Taking tutorial courses is a popular culture (by Chloe Cheng)

These years, I have found a category of advertisements being seen everywhere. I often see them on billboards, newspapers, magazines and even buses. Can you guess what it is? It’s not body slimming advertisements but tutorial centers’ advertisements. Most secondary students whom I know have been taking courses in tutorial centres. They think that it is necessary. It seems that taking courses in tutorial centres becomes a popular culture among students. I am curious about such phenomenon and I am trying find out the reasons behind.

As I have been a secondary student, I understand the reasons for other students taking tutorial courses. They want to learn strategies and get tips to deal with public exams. They think that public exams are very important to them since they are related to getting places in university. In Hong Kong, having a university degree is a must to seek a good job. Due to the bandwagon effect, many students take these courses in order to keep their competitiveness. They are afraid of being weaker than their competitors. As taking these courses becomes a popular culture among students, some of students participate in these courses in order to integrate into their friends. Otherwise, they are more likely isolated by their friends.                 

            

Advertisement is a powerful way to spread this phenomenon. Tutorial centres always publish their advertisements and the tutors play roles as saviors and supermen. Besides, they exaggerate the small numbers of distinctions their students get. It sends a message that students who take these courses can get high grades. Moreover, these centres give premium to students. For example, students have discounts when they take courses with their friends or take one more course. In this perspective, taking tutorial courses is consuming product. There are large difference between ordinary schools and tutorial courses. The former is public services while the later is a consumer good. Ordinary schools provide education to students to equip their knowledge while tutorial courses are consumed by students to satisfy their needs. 

I believe that popular culture of taking tutorial courses is constructed by the tutorial centres as well as students. Occurrence of tutorial centres is arisen by the demand of students. As the demand increases, the supply of tutorial centres increases. They publish a lot of advertisement to attract students. Consequently, students are affected by the advertising. The more students take tutorial courses, the more students probably follow the way too. This is a circuit.  

Personally, taking tutorial courses is not beneficial. It persuades students to study for exams at the expense of multiple learning. They always take these courses after school and they do not have enough time to take other activities to expose their horizons. In my experience, students taking these courses are always idle and inactive in the school because they put high emphasis on tutorial courses. They are always sleepy in the class and do not respect the teachers. Their attitude reduces teachers’ spirits. Such dependence lowers their self-learning. They do not have chances to organize knowledge they gain. More importantly, it raises financial burden to parents because of expensive tuition fees.     

Entertainment as Art (by Scarlet Ma)

When I went to have lunch at an expensive-looking Italian restaurant yesterday, I deliberately brought along an English book I had purchased a week ago.

It was Shirley Hazzard’s The Bay of Noon. Have you heard of her? She won the United States’ National Book Award in 2003 for The Great Fire, a novel.  The year after that, she won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia’s biggest literary prize. You really haven’t heard of Shirley Hazzard? Pardon me, but I have to say that isn’t very cultured of you.

The truth is, though, neither had I. I bought The Bay of Noon not because I knew of Ms Hazzard’s work or because I was attracted by the plot outline on the back cover, but because I thought I would look good reading a literary-award-winning book. It makes people think that I have good taste, and I like that.

So as I walked to the restaurant, I held the Ms Hazzard’s book high up in front of my chest, so that everyone I walked past could see it. Of course I realised they might not recognize Shirley Hazzard’s name, but at least they would know that it is an English book. In Hong Kong, people generally think that you are more “cultured” reading an English book than a Chinese book. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s how things are.

But just before I got to the restaurant, I walked past a Cosmos Books’ store (天地書局) with a huge poster saying that Yi Shu (亦舒)’s new book, Custody (禁足), is out. Yi Shu is one of my favorite Chinese writers. She writes hundreds popular romance novels, and this is her 257th book. I immediately went into the bookshop, grabbed a copy and paid, forgetting all about my Shirley Hazzard novel.

I felt guilty about not resisting the temptation of this kind of “rubbish” books, but that guilt has been with me for a long time.  When I was in secondary school, I used to read a lot of Yi Shu ’s romance novels and her brother Ni Kuang (倪匡)’s science fictions. My mom hated those books. She said they were superficial and formulaic, that while they may be entertaining, they are not art.  She said reading those “rubbish” books were time-wasting and was a bad influence on me, although she didn’t explain how. She said I should read more literary books, like Jane Austin (her favorite) or Jin Yong (金庸).

