In Europe and the US, rock and pop as well as rap and soul can be considered as their representative of popular music. My favourites are always surrounded by electronic guitars and drum. Evanescence, Nirvana, Slipknot, Nightwish, Green Day, Linkin Park, No Doubt, Bush, Muse.....they are all rock bands, and they are from different genres.
Heavy Metal:
These kind of groups can be found in the whole world, and they are mostly underground. This genre is too "metalistic" to me and I always get headache from this. But I still have my favourite in this genre: Silpknot...
I like it because the background music of its songs. Slipknot consists of 7 members: 2 guitars, 1 lead vocals, 5 of them are in the "drum" groups(2 of the drum groups are backing vocals). I love the way that they put percussion made by tin or other metals into their music.
Blues Metal:
When coming up with this genre, I always think of Aerosmith and sing their oscar-nominated song "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing". The lyrics of the song is blues, and Aerosmith performed it with its metal music, with some scream voices, making the music seems like blues, rock and metal----another mixtures of music.
Opera Rock:
Nightwish, was famous for Opera Rock, once upon a time. Tarja's singing accompanies with soft metal rock group as well as symphonic music. After Tarja's leave, Nightwish's music is changed. Symphonic metal and folk metal. The only genre it has never changed is: heavy metal. (Nightwish is from Finland)
Piano Rock:
My all-time favourite is from this genre----Evanescence. Soft metal rock accompanies piano.
Grunge Rock:
Grunge rock was neglected by the public once. The bands of this group: Nirvana, the Hole, Bush and No Doubt. "Don't Speak" of No Doubt is my favourite song.
Punk-Rock:
Green Day is the representative of Punk-Rock!!!!!
Gothic Rock:
Nightwish is in this genre too. But I personally reckon Within Temptation is more closer to Gothic Rock.
Within Temptation is from Holland
Progressive Rock:
Muse is a band which is from this type.
Starting from 47 minutes, the question has asked those Korean celebrities whether North and South Korea should be unified together.
Although I am not Korean, acting as a global citizen, I would choose "for" rather than "against" towards the Korean unification, in terms of economic and social dimensions. (Owing to my lack of knowledge on Korean politics, I neglect to write the political part thoroughly.)
Politically, what i reckon on the surface of the unification: the rise of Korean international status due to the whole nations look more complete and the institution of Korean government would be more stable and more diverse.
Economically, the unification of Korea would be prosperity for the economy, not only to herself but also to the whole world. The idea of communism can help Korea build its economy with some plans while that of capitalism can help her to build up its market economy.Taking Germany as an example, before 1989, Germany was divided into two parts--West and East. If you are history students, you will realize East part is communist and West part is capitalist. There was ideological difference between two nations. Until 1 year after the fall-down of Berlin Wall in 1989, East and West Germany was reunified into one nation. Nowadays, Germany is one of the richest countries in the Europe while European countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Iceland(we call them "Piigs"(歐豬五國))Besides, even some magazines drew cartoons (below), saying that world economy requires Mrs Merkel, Premier of German Government. It shows that Germany has played a significant role in the world, in terms of economy. Therefore, there would be probably a boom for the Korean economy as well as an advantage towards the global economy if the reunification of Korea exists in the world, with reference to the German economic development. (She would be second "Germany" and an imaginary enemy of China.)
Socially, Korean unification can raise up people's living standard. Knowing that North Korea is adopting the idea of isolation(but now, the new leader seems wanting to open up the country), the people might not follow the rhythm of the international society.If South and North were unified, it helps the North Korean to satisfy the rhythm of the society. Besides, under the influence of economy within the nation, people's living standard would be raised due to the policy of "socialist market economy" would be existed within Korea. Furthermore, there would be the rise of sense of belonging and national identity of either North and South ones as "Korean". The discrimination against North ones would be relieved because of the unification while the South ones would feel that they are definitely "Koreans" rather than "South Koreans"--they have the complete identities and the Korean society would be more stable, just like the German citizens after the downfall of Berlin Wall.
