It’s been about a month now, but I’ve got this one incident in my head right now that I’d like to write down before it goes away forever. Normally, it wouldn’t be significant at all—you know, music on college campuses. Now this happening didn’t have to do with marketed music at all. It’s just one day, I walked out of the library, and the usually music-fee campus was alive with this impromptu drumming session.
Of course, it wasn’t impromptu in that some club booked the venue (Sun Yat-sen Plaza, like the small quad on campus), but what was happening was quite fun. Sitting around a coordinator were students on seats playing (percussion) instruments. They were all into it, and it was apparent that they were not all one group, because while the sounds coming out didn’t sound bad, they didn’t sound at the concerto standard either, and would have sounded terrible without the coordinator and the baseline of instruments near her.
In addition, there were empty seats (more than a few), and they all had instruments on them. Granted, they weren’t thousand-dollar pieces, but small hand drums and such. It became more apparent that anyone could join in as random people started sitting down.
So we sat down as well and had some fun banging away at our instruments for like ten minutes. It was more for fun than for meritorious art, so the quality of the actual sounds didn’t matter—it was just fun.
That was just one of a handful (like maybe three) times that I’d heard music blaring on campus. That was the first time I witnessed and participated in an impromptu drumming session as well, and it was a nice relief from class, which I went to immediately after.
So where did the music go?
I’ve heard of Cantopop (or any music for that matter) and I was surprised that the first time I heard it blaring was when I went to karaoke in Causeway Bay about a month and a half ago. In comparison, when I went to Rome, the first thing I heard was American pop blasting out of a storefront across the road from Roma Termini (train station). I heard Italian music coming out of the storefront a block and a half later.
I suppose it would be easy to blame it on the perceived lack of culture here. I don’t think this works though in this case, because even though you might not produce it, you can still enjoy it—I’ve heard my floormates listening to music in their rooms. It can’t be a public space thing, because it’s just constant chatter of students practically shouting over each other on campus. And it’s not like it doesn’t exist at all, because I know that there are plenty of concerts going on around here.
So I guess I don’t really know; I just wish there were more music.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Seventy-eight, Part 2
An upper or a downer? I thought at first that it was an upper like most of my classmates, that that means that we as a world are coming closer together and being more open, but now, I’m conflicted.
In Humanity in Globalization, the professor brought in Tom Crampton as a guest speaker. He actually turned out to be the first guest speaker of the class to be more of a guest lecture. Whereas Professor Reyes would usually sit the guest down and ask questions to solicit information and discussion, he then opens it up to the class as a forum. Tom Crampton came with his own PowerPoint and lecture and it was frankly surprising.
This last week’s topic was about social media, in which almost all of you (blog readers) participate. I can hardly think of a friend not on Facebook; Everyone had facebook before; I myself just joined Twitter, silly as it is, about a month ago. I have my blog, which to my surprise has popped up in some funny places. One person stumbled across my blog while searching for Hong Kong bus routes. More friends than I expected now read it. A lot of people I did not think read for pleasure (debatable, I know) I found read this blog. One was the most surprising; one was the most disappointing.
In lecture, Tom Crampton was being introduced by Professor Reyes. He was described as being a (former) journalist who is now a consultant for businesses looking to make inroads into the social media world (in which spamming is a failure). Professor Reyes introduced the topic—social media. He briefly defined it. He proceeded:
“So who in this class has a Facebook?” All hands went up.
“So who in this class has a blog?” Hardly a soul’s hands went up. Mine didn’t, and many people who I knew were serial bloggers didn’t raise their hands either. It was not because I’m ashamed of what I do in my spare time at all. It’s not because of what I put in my blog either. It’s just that I didn’t really want the attention—and since no other bloggers were raising their hands, I wasn’t about to either. Cool.
When no one’s hands went up, the professor took a quick glance around the room and centered on the center of the lecture hall. I happened to be sitting in the dead center of the lecture hall that time around.
He pointed at me and said, “I know you have a blog!”
Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. I looked behind me to see if he was pointing directly behind me. There was no one behind me. He was pointing at me.
“Yeah, you!” he said, as I quizzically pointed my finger towards me and my beating heart. What was I to do? I’d never been pointed out of a lecture hall of students before.
“Yeah, I guess I do blog,” was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. Casual.
“Yeah, you talk about this class on your blog, don’t you?” he pressed on. I was silent. “It’s really not that hard to find this stuff,” he concluded in stride.
People in my row, most of whom friends of mine glanced over at me. While it was surprising and moderately frightening, I appreciated him doing that. First off, let me say as I’ve said to many of my friends in that class, that I feel that even though I do not write the most positive opinions, I always try to back up and substantiate my claims. And as you can see, his distinguishing me in such a light had no effect of slowing down my writing.
In that lecture, we went on about how print media faces some serious challenges now and though the foreseeable future, how the Internet as a medium has allowed online individuals and companies to proliferate news and other information in a manner much faster than even the next day as the presses can only do. Whereas at first these newspapers published their news online, charging a fee, in addition to in print, they’ve found that they can’t really charge money because the news will just be spread by online companies with smaller payrolls, supported by earning ad revenue. News can also be spread and reported more easily by bloggers (like me, though I claim not to be a journalist in this regard).