That confused me, because I remember my eldest Aunt, who is more than ten years older than my Mom, saying Jin Yong is not really literature. When my aunt was young, she and her friends thought Jing Yong’s books were low-grade entertainment. His martial arts epics were superficial and could never be compared to the Four Great Classic Novels (四大名著), all of which my aunt had finished reading before the age of ten. But now many literature students study Jin Yong and write about his books for their thesis.  A hundred of years ago, novels like the Four Great Classic Novels had also been greatly criticized by the literary people of the time, who said they are entertainment but not art. Only poems could be called literature, back then.

In our tutorial reading “The Idea of Entertainment”, from Richard Dyer’s book Only Entertainment, Dyer said “entertainment became identified with what was not art, not serious, not refined. This distinction remains with us – art is what is edifying, elitist, refined, difficult, whilst entertainment is hedonistic, democratic, vulgar, easy.”

Yet the line separating art and entertainment shifts with time. There was a time when poems were art and novels were entertainment, then novels like the Great Classic Novels became art and Jin Yong came onto the scene only as entertainment. Some decades later, Jin Yong became art and Ni Kuang and Yi Shu are entertainment.

I think this line shifts because the books that people enjoy changes as the society change. And as each generation came into power, they gave the books they enjoyed high esteem and bestowed awards on them. With these recognitions, what used to be entertainment became seen as art.

So with Shirley Hazzard’s The Bay of Noon on my left hand and Yi Shu’s Custody on my right, I asked myself which is art, and which is entertainment?  In the end, I told myself to just shut it, because who cares? I opened Yi Shu’s book and went into a Cha Chaan Teng (茶餐廳) instead of the Italian restaurant.

Changes of Local TV Dramas

TV programs and drama are one of the poplar forms of media that Hong Kong people will consume. However, it is obvious that we can easily notice the changes of the TV program and drama. Many people believe that these TV dramas that shown every night a partly simplification of or real world. But those dramas now reflect our daily lives? And are these TV dramas only shown as an entertainment or a new form of advertisement? I would like to use a TVB drama “同事三分親” shown on 8:00 p.m. It mainly talks about the lives in office and also some family and love affairs. Many people believe that TV drama can reflect what we have ever experienced in the real world. Taking TVB drama as an example, hostility and argument could be found in office. And it is usual that love and romance can be grown in these environments, too. However, those cases shown on TV sometimes are exaggerated. Besides, there are too many coincidences appear. Making the drama less “real” than what we encounter in our real lives. So, are these TV dramas a simplification of the “real” world? Besides, there is a great change of the background of these dramas. In the past, it can reflect the real social situations. For example, people working in factories, living in a poor conditions and having a very poor lives. These are very down to earth. However, when you watch the drama now, most of the characters are rich. They are middle class and even upper, living in an extraordinary big house, working as a CEO in a listed company, etc. I doubt that is this can reflect our real lives as most of the audiences are grass rooted. Those problems of industrialization can also be applicable to these TV dramas as well. Just like the genre concept in film studies. As the production companies realize that audience like to watch particular types of drama, they will just simply follow the formula and add some new elements to create a new text. It is apparent that these dramas are formulaic and standardized. It is not difficult for us to predict the content and progress of them. However, audiences are pleased by this predictability. In my opinion, as I can easily predict what will happen, I don’t really enjoy watching local drama. And their topics are not attractive as well. In additions, I do not like their productions because they always amend the original texts or history. Besides, we can also find out some manipulation in these TV dramas. Those advertisements are good example showing this manipulation. It is common that some companies sponsor the drama to advertise their product. And we can find these products everywhere thought out the whole drama. These products keep on showing up in different scenes. For example, you can always see tissue everywhere in their home. This is annoying. But audience seems to get used to these. Does it imply that people accept and welcome this form of advertisement? And I really wonder the effectiveness of these advertisements. How many of you could successfully remember what kinds of product sponsor the drama? If we try to compare local TV drama with the foreign drama, this would be the most obvious difference that we can find as they do not have such an advertising function.  