Yet, the unification might be a problem to the North citizens or South citizens. Some of the South citizens might have more hatred on the North ones. The relationship between Hongkongsters and Chinese is a very typical example. After takeover of Hong Kong in 1997, there was a "moral panic" in Hong Kong against the return to China---the influx of emigrant. Hongkongsters fear about the spread of Chinese communism and they did not want to live under the institution of "one-party dictatorship", so they move to foreign countries. Nowadays, Hongkongsters hate mainland Chinese very much since those chinese has lower educational level and their actions ruin the image of Hong Kong, as well as those Chinese are impolite and pride, they love going to Hong Kong to buy the milk powder, to give birth their babies(main purpose: their children can enjoy 12-year free education), thereby serious social problems such as inflation and hardships in Hong Kong. South Korea might suffer from the situation like Hong Kong after the unification. However, Hong Kong is a very small part of China and the influx of mainland Chinese to Hong Kong such as buying stuff and giving birth as well as the academic degrees, is serious problem towards Hong Kong because she is very small nations while mainland China is very big nation (relating to geography). But South Korea and North Korea are half-to-half. Half of the Korea is South and another half is North. The situation of Hong Kong might not be found in South Korea due to the geographical difference.
Negative impact in terms of political aspect: more diverse in institution=>more struggles in the Congress, and make the policy difficult to pass, as well as the rise of meeting adjourns(流會).Take Germany and Italy in the 1930s as an example)
In conclusion, what i am thinking is, the unification of Korea benefits South Korea economically while it has a positive impact in terms of society towards North Korea. But there is also negative impact of the unification of Korea. The unification of Korea not only based on what North and South citizens think, but also their leaders. If most of them think that the unification sounds great, the leader agree that the unification can help to build up the economy, the institution as well as society, I believe that the unification is possible and there will be less negative influence to the South and North ones. But it depends on what the two leaders think. Therefore, to a large extent, I think Korea's unification is considered as "for" rather than "against" towards both South and North Korea.
In the recent year, the new leader of North Korea, try to be like Deng Xiaoping in China---to open up and reform the North Korea. After the opening up, the unification seems possible to Korea. However, the "nuclear crisis"(remember the nuclear weapon?) of North Korea is still in alarm. On the other hands, the ones in South(see those celebrities and university students), want their countries to unify with North Korea so much. Korea seems possibly unified.
As a Chinese, if I was working as the standing committee in the Politburo, i really did not want them to unify. I would be scared after the unification: Oh my, other than Japanese, i have another competitive opponent.
Today, I
have a particular strong thought about the phrase ‘having nothing to do’ or
what we say ‘無聊’ in
Chinese. I keep thinking the question ‘do we really have any time that we have
nothing to do?’ or we just do not want to do what we have to do or things that
we have to do?
After
having some thought, I realize that the answer is we do not want to do anything
at all sometimes. But the reality is – we sometimes try to convince ourselves
that we have nothing to do and to allow ourselves to waste our time for
granted. Then, we end up wasting a lot of time doing things for no purposes
such as browsing Facebook hundreds of time (like in a minute or so) in a day,
lying on sofa playing mobile phone, or even sleeping.
So, I
try not to make myself saying I have nothing to do. Instead, I try to give
myself some justifications why I am doing this. Feeling ‘無聊’ sometimes can be caused by a
sense of emptiness or ‘空虛’ but I hope that is not happening to be. When people feel ‘空虛’, they lose their directions and
can easily be preyed to do some bad things – I think some people commit crime
because of this? So, if I am really doing ‘nothing’, I should say I do not feel
like doing anything right now. All I need is some rests. Right?
Other
than wanting to know about motivations behind one’s behavior, similarly, we
could apply this to meanings in communication – ‘people do not always say what
they mean and people do not always mean what they say’. Perhaps we could try to
think beyond the surface. Then, we will see the deeper meanings beyond the
surface meanings.
Who say
Hong Kong people lack creativity? The prevalence of Youtubers in Hong Kong
proves one point that there are many creative Hong Kongers who can express
themselves brilliantly through Youtube videos or what we call video blogs (Vblogs).
They start to a form sophisticated discourse community. When compared them with
myself, I find that I should work more hard to pursue my own goals. I always
think there are always some lazy people in the world and I just need to work a
little bit harder than them and then I can then secure myself a job.
You may
say that some of them make non-sense Youtube videos. But, at least they have
the courage to post a video, pursue what want to do and say what they want to
express.
Some
says ‘The biggest mistake one can ever make is not to make mistakes’. I totally
agree to this statement. Definitely, I need to change my attitude and should
work hard for myself.
Below
are some examples of well-known HK Youtubers:
In this
age of information explosion, there is way too much information available in
the Internet and some of them is actually repetitious because some people just
like to copy other people’s work and put them as if their own. You can easily
find many of such examples in Youtube. These people are wasting our time in
searching for different kinds of information. So, in this case, there is always
a convincing reason why we usually have to resort to books which have at least
certain level of reputation guaranteed when doing research.
