Author Archives: Cynthia Wang

I just read some Edward Hall for class (which basically confirmed that this whole idea of Systems and Cultures that I had is certainly not original, but whatever), and thought I’d use him to talk about something I’d been thinking about this trip. How movements in a city differ depending on the technologies in place to control movement, or acceptable culture that allows individuals to bend laws that are supposed to restrict movement. The comparison? Hong Kong vs. New York City.

Hong Kong has these fences everywhere, lining the streets, separating the road from the sidewalk. I get that it’s for safety, to make sure people don’t get hit by cars. But it’s so…restrictive. I can’t cross the street when and where I like. I can only cross it where the architects of the city allow me to (which could be two blocks from where I need to be, and then I would need to double back). Here, movement works in a very specific way.

New York, on the other hand, is a chaos of movement where lines on the street are mere suggestions, and a hand indicating STOP at the crosswalk gets largely unnoticed. That is, if one even crosses at a crosswalk. Here, movement works in a specific way as well. One that is very different than in Hong Kong.

To use Edward Hall’s terms of formal, informal, and technical levels of culture, movement in these two cities reside in different parts of Hall’s Major Triad paradigm. In Hong Kong, movement is largely determined and pre-determined by the HK Powers That Be. It resides in the “formal” level of Hall’s paradigm. HK places these architectural structures in place that act as persuasive technologies to encourage people – nay, force them, to move in certain ways. You can’t physically move in a way that the HK PTBs don’t want you to, unless you jump the fence, and honestly, that takes more effort than is worth.

New York, on the other hand, has a formal structure (of crosswalks, lights, intersections, etc), yet no one follows it. The culture of movement in NYC depends on the informal process of learning what is acceptable by watching other people move around the city (or, more often than not, being carried with the flow). Although I’m fairly sure jaywalking is illegal, I’ve jaywalked in front of police cars in NYC without a second thought. There is a certain amount of leeway allowed in the formal element of the law that governs movement through a city, where the informal culture makes bending these formal laws ok.

Try doing this in HK, and I guarantee a ticket, or at least some sort of negative ramification. And Hong Kong has escalators. Talk about technology forcing you in a certain direction. Ever try running down an escalator that’s heading up? Not only is it scary, it’s bad for your knees, and you’ll probably lose.

Oh, another place where movements are disciplined are airports and airplanes. When I’m on an airplane, I feel like I’m one of those humans in Wall-E, where I sit in a chair, and food and drinks get brought to me, and I have entertainment on a little screen right in front of me. This is what I have to look forward to for the next 12 hours. Yippee.

Grad school gets dangerous when everything you learn starts becoming very visceral. That’s when it gets harder and harder to live in the world.

It’s unreal here. Everything’s shiny and new. Works well. Organized. Clean. There’s rarely fear of anything bad happening. It’s pleasant. Beautiful, pretty. You feel taken care of.

It’s unreal. It feels empty, like the pursuit of pleasure has permeated the everyday, where shiny new buildings and structures pop up like daffodils, like it was plopped down in a very short time, rather than being built up with a solid foundation and years and years of effort, work, culture, sweat, blood, tears. It’s as empty as the capital it took to build it. The nouvelle riche, where luxuries are easy to come by, and by the same token, easy to go.

Real isn’t pleasant. It’s not nice, not comfortable, not safe. It’s risky, grimy, gritty. It forces you to understand the darkness in life, the tragedies, the visceral pain of living. It reminds you that you have to work for the small pleasures you have. And that small pleasures, most of the time, are enough. That not everything has to be grandiose, but that it has to be yours. It doesn’t feel like that here. It’s not a home that was built out of the smells of years of home cooking, the cracks in the wall where a moment of anger sent a door slamming into it, the stains on the carpet, each telling its own story. It’s ostentatious, glorified, but at the center of it, a house of straw.

It has no character.

It’s not real.

Brain vomit time. Just wanted to get this out there. I want to think about this more, but a blog seems to be a nice drafty place for vomit to go.

You know, people talk about cultural capital (Bourdieu), social capital (how many friends you got you facebook, hmm??), economic capital, but no one ever really talks about temporal capital. I think it’s because temporal capital, or how much TIME you have is limited. Completely. My parents used to tell me that god (or whatever superior being we believe in) is fair in one thing – that everyone only gets 24 hours in a day. So…maybe it’s not that interesting to talk about because it doesn’t fluctuate?