It is obvious that the TV drama producers wanted to reflect our daily life in TV drama. However, most of the TV drama could not show the true life of the people in the society. Therefore, the TV drama producers should make a drama in different aspects rather than just showing part of the society. Also, they fully utilized the drama to make advertisement. But the effects of these advertisements are not strong enough because people may not remember what products have shown in the scenes.

Crystal Lai

References:

www.tvb.com

We like fast!

After the two to three hours lessons, most of us must go for a lunch or high tea just near by. Some of my students said that compare with other district, why Admiralty‘s restaurant prices are relatively higher? Also, we haven’t got so much time to wait the seats inside the crowded restaurant because it needs to spend so much time and we will miss the lessons on waiting. Many of us are just the student and haven’t got a job for earning so much money, therefore, the café de carol; McDonalds are the fast food restaurants that we usually go for lunch.

Most of them are born in Hong Kong and aged 20 these years. Through this totally 20 years, do you think that you need to be fast in almost every second? Fast is actually the behaviors that the Hong Kong people should be , is that a reason  to cause out that the fast food restaurants can be last out in the Hong Kong society till now.

In my mind, when I was still studying in my secondary school, there are lots of” Cha Chaan Teng “and fast food restaurants near my school. The Cha Chaan Teng “and fast food restaurants are almost in the same environments and the decorations ,excepting the fast food restaurants are always in chain stores . Students always go there because of their reasonable prices and fast. In school, the lunch time is about one hour only, packing the things up and wait for the classmates to go out, then it didn’t’ got so much time left. So, entering to the “Cha Chann Teng”and fast food restaurant can save up most of the time.

For the waiters who are work in the fast food restaurants and the “Cha Chann Teng” their faces look like asking to order fast ,eat fast, and pay fast. Some of them are included Hong Kong and western cultures. Do you think that the cuisine in Hong Kong can be described as a fusion of western and eastern culture? Not only the high class restaurants but also the fast food restaurants and the “Cha Cha Teng” are. Although some of the foods are all get ready inside the kitchen, they can be fast and save up the queue time. I believed that almost the Hong Kong students experienced before. The “fast” culture in Hong Kong is more obviously.

Furthermore, the “Cha Chaan Teng”and fast food restaurants are important in our Hong Kong culture. No matter how you think yourself though that you are the upper class or the lower class, probably this kind of restaurants are stringing along with the Hong Kong people grow up. It won’t change and it is perpetual. People say, Time is money, some foreign said Hong Kong people are clever and they can finish the work very fast. Is that mean this “fast” culture is a good climate for Hong Kong people in doing all kinds of matters? If yes, let this culture sustaining.

“Yum Cha”

This morning, I went to “Yum Cha” with my family.  To me, ” Yum Cha” is a tradition on weekend morning.  If Sunday is the family day, then “Yum Cha” is the family activity to link my family together.   My father have well prepared for ” Yum Cha”, newspaper and magazine is NECESSARY.  He would go to take the table first and we’d arrived later.

 ”Yum cha” is a term in Cantonese, literally meaning “drinking tea”, refers to the custom of eating small servings of different foods while sipping Chinese tea.   In Hong Kong, lot of people at least haas once each week.  The elderly even go everyday like a ritual.  However, fewer youngsters admire this typical activity.   Actually, I enjoy “Yum Cha” so much, the “Dim Sum” is tasty and beautiful.  Not like the western-style food, each people order a main course, it seems too individual.  The ” Dim Sum” is small servings and always have four in each dish.  So we can order different kind of food and share with others.  People gather to chat and eat “Dim Sum”, it feels close and warm. 

Yum Cha is a good way to communicate with others.  Most of the people like to  “Yum Cha” on a fixed restaurant, so they would have nice feeling due to the consumer is no change and readily to talk to.  ” The air pollution is high, Donald Tsang can do nothing…….” “ The baby of Cecilia and Nicholas born on 8 Sep, isn’t he cute……..” i can always  heard the people talking about the government’s policy, the gossip or news while i was eating.  Most of elderly, especial the male choose share their opinion towards our society in the restaurant rather than express it in the Victoria peak on sunday morning. 

