Pros + Cons of the Videoconference

As a frequent videoconferencer (I give many presentations through a videoconferencing unit to schools across the country), I am surprised by the sometime randomness and uncertainty of videoconferencing.

 

Problems range from not being able to see the other side (the POINT of videoconferencing) to not being able to show a computer's screen even when the presentation cord is hooked up, to not being able to hear the other party, to not being able to turn the thing on!

 

But at the same time videoconferencing technology has allowed me to give many presentations to schools far away that would have taken a lot of time to board planes, hook up projectors...to put it briefly, the videoconferencing unit has allowed me to give more presentations.

 

I think that's good.

Hairstyles of Dictators of the World

Hairstyles of Dictators of the World
Svitak, Adora

Looking at a picture of Chairman Mao, I notice a striking similarity between his high-forehead hairstyle and that of modern day North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. This made me want to analyze hairstyles of other dictators of the world, and so I began my political fashion quest. Let's see...Josef Stalin has a fairly high hairstyle. (And all of them have rather chubby faces, but don't tell the Russian, North Korean, or Chinese government I've said this.) Pol Pot, infamous leader of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, has an about normal hairstyle. Fidel Castro? Yes, he has a high hairstyle, but I think this is because he's balding in old age. Poor Fidel...Our hearts bleed for you.

Although Marie Antoinette doesn't fit under the term "dictator," her hair was pulled back high above her forehead, as was the fashion at the time. So were the dictators mentioned above--many of them Communist--ironically influenced by the Imperialist fashions of old France?

But what about the biggest dictator of them all? Adolf Hitler? Disappointingly, his hairstyle looks more like the toupe of Donald Trump. (Sorry, Mr. Trump.) Hitler's mustache really stands out more. But if any of you have looked these dictators in the eye, remarked on their hairstyles, and lived, we congratulate you.

Becoming an Expert: Words I Learned

Today I am learning about the Red Guards of China's Cultural Revolution by reading articles from Encarta and Wikipedia. While the writing of the article isn't exactly that interesting itself (typical reference writing), the subject is interesting enough to me that the way it's written doesn't matter that much. Here's a word I find popping up a lot in anything related to the Cultural Revolution that I didn't know before:

re·ac·tion·ar·y /riˈækʃəˌnɛri/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ree-ak-shuh-ner-ee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation adjective, noun, plural -ar·ies.
–adjective
1.
of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring reaction, esp. extreme conservatism or rightism in politics; opposing political or social change. –noun
2.
a reactionary person.

But reactionaries don't have to be related to the Cultural Revolution.

Becoming an Expert: Draft 2

For the Becoming an Expert project, I'm supposed to write about how my perceptions changed when I visited China or my assumptions were proved wrong. But to be honest, I did not have perceptions or assumptions about China before my visit; I merely learned new things that I probably would not have been able to learn from Wikipedia or Encarta. I'll include some of my discoveries here.

I learned a lot about Chinese culture, especially relating to food. The Chinese love eating, and even in Beijing, where space is one of the most important commodities in this city of millions of people, every restaurant has a private room for those people who want to savor their food without the chitchat of the open area. Street food is cheap to many of us tourists, with hot yams at a quarter and cakes at two.

But don't think everything in China comes cheap. In Xi'an's colossal, seven-story shopping mall, some swimsuits cost hundreds of dollars. And often, vendors will try to charge you more if they learn that you're a foreigner. Foreigners (especially Americans) are considered rich.

Like many Asian countries, China values conformity. Most, if not all, of Beijing's schools have uniforms. But at the same time, China is yearning to distinguish itself in the world. The upcoming Olympics, it seems, is a good opportunity for them to do just that, and there's a lot of hype about the Olympics. You can find Beijing's mascots--the "Five Friendlies"--in posters in every public place around. Nearly every single company in Beijing seems to have teamed up with the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

China is responsible for a lot of pollution--eight out of ten, I heard, of the most polluted cities in the world, are located in China, and certainly the most polluted is. But in Shanghai, one of China's largest metropolises, I learned that stores are fined for giving plastic bags free.

I learned about Chinese history. In a history museum in Hong Kong, I learned about the Treaty of Nanking and the Japanese invasion; in Beijing, traveling through the spacious halls of the Forbidden City, I learned about the history of China's dynasties, from the Xia to the Qing. Giant pots were stored by many buildings in the Forbidden City. In old times they were filled with water to use in case of fire. On the roof of one important building in the Forbidden Cities, there are a certain number of animal figures. Many other roofs in the Forbidden City have these figures, but none of them can have the same number or more.One legend from the Qing dynasty was interesting; the young Pu Yi, last emperor of China, was in a ceremonial procession when he became scared. His father comforted him by saying, "It will all be over soon." And the last dynasty of China fell only two years later. (Perhaps I have the two years wrong, but I believe this was how the legend went. Whether or not Pu Yi's father actually said this is up to your imagination.)

