From cyberbullying to group think

A couple of days ago, a former student of mine sent me this in an attempt to keep me abreast of what’s hot in Hong Kong as if I had nothing better to do. She was also kind enough to educate me about the brief history of the whole media frenzy which turned out to be pathetically entertaining. It seems that the society has already gone past the teenage-booby-model phase and is now going through a post-Kanye West bully-the-villain phase.

It all started with a youtube video posted by a college student with a seemingly wicked intention to tarnish the reputation of a shop which, she believed, cheated its customer by pricing the same product differently in its chain store. In the video she kept bombarding the store manager with her arguments with an air of social justice (just in case you wonder, there’re no F-words) while the store manager tried to pacify her and explained the company policies patiently. Still feeling self-righteous, she posted the video on youtube. To be frank, what’s a better place than the Internet to bully someone – it’s anonymous and with a few clicks hatred spreads faster than flu virus.

How such a boring video caught others’ attention in the first place is beyond normal human intelligence to understand but somehow someone with a seemingly far more boring life stumbled upon it and found it staggeringly offensive and so publicized it with provocative comments on different discussion boards. The snowball rolled from there.

Our binary, dichotomous mind concluded that the bitchy girl in the video is indeed a bitch and villain while the even-tempered manager is the victim. Like pitiful innocent Taylor Swift who was gobsmacked by Kanye’s sudden comment on stage or the tear-stained students from Christian Zheng Sheng College, the store manager quickly has the netizens on his side. Resentment towards the college student’s ruthless behaviours quickly sets in and hatred sprawls in light speed. That’s how karma bounces back and now she’s become the new prey.

Her personal life—her almost complete biography, educational history, her boyfriend’s full name, her pictures chronicled from childhood to the present, etc.—was unfolded on the Internet thanks to a bunch of netizens who care much enough to trace every bit of her personal details on the Internet. She was tracked down by paparazzi and her personal life was covered in full by newspapers. She even made the cover story of a tabloid magazine. Actually, I can’t remember any rapists or pedophiles having attracted such intense hatred. All of a sudden, the society regresses to a gang of nasty, judgmental teenagers who pull out all the means to bully anyone they happen to hate.

That sort of collective, irrational and almost mindless gall scares me. What scares me more, many others find the massive anonymous bullying fun and just drop by and join the party by taking the offense on behalf of a third party and spreading the girl’s personal details and those online pricks with a few clicks; some even leave a few lines of hateful comments as if they themselves were the store manager who was confronted by the college student. And now, even the mainstream media who are supposed to give the voice to the voiceless join in. A corrupted mass media signify the fall of social conscience.

Bullying is a cowardly act and massive anonymous bullying even more so. However, when it is disguised in the name of social justice, people seem to be more than willing to engage in it. This is how groupthink becomes so overwhelming that it dominates our mentality and suppresses individuality.

In an instance, I was confused who is the villain and who is the victim.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Why am I updating my blog while I should be concentrating on my work? Geeezzzz, I can’t concentrate, not even at night now… I hate that :(

Heaven

If there’s heaven, I believe it looks more or less like this:

A bunch of kids who are naturally dressed in different skin colours and physiques and who speak the same language but in different accents helping each other towards a common goal.

I was in heaven last week.

I went to a play group observation at a pre-school here as part of my placement duties. Every one of the kids—kids with autism, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, different accents—has their own physical and personality characteristics, yet they blend well with each other, sharing fun and cooperating, oblivious to these differences.

It’s such a moving scene to see.

We all have been those little angels. I'm sure even Hitler was once an angelic little boy who played with Jewish kids or adored Jewish girls ni those early years before his traumatized failure to attach to his father turned him into the most infamous racist of all times. However, the sad thing is, at some point of our life we gradually grow up unlearning that sort of acceptance and our innate skills to accommodate differences, instead learning to hate a certain group of people – the obese, the geek, the nerds, the ethnics groups, the immigrants, the rich, the poor just because they’re not our breed. At some point, difference between people, be it political views, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, skin color, accents or fashion sense, has become a threat to us.

That hatred is not inherited but learnt, from us adults: our own prejudice, our unexamined judgments, and our distorted sense of superiority. Our tolerance and acceptance wear and our prejudice grows as we age because we believe we’ve seen enough to generalize and known enough to judge others.

Our inability to handle differences and our desire to colonize our own beliefs find its roots in many conflicts in human history. But history will always repeat itself because we’re too arrogant to realize that deep down we are all the same.

