Speculation or Sci-Fi?

I believe the “Handmaid’s Tale” should be speculative book. This book is speculating what United States and the rest of the world will be like in the future. Unlike most science fiction novels, Handmaid’s Tale contains no real advanced technologies from the future. The story can happen now, future or even in the past. A speculative novel portrays an alternative scenario in history or future that expresses the author’s speculation of the world. In this book, the author speculates about what United States will be like if it is under a totalitarian, theological government that women are oppressed and with different social rank with different specific jobs in the community. To be a real science fiction book, the novel has to contain specific advance in technologies such as flying vehicles or space ships. In the Handmaid’s tale, no advance in technology is mention yet. Instead, it seems like the technology in the book stops in the 1980s that people don’t have computers or television that can monitor people. It is still stuck with the notion that people are under surveillance with spies hiding among the normal citizen. The technology may even go backward that people buy stuff with tokens instead with paper money or coin.   

The Soul

Do most people select their friends using their logic or feelings? I will say most people chose their friends base on their feeling. When they meet a person for the first time, they usually based people on their appearance and how they feel about it. They will look at their clothing, looks, manners and overall impression of them. For example, if a guy who smokes, with tattoos or earrings and piercings on his nose, ears or lips, a person may want to keep away from them because they doesn’t like how they feels. People tend to make friends with people that may have similar personality or interests as them. Only until one have spend time with a person, one will then use their logic to see if this is the friend they really like. For example, a teenager may want to make friend with people who smokes and acting all cool by having ear piercings and tattoos. They may feel that only through these practice one can be mature and acting super cool that they are unique and different from others. However, after spending more time with these kinds of friends, one then realize with their logic that having tattoos and smoking are bad habits and bad impression for others. People mostly make friend with people they feel like they want to be with without any particular reasons.

Real or Romantic?

Is Walt Whitman romanticizing and idealizing the workers? I think this is true based on what I have known about these American workers. The workers who are portrayed in the poem are probably mostly over worked with little salaries. The scene in the poem probably take place in the late 1800s that America is only just started to become industrialize. True, American loves to sing chants and songs when they work, but not necessary all of them do. Walt Whitman is an optimistic man that the people he sees are mostly ones who are devoted to their work and love their job. The boat makers sing songs together although their job is dangerous and tough. House wife sings song and shoe maker whistles. This reminds me of early Disney cartoon where all the characters wake up early in the morning and happily get to work. To show how great America is, Walt Whitman probably proudly exaggerated some of the facts and makes it seem as if Americans are all happy and diligent working. Whitman is an optimistic man that he looks at people’s joy and romanticizing events. Who will want to see a sad poem when one wants to portray the greatness of America?

Work Song

In “I hear American Singing” by Walt Whitman, Whitman celebrates the American enterprise in all of its work force through vivid description of men and women who take pride in their occupation. In every occupation, people sing chants and song while they work and take pride of their work. With Whitman’s description, the working class of America is happy and everyday starts out happily. Since this is a time before the industrial revolution when America’s economy starts rapidly become the lead of the world with factory and boat making, the work force describe in Whitman’s poem is mostly related to these worker instead of politician, lawyer, doctor and etc. Probably in Whitman’s view, only these working force truly display America’s nationalism and identity that the foundation of the nation is based on these people. If I were to write a poem to celebrate Taiwan, I would include work forces such as farmers, factory worker, fisherman, night market people and etc to demonstrate Taiwanese spirit. It is these people that make up the culture of Taiwan and make us unique. Although these people may be less significant compare to doctors, lawyer and politician, without our working forces, our nation can never sustain itself. 

Ode to my watch

In this ode, I will write an ode to my old friend, watch, which I have for almost 7 years. It’s solar powered and high functional. Never one day this old dear friends have giving up on me. Sometimes it blacks out and need to be recharge under the light but the recharging process takes only like a minute or two. With this clock I never need to worry if it is going to run out of battery. No matter how much I scratched him, banned him hard on the ground, it never gives up on me. It never gives complaints and does its job effectively. This watch is basically my time keeper that it keeps me in the game and keeps me focus and aware of the world by helping me to keep my time. I remember one time I almost lost this dear friend while going to my swimming lesson. This poor guy was left alone in the changing room’s locker for almost a week before I went back and found him. For a week I feel emptiness in my heart and a sudden weird sensation that nothing is sitting on my wrist. Although I replaced him with another watch, it never feels the same. When I finally retrieve him, I was glad and joyous as if having a friend reunion. 

Oppression

In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, women are oppressed and striped away from any of their rights. The women in the Handmaid’s Tale are classified into many different rank and position, which each different class serves a different function for this totalitarian and theocratic world of Gilean. In today’s world, such as in America, women have a social status quite equal to men that they received and protected by similar rights. As in Taiwan, women and men also have a similar social status that no one has significant advantages over one another. In our generation, we are taught at school to an idea that women are just as capable as men. However, despite all the ideology that women and men are the same, physically we are different. Men tend to be more athletic and physically more powerful than women. People may say this is sexist and oppression that this statement servers to show that men are superior over women. However, I don’t think this is a form of oppression that only by separation like in sports league and competition, the game can be fair that a woman wouldn’t be competition against a man. If a woman wishes to compete with man, I guess then it’s her freedom to do so. 

Holiday Reality

The holiday is similar to what I’ve expected, except its better! I thought I will be playing Wii the whole time, but instead I was playing X-box with its new game system called Kinect. It was awesome in a way that the game requires no remote controller. Instead it just needs your body. Kinect uses camera to capture one’s body motion and simulate our motion on the surrogate in the game. It feels as if I am in the game that I can wave and jump in the screen without pressing any buttons but simply just jump and wave in front of the TV. Other than Kinect, I pretty much spend my holiday the way I have expected, going to night markets, shopping and hanging out with my cousin. Toward the end of the break, I even got to play with firecrackers and fireworks, which is pretty intense. Overall the break was satisfying that I didn’t do any of my homework until the last day and nearly slept till 10 o clock in the morning everyday during the break. I ate tons of food and didn’t exercise at all except playing on my Wii and X-box. As usual, my red envelope was taken away by my mom even before I have the chances to check how much money I have received. 

Holiday Plans

What should I do during the Chinese New Year break? I suppose I will be again spending a 3 day trip with my family along with my grandparents down to the southern part of Taiwan such as Kengting or Kowchoan. I think I will first spend the first 2 days of my holiday playing Wii for the whole time and keeping my eye on the television for 24/7. Then, my cousin might bring some new Wii games and I can further destroy my eyes with more video game playing. I will have a wonderful dinner with my family, drinking lots of soda and eating lots of food. The next day after the Chinese New Year Eve, I will then spend my whole day sleeping during the car ride down to kengting and watching movies off of my ipod. When we get to Kengting or Kuaochoan, I will probably spend more than 4 hours shopping and eating Taiwanese fast food in the night market. Also, I might be able to play some night market games and win some cheap prizes. This is probably all what will happen during my Chinese New Year break and I’m not expecting more. I’m keeping my finger cross and hoping that it will be a wonderful break.