have faith in this.

I would like to talk a little bit about Chinese social media. We have all different kind of social media too. Actually I think some of their tools and features are even better than Facebook and Twitter. For example, Sina Mini blog. This one is similar to Twitter. It’s also 140 characters restricted and you can follow and add people. It is a great tool for people to get information. So what’s its disadvantage? Well, though it’s good, it’s still controlled by the government, which means if you say something bad about the government, your post will be deleted. Sometimes your ID will be deleted too and you will never be able to use it. This sounds really horrible and it is. So we have to be very careful of any post we made about politics. However things get better these years simply because there are too many people and the government is not fast enough. So you may see one post for couple of days and then it just disappears. So for example, what I'm posting right now will not be seen in any Chinese social media. This is the biggest disadvantage of Chiense social media. Other than this, it’s really a good tool for people to check and share information.

Besides mini blog, we have a lot of different social media like QQ and WeiXin, these two are more like Facebook and you can easily get in touch with your friends. I use them as Skype too to contact my parents in China. They work really well too.

In China every year we’ll choose best 10 words of the year. These words are really popular online and most of them are made by internet users and spread by social media. So social media actually influence how people talk. If you don’t use social media, sometimes you don’t even know what people are talking about. I’m a heavy user of social media so I know all these words. Sometimes when I say them to my roommate, she doesn’t understand.

On Sina mini blog, I will follow something I’m interested. Like I follow several film clubs and they will post good movies every day. I also follow several fan clubs of the stars I like, and I can see their information and pictures. A good thing is that most of my friends don’t like to post too much of their lives on social media which is good for me because I can just focus on the stuffs I’m interested. Mini blog even can organize post for me so you can choose not to read your friends’ posts or not the club’s post. That’s why I would check them every day, they are just really useful.

There’re a lot of topics of Chinese social media and I only cover little in this blog post. It’s just really interesting to see how social media will go in the future and how it will lead a revolution.

Media matters - some thoughts about social learning theory and para social relationship

For me learning media and pop culture is really important. Media has changed our life and society in various ways and if we do not care about it or learn from it, we will just follow the trance by no reasons. For me by that time, people lose themselves.

I read chapter 9 and get really interested in this social learning theory. As the book says, social learning theory focuses on how we learn to believe and behave based on observation, imitation and modeling. This theory has this idea that people don’t just behave like that. They will learn from the acts of others. And now, media has taken a great portion of life, a lot of people just change their behavior because of that.

I personally consider myself a heavy TV user. However I’m a TCOM major and will go to the movie industry in the future, my little hobbit may consider not wrong. But it is still too much. I watch TV shows and movies for over 3 hours a day when I’m not supper busy. And on weekends, I can even watch 10 hours a day. Like last weekend, I just finished two seasons of American Horror Stories in two days. That’s a lot of work.

So, how these TV shows and movies have changed me? When I was a little girl, I was really afraid of any kinds of fiction or horror movies. But since I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies, I just no longer afraid of such thing. That’s totally opposite to what we discuss in class today. Because fearful is one same element of those heavy TV users. But this is only for me so I don’t know what others think of this.

However I do find a great fear of marriage and relationships with another person. It’s not because marriages on screen are too bad so that I’m afraid of getting worse relationships with others. On the contrary, they are too good on screen. I like how the main characters fell in love, how they talk, how they play. I just find the real world too boring. And because I have so many movies and TV shows to see, I simply don’t think getting into a relationship is necessary. That’s a big danger because right now I just don’t want to marry. I guess a lot of people would have the same feelings like this. For example, they have a favorite actor and the girls just want to marry his instead of finding a real boyfriend.

This is also a reflection of para-social relationship. I have to say I have a lot of these kinds of people. I have a lot of favorites like actors, actresses, musicians. I watch all their related movies and TV shows as well as interviews and news. I think I know everything about them, their favorite brand, colors. I even think I know their personality, I feel like I understand him. But a voice deep in my mind just tells me that’s not true. They act and they just want you to believe who they are.

Like right now I’m really interested in a J-pop group. The name is Arashi and their music is really good. This group has five members, Ohno Satoshi, Sho Sakurai, Masaki Aiba, Kazunari Ninomiya and Jun Matsumoto. I can remember all their information and almost sing all their songs. I even start to learn Japanese just because I love them so much and I want to understand what they are saying. Each member act as well as host many different shows. They also have their own shows. They have been a group for 15 years and there are a lot of interviews, shows, dramas and movies related to them, which means, I have a lot of work to do. Sometimes, I think it’s horrible to waste time on such things because you simply crazily love a group of people and they may never know you. And they make a lot of money and time from you. Knowing this is just suck.

But they do give me courages. If I listen to their music I feel happy. If I see their faces, I feel happy too. I guess I get benefit too and I don’t regret it. Yes, media do change me but choosing which media to look is totally my choice. Even if my friends ask me to check something, I’ll turn it down if I don’t like it. Living in a world full of media, we young people just need to work hard and fit in. For me, media matters.