Log #6

Last Thursday the originator,水某, of Lessonsfrommovies came to our school to give a short speech. What they,水某and his husband, do is recommending movies with a conclusion talking about their reflection and what they have learned after watching the movie. The words they give usually inspires me a lot and attract me to see the movie by myself. I follow Lessonsfrommovies’ fan page on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Thus, I looked forward to the speech very much. The topic she gave was about discovering myself.

The movie, The Little Prince, impressed me the most during the speech. I was not admitted to read comic books in my childhood. The first comic book I read was “The Little Prince” given by my father as a birthday gift. I was only 10 then; therefore, I didn’t receive much feeling after reading the book. I was not interested in it. “Stand up for what you believe in,” she shared the concept with us. As it said in the movie, “No grown-ups will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!” When I was young, I had insistence on things what I paid a lot of value on― tiny to what my Barbie girl should wear today and large to how my pencils should be set in my pencil case. However, in my mind, adults never understood why I focused a lot on such a non-important thing. As a child, I sometimes had the idea that I would never make myself become a grown-up like he/she. While through the year pass, I gradually accidentally become an adult I don’t like. Maybe because of the reality and maybe because of the society, I lose my heart as being a naïve child. After the sharing, I went back home and wrote down what I used to value a lot and what I wanted to achieve. I decided to spend some time every day, recalling my childhood, and finish those dreams. Act like an adult but think like a child.

Log #5

  I love a YouTuber called Alex very much. He lived in America at his early age and after he came back to Taiwan, he found himself fall in love with this country. Thus, he called himself “Taike.” He has his own YouTube Channel called TKstory. He is a director and he focuses a lot on the social issue such as environmental protection and the care of the underprivileged. A week ago, he posted a video named “Comfort Zone Challenge.” In the short video, he mentioned that not everyone was born to be outgoing and confident. However, it can be trained to become a person with these personalities. First, we should walk out from our comfort zone. He wakes up early and goes jogging every day, and he says good morning to everyone he meets. Although some may consider him strange and ignore him, there are still a lot of people reply good morning to him with an energetic and kind voice. Besides, he lies down on the sidewalk at Ximen, which is crowded with people. At first, he feels nervous and his heart beats fast but he gradually gets used to those strange eyes from pedestrians.

Eight years ago, I tried hard to get out from my comfort zone because I didn’t want to experience the same misery I encountered in my elementary school. I changed my personality from shy to outgoing; I changed the way I make friends such as being nice and friendly to everyone. I learned to be humorous and learned to be independent. Though it was not a good change, I no longer trust people easily and I tell myself that any of my friends may leave me one day without reasons. Thus, I started to go eating at a restaurant by myself, go shopping by myself, and go traveling by myself. (Though until now I still feel nervous in a crowd of people and I always look at the ground when walking on the road) The process was hard, extremely hard, but I was happy that I successfully became a new person. Like Alex wrote down in his video “Your greatest fear carries your greatest growth,” if I did not experience bullying in my childhood, I would not have become the person who I am today. Now I have no problem with my friendship and even my friends can’t see any clues of my past from my behavior and talk. However, now I am again in my comfort zone with a new me and sometimes I tell myself it’s another time for me to break it since “Courage is like a muscle, strengthened only by use.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgjA_JnIBPc

Log #4

After weeks of reading and sharing on how media effects our life recently and the media chaos, I feel like being more interested in the problem of fake news. Most people think they spread fake information on the Internet anonymously will not be caught or be punished; journalism make up fake news to raise people’s attention and simply apologize with “sorry” after readers found out the news is not true. With the development of this kind of phenomenon, we get in touch with more and more fake news nowadays. This time, I would like to talk about how to deal with the problem of fake news.

Superficially, take Facebook for example, the company hires employees to browse through popular articles to see if those are true. In this way, it is efficient delete fake news before more people read them. Facebook also let its users have the chance to flag content as being false. Besides, we ourselves can make good use of fact-checking sites. Fake news stories are often exposed by websites, such as Snopes.com, TruthOrFiction.com and FactCheck.org.

