Musing: On representing cross-cultural issues in fiction.

How do I define “Inspiring piece of literature”? A piece of contemporary literature that spans across different cultures and societies, addressing the social issues that is festering within the said non-fictional representation.

I am currently finding inspiration to write my own piece of fiction of say, about 30 or so chapters. What is one contemporary conflict that people face every day? What cards of discrimination are played and conducted across the span of the world? How are these forms of discrimination rooted in culture? How does the inclusion and encounter of someone from a different cultural background challenges the dominant cultural beliefs of the community? How does the negative sentiment of the inhabitants of the dominant cultural community becomes a juxtaposition and contradiction of his or her personal values?

The more questions that I write down from the top of my head, the more I realize that the said questions could have easily came from a 200 or 300 level Sociology course. My subconscious is my navigator along this illusive river of inspiration. Though at the same time, I am concerned that thanks to my attitude, I have armchaired my own approach to social change and social movements. But at the same time, Margaret Mead’s words rang into my head: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has .

That’s it. So long as you have commitment to change, let the attitude guide you. First from the words in my upcoming novel to my changing of an outlook on life. Furthermore, such issues have not just been transposed into literary genres, but have become integral and vital to understanding the plots and parodies that are present in video games today. To put it this way, I have been increasingly disillusioned by the adamant separation of video games and violence. I’ve been told that “Video games do not promote violence” over and over again. While that is true, it is only used conditionally to argue against the extremists on the other end. Genres of media are just vehicles, intermediaries, for the issues of society. In other words, violent video games can be considered a representation, a parody of the subconscious non-fictional counterpart that people tries to suppress in their daily lives.

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“Musing: On representing cross-cultural issues in fiction.” is published on July 16, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Musing: Not a fan of the Anime Community, and Pretz over Pocky

Ah, pocky. The rite of passage for any otaku, Japanophiles, and *cringe* weeaboos in the anime community.

Who knew that a simple chocolate fudge covered biscuit stick would be that popular amongst the anime and otaku communities. I’ve been to an anime convention once, and it doesn’t take 10 minutes for me to hear these buzz words. The only reason is pocky is featured in a bunch of anime, so…these anime fans and cosplayers want to emulate these anime characters. Which in turn leads to pocky being a fad and then an implied “rite of passage”.

Am I sounding like a fan of anime culture in general? Well, I do like to watch the occasional Doraemon or Black Lagoon, but should I go around dressing in a character, and always throwing these peace signs like they are getting out of fashion? No, it’s not that I’m not trying to be uber-cute, I’m just trying to retain my sanity.

This is the tip of the iceberg regarding my distaste in being a part of the anime community. I’ve personally been to Japan, and having been used to living in a big city for the past 15 years (Hong Kong, anyone?), I can say that Tokyo is, meh, just another big city, but with insanely high prices. Though I did have some interest in browsing about at a Daimaru and checking out bento meals. Having said that, Japan is one of the few places where you can have a coin that’s worth 50 HKD, (the useful 500 yen coin no doubt). Thankfully, I also had the good opportunity to visit Aomori-shi, where a meal for four is thankfully considerably lower than a meal for four in Tokyo.

Moving on…

I’m personally much more of a fan of Pretz,  and I confess, partly the reason so is because I can distance myself from the mainstream anime community, and partly because I like the savouriness of the tomato-flavoured Pretz sticks. Furthermore, the chocolate fudge that is on Pocky is just so disgustingly sweet. If I have to choose in terms of Japanese chocolate brands, I’d go for something pricier like Royce’.

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“Musing: Not a fan of the Anime Community, and Pretz over Pocky” is published on July 14, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Article Response – Re: Metro Vancouver’s “Marketers beam ads into commuters’ heads”

Years ago, when I read that corporations and marketers are literally trying to beam in your head with an inundation of ads, I chuckled and thought of it as science fiction.

The novel that I read was Matthew Tobin Anderson’s – a posthumanist ultra-consumerist society, whose citizens’ lives literally depend on advertising and corporate gain to succeed. The “feednet” is literally their lifeline, implemented and overriding the child’s developing brain. The individual is inundated with consumerist and marketing ads en masse in exchange for living. The climax of the novel is (spoilers alert), a girl’s whose resistance to purchasing the services that the corporations and marketers have advertised has result in her “customer profile” being terminated and hence her eventual comatose and life.

When I read this news article, I really thought that it was a satire, or something from The Onion. I hoped that it was a really bad joke that was late to the April Fool’s party. “Passengers were pleasantly surprised”, said a spokesperson. Define “pleasantly” please. I’d definitely be pissed, being waken up from an otherwise pleasant nap on the train if I rested my head on the window, only for an ad for caffeine pills to play in my head.