Today, I
do not want to put the focus on books. Instead, I want to talk about ‘comments’.
After reading a news passage in Yahoo, BBC or CNN or a video clipping on
Youtube, would you bother reading comments written by others readers/viewers?
In reality, I think commenters sometimes tell more truth than the main texts
(article/video) themselves.
Below is
an example of the above mentioned case from Yahoo:
Many
people criticized the senior lecturer of providing wrong information to the
readers… (skip, skip, lazy, lazy…) After doing some little research, it has
proved the commenters to be right.
I myself
also think that the design is really stupid and wastes space. The interiors are
badly put together – the floors are dark; every floors have very limited space
of about a maximum of 8 classrooms; there are unused space, particularly the
angle part, is designed just to fit the design of the building…
So, would
we spend some time to activate our critical mind in judging the validity of a
piece of news? Or will you just click the ‘share’ button when you find it
interesting? Have a thought for yourself.
Before
ending, there is a piece of personal advice I would like to share with all of
you – dig ONLY into the areas that what you really want/need to and leave the
rest aside. Life is short and life is about making choices. One cannot get to
know all the fields available in the world – we learn and we forget. And I
think this is also the reason why we all have different careers and we
contribute to society in different aspects, right?
Extended
reading:
[Smarts: It's
Not How Much You Learn That Matters. It's How Much You Remember]
Writing
a blog has always been the rivalry between individualism and collectivism. If you can
bear long enough time to try to develop your habit of writing, it will stay… at
least for a few weeks. And then, to keep or not to keep the habit, that is your
choice. Writing a blog should not be treated primarily as a social activity
like what Facebook does. It is a way for us to express our inner self through
words. If you think the other way round, you will end up stopping to write your
blog when you find that there are few/no comments about your blog entries. The
same destiny applies to Xanga, which was once considered a popular blog web.
Nowadays,
celebrities in the world are like drops in the rain – you just can’t count! Surely,
most of us would regard some kinds of celebrities as our idols. But what is the
reality? Are we consuming celebrities just partly because of groupthink? Or, do
we really admire one’s deeds so we have decided to treat celebrit(ies) as our
role model(s)?
The
Youtube video below gives a perfect demonstration of the first thought:
"On the night of July 27th, 2012, a huge prank was pulled in New York City and this is the video of what took place. Brett Cohen came up with a crazy idea to fool thousands of pedestrians walking the streets of Times Square into thinking he was a huge celebrity, and it worked! Not only did it work, it caused quite a stir. This social experiment, of sorts, makes a profound statement about how modern culture is so attracted to pop culture, without any real credibility needed.”
While
you are having fun watching this video, please also give yourself some thoughts
about the prevalence of celebrities in society.
"What is this place?" This question echoed in my head for a few times. "Where am I?"
Now the sky was covered by in a black veil. I could only see things 2.5 meters away from me, 3 at most. I started to scan this place, trying to figure out where I was. First thing that caught my attention was a sound, a sound people made when they walked on planks of wood, and I tried to look downward with the help of some dimly lit neon light hanging above my head. To my surprise, I was on a wooden platform. I looked back up, and the neon lights were in fact old-fashioned oil lamps. Did people still use them these days? Wouldn't neon lights be a better choice? Then I began to looked around again, and I saw only a few people walking by, behind me there were many boats. So, I was at a pier.
I needed to know where exactly I was and how I could get back home, so I looked for someone to ask. They all dressed old-fashioned, rugged clothing, and though my white shirt was now yellowish under the lamp, while theirs were brown, some were even black. I was sure they were not wearing brown nor black, because those were stains. They were all in a hurry, and I failed at stopping any one of them. Wait. I had my mobile phone with me. How stupid was I? I had it the whole time and only by now did I remember I had it inside my schoolbag?
I took out my phone and started to open my phone contact. Before I scrolled down to the contact "HOME", I was distracted by a noise. Someone was running on the planks, and the sound was getting louder. When I turned halfway to my right to see what happen, I was hit and I fell on to the ground. My shoulders hurt a lot, but my head was the most painful part of all. I looked around and tried to see who hit me, I was sure that guy's head was no less bruised than mine, because we went head to head. Still rubbing my head to ease the pain, I found that the guy who hit me was a girl, and she was holding her hand in distress. I could not see her face because she buried her face in her hands. Finally, she raised her head and I could get a better look at her. She looked familiar, looked like someone I knew from before but did not see each other for a few years. Was she someone I really knew, or was my headache so strong that my brain had failed to function properly.
She was the first to speak, "Will?"