I think it’s important to think about temporal capital though, and how it relates to how our cultural meanings are being shaped. Let’s put it in conversation with the Internet. Because I think that’s where things get most interesting. Especially in the kinds of entertainment we consume.

I struggle with this all the time. The amount of entertainment I can consume is contingent on the amount of time I spend on school, work, and friends. With the Internet, and the “democratizing” of culture, the argument is that we can find more “stuff” out there that’s entertaining, more things to take up our time. Barriers to publishing are lowered. People spend HOURS on YouTube. But that inane video that just took a minute of your time to watch…was it worth that minute? What else could you have been doing? You can say, ok, one minute, no big deal. Multiply that by how many inane videos there are out there. That’s a lot of temporal capital being taken up.

To be slightly alarmist, what happens to the shared cultural meanings of society (used in the broadest way possible) when people are spending their temporal capital on things that their neighbors may not watch? When I spent 3 minutes watching some obscure funny video that shows talking dogs and cats? Next thing I know, from clicking all the links that recommend other videos of talking animals, I’ve spent an hour of my life doing something that, while entertaining, will probably not further things in my life that are more essential. As for example, a midterm paper I’m supposed to be writing.

You can argue, of course, that that is the beauty of the Internet. Ultimate platform for free choice from a myriad of options. Didn’t someone say that the more choices one has, the less happy they are? How about issues of shared communities? No one gathers at the water coolers anymore to talk about that episode of so-and-so show last night, because we’re all watching different things – network shows, cable shows, webisodes, short videos on Vimeo and YouTube… and we don’t have enough time in the day, in our lives, to consume it all.

I have 1257 songs in my iTunes. iTunes tells me it will take me 3.9 DAYS to finish listening to it all. That’s 24 hours a day for almost 4 days of music that I carry around in my iPhone wherever I go. How do I choose? If I listen to something more than once, something else isn’t getting listened to.

Not to say that cultural gatekeepers are always right in terms of what we should be consuming. Hello hegemonic framework and manufactured consent. And all the problems with the mass culture debates. But what if there was something to it? Something to the stuff that experts tell us to pay attention to? How about politics and news? Things that affect the way we vote and made decisions in life? The more time we spend watching stupid videos on YouTube, the less time we have to consume media that will give us information that puts us in conversation with other people, affect change, and help us make decisions.

Get my point? I’m not going to write more because I’m very very tired…and writing this blog is sapping my temporal capital (which, I know, sleep does too), but … just something to think about…and hopefully something I can come back to later…..

Anderson Cooper got it…well, halfway right.

Here’s the video, and this is in regards to that movie, “The Dilemna,”, which uses the term “So Gay” in the trailer. AC got it right in that the phrase should probably not be used, but I say it’s only half right in context. It’s the same thing with people using the n-word. If I’m black and I call another person the n-word, that’s not a problem. But I’m not, so I am not allowed to use it. Just like I’m “allowed” to call another Asian person the c-word or a FOB, but god help someone who’s NOT Asian who calls me or another Asian person that.

The L Word (in the pilot episode) actually uses the term “so gay,” but because the characters who use it ARE gay, that makes it “ok.” So the question I pose is, should there be any time when these terms, or rather, the way the term “so gay” is used, are ok? Or should they be completely stricken from our vocabulary. One other term in recent memory has undergone the striking out – “retarded” or “retard”. So it’s possible to get to the point where you can use “gay” to talk about someone’s identity, or the community, or as a political term, but where it would NOT be ok to say “that’s so gay.” Maybe this restriction in phrase should also apply to gay people, not just straight ones?

Quick excerpt from the draft of an intro of a paper I’m writing. Goes along with the system and cultures idea:

Without DADT and Proposition 8 completely repealed, the government sends a very clear message to the public that being gay is not OK. Sarah Silverman addresses this issue in the Huffington Post in October 2010, saying

“Dear America, when you tell gay Americans that they can’t serve their country openly or marry the person that they love, you’re telling that to kids too. So don’t be fucking shocked and wondering where all these bullies are coming from that are torturing young kids and driving them to kill themselves because they’re different. They learned it from watching you.”

Silverman touches on something very poignant in her rant. She points to the fact that it is, in fact, the culture of America, that is unaccepting of gay Americans, but that this culture is derived from the legislative system that treats gays and lesbians as second-class citizens.

So the burning question becomes, how long after the legislative system changes will the culture follow suit?