As someone who is interested in progression and innovation in marketing strategies, shotgun marketing and advertising are medieval, and hence, progressively less in neccessity. This glass technology is using old, medieval marketing strategies in a new medium, which in a sence, is still outdated. The only reason why corporations would still use this as a primary form of marketing is because they cower at change. These corporations should take a page from how casual gaming has revolutionized the commuters of societies. We have QR codes now for us to check out stuff for further information if we so please. Leave the marketing literally out of our heads, or else I’d be joining the group of protesters that have their hammers ready to smash the glass.

Folks that smash the glass may be turned in for destruction of public property. Public property can be replaced, but invasion of private bodies will be scarring to state the least. To put it in an ugly sense, it’s like being raped by big corporations.

Please don’t tell me that corporations are thinking of selling pillows that do the same thing. They are going to name it something benign like “SweetDreams” and when you put your head down on the pillow and snooze, you’ll be treated to hours of advertisements in your sleep. Now that’s a definite nightmare. Corporation moguls, do you always sleep with these ads wriggling into your heads, intruding into your own personal peace? No? I thought so.

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“Article Response – Re: Metro Vancouver’s “Marketers beam ads into commuters’ heads” is published on July 10, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

The said news article was posted in the Metro Vancouver Paper on page 7, on July 9, 2013.

Article Response – Re: Metro Vancouver’s “Put your 3D-printed foot forward”

There seems to be quite the trend in the daily papers regarding 3D printer technology being used in medical transplants.

Experimental transplantations and prostheses on people would result in considerably a lot more potential controversies and lawsuiting should the procedure go wrong. I am not saying that I advocate for experimenting on animals, but compared to using people, using a guinea pig, er…duck to move this medical breakthrough forwards would entail less of the said hurdles.

It was just about half a month ago that an article on the medical usage of 3-D printers to “print” an organ for transplant hit the papers of the Vancouver Metro. This “Zoom” article just shows how progressively influential 3D technology has been used in medical breakthroughs. According to this article, in addition to the prosthetic foot that Buttercup, the duck, received, 3-D printer prosthetics have been used to construct a titanium lower jaw, and a prosthetic hand.

Prosthetic hands are not new breakthroughs, but the technology that has been used nowadays by 3D printers has pretty much revolutionized the medical industry. In an industry where the slightest miscalculation and lack of attention to detail will entail fatal consequences, 3D printers have been able to offer much more efficient, if not meticulous, means of “printing” than former processes. Now if only society can keep the ball rolling to use precision instruments to construct more tools that will benefit society and not contemporary war efforts.

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“Article Response – Re: Metro Vancouver’s “Put your 3D-printed foot forward”” is published on July 5, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

TED Talk Response – Re: Jinha Lee’s talk on the shrinking boundaries between humans and computers

The original TED Talk, “Reach into the computer and grab a pixel” can be found on its official WordPress blog.

Throughout the last few decades, there has been quite a trend to make human interactions with technology more efficient by shrinking the physical boundaries that separates us. In Lee’s talk, he provides a demonstration on not just shrinking the boundaries between humans and computers, but inverting the said boundaries.

Gone are the days in which having to “Press Play on Tape” or “C:/>” to run a program is mainstream. We are living in a society where we can interact with technology through a peripheral keyboard, as well as a touchscreen keyboard. We are able to, as Lee states, interact with technology literally at a millimetres’ distance. Lee takes the interaction even closer by having us interact WITHIN technology, taking augmented reality to a new level. By placing our hands within the 3-D “monitor”, we are able to interact with the software through our gestures, grabbing, pulling, holding, pinching the software as if they would literally fit inside our hands. Perhaps mathematically speaking, Lee has demonstrated that we will eventually be able to interact with technology at a “negative” amount of millimetres within the x, y, and z dimensions of the monitor.

Furthermore, I really see strong potential in 3-D monitor technology as being used hand in hand with the 3-D printer technology of today. For instance, Microsoft Paint software will become Microsoft Sculpt, and Wacom would definitely take marketing advantage of the situation by selling Wacom Batons, a 3-D version of their styluses.

Shrinking the boundaries in order to revolutionize video gaming

Lee’s talk left a little bit to be desired. The video game industry is a huge business, and I wonder how would this drastic improvement in augmented reality technology improve the already gargantuan video gaming industry? How can this technology be applied to be compatible to literally “reach in” with the video gaming communities’ demands in terms of gaming peripherals?