However, Yum Cha has a characteristic is share the table with the stranger.  I hate it so much because of it is embarrassed to sit with the people who i didn’t know.  It is under pressure and can’t talk with my friend freely.  Actually, I understand that it was hard to avoid because the land of Hong Kong was limited and no Hong Kong people willing to waste time on waiting.  Maybe I can viewed as Hong Kong people can do the things effectively even exploit the private time.  However, it is seldom occur in other country.

Free air conditioning,  non-stop refill the tea and comfortable seat.   How come the youngster do not like  “Yum Cha”?   “Yum Cha” provided a good time to chat with my friend and family although we only talking stuff.   I think ”Yum Cha” cans categories as local culture, it is totally different with the western-style food and fast food and can keep its own characteristic.   So I hope it cans maintain eternally.

Lust Caution

Lust CautionIn these two days, i have watched two movies, one is “Lust Caution” and other is ” Resident Evil : Extinction”, actually these two movies are good movie but  “Resident Evil” seems just for people to entertain because when the movie is finish, the audience may not have any about the movie, they may think this is scary but i believe that when they walked out the cinema, they will forget the detail part of the movie. On the other hand “Lust Caution” is a totally different movie because it give the audience a big impact. Before talking about my feeling about “Lust Cation”, first talk about why i go to watch this movie. I need to admit that i’m like other people, i am attracted by the sex scenes of the moive, i really want to see how Tang Wei and Tony Leung doing this ( And it didn’t make me disappointed…haha) but when i watching this movie, i found that there is not only the sex scenes, the movie is showing the love and the sex scenes are the ways to show the pain of Wong Ka Gi (Tang Wei) and Mr. Yee (Tony Leung).  When i am watching the movie, i was attract by Tang Wei, her acting can very deeply touching me, her movement, her eye contact, her speaking tone are totally like a 30th woman and can make the audience believe that she is the best to play this role. In the movie,there is a scene give me a very deep impression and make me cry, the scene is talking about Wong Ka Gi is ready to kill Mr. Yee in the jewelry shop but when she see the diamond ring, she know that she is already fall in love with Mr. Yee and tell him to go. in this scene, Tang Wei can show the pain and the powerless when a womman fall in love with a man which is cannot to love.Also when the movie is finished, i really found that Ang Lee is one of the greatest directort it is not because he had won the award, it is because he can make a 10000 words of story to a 2 and half hour movie and also give life to Wong Ka Gi and Mr. Lee, also the story. Also the greatest thing of ” Lust Caution” is that this is only a movie, it is also show when the people are in war, they are unable to control themself, they have no choice, they can’t choose who to love or even live or die, so this audience may keep this story in mind, may be they will like me to think about when they are Wong Ka Gi, what will they do? 

Poor local TV programs (Regina.T)

From tvb.com

  “Television is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance (wikipedia)”. In Hong Kong, there were two television stations could broadcast the local free television programs, it were Asia Television Limited (ATV) and Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB). In the past, Hong Kong people watched monochrome television, it only black and white without any colorful color. As a result of development of science and technology, monochrome television changed to colorcast and High Definition television (HDTV). When television hadn’t prevail in Hong Kong, people would sit around the table and listen the radio show together. However, because of the economic have a better development and people do consume for the entertainment. Television becomes a popular culture in Hong Kong. Most of the Hong Kong people would watch TVB programs, it’s because they think that TVB had higher quality and most of the well-known TV artists were worked in TVB. However, audience launched to complaint that those of the soap opera were very irrational and unreasonable, the genre of the drama is always about the comedy without any contents, and also the story hadn’t any meaning and value. For example, Devil’s discriples (強劍), The biter bitter (人生馬戲團) and Yummy yummy, those of the TV programs were nonsense and ridiculousness. Devil’s discriples is a 20 episode drama series produced by TVB in 2007. This opera is about two males meet and they became best friends. However, as their enemy instigates, they fall out. Finally, they attack the common enemy together. This story formula was very common and it already used in many soap opera. “Mass culture is a standardized, formulaic, repetitive and superficial culture.” (Strinati Dominic, 2001, P.14) Nowadays, local TV programs were lack of creative ideas and rational story also those of it was not trail- blazing.

