Five Little Headlines #2: Deluxe Edition, and Story Update! · 2:54pm Nov 11th, 2013

I do plan on doing one every time my list hits five, and try to stick to it since I need to beat discipline into my writing.

So said I in my last installment. Today, I've got 12 headlines in my little Notepad doc. There are a ton of reasons, but

is probably the main one. Yeahhhh.

Without further ado, Casca presents: Five Little Headlines #2, Deluxe Edition!

No Hope of "Peace Talks" Now

Last time, I featured an interview with Hakimullah Mehsud, which gave insight into several things, mainly the Taliban leadership and structure in Pakistan. Perhaps you met this excerpt with mixed but vivid feelings, wondering just how many drones missed the man:

Drones hovered above us and came down very low. This terrified me but he remained very calm and said with a smile: "Don't be afraid, we all have to die one day." He was very relaxed in the time I spent with him.

Well, turns out the drones got him after all.

Whether this is a good thing or not strongly depends on your perspective. What I am sure of is that it just isn't as simple as "We killed the bad guy so it's good!". Modern-day developments reveal that somehow head figures and kingpins are replaced with shocking ease. Take Osama, for instance, or Saddam. Their deaths were touted as great successes, but really, in the end it's just one man of many, many, many.

Did the BBC article have anything to do with the drones' success? If so, there's some small, dry humour to be found in it. For sure the Taliban isn't going to be giving out new interviews any time soon. Perhaps neither will the Pakistani government - you can hear the exasperation, the worn desperation turned anger in every word of the official response. And if it's your citizens who're going to suffer the brunt of a freshly-enraged Taliban, after undoubtedly massive effort to get to the stage where they were... I wouldn't blame them one bit.

Boarding Kindergartens: The New Daycare for China

Parents are now sending their toddlers into boarding schools. Yep. Toddlers, away from home, in boarding schools.

The article paints quite the disturbing image if you take the time to read it carefully. Officials saying there's nothing wrong. Smiling parents, either truly deluded or maliciously irresponsible. Rooms full of crying children once night comes.

I'd like to offer some context with regards to this. My mum is from Hong Kong, and my aunt still lives there with her family of two kids. She quit her job as a high-ranking auditor to better foster her children. She loves them dearly - she's wanted children for ages, and lavished us nephews with what I in hindsight reckon was wistful affection.

Thing is, in Hong Kong, things are massively competitive. She's enrolled them in kindergarten where they spend a few hours a day, doing math and second languages. Can't remember if it's my aunt's children or my uncle's children, but at least one of them speaks three languages by now: English, Mandarin, French. Cantonese if you count it as separate, which is the lingua franca of Hong Kong as of opposed to Mandarin for the rest of China. Pretty sure said cousin is at most 12 by now. You see, to them, this is what is right - giving your children a leg up so that they don't fall behind in society. Education is the biggest investment one can ever make, and as far as time is concerned, it's very nearly an all-in bet.

The second piece of insight I'd like to give is my experience living in a Chinese boarding school for a week in Shenzhen. It was an educational trip to a sister school back in high school, and I went with fellow prefects to foster ties and expand horizons and whatnot. Suffice to say, the trip was fascinating. I could write a short essay detailing it, but I'll just talk about the lifestyle.

One of the most intriguing aspects is that for that period of stay, our life was regulated by Jay Chou.

This is one of his most famous songs, and is surprisingly meaningful when you take into account the deepening cynicism and even nihilism of urban life. This man is, in his own right, the greatest Chinese pop artist ever, spanning multiple genres with a veritable volume of work to his name... His songs played in the mornings as a wake-up call while we washed up. His songs played during recess. His songs played during lunch and dinner in the background. Same as we showered and cleaned up for bed.

The use of this massive pop artist as a means of regulation/brainwashing still remains a point of fascination for me. You had to live it. It was almost surreal.

The other aspect is how high the expectations of students is. Class and school-wide rankings factor much more heavily than what I gather of Western schools; at any rate, they're much more available. There is a dedicated self-study time after dinner of 3-4 hours where you are expected to actually check in to the library. The student council are more or less as highly regarded/held in reverence as you get in certain school mangas, even - their aura is decidedly different, with this definite charisma and capability emanating from them.

The point I'm trying to make is that the approach to education is strikingly different from the Western perspective. Extrapolation is much too easy to overshoot when it comes to trying to relate; if you want the truth, you need to get it from a primary source. While this article may induce condemnation and derision, you have to take into account that these are actions performed by people who have grown up in such a different environment. This, for all we know, is as logical a progression as the idea of a gap year is to Westerners. (For the record, I cannot imagine at all any Asian, let alone Chinese, who could come to terms with spending a whole year relaxing/discovering yourself post-high school. I myself still meet the idea with wariness.)

Two-Face IRL

A fascinating and revealing look into the little-known condition of Bell's palsy. The article is written with that wonderful amusing-yet-serious voice of an experienced journalist, and it is all in all quite the pleasant light read.

Ikea I-ppeals to Chinese Cheapskateness

The Chinese stereotype is that of someone shameless and thick-skinned when it comes to benefits and free stuff. I cultivate it myself with mischievous glee. Ikea, after some struggle, has shown a stroke of resourcefulness that has pulled off - by investing even more into floor space and actively appealing to the Chinese try-extensively-before-buy habits, rather than dissuading them (DO NOT SIT ON THE COUCHES and pointed glares from clerks is a prominent theme in a lot of the furniture stores I recall being in), it's established itself as being awesome - which it generally is. Ikea sports such creativity that it's uplifting just browsing model kitchens and bedrooms. Good on them.

Digital Girl Damns Pedophiles

This is by far the most eerie of today's round. Watch that video. If you have the mental fortitude, watch it again. How that voice goes as the face morphs is just... Anyways, the article takes a look at how an activist group is using a virtual image to lure and locate pedophiles. It is... no good adjective comes to mind, I'm looking for "the antithesis of feel-good". Any clues?

Everyone's A Critic: Hitler and Modernism

Early this year, I stumbled upon a printout of the unit outline for second-year Film Studies. I was rather surprised at how academic it treated its subject matter - avantgarde films, films made by scratching directly on the negatives, cubism and whatnot. It's so easy to make fun of arts degrees, and there are some who, in the culture of serious studies of culture and expression, become horribly smug and pointy-nosed, but there is a field of knowledge and understanding in the history of artistic styles and movements. This article gives a brief view of modernism and the Nazi perspective of it, which might echo what some of us say in jest when we pop down to the museum and see framed accidents. It is a plausible idea that Hitler wouldn't have made the impact he had if he had managed to stay happy and employed in art school... History this is, but dry it certainly isn't. A well-written, interesting, fairly unique read.

Is Autocomplete Evil? A Tempered Response to Silly People

This isn't one of those strongarm fear-breeding opinion articles. It's nicely reasoned with a dash of good ol' British dry humour, taking ultimately a gently dissuading stance on the matter. Read for the amusement, as well as for some depth into how Google search works.

With regards to the story update, my little Derpy origins fic hits 12 chapters come tomorrow night. I may delay it a couple of days depending on when I get the edits done. If you're following me but haven't read it, I'd recommend now to be a good time to jump in, because stuff gets intense from here on out. Chapter 11 was a favourite of mine, actually, and I was oddly impressed with the foreshadowing I had stuck into the thing (egostrokeegostrokeegostroke).

And that's it, folks! As always, stay tuned and stay awesome.

Report Casca · 202 views ·

Comments ( 3 )