When I looked at the kids, I wished they wouldn't become us in the future—becoming some sort of -ists (as in racist, sexist, sizist...).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I've won the Travel Award from the conference organizer, yaaaayyyy :) and my conference paper was actually ranked first among the three awardees (one of whom is a PhD student)--my highlight of the week despite getting drown in tides of work and failing to keep my thesis work on track. Now here comes the problem, how am I gonna splash ALL the awards $$$ on that trip to Canberra...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
唔...為甚麼最近寫的日記都是那種老生常談的想法，毫無個性可言...

The instant generation

My thesis supervisor is an email person. Our first correspondence started with me emailing her arranging an appointment at 7-ish one Monday morning and she replying me in less than 5 minutes. It was not a coincidence. In fact, she’s like constantly on email and if you can’t hear from her 12 hours after an email (even if you email her at 1am on Sunday), you can assume that something has gone really wrong and you’d better call the police to see if she’s well.

And now my new placement supervisor is an iPhone-cum-email person. She once sent me an identical email twice within 60 hours. She must have thought the first email may have lost in cyberspace for some reason as she emailed me on a Friday afternoon and didn’t hear from me on Monday and so resent it. My fault—I don’t always check my student email on weekends. But now I do.

When I still worked full-time in Hong Kong, I checked my work email quite frequently – while I was at work and off work. Still I couldn’t guarantee a prompt reply (like within 24 hours). Now having two supervisors of the same breed, I have to convert myself.

The availability of cheap Internet service and the launch of all those fancy gadgets like iPhone and Blackberry have bred a new generation of human beings – the instant generation. Those who are under 30 but don’t even have an email or a mobile phone are like social outcasts who refuse to live in the modern world.

They have to receive gratification/response instantly and their attention span is comparable to a 10-year-old’s who doesn’t have the patience to read more than 160 characters without being distracted. The best way to irritate this breed is to make them wait replacing their gadgets with novels—books that you have to hold and turn the pages manually (sorry, no pictures). A life without the Internet or a mobile phone? It’s not life at all.

For this generation, managing their personal and social life when they’re on the go is like piloting a spaceship. They need to make sure their iPod is playing the right holiday-moody-classic-boyband list but not the gloomy-worklife-heavy-metal-90s list. They tweet from time to time (e.g. @cool_gal2009 taking bus 2 MK 2 c friends or @cool_gal2009 now@MK w/ friends or @cool_gal2009 having choco icecream) as their friends obviously want to know what exactly they’re doing at the moment. Then they may want to reply the msn messages flashing on their phone screen asking them what they’re doing and they really want to redirect their techno-dummy friends to Twitter. While waiting in a queue to pay for their T-shirt at H&M, they may want to comment on their friends’ photos on Facebook and like a few photos and status updates. They're sure their Facebook friends can't wait to see their new T-shirt and what they have for lunch so they decide to take a few snapshots and upload them to Facebook. There’re a few sms messages to reply single-fingeredly as well. Feeling bored? Their PSP can no doubt keep them occupied. Their friends who are physically with them at the moment? Don’t worry, they’re doing exactly the same thing.

These forms of e-communication have actually put off some primitive yet crucial form of communication. Maintaining friendship has been reduced to mass-sending hugs and kisses with a click and dumping your boyfriends or girlfriends is made easy by changing your relationship status on Facebook – thank God you don’t even need a personalized sms and everyone including your now ex knows that. You feel wanted all the time like you have lots of friends.

However, in reality, we don’t make friends like we do on Facebook. We spend less and less quality quiet time with our friends, family and ourselves—and truly ourselves alone. We become a generation with less patience, shorter attention span, more intense self insecurity and higher intolerance of solitude (which merely means being alone).

Like nuclear technology, communication technology is a two-edged sword. It’s cliché I know, but the question remains whether we can handle something which can potentially kill the essence of humanity.

Keep up with the Jones – so as to stay normal

The definition of normalcy is culturally, geographically and temporally specific. But statistically speaking, 82.2% of the population falls into the normal range. As an acid test, if you’re doing what the 82.2% of the population within your group or community is doing, you can safely claim yourself as normal. That’s why believing that the Earth is a globe but not a giant flat piece of land was regarded as abnormal in the Dark Age. So was not wearing bell-bottom pants in the 70s.

Although we may look up to those glamorous, wealthy celebrities whose omnipresence makes us feel sick about ourselves, deep down all of us just want to be normal. But even so, staying in mainstream is getting harder.