Despite this talk being more Microsoft orientated, I have more of a personal preference for Nintendo given that I grew up with Nintendo consoles ever since I learned how to read and write in school. Nintendo revolutionized gaming with the Nintendo Wii – allowing you to interact with the Wii-mote as a sword/baseball bat/wheel, as if you were in a 3-D space. Wii Sports and WarioWare Smooth Moves come to my mind in terms of innovative technology.

Suppose Atlus makes a new game for this revolutionary 3-D immersive technology. Trauma Centre, a medical/drama genre of gaming, comes to my mind. Imagine wielding a scalpel, reaching into the patient’s body to excise a troublesome stomach tumour. You will be evaluated along the way depending on not just how well you cut out the tumour on an x,y field, but literally, how deep you perform the incision along the z field.

Medical simulation and training with this technology can save lives

Speaking of how this technology can be applied in the medical field, I have written an article on how 3-D printers can be used to literally print out replacement organs for transplant.

It goes without saying: a mistake in real life surgery can be life threatening for the patient. This 3-D computer technology allows student patients to learn, with the use of surgery peripherals to perform simulated operations on a simulated patient. Mistakes may be made, coupled with realistic haemorrhaging consequences for instance. However, it is better to make mistakes on a simulated patient than a real life patient.

Medical diagnoses can be made more accurately if one combines x-ray technology with the technology of a 3-D computer. Not only can the doctor inspect a holographical reconstruction of the patient, but he or she can point out, disassemble, and make annotations on the simulated patient, before publishing it as a 3-D equivalent of a PDF file to the medical department as a patient report.

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“TED Talk Response – Re: Jinha Lee’s talk on the shrinking boundaries between humans and computers” is published on July 3, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Musing: Am I a cat or a dog person?

Cat Person Vs Dog Person (Image from http://visual.ly/cat-person-vs-dog-person)

I am going to admit it. I am a canine-crazy person, perhaps more so than felines. However, I am going to judge myself with this chart at hand.

“Tell me about yourself.” I have been asked this question several times, whether I am summoned in from a job interview, or attending a casual business/environment/friendly social. This question is quite two-pronged for me, as I have two different answers, depending on whether I am engaged in with creating change within the meso and micro levels of society. The meso level of society includes my personal roles and values in working with a team or a group of friends, contributing ideas that I have found to be interesting and productive, throwing in the occasional humour with close friends that will cause them to groan comedically The micro level involves the me-time in which I do what I love, writing, and checking out the latest TED talk, Upworthy article, or Top Gear’s episodes on the Beeb.

Hm…with this stated I guess I have already fulfilled both categories of a cat and a dog person as being both aloof and outgoing…though a bit more towards being aloof. I can strike up a lively conversation with strangers, though perhaps I personally am a little bit cliquey, finding security in a close-knit group of friends. So the verdict of category one goes to me having a bit of a cat personality in terms of selfhood despite being canine-crazy. Uh-oh.

“Less traditional vs more extroverted” This has stumped me in terms of how these two outlooks on life could be considered contrasting to each other. But given I take interest in analysing stuff in the daily newspapers au contemporaire more so than dead authors’ writing, and that I lean a little bit more to being somewhat an introvert in my free time despite me functioning pretty well in a group environment…hm…I guess another point goes to me having a bit of a cat personality. I can feel that the canine side of me is at risk already.

I think I fall right in the middle in terms of being more creative and more agreeable in terms of my actions. I don’t focus on agreeing with others so much as me being creative with an integrative solution. And in terms of an integrative solution, I create mental comparisons between our ideas to synergize a win-win idea that takes the best out of everybody’s opinions. I try to be not just agreeable, but credible, using everyone’s good points to everyone’s good credits. Hence I’d say that I’m on an even playing ground with both points with regards to my actions with others.

Am I more neurotic or am I less neurotic? I definitely check my watch from time to time just to make sure that not just I, but everybody is on time. The more I am late for something, the more concerned I become. Though at the same time, I try to possess a bit of a sociological mindset and think of our actions as being in harmony with society for better or for worse. Another tie.

I can definitely be open and conscientious, but of course, when I am around my peers, I tend to retain more of a conscientious mindset. It is definite that the number of peers that I have met, and formed relationships far exceeds the close knit group of friends that I can be comfortable with being open to, so, I’m definitely a canine person on this one.

I’m a meow with a woof-obsession.