After the first day of this opera, most of the audiences discuss in the forum and it to be a hot topic. First, audience think that this drama was over- caricatured that one of the main actor use the famous Japanese comic “Dragon Ball (龍珠)” character Goku’s unique skill, The Kamehameha Wave, to kill his enemy. Second, this opera subvert the ancient periods that the story and martial arts were too exaggerate. It seems like the actor could do everything, they could speak very loud and their voice could pass through the mountain and extensive land. Although there were many complaint and negative comment, the audiences still watch this drama and the audience rating hadn’t decrease, it maintain in around 27 to 29 points. It shows that audiences get used to switch the television at night, whatever no one wants to watch the drama. On the other hand, audience may think that they only can chose TVB and ATV, but ATV’s program was worse than TVB. Therefore, they could still choose TVB.

According to Gripsrud (1982), he argues that there were four points of producing the TV program in TVB. First, “engage the audience”, draw the audience attention, make them feel the program was interesting and entertaining. Second, “ consider the audience’s knowledge about the world”, it imply that the program should be reasonable, but Devil’s disciples was opposite. Third, “meet the audience’s expectations”, the audiences need funny drama and make them feel happy, so the comedy stills is the main genre. Fourth, “don’t divide the audience”, the story should be common, general and non- sensitive. Therefore, the TV programmers in order to maintain the audience rating and attract the advertiser to make profit, they would still follow the four points without any fresh and new drama.

word count: 611

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%B7%E5%8A%8D
http://jade.tvb.com/drama/devil39s_disciples/

NDSL Heat Wave! (Genki. M)

Nintendo DS Lite(NDSL), a handheld game console, is first launched in Japan on March,2006. It generates a heat wave quickly and this heat wave reached Hong Kong recently. You can see a phenomenon that people play the NDSL everywhere, such as restaurants and MTR. Obviously, NDSL is well liked by the masses. This arouses a question: “Why NDSL is so popular?”  

NDSL forms a mass cultcure which produces worldwide market and reach mass consumers. In the past, video games usually target teenagers and men. However, NDSL games target some people who do not play video games before, as some of the games are simple and interesting to make women, workers and even elderly may play them, such as “Mahjong”, “brain training” and “Cooking MaMa” . NDSL is a deversified product to reach different age groups. Besides, the games are close to our everylife such as sports, cooking and so on, they provide a lot of fantasies to consumers, let them practice and feel satisfied to keep playing. Moreover, NDSL is a tool of social gathering to bring us more interaction with others. For instance, some people who do not know each other, but they all have interest on NDSL, will meet and play together. Therefore, Many people consume NDSL generating heat wave in popular culture as NDSL was approved by many people. NDSL becomes popular, they also consume time besides product. For example, they play games once they have free time, even grab the little time before go to the bed. They have no free time left to do other things. Initially, playing NDSL is an entertainment to make us relax. However, if we addict to NDSL, it may affect our daily life such as family relationship and the time to take rest. Therefore, I think people need to adjust the time, otherwise time will be wasted. Game cards help to attract us to consume NDSL. If you buy the card at shop, it just include one game. Most people cannot buy many games because they are very expersive. However, game cards such as R4 which are for saving, it can save many games there without paying money because we can freely dowload the games through the internet. Therefore, people will buy game cards more than buy games.  

Other than the games, NDSL, the game console itself, is acttarctive too. It has plenty of colours for us to choose, the aesthetic appearance appeal us to buy. In addition, the most interesting function of NDSL which attract buyers is that besides pressing the buttons, we can use stylus to play the games. 

 When NDSL is becoming popular, Nintendo started to sell side product which attract lots of NDSL costomers too. For example, it sells games characters stylus, like the Mario series, to make profit. If there is no NDSL, consumers will not buy stylus which cannot write anything. After Mario stylus is good for sale, different types of stylus have detruded continuously. Moreover, pasters were sold in the market for people to decorate NDSL. All kinds of cultural commodities can promote NDSL, and they have a good sale because of NDSL heat wave, thus mass culture can be commercial culture.  

NDSL is a successful cultural product because it has reached many different groups of people such as teenagers and women. Moreover, it is close to our everylife, and there are many side commodites to promote it. Therefore, I think that NDSL heat wave can be prolonged! 

 References:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS  Genki Mak

Is it really good for the children?