Now not having a mobile phone or an msn/Facebook/Twitter is like not having a color TV or a landline 30 years ago. It doesn’t matter whether you actually use those things, like a Plasma TV, you just need to have them to stay in the mainstream. Those who choose not to have a mobile phone belong to the same category as those who refuse to send their kids to schools—they are on either end of the cool-uncool continuum.

When a certain breed becomes the majority, the pariah becomes social outcasts unless they follow the tides. No, you won’t be dumped into that category right away. First, you’re just uncool, then you’re one of those weirdoes, next you’re an outcast or, if you’re lucky, a genius or the coolest guy/chick in your town (but people won’t know that after you’re dead for a few decades). So in 30 years, these groups of people will belong to the social outcast/weirdo/minority groups:

1. Those who age naturally and gracefully without using Botox or whatever beauty injections
2. Those who are not cooks but can cook
3. Those who can spell correctly without using a word processor or write correct Chinese words without using any Chinese input systems
4. Those who can tell you the radical of a Chinese character correctly or those who know how to use a Chinese dictionary
5. Those who mainly get their news from the paper form of newspaper
6. Those who pay for a newspaper
7. Those who smoke (and still think it’s the coolest vice they’ve ever picked up)
8. Those who don’t understand what "gr8 cu l8r m8" or "ne1 no wer v mit 2day" means
9. Those who wrote snail mails—by writing, I really mean holding a pen and literally writing

Even staying in the mainstream doesn’t sound as effortless as before. What’s worse, when the majority in the community is getting dumber, you have to choose between being normal and being sane. Although it sounds a simple wish to be normal—to be like just everyone else, sometimes it’s easier to be weird but sane than normal but dumb.

Innocence - Avril Lavigne

Waking up I see that everything is ok

The first time in my life and now it's so great

Slowing down I look around and I am so amazed

I think about the little things that make life great

I wouldn't change a thing about it

This is the best feeling

This innocence is brilliant

I hope that it will stay

This moment is perfect

please don't go away

I need you now

And I'll hold on to it

don't you let it pass you by

I found a place so safe not a single tear

The first time in my life and now it's so clear

Feel calm I belong I'm so happy here

It's so strong and now I let myself be sincere

I wouldn't change a thing about it

This is the best feeling

This innocence is brilliant

I hope that it will stay

This moment is perfect

please don't go away

I need you now

And I'll hold on to it

don't you let it pass you by

It's the state of bliss you think you're dreaming

It's the happiness inside that you're feeling

It's so beautiful it makes you wanna cry

It's so beautiful it makes you want to cry

This innocence is brilliant (It makes you want to cry)
This innocence is brilliant

Please don't go away 'cause I need you now
And I'll hold on to it
Don't you let it pass you by
It's so beautiful it makes you want to cry

This innocence is brilliant (It's so beautiful)

I hope that it will stay (It's so beautiful)

This moment is perfect

Please don't go away

I need you now and I'll hold on to it (It makes me want to cry)

Don't you let it pass you by

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My iPod therapy be completed without a stroll in the neighbourhood :)

Very brief update

I went to Mornington Peninsula doing some work for my supervisor and she took me to a cafe overlooking the beach. So here comes the photo time...

A very chilly, cloudy day - but it didn't stop people from hitting the beach :)

Pancake Pancake Pancake for lunch! la la la - Did I mention it's warm? :)

A cosy cafe with a fireplace - should have taken a shot of that as well

oh, this pic has nothing to do with my Mornington trip. I took it from my own place one day after rain. You know winter here is also the rainy season, which makes winter more freezing than the actual temperature. But the nice thing about raining is, apart from lifting the water reserve, you can spot a rainbowly rainbow afterwards most of the time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hey I've got good news! ooops, is that the first time I break any good news here? On my blog? Hmmmm... anyway, I just got the Faculty Publication Award which covers all the cost for me to attend a 5-day conference in Canberra in late Nov. Okay, it's Canberra. And it's a conference. *eyes rolling* But it's frrrreeeeeee - and I'm going to splash all of their money :)

How much I miss a real summer ^^

Parent Stupidity

I wasn’t surprised when I read this or this. I mean, I would be surprised if that girl really got pregnant by a stray sperm swimming in chlorinated pool water. It’s like contracting AIDS through breathing. She would be the second human being in history, the first one being Virgin Mary, who got conceived without any sexual intercourse (or surrogacy or whatever, you get the idea). I would be surprised too if a teenage girl could actually fall asleep while her face being tattooed (was she stoned or something?). What doesn’t surprise me is parent stupidity.