However, "The problem of fake news isn't solved by hoping for a referee," Edward Snowden, who copied and leaked  classified information  from the National Security Agency (NSA) without prior authorization in 2013, said. "We have to exercise and spread the idea that critical thinking matters now more than ever, given the fact that lies seem to be getting very popular." Critical thinking is mentioned by lots of my classmates in their logs. Everyone should develop the ability of critical thinking. Critical thinking helps us recognize the true and fake and the bad and good of what we receive and what we share. Since we know the spread of fake news couldn’t stop in like a day or a month, what we should do is to become more careful and critical when we are watching every news.

How to handle 'fake news'

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-to-handle-fake-news/article/2609818

What’s the big deal with fake news? – Adam ruins everything

http://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/videos/whats-the-big-deal-with-fake-news.html

How to deal with fake news? Debate in European Parliament

http://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2017/03/07/how-to-deal-with-fake-news-debate-in-european-parliament/

Here’s how we should deal with fake news online

https://www.recode.net/2016/11/18/13679490/facebook-fake-news-online-solutions-election

How to fix fake news problem

http://newatlas.com/how-to-fix-fake-news-problem/47800/

Log #3

Notre Dame de Paris is a sung-through musical theater produced by French and Canada, adapted from Victor Marie Hugo’s novel. It has been performed all around the world since 1998. This year, 2017, the musical was shown at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall from February 24 to March 5. I was there on the last performance on Sunday night. I would like to share my feeling after watching the musical. (Not going to talk about the plot, suppose everyone has known it.)

Many friends of I said that they had heard of the story of Notre Dame de Paris in their childhood or had watched the cartoon; however, I have never known any plot about it. Out of curiosity and some interest, I decided to give it a try and bought a ticket half year ago.

I went to the show with excitement since I thought it must be a really cool experience. Besides, I expected to have some specials at the end of the musical since it was the last performance. As the poet Gringoire sang the first song, Le Temps des Cathédrales, which may also be the most famous one, no exaggeration, I got goose bumps. The voice was so clean, soft but penetrating. Despite the easy tune and melody, the poet fully showed his singing skill. In addition, the heavy makeup for the stage and the gorgeous background impressed me a lot. Through the first song, I was quickly brought into the story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT6Mpkj9Y8Q

In all of the characters, I love Frollo the priest the most. He is the number one actor in my heart. I think the character was hard to interpret. He had lots of different emotions in his mind but he held those in. For example, he had a lot of insides struggle and hesitation to portray. However, without much action, I could deeply feel his depression and suspicion toward his God and sort of anger to himself through his emotive voice and facial expressions. The song Etre pretre et aimer une femme best showed the superb acting voiceof the priest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SZUQm375do

As throughout all the songs, lyrics of Dieu que le monde est injuste, which was sung by Quasimodo, touched me the most. The situation mentioned in the song happens in reality too. Some people find themselves hard to find friends, partners or be loved just because they are not handsome or pretty even though they work really hard to fulfill themselves or even though they are friendly and kind. However, those who look good attract people by doing nothing ; some may even be willing to sacrifice for those good-lookers without asking any return. The lyrics talked about how sorrowful and angry Quasimoda was because of his ugly appearance and born physical disability.

Dieu que le monde est injuste English Lyrics

God, how the world is unjust

He so beautiful and I so homely

I would give you the moon

And you wouldn't love me

And he without making a single gesture

Without a word, without a glance

He put the tenderness

Deep in your big, dark eyes

You will give him your body

You will believe his oaths

You love him for his exterior

Without seeing what there is within

God, how the world is unjust

He gentleman and I vagrant

He will give you the moon

You who didn't ask for anything

God, how the world is unjust

Love your beautiful cavalier

The satin of your caramel skin

Is not for the beggars

My ugliness is an insult

To your insolent beauty

An error of Nature

Who has given me no love

God, how the world is unjust

Our share is not theirs

We have no fortune

But they, then, have they a heart?