It seems as though despite me being canine-crazy, I’m more of a cat person according to this personality test. But again, this graph highlights the stereotypes that people have about cats and dogs. It all depends on nurture as well as nature, so I’m taking this comparison with a pinch of salt and a pinch of good analytical fun.

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“Musing: Am I a cat or a dog person?” is published on June 27, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Article Response – Re: 24hrs Vancouver’s “Technology changes how we learn about finance”

Internet communications technology, being increasingly intertwined within our lives, gives us no excuse to not learn on the go. Especially in terms of being financially literate when one changes from the university life to the workplace.

In the 24hrs Vancouver article as posted on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, Barbara Stewart offers solutions as to how we can train people to be financially literate in today’s online social media era. I agree with Stewart’s lead paragraph. Learning about money isn’t fun. It is necessary, but it isn’t fun. If we attempt to directly transplant the Finance 101 Curriculum from the professor’s lectern online, it would lose our interests and further send the compulsory need for knowledge further down our “priority list”. This is not an example of redefining the pedagogical aspect of finance education – this is the equivalent of shoving a square peg into a round hole. A definite C-/D+ effort for the educational institutions that are still using this tactic to teach in a fast-paced society of communications today.

On the go, I am a casual gamer. I play Angry Birds, and the latest Magic online TCG on my smartphone whilst commuting on the Skytrain in Vancouver. I spend more time on games on my smartphone due to the ease of downloading them and playing on the go, than gaming on my laptop or my Nintendo Wii. While I do have respect for the educational curriculum in Vancouver (well, perhaps it was due to my decision to study English Literature with Sociology at UBC), most of the knowledge seems to more or less gravitate back to the physical setting of the institution if the knowledge is not rooted in contemporary culture.

Speaking of UBC, Stewart’s article reminded me of a Coordinated Arts Program 100 level English course on “New Media and Society” that I took during my first year. One of the units in the course focuses on pedagogical gaming. I was initially skeptical about the effectiveness of pedagogical gaming. Would the game designers end up writing something that is no more different than a lecture cumulating in a pop quiz to engage the audience? I remember “playing” one of the educational games, Darfur is Dying, and I was wrong. It takes aspects of action gaming, running from the village to the village well while avoiding the enemy Janjaweed militants, and economizing the village’s food, medical, and water supplies. Another educational game that I have tried out was FutureDelta, a simulation game simulating the effects of global warming on the Delta area of Vancouver, and how I, in the role of an infrastructural planner, need to finance greener alternatives to transportation, garbage management, food production, just to name a few, to avoid flooding the Delta area.

With my personal experience in trying out educational games, I am in agreement with Stewart’s thesis and her supporting examples. I am especially in favour with her proposal of a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). This genre of education will efficiently fit in the demands and needs to simultaneously train large groups of people to be financially literate. The only minor critique that I have regarding Stewart’s article is that the majority of her examples focus on how edutainment and social media “gamification” can be used as a vehicle to transition technology to the masses through the positive rewards of commitment in gaming. The article could benefit from being a bit more cohesive if she talked about MMORPGs and how the rewarding and “edutaining” aspects of gaming could benefit the MOOC curricula.

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“Article Response – Re: 24hrs Vancouver’s “Technology changes how we learn about finance” is published on June 27, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Musing: Keeping my nose in the daily papers.

What do I do in the hour that I travel from point A to point B on public transport? I prefer to keep my nose in the daily papers.

I don’t keep my nose in the papers out of nostalgia for the times in which people have their focuses glued to their smartphones. I don’t keep my nose in the papers because I like the dry feeling of newsprint against my fingertips.

I do it because primarily, I don’t own a data plan on my smartphone, and I don’t feel like tackling on a humungous phone bill at the end of the month. Secondly, it is a pain to read text in such a small screen. I’d spend more time zooming in and zooming out than reading the papers.

Okay, I admit, I do use my smartphone to play the occasional Bejeweled Blitz or to get three stars on an Angry Birds level that has taken me thousands of attempts. I admit I skip the gossip and celebrities section because I just don’t like nosing into other people’s lives. I am not a fan of paparazzi as much as the next guy. Having stated what I do not read the newspapers for, I shall state that I read the newspaper for news on social movements, in addition to the daily lifestyle of Vancouver life. And from time to time, I will save the paper if I feel that the subject is worthy of analytical discussion or an article response in my blog.

So thank you, the Metro and 24H Vancouver newspaper dealers standing outside the Skytrain stations. It may be a tough, repetitive job, but you have my wholehearted grateful respect. Thank you for the papers you have provided me to read when I travel to university from home, and when I visit friends halfway across the Vancouver area.