For a second, I was surprised that she knew me, but memories came back to me and that was the moment I was certain. I knew who she was.
Society is variable, this is inevitable fact within the universe----Dominance of music would be always changed, just like people beyond Asia love Korean pop music and started to ignore those international pop music.
I love Korean pop music as hell, just like being poisoned or like being tempted by handsome guys. I talked, I traveled, I spent my time in those Korean stuff rather than those in foreign countries. It seems that I had been being drugged by those K-pop deeply in a coma, to those original and real pop music.
"Come on, Kayla. They are just all the same, why are you so into them?" My school friend from Australia said after realizing i have some crazy mind in those pop music. She is not the only one who said those things to me, my elder sister did say something similar to me likes "You got some poison gas into your mind." and "I have crashed into addictive fruits." Yet, I still listen to K-pop music.
My passion on the foreign music simply lost, nope, not my passion, is the problem in terms of myself--I was getting lost on my choice to music. What is real music?------I didn't know, I have no idea about that, until I know a band named Amaranthe.
Few days ago, I went to Hong Kong Records. I found quite noticeable CDs, "Amaranthe Special Edition" with a high cost (about$150) and so many people are in the band, 6 people. The design of the album is quite dark and evanescence-like. So I have decided that, if the songs of this album are not too sharp or out of my genre as well as they are fresh and novelty, I would buy and regard this as my treasure.
Undoubtedly, They are fresh and novelty, suit for my ears and they wake up my nervous system---the most important things, they relieve those poison gas which infected me. I find my way to my choice again.
Their songs are special, i cannot believe 3 singers in this Finnish band. Female & Male Vocal and screams(i.e. you would find screams vocal from the metal-core band like "silpknot"). They combine metal-core and pop music together, to make their own music. And that is awesome. What I think is, this may be the definition of real music.
Real music does not depend on how well you sing or dance, but your passion, participation and your way of thinking on making music, creating a piece to make people happy, to convey your feeling, which is quite near the definition of modern visual arts. The songs, are all created by the band members. Other than this band, in the US No Doubt(GWEN STEFANI) writing "Don't Speak", Britney Spears writing "Everytime", ex-member of Evanescence Ben Moody writing "Nobody's Home" and "My Immortal" , Ne-Yo writing "Take a Bow", even Adele, from the UK, acted as a songwriter for "Rolling in the deep" and "Someone like you"---- why some of these songs become classic and prominent globally? You have to learn that there are still many bands in the US, Britain etc.
From all this, I realize that pop music should be liked those in foreign countries, rather than those in Korea. K-Pop is not bad, they are awesome, they can sing and dance well. But they lack of passion and way of thinking on music, they just do their performance well, yet most of them do less on making music. Therefore, they are all the same.
To me, to me, I consider K-Pop as "just for fun", "relieve my pressure", "for my own exitement", on the other hands, Foreign music is more than that.
"Mr. Chen, your daughter was in a fight today and she broke a student's nose. That boy is from her class as well." The class teacher Miss Lee looked and sounded upset, she had such high hope in Mr. Chen's daughter, Mui Lai, who was the brightest and the most well-mannered little girl in the class.
"Miss Lee, I'm so sorry for what she did. She wasn't anything like that usually." Mr. Chen jerked out a predictable and robotic answer to defend his daughter, which was expected of any parent.
"Yes, I understand. I would like to know what could have made her behave like this. I've asked some students who were also on scene when the fight took place. They said the boy took away the Origami Mui Lai was folding and would not return it to Mui Lai."
"That girl's mother, my wife told her to fold ten thousand Origami."
"Ah...yes. Mui Lai said that her mother would be unhappy when I asked her what happened about the fight."
"Miss Lee, can I talk to Mui Lai now?"
"Oh, of course. She's right inside the classroom. You should talk to her, as her class teacher, I'm very much worried about Mui Lai. I'll show you the room." Miss Lee brought Mr. Chen to the classroom door and she left him to talk to his daughter Mui Lai.
*
"Daddy..." Mui Lai tried to cover up a part of her right hand with her left hand, because there was a bruise due to the fight.
"Honey, does it hurt?" Mr. Chen gently rubbed the bruise with his thumb, in a circular motion.
"Yes. Today I could have had 400 of them, but that boy took away the 400th one, now Mommy would be unhappy about that."
"Sweetie, you don't have to fold papers anymore. Mommy would not mind." Mr. Chen appreciated what his daughter did, but he could not find a word to express himself.