They were born into refinement

To make love and war

But we the poor worms

Our life is much more beautiful

And on which side is God?

On the side of the monstrances

Or otherwise on the side of those

Who pray to him morning and night?

The Jesus whom we adore

Did he always prefer

The Three Wise Men with their gold

To us poor shepherds?

God, how life is cruel

For two hearts that seek each other

I so homely and you so beautiful

How could you love me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ4Hfv1nw8c

It has been two weeks after the musical but those songs are always in my brain singing and singing.  I feel myself deeply addicted to it. Though it is a tragedy, I learned that things may not always go smooth successfully and dreams may never come true no matter how hard I work. Not learning to be pessimistic, but telling myself that it is never too despair to give up myself.

Log #2

After discussion, our group decided to choose Media Chaos as our topic. I think the topic is quite big and it covers a lot of detailed issues. In my previous log, I talked about how Medias exaggerate news title to attract the public and how people lose ability to recognize true and fake news. This week, I would like to focus on how Media lose sight of the main point.

On February 13, 2017, news about a serious car accident, which caused death to 33 people, occupied almost every newspaper and TV program. Information about what caused the tragedy and who should take the responsibility was given by reporters and analyzed by pundits. However, there was a piece of news focused on what they ate for their dinner. Video, which pictured those passengers’ last figure by monitor in the bakery, was shown. The news talked about how much bread they bought and how long they stayed at the bakery. It mentioned that tourists often stayed at the bakery about 15 minutes but they were there almost half an hour. Therefore, they must be hungry and exhausted then. Reporters ended this news by saying “Bread becomes their last dinner! How uncertain life is!” I was confused about why I should know what the deceased ate for their last meal and besides, what was the connection between what they ate and how the accident happened. I also thought that the news was impolite to the deceased. This news totally lost sight of the main point.

Another event shared the same idea—Hong’s death in the military. Rather than investigating the truth behind the mistreating, Medias focused a lot on Hong’s sister. Her height, weight, education and relationship were all brought to the public. These elements definitely had no business with her brother’s death. Furthermore, Media reported politics showing their sympathy to Hong’s family one after another as if it had been a show letting Taiwanese know who could be the best leader of our country.

Media losing sight of the main point could be part of Media Chaos. Important issues were obscured by insignificant discussion from Medias.  

References：

The Diagnosis and Reflection of Media Chaos

https://anntw.com/articles/20140223-tDbX

http://news.ftv.com.tw/NewsContent.aspx?ntype=class&sno=2017216S02M1

http://www.ettoday.net/news/20130729/247774.htm

Log #1

I swipe my Facebook once and I see lot pieces of news on my pages, for example, who commits suicide, who sets fire or who has love affair with whom. Nowadays, Medias transfer messages to us through different ways. Newspaper, TV news and all kinds of fanpages on our social networking system invade into our life so much and we gradually lose our ability to recognize true and fake information.

Media in Taiwan tends to exaggerate the title of a piece of news to gain attention. “Millions of people were shock”, “He said a word that brought tears to the world” are both common sentences to see on our news. After reading the content, we always find that there is nothing so special in it. Besides, sometimes we even feel being cheated by the title.

 Once I saw a piece of news on Facebook titled “Such a cruel man. He abused a dog to death.” a picture of a poor dirty dog was added. Thousands of comments were scolding the man of killing the dog; many of them even found out the Facebook account of the man and asked everyone to blame him on his own page. I was wondering how serious the thing went and curiously clicked the news. I was extremely surprised to see that it was just a video clip about a man playing with a dog and the dog wasn’t seem to be uncomfortable. Thus, for those who commented below criticizing the man must be one who actually didn’t read the content of the news. I was amazed at how people get effective easily by others words and unclear information.