Cloud computing and storage has been the big thing lately. Things like Rhapsody and Spotify are based on the idea that you don’t physically own mp3s on your hard drive (as physically as one can own mp3s). Now Google wants in too. Last time I spoke with Raymond Roker of URB Magazine, after our debate about the iPad, he mentioned that he’s really trying to store everything on the cloud. His rationale was very rational. “Google has millions of servers all around the world. I have one server, and if that crashes, I lose everything.”

There’s been a lot of resistance to the idea of cloud computing. There’s a comfort in owning something, in being able to access it without having Internet access. After all, Internet access is still far from ubiquitous. But if you think about it, banks used to be suspiciously looked upon. People would rather store their cash or gold or what have you under their bed. Entrust someone else with your entire life savings? Hell no! Of course, if your house burned down, you’d be left with nothing, whereas banks are insured. Perhaps there will come a day when we think it’s silly that people used to download mp3s, and everyone lives on the cloud. I’m not quite there yet, but if I follow the bank analogy, it may not be a too long time in coming.

I’ve always wanted to write about systems and cultures (and how they work together or are opposed or reconciled or unreconciled. And I realized, rather than trying to write a huge article about it, I should start with just rough ideas about what I wish to explore.

To me, the notion of systems and cultures are very much like Derrida’s law and justice, Freud’s conscious and unconscious, Postman’s (among others) science and faith. One defines, while the other gets invisibly woven into the fabric of how we perceive the world.

This came up because I had a very short, but fairly intense conversation with my friend, Yvonne, who has just started law school up in Berkeley. She had read an article about affirmative action, which got us thinking about how much race actually plays in a kid’s success in life. When in reality, it’s not race that determines whether or not your kid will succeed in school. It’s everything else. And yet, the system of the school makes it so that it’s race, when in reality, what needs to be changed is the system of values, the prioritization of education in the kid’s home environment. Which is a lot more complicated than saying just that.

But…

I have to run now, but I’m sure more will come under this title.

From The New York Times:

Judge Rejects Military Policy Toward Gays

While the policy will not change right away, the ruling reflects others taking aim at discrimination against homosexuals.

http://nyti.ms/cf6VXy

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes

************
Sent from Cynthia Wang's iPhone
cyndaminthia@gmail.com

This is the most ridiculous non-answer I’ve ever gotten, with a not-so-subtle advertising twist to it that disgustingly perpetuates the consumerist, narcissistic culture of America.

Yes, I bought shorts from Abercrombie and Fitch. I’m not all that sweet and innocent. I bought the shorts online and wanted to ask if they had zippers or buttons. This was the response I got:

>>>>>>>
Hey ,

The best way to find out details about our products-like whether the shorts are button up or zip-is to see the products face to face. We suggest heading to your nearest A&F store.

But we understand you can’t always do that. Here at A&F, we strive to set trends-not follow them-so you can be sure that whatever you order from us is going to be as popular as it is fashion-forward.

If for some reason you’re unhappy with what you ordered, no problem. Just use our simple return and exchange process. You can either send back the items that don’t work or take them to any of our A&F stores for a refund. But we think you’ll love our style as much as we do.

Rachael
Customer Service
Abercrombie & Fitch

Check us out!
>>>>>>>>>

I feel like I want to scrub myself clean from that whole “we’re going to tell you what you SHOULD like” brain-washy attitude that reeks from its pores. Plus, ok, thanks for a response, but no thanks for the non-response. They didn’t answer my question! I don’t think the question is really that difficult. This just feels like laziness on their part.

Come on, put in a little bit of effort, Abercrombie & Fitch. After the whole disaster with your racially incorrect T-shirts in 2002 where you implied that people who look like me are “wong” (or, wrong, is what you implied with your “Two Wongs Make a White, Wong Brothers Laundry” shirts) and would be better off “white,” I’m willing to get over it and give you good money. The least you can do is tell me what I’m purchasing rather than giving me what equates to an automated message with my inquiry inserted in sloppily. Seriously, this is a response I would expect from someone really really dumb. Maybe those are the only kind of people you’re able to hire because anyone with a brain can see through your bullshit in a second.

Wow. Reading my last three posts, I realize I’m on a roll here with whining and complaining about stuff. Sorry, dear readers. All 2 of you.

This is gonna be a judgmental post – more of a vent/rant. Just a warning that this blog might be a little mean-spirited today. Because I’m crabby. And you’ll see why.

I just dealt with this woman who must have been the most incompetent person ever. Ok, not the most incompetent ever, but it was frustrating.