"Then is Mommy coming home yet? Mommy said I need to make ten thousand Origami cranes. When I've finsihed, I can see her again.
"No...Mommy's not gonna come back, sweetie." Mr. Chen tried very hard to stay calm, but the tears still streamed down his face.
"Why, Daddy, why are you crying?" Mui Lai was too young to understand what happened, though, she reached out her tiny hands and wiped off the tears on her father's face, but that was it, only tears were wiped while the pain stayed.
"Sweetie, Daddy's fine." Mr. Chen put his hands on Mui Lai's shoulders while he was squatting down. "Promise Daddy you won't do bad things to your classmates again?"
"OK, Daddy!" Mui Lai said it almost instantly as soon as Mr. Chen had finished his sentence. It was as if the word "promise" was the trigger word for this response. Now she was smiling, innocently.
Mr. Chen had decided to keep the secret of his wife's leaving him for another man until Mui Lai was old enough, or never, he thought. In the meantime, he would like to spend more time with his daughter, to make up for the love she was supposed to receive from both her mother and father, and, to feel the happiness from his daughter's innocent smile in hope to ease the pain that seemed to be growing stronger each day. At least he was grateful about one thing: he still had his daughter, Mui Lai, around him, and that was all that mattered.
Click here to read I Was There (Part 2) I am a Form 5 student. My name is Will, Will Lee. I had been living a normal life just like everyone at my age was -- I go to school, finish school assignments every day, and prepare for upcoming tests or exams afterwards -- until that day. It was a beautiful sunny morning when I went to school. But after school, there were some dark clouds first, then came the pouring rain. I did not bring an umbrella. Luckily, my school was near the MTR(Mass Transit Railway) station, so that I could walk my way without getting wet. Then I got on the train at Hong Kong station. Since there were not many people in the compartment at the time, I took a seat and began to sleep after a tiring day of school.
"Next station: Lai King. Interchange station for the Tsuen Wan line towards Tsuen Wan." The woman's voice in the announcement was too soft to wake me from my daydream. I thought I heard the words "Lai King", or maybe I just heard it wrong. What if she really said so, then I must wake up and get off the train in order to go home. My mom said she was going to prepare a pickled pork tonight. Right, wake up, Will!
The door was about to open. I woke, I got up, and I stepped out of the compartment door as I forced opening my eyes to get my vision back. I saw people waiting in line, ready to get in on the train. Something looked different and I had no time to question but kept my eyes open on the surrounding. Before I could utter a word, the scene in front of me faded, diminished. It started to ebb away like weakening tide. It was no platform. I had never seen such a place in my life. "What is this place?" I finally said something in astonishment.
It's been a long time since we updated the blog. In order to make it up to you guys, I've brought something good and by good, I mean REAL good.
I came across this YouTube channel a year ago, but it wasn't until 2 days ago when I just couldn't stop watching it. My longest record was 1 hour and 45 mins non-stop watching their videos, anyone wants to beat that?
Basically, this channel is owned by a couple, Jesse is the boyfriend and Jeana is the girlfriend. Channel is called PrankvsPrank.
Cool of the wind makes me feel loneliness and sadness. I am depressed and filled with pessimistic mood while experiencing it. Nonetheless, it is an inspiration of my artwork, which was presenting in much more optimistic way and consisting special elements, when some accompaniments of music.
I always call it (i.e. wind accompanied with music) “music wind”. My music wind changed depends on what kind of music I have listened. When I was listening to No doubt’s classic “Don’t Speak”, I would feel some kind of breezing wind blow into my eyes and nose. The wind with sadness and getting lost is totally different from the songs by Evanescence or Green Day. For Green Day, when I was listening to their songs, the wind filled with the element which has varied colors, it made me think of my past.
The midnight changed my wind, seldom. In the dark and lonely night, with the dog's roar and leaf's swipe to the ground. Classical piece was playing in my iTunes and its rhythms were delivered to my ears. It is nearly morning. And I was in a piece of green grass, under a hundred-year-old pine, sleeping and waiting for someone to have the answer I wanted, a wind with bloody beautiful. This is my imagination, must be, for the last scene of the Pride and Prejudice, while Elizabeth was taking a walk in the nearly morning, Mr.Darcy came to find her and proposed to her, and even I substituted myself into Elizabeth. But, Who is Mr.Darcy?
Few minutes later, I woke up from the classical music, which dreadfully deceived me to fall into my fancy. After that, I thought I should get some sleep and temporarily stop to interact with my wind. Somewhat ending the communication is a good start, by preventing someone deceived you with flattery words.