What I think Media should do is giving us correct and precise information, telling us more about international situation and country development and policy. Taiwanese medias should be shameful for having so many teachers keep telling us it is useless, meaningless and time-wasting to follow Taiwanese news. 

Log #7

Yeonmi with her sister and parents

　　I must say this is the first time that I didn't want to put down my book since I started my reading this semester, even I have been reading it for two hours. I saw Yeonmi's determination to escape North Korea and hoped she could run out of the terrible country successfully. After she finally arrived China with her mother, I thought they would live a happy life in the new place. However, unfortunately, things didn't go  smooth as I thought. They were there and be sold and be raped. I felt sorry for what they had encountered. I agree Yeonmi idea a lot after she was sold to a Chinese man. She found that even if now she didn't have to worry about starving to death and had a well living quality, she was not happy because she lost her family. I believe that material satisfaction can never surpass mental satisfaction.
　　I see it fun when I saw Yeonmi's description that she felt a sense of happiness when she was in the same place with their president and enjoyed breathing the same air with him. This situation also happens on me when my favorite idols come to Taiwan to hold a concert. If I don't have enough money to buy the ticket, I will go to the place where they are performing and deeply breathe the air and being satisfied with sharing the same air with them.Thus, I understand Yeonmi's feeling.

Log #6

After reading the book this week, a question came into my mind. Would you like  to live in the country which has no  division of the rich and the poor or a country which you can see bargainers beside the street? To me, this is a tough question. If today I were a really hard working person, I would not want to receive the same feedback as those who always fools around. However, in the country I grew up, Taiwan, I see the extremely different living quality between the rich and the poor. I always pay sympathy on those who have nowhere to go and live in the park on no matter hot or cold day. I believe some of them may have ever worked really hard for themselves, but they eventually couldn't escape from their destiny. It's poor of them of not getting the same reward. At these time, I think our government should  rule the property of every family and divide the same amount of money to everyone in the country. Nevertheless, this policy may be unfair as well. This is why I want to ask this question.

Log #5

In Order to Live - Yeonmi Park
　　The book we chose in our group is In Order to Live. I'm glad that our group members reached an agreement immediately of which book we want to read. It's a book talking about a young North Korean woman and her family who escaped from their hometown and search for their own freedom. At first, I was afraid that I could not understand the  story clearly because I am not familiar with North Korean's history and politics. However, the author explain really detailed and clear. During her description, I got a basic knowledge of  the tense between North and South Korea and the inhuman ruling system in North Korea.
　　After reading three chapters, I am quite surprised at the attitude of  people living in North Korea toward their government. I think they are all against their government and want to escape like Yeonmi Park. Nevertheless, many of them respect their president and protect him a lot. I must say that I admire Kim's ability of convincing his citizens that all he do is for all  the people's good. I am curious about how the young woman and her family run away from North Korea and I will keep reading the book.

Log #4

　　After half and a month, I finally finished my first book. The ending was kind of warm and did surprise me a lot. From what I read this time, there was a breakthrough in Christine’s memory and gradually brought her mysterious life to an end. 　　There is a sentence I like a lot from what I have read this time: "Why Ben isn't telling you the truth, only you know it." I remembered when I was in junior high school, I told my friend a lie in order to protect her. While later she found out that I was lying to her and came to me for an explanation. I apologized to her for myself  not being honest but I still couldn't tell her what really happened. Because the event was related to a boy she liked, she insisted on knowing the truth. In the end, our friendship broke. She would never know what I had done to keep her from danger even being teased and being ignored. I was really sad and hated myself for doing so much to a person left me eventually. When I saw this sentence, I hope at that time, my friend could stand in my shoes and thought that I must have reasons for telling a lie. Maybe the situation might be extremely different if she had believed me then. 

　　There were still a lot of sentences inspired me to think about my life and cherish what I have in this book. I'm glad that besides reading a book, I can take my life and every moment more seriously after seeing Christine's suffer.  I am looking forward to reading my next novel.