Last Thursday, I went to my student, Jessie’s home and taught her to play the piano. Jessie is just a kindergarten student who is studying K3. After that, her father gave me a file, he told me it is Jessie’s portfolio, he made it for 3 months already, and he is going to give it to the primary school principle when they apply the school. They had put a lot of photos in it, and I know that she had joined a lot of activities, flat selling, play group, swimming team, etc. And there are lots of certificates here! Her father told me it is good for her if she is going to apply a good primary school. But, is it really good for her? I don’t think so. 

In my opinion, if a child wants to learn or join extracurricular activities, it is because he is really interested in it, and he will enjoy it and have lots of fun here. But nowadays, the children join the extracurricular activities are not because they are interested in it, so they want to join. The reason of join the activities is their parents are interested in it, their parents want their children to join it. They have not think of their children, and they always tell the children “it is good for you, if you learn this, you can study in a good primary school!” Actually, they don’t want to learn. Some of my students always cry when they come and have the piano lesson, because they don’t interested in it, they don’t want to practice, but their parents push them to have the lesson. They are very pitiful! It just a competition for the parents, if their children always have a “Full Schedule”, they are outperformance; if their children can have a high appraisal in the courses, the parents become a winner. So, some of my children are very busy. On the weekdays, they need to have drawing lesson after school; after that, they have an extra English lesson; then, they back home and finish their homework; after that, it’s time to go to bed. On Saturday and Sunday, they have piano lesson, swimming lesson, PuTongHua lesson…Oh! How busy they are?! They are busier than me, and I think they are also busier than their parents, but they just 5 or 6 years old. 

I think that children must have a happy life, because when they become a primary 5 student, they start to have some pressure because they need to apply secondary school; when they become a secondary school student, they will have some pressure because they need to get a good result in the HKCEE. Although they become an adult, it won’t stop. So a happy childhood is very important to everyone, it’s time to play, to enjoy, not the time to learn and learn. One day when they grow up, what memories will they have when they leafing the certificates?

Local magazine become gossip & women magazine – by Winnie L.

In the recent years, many of the local magazines have changed their target audience. For example, maybe in the past the target audiences were the worker, and showed the ideas about how to earn much more money by their own. In nowadays, the style and the skills of reporting have been changed a lot. Many magazines changed to a “gossip magazine”, then it have been labeled as “women magazines”. It means that their target audiences then will change to the women, the office lady.“Oriental Sunday” also mentions that they have the greatest demand of the book selling in Hong Kong. It is because these kind of the gossip magazines always use the actress or the female model to wear the sexy clothes and attract the readers to buy, the reporters and paparazzi also want to fulfill the reader’s curiosity, they want to match up the reader‘s taste. After that, the paparazzi want to encroach on their privacy.

Something is still not change, the gossip magazine would like focus on how the actress or the female model nude their body. But the society would not care or feel nothing of the character if that is man. It shows that women are still inferior to the men, they treat as a sex object and they will show a sexy posture in the magazines.

But in the past, the magazines would not publish similar as nowadays’. They would like to talk about the entertainment, many of the news were positive.

   

There are much more advertisements appear the magazines. Advertisements for the women most likely are talk about cosmetic, clothing, body treatment; these kinds of topic are become much more popularly, they would like to mix all topics together in the same magazine. The advertisements are also affect the people who think that slim is perfect and ideal, but I think these kinds of advertisements are included some wrong messages, misleading description and exaggerate the credibility.

But there are also have some magazines still use a positive side to report the news. For example, Mingpao Weekly, sometimes they would like to use what the cover’s people sentence to attract the reader, but most of it is positive news.

And some of the magazines would like to focus on the group which is interested in some topic like child care, lifestyle, cars…etcWhich one is popular and which is not, are define by the people. Popular press included the gossip magazines; it also includes many advertisements in there. Many people would like to watch it for entertainment. Division between “High culture” and “Popular culture” have existed for centuries and are still debated today, it still unclear, so we are still very difficult to define which high culture is and which is low culture. On the other side, like “Choice”, it does not include so many advertisements there, it then become the quality press. And the quality press mostly likely for the high class people to see, that kind of magazines would just talk about the specific topic; they would not mix together in the same magazine.Reference:
http://www.mingpaoweekly.com/

http://www.orientalsunday.com.hk/new/

Winnie L.