If you have been a teacher long enough, the chance is you would have encountered at least one of those parents who believe whatever crap their children dish out. Don’t get me wrong, trust is highly valuable; it is the bedrock of any relationship. But there is a very fine line between unconditional trust and dumbness. I’ve lost count of the number of times parents told me how angelic and naïve their kids are, even when they were given hard evidence how their kids bullied others or cheated at school. To these parents, the whole school including all teachers and students pick on their kids as if it is the only one thing that unites the whole school.

If their stupidity ends there, that’s fine. Parenting isn’t always effective anyway. And deep down I always admire the sort of loyalty and faith these parents have in their kids despite the occasional misjudgment they may have. On reflection, I doubt I could blindly believe my kids (not that I have any) and defense them like these people and that really challenges my suitability of being a parent. Moreover, I lied to my parents when I was a kid as well. Sometimes I could get away with it, sometimes I couldn’t. I mean, doesn't everyone do the same thing?

However when these parents start suing people like those in the news, it’s another story. I’ve seen parents staging the whole crying stunt in the media or making the accusation to Department of Education just because their kids were, in their view, unfairly treated (like being failed or given a demerit for a “minor” offense or suspended from classes or given too much homework). The current education system in Hong Kong has put schools in a very vulnerable position that school principals almost bow to parents and students in order to stay away from negative publicity and ensure a steady flow of enrolment. A parent’s letter is almost like a get-out-of-jail-free card for students to excuse themselves from Physical Education lessons (no, kids in Hong Kong don’t like PE lessons even if they like sports), unfavourable school events, drug tests or excursion.

And you wonder why kids don’t learn to respect others these days.

I don’t want to sound like I’m putting all the blame on parents as I do admire those parents who always offer the best to their kids and never give up on them even when the system/world fails them. However, unconditional affection and trust do not automatically translate into submissiveness. And sometimes, parents with a clear, sane mind can help their kids learn about their mistake before they repeat it when they grow up. They can’t always get away with it – better learn that sooner than later.

If you're in any doubt, the best thing to do is to follow your common sense as it works 99% of the times. If you tragically are one of those who are not blessed with any, just bear in mind that you don't come across X-file type of incidents that often - they are just over-represented in the media.

We are all Narcissus deep down.

Have you ever before met that egocentric person who always subconsciously steers the conversation to him-/herself? Like when I mentioned it’s depressingly freezing here in Melbourne they would immediately respond that it’s sweltering in Hong Kong. And when I said I felt sleepy as I woke up early on a wintery morning to commute to Mornington, the egocentric would say it’s routine for them to wake up early for work and only sleep for a few hours. When I said I have established a lot in Hong Kong they would reflect that they have done the same things in Melbourne and so would not contemplate going back to Hong Kong. And when I said I was tired they would launch into a detailed account of how they "out-tired" me.

That is not sharing or an exchange of words. It’s just a monologue.

That sense of self preoccupation is no secret to us yet remains an evolutionary mystery (at least to me!) in a highly socialized community where race survival partly hinges on communication. But now I’m puzzled, is understanding or a two-way communication essential to human evolution or existence or is it just some luxurious concept that happens to pop up in some modern human societies where hunger and warmth are no longer pressing issues?

We all too conveniently use our own experience as a yardstick for measuring others’ happiness, problems, distress, and simply, life. That’s why we are programmed to compare, using ourselves as the baseline.

We never know how well or crappy we fare until we compare ourselves against others. That sense of comparison is innate in human nature. That’s why we succumb to peer pressures when we are young and social pressure as we grow old. While suckers are often encouraged to compare themselves against those living in the Third World or the most deprived spots on earth or this, such kind of comparison can be quite pathetic sometimes as our self-esteem and life satisfaction tends to build on others’ misfortune.

While downward social comparison makes us feel happy and protects our ego, upward social comparison keeps our society in an upward swirl of material development or achievement (that’s how that freaky Guinness World Records thingy comes into existence - though I can never make out whether it's for upward or downward comparison). Think the building next country is higher than ours? Build an even higher one!

It seems that comparison, both upward and downward, alone can make us happy and motivated and keep our society advancing materially. Maybe that’s why we’re all Narcissus by default; that we perceive the world in our own biased way without knowing that there's a blind spot in our view; and that what we see in others is just a reflection of our own ego. So where does understanding and empathy come into play? They seem to be learned skills though not many people pick up a lot along the way.