Log #3

Before I Go To Sleep　　

　　After reading more than half of the book, I feel like being more and more addicted to the book. Every time when I was reading, I could feel myself sink into the world of reading and truly experienced the feeling of time passing so fast when reading. The story never ran out of steam. One clue and the other connected tightly and the unpredictable story line attracted me a lot. 

　　From what I have read this time, Christine has gradually recovered. She could now remember some plot or some clip of what happened the day before. Besides, she found that her husband, Ben, had kept lying to her from the diary she kept. The one that shocked me the most was that Christine didn't get injured because of the car accident, which Ben always told her she did, instead, she was found naked and bloody on the street without any memory and was sent to the hospital. Furthermore,  there was a scene that kept popping up in Christine's mind — She was in a hotel room with a clean bed, a sofa, candles and flower aroma; a man came to the door and knock on it. She couldn't recognize the face of the man. I supposed the scene must be a great clue to what really happened to Christine.

Log #2

        From p.74-p.126 recorded Christine’s two days’ diary. There was a great improvement of Christine’s memory. Dr. Nash’s remedy of asking Christine to keep diary from tiny to large things everyday seemed to be effective.

        During these two days, Christine went back to the house she grew up under Dr. Nash arrangement. At there, she memorized something about her parents and a view of reporters taking photos and interviewing she, which was quite a big discovery, she used to be a writer and had published books. Besides, she had an ambiguous memory of being pregnant. However, Ben never mentioned that they have a child. Christine made up her mind to ask Ben about her writing career and their child if it was all her imagination that she made up her own memory or it were all true. Sadly, Ben told her all the books were buried by a serious fire accident and their son was dead because of a war. He said he hadn’t mentioned these because he thought Christine might be really sad.

        After watching these two chapters, I felt Ben was quite strange, he seemed to be concealing some things. I think Christine shouldn’t believe what Ben said completely. Now I am afraid that when I finish the whole, I still can’t get any clue of what has happened to Christine. Hope the ending gives me a detailed answer of the true life of Christine.

Log #1

　　I have been interested in this book, Before I  Go To Sleep, for a long time, since it has published its Chinese version and has been adapted into a movie and both have become a hit. I have also heard of that the story is exciting and mysterious and the ending gives a surprise. At the time I saw this book, I chose it without hesitation.
　　The story was about a woman who suffered from amnesia. She would forget everything happened yesterday when she woke up in the morning; however, she could remember things that happened in her childhood. She had two man, one claimed to be her husband, telling she about her past and the other claimed to be her doctor , helping she memorize things before her accident and asking she record her everyday.
　　I think I still can't get any clue from what I have read so far, because readers know as much information as  the woman in the story. We can only know what have happened from the woman's description in her diary. We don't even know who tells the truth and who tells a lie. Nevertheless, the mysterious and unexpected story line drives me keep reading it. I am now curious about if one day the woman will regain her memory. Besides, I am quite surprised that I did find something fun during my reading, I feel myself being willing to read this novel and even want to spend a lot of time on it. I'm glad that I chose the right book.

My Reading History

　　I think I am a reader in Mandarin.  I  love to read the books of a Japanese author called  東野圭吾.  Most of his works are about detective. I enjoy guessing who the criminal is. My favorite book of his is 嫌疑犯X的獻身 because the reason behind the motivation of crime surprise me. It connects a lot to human nature and tells how human can sacrifice for the ones we love.

　　My aunt bought a lot of books for me to read at my early age either in Mandarin or English. It helped develop my reading habit. When I was busying with my schoolwork and was under a lot of pressure in senior high school, reading made me feel relaxed. I usually spent time reading books in a fancy coffee shop in my spare time. However, I take a part-time job on almost every weekend now, I have few time to read.

　　My teacher in senior high asked us to read novels and write summary and reflection every semester. Nevertheless, I used to feel sleepy when reading English novel, I was forced to read English novels then. Thus,  I would like to develop my interest in reading in English. Also, I would like to try different categories in novels. Hope this class makes me a reading lover.