I need to sublease my apartment from August 1st till September, when my lease is up. This woman calls me incessantly and wants to come see the apartment during times when I’m not in. This was essentially the conversation, via a combination of a couple emails and a couple phone calls:

Her: When can I come see it?
Me: Friday afternoon or early evening.
Her: I can’t come then. Um, can I come this weekend?
Me: I’m not going to be around until Sunday late evening. You can come on Monday too.
Her: Well, can I come Saturday morning?

What did I just say?! (BTW, her whole “can I come Saturday morning” bit was left via phone message…TWICE)

Ok, whatever, the reason why I didn’t want anyone here Saturday morning is because I planned on being asleep. So I told her, fine, thinking to myself that I can just get a couple hours less sleep than I’d like.

We planned on meeting at 10am. So this morning, I got up at 9:30am (this is REALLY early for me, folks), showered, got all presentable, and waited. And waited. 10:30 rolls around, and I get a call from someone else who’s interested. They said they’d be here in before 11 to check out the apartment. At least I wasn’t awake for no good reason.

Right after they called, she calls me and says she’ll be another 20 minutes, and asks which subway to take. I couldn’t understand her too well (she speaks with an accent), and asked for clarification, at which point she abruptly hangs up on me. WTF, lady. You’re already going to be an hour late. Did you know that’s an extra hour of sleep I could have gotten?

So, I texted her the cross street and the subway stop.

The other people interested came and went – right on time. I waited around more and watched Dexter while waiting for this woman to call. At 11:15, OVER AN HOUR after the original scheduled time, she finally calls to say she’s downstairs.

Ok, here’s the thing. If I schedule something, and I’m even ten minutes late, I’ll apologize. She was…a lot later than that. Not a single word of apology. That made me simmer even more. Seriously, have the decency to realize you’re taking someone’s time. And if you’re an hour late, you’ve wasted an hour of it. It’s called being POLITE.

As we’re walking up, and she comes up with the excuse that the trains were not stopping at local stops. The COPE part of me comes out a little here – the part that wants things to be clear and efficient. So I asked her again, and she said, yes, the train was only making express stops.

“So,” I asked, “you got off at…”

“59th Columbus Circle,” she responded.

I asked if she took the 1 train. Yes, she responded. (ok, at this point, I realize I’m probably unfairly grilling her, but seriously, over an HOUR after? I was crabby, oh, and I just checked the NYCT Service Advisory for today and the 1 train is running normally, which means stopping at all local stops)

“59th isn’t an express stop. It’s a local stop.” At this point, I just want her to go away. I’ve already concluded that I’m not renting out my place to her because she’s clearly not that reliable, and seems kind of confused. I even went as far as to ask her if she lives in New York. Which she did. Ok…

Finally, we get to the apartment, and she’s looking around, and I show her the bedroom. I said I’d leave the AC window unit in, and in an attempt to move things along (since she wasn’t asking any questions or anything), I asked, “So how long would you need the apartment for?” I was prepared to give her information about renewing the lease in September if she needed it more than the month.

“Until the end of July.”

I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. “What? No, when do you need it?”

“Now, and until the end of July.”

“Uh…did you read the posting? It said this apartment wouldn’t be available until August 1st.”

At this point, she didn’t BELIEVE me. She kept saying how she emailed me dates that she needed to stay. Bullshit. I pulled up the original post (which, as you can see, clearly states the date), as well as her first email to me, which reads as such:

“Hello,

“I am very interested in renting your apt, posted at Craiglist.com, located in midtown.

“Your date fits for me too.
I’d like to see as soon as possible.
I’ll be available to come today.

“Please let me now as soon as possible.
You may call at ******** or email *************

NOWHERE in any other email did she mention that she needed the apartment right away. I told her that the office might have sublets available, but at that point, I just wanted to get on with my day. And I’m already sleep deprived and tired, and I have a long day.

Look, I feel like I’m pretty fair (even nice) when it comes to doing business and whatnot, but I have a really hard time tolerating incompetence, inefficiency, not doing your homework beforehand (especially if it’s something you care about, and she did care about this — just look at how many times she called me), and not having respect for other people’s time and efforts (ok, I realize I can be late a lot, so I definitely need to work on this myself, but at least I APOLOGIZE. And I feel really bad about it.) So, read the fucking post, lady. And stop wasting my time.

This also came on the heels of someone who said they wanted my toaster and just never showed up yesterday. No call, no email. Ok, that’s just RUDE.