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Musing: Keeping my nose in the daily papers.” as published on June 23, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Musing: Above the Influence

As far as I can tell, I have been living more or less above the influence even before I knew about the movement.

According to the official website abovetheinfluence.com , “Above the Influence” basically means to be yourself, free from drugs that would mentally and physically influence you into, simply, not becoming who you are.

I admit, I drank alcohol occasionally in the past, but I never lit a cigarette. But ever since I have had that dreadful feeling of passing out, dizziness, an urge to puke, an urge to lie down, and the feeling of dermal inflammations, I finally stopped. On cigarettes, during my first-year in university dorms, I had a couple of friends who smoked, and offered me one. I just politely refused.

I am not even thinking about getting a coffee in the mornings now. I had coffee for several mornings straight, and when I woke up on the second of two days without coffee, I had the worst headache. I felt as though someone was drilling into my head with a dentist drill, coupled with a routine hammering. I felt totally miserable, lying and holding onto my head in agony and pain as my body attempts to break from the caffeine addiction I carelessly put myself into. I stayed more or less away from caffeine through not drinking coffee ever since. I don’t remember when was the last time I had a soda. I have been having fruit juice for quite a long while if my memory does not betray me.

When I develop a cold, or digestive problems, I do not use acetaminophen, peptobismol, or any form of laxatives. I pull myself out of it by the basics, plenty of fluids, plenty of rest, and in the case of diarrhea, plenty of fasting, or in the case of constipation, eat a lot of fibre.

Enough about myself for myself. Consider Vancouver’s current acceptance of marijuana. When marijuana was legalized, it quickly became quite the cultural “fad”. People who prefer not to smoke marijuana were labeled as prudish, and backwards. While it may be true for those who oppose marijuana for political reasons, some of them decided not to smoke marijuana for other, non-political reasons.

I personally can’t stand cigarette smoke, let alone marijuana. I am less interested in pro-weed people attempt to quantify how second hand marijuana smoking is less harmful than cigarette smoking, which is valid in terms of the amount of carcinogens present in cigarette smoke versus marijuana. But to me, if it stinks, it stinks. Nobody needs to smell your smoke from half a kilometre away. True, you can tell me to haul myself off, but that’s quite a selfish way to put it, no?

When I try to explain to my weed-smoking friends that I don’t smoke weed, I felt like I have to personally go through the entire routine of excusing myself via the statement, “I don’t smoke weed for personal reasons, but I am comfortable around you guys smoking it.” Which, I personally agree to tolerate, as they are my friends. I just want to avoid being labeled in an ad hominem manner for my personal stance in trying to live above the influence.

I don’t do drugs. It’s not because of how the institutions of society and my peers perceive and categorize the drugs, it’s just that I want to be myself. No valium, no painkillers, no panadol, no peptobismol, no weed, no drugs for me. I don’t let the influences from other people seize control from the inner me.

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“Musing: Above the Influence” as published on June 21, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .

Article Response – Re: Vancouver Metro’s Organ Transplants Article

The science fiction community has been speculating the concepts of duplication and cloning for decades. 3D printer systems that literally prints organ transplants will be yet another “formerly fiction turned reality” concept that will create a buzz in discussion and responses relating to post-humanism.

One of the posthumanism novels that comes to my mind is Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Spoiler alert for those who have not read her novel. The titular Jenna Fox makes a recovery from a serious life-threatening accident. She finds out that only 10% of her brain was recovered from the crash, and the rest of her body is cloned with a blue artificial neural-nanobot based “biogel”. She also finds out that her biological information has been transposed into technological data in the form of a black box – so that she could be reconstructed over and over again beyond her control. Jenna was not reconstructed by a 3D printer that relies on the seeded cells from her, but the novel’s example of self-realization as consisting of transplants is definitely close enough to be used as an allegory.

I am worried about 3D printers being used unethically to illegally download, say, the said template and “scaffolding” of artificially made kidneys, but that is just the tip of the iceberg of my concerns. I am not a fervent reader or writer of science fiction and posthumanism, but I can say I am more worried about potential ethical issues regarding artificial transplants being made en masse. Sure, there are definitely merits in terms of replacing an injured heart valve and kidney transplants, but…what does that say about your security with your own body, and ultimately self-determination of your life? Taken to the dystopian extreme, people could be cloned and reconstructed over and over again, because Soylent Green is made of people.

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“Article Response – Re: Vancouver Metro’s Organ Transplants Article” is published on June 19, 2013, which is part of my muses. Read more about Vincent Wong’s work at https://vincentwongwanders.wordpress.com .