And speaking about blogging, I decided to search for my blog online. I typed in my full name and the first results were related to my blog. The first was the link that UCSD posted on its website for my blog. The second was my blog itself. The third was a website called globalpost.com that had my full name and the full title of one of my blog posts.
I clicked on this third one, and to my alarm, I found that all of my recent posts are being reproduced in their entirety onto their website. The fact that my entire text in such a manner is only partly mitigate by the fact that they cite me and link to my blog. The thing is though that in the fine print, globalpost.com claims copyright over everything on their website, including my blog. Equally annoying is that they are potentially earning money in ad revenue from my work.
Copyright of the entirety of my original text is mine by virtue of my having created it, and as such it is illegal for them to reproduce my blog, even in part, without appropriate permission. Though arrogant as it may seem, the principle of the matter requires me to push through. The company still has not responded to any of my emails (they do not list an address or give a phone number).
So why don’t you decide? Was that day an upper or a downer?
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In Humanity in Globalization, the professor brought in Tom Crampton as a guest speaker. He actually turned out to be the first guest speaker of the class to be more of a guest lecture. Whereas Professor Reyes would usually sit the guest down and ask questions to solicit information and discussion, he then opens it up to the class as a forum. Tom Crampton came with his own PowerPoint and lecture and it was frankly surprising.
This last week’s topic was about social media, in which almost all of you (blog readers) participate. I can hardly think of a friend not on Facebook; Everyone had facebook before; I myself just joined Twitter, silly as it is, about a month ago. I have my blog, which to my surprise has popped up in some funny places. One person stumbled across my blog while searching for Hong Kong bus routes. More friends than I expected now read it. A lot of people I did not think read for pleasure (debatable, I know) I found read this blog. One was the most surprising; one was the most disappointing.
In lecture, Tom Crampton was being introduced by Professor Reyes. He was described as being a (former) journalist who is now a consultant for businesses looking to make inroads into the social media world (in which spamming is a failure). Professor Reyes introduced the topic—social media. He briefly defined it. He proceeded:
“So who in this class has a Facebook?” All hands went up.
“So who in this class has a blog?” Hardly a soul’s hands went up. Mine didn’t, and many people who I knew were serial bloggers didn’t raise their hands either. It was not because I’m ashamed of what I do in my spare time at all. It’s not because of what I put in my blog either. It’s just that I didn’t really want the attention—and since no other bloggers were raising their hands, I wasn’t about to either. Cool.
When no one’s hands went up, the professor took a quick glance around the room and centered on the center of the lecture hall. I happened to be sitting in the dead center of the lecture hall that time around.
He pointed at me and said, “I know you have a blog!”
Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. I looked behind me to see if he was pointing directly behind me. There was no one behind me. He was pointing at me.
“Yeah, you!” he said, as I quizzically pointed my finger towards me and my beating heart. What was I to do? I’d never been pointed out of a lecture hall of students before.
“Yeah, I guess I do blog,” was the only thing that would come out of my mouth. Casual.
“Yeah, you talk about this class on your blog, don’t you?” he pressed on. I was silent. “It’s really not that hard to find this stuff,” he concluded in stride.
People in my row, most of whom friends of mine glanced over at me. While it was surprising and moderately frightening, I appreciated him doing that. First off, let me say as I’ve said to many of my friends in that class, that I feel that even though I do not write the most positive opinions, I always try to back up and substantiate my claims. And as you can see, his distinguishing me in such a light had no effect of slowing down my writing.
In that lecture, we went on about how print media faces some serious challenges now and though the foreseeable future, how the Internet as a medium has allowed online individuals and companies to proliferate news and other information in a manner much faster than even the next day as the presses can only do. Whereas at first these newspapers published their news online, charging a fee, in addition to in print, they’ve found that they can’t really charge money because the news will just be spread by online companies with smaller payrolls, supported by earning ad revenue. News can also be spread and reported more easily by bloggers (like me, though I claim not to be a journalist in this regard).
And speaking about blogging, I decided to search for my blog online. I typed in my full name and the first results were related to my blog. The first was the link that UCSD posted on its website for my blog. The second was my blog itself. The third was a website called globalpost.com that had my full name and the full title of one of my blog posts.
I clicked on this third one, and to my alarm, I found that all of my recent posts are being reproduced in their entirety onto their website. The fact that my entire text in such a manner is only partly mitigate by the fact that they cite me and link to my blog. The thing is though that in the fine print, globalpost.com claims copyright over everything on their website, including my blog. Equally annoying is that they are potentially earning money in ad revenue from my work.
Copyright of the entirety of my original text is mine by virtue of my having created it, and as such it is illegal for them to reproduce my blog, even in part, without appropriate permission. Though arrogant as it may seem, the principle of the matter requires me to push through. The company still has not responded to any of my emails (they do not list an address or give a phone number).
So why don’t you decide? Was that day an upper or a downer?
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
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