In the Summer Palace, we learned that the Empress Cixi spent the amount of silver on one meal as would feed four families for four years. By the way, she had four meals a day--and each had one hundred dishes. This is hard to imagine seeing, much less eating.Going to China gave me the chance to advance my understanding of "The Middle Kingdom" in a very exciting way.

For the Becoming an Expert project, I'm supposed to write about how my perceptions changed when I visited China or my assumptions were proved wrong. But to be honest, I did not have perceptions or assumptions about China before my visit; I merely learned new things that I probably would not have been able to learn from Wikipedia or Encarta. I'll include some of my discoveries here.

I learned a lot about Chinese culture, especially relating to food. The Chinese love eating, and even in Beijing, where space is one of the most important commodities in this city of millions of people, every restaurant has a private room for those people who want to savor their food without the chitchat of the open area. Street food is cheap to many of us tourists, with hot yams at a quarter and cakes at two. But in other areas, like Xi'an's colossal, seven-story shopping mall, things don't come cheap--some swimsuits cost as much as hundreds of dollars.

Like many Asian countries, China values conformity. Most, if not all, of Beijing's schools have uniforms. But at the same time, China is yearning to distinguish itself in the world. There's a lot of hype about the Beijing 2008 Olympics, and you can find Beijing's mascots--the "Five Friendlies"--in posters in every public place around. Nearly every single company in Beijing seems to have teamed up with the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

I learned about Chinese history. In a history museum in Hong Kong, I learned about the Treaty of Nanking and the Japanese invasion; in Beijing, traveling through the spacious halls of the Forbidden City, I learned about the history of China's dynasties, from the Xia to the Qing. Giant pots were stored by many buildings in the Forbidden City. In old times they were filled with water to use in case of fire. On the roof of one important building in the Forbidden Cities, there are a certain number of animal figures. Many other roofs in the Forbidden City have these figures, but none of them can have the same number or more.

One legend from the Qing dynasty was interesting; the young Pu Yi, last emperor of China, was in a ceremonial procession when he became scared. His father comforted him by saying, "It will all be over soon." And the last dynasty of China fell only two years later. (Perhaps I have the two years wrong, but I believe this was how the legend went. Whether or not Pu Yi's father actually said this is up to your imagination.)

In the Summer Palace, we learned that the Empress Cixi spent the amount of silver on one meal as would feed four families for five years. By the way, she had four meals a day--and each had one hundred dishes. This is hard to imagine seeing, much less eating.

Going to China gave me the chance to advance my understanding of "The Middle Kingdom" in a very exciting way.

Becoming an Expert: The Qing Dynasty

One of my favorite Chinese dynasties, the Qing Dynasty, last imperial dynasty of China, lasted

for almost 300 years, extended China's borders farther than ever before, and perfected the

imperial system. The French writer Voltaire,

author of Candide (one of my favorite books) praised China for having the most effectively

organized government that the world had ever seen.


The founders of the early Qing dynasty were members of the Jurchen tribe, which had

conquered the Northern Song many years before. The Jurchen were nomadic people, but later

abandoned their nomadic habits for more settled ways. They adopted a new name, the

Manchu, and took control of China, even forcing the Chinese to wear Manchu-style pigtails. I

would be a little ticked off if conquering tribes restricted my fashion decisions.


To keep control over a huge country of millions of people, the Manchu gave top posts in the

government to Manchus and lower posts to Chinese. The Manchu rulers sometimes

appointed two officials, one Manchu and one Chinese, to the same post, with overlapping

duties so that they could

keep an eye on each other, like checks and balances in the American government. The

Manchus took over Beijing (current capital of China) as their administrative center, and the

emperor resided in the lavish Forbidden City. Surrounding this

was the Imperial City for high-ranking officials. Manchu and Chinese lived in seperate areas,

divided by walls.


The Manchu continued to conquer other parts of China, as well as defining territorial boundaries

with Russia. The Manchu claimed Tibet and took control of many territories.


The Kangxi (K’ang-hsi) Emperor was enthroned at the age of seven. At thirteen he managed

to get rid of the regents who ruled for him. (Talk about a child prodigy!) He believed that one act

of negligence could bring

sorrow to the entire country, and worked hard (often to the point of exhaustion) as an emperor.

He went on six tours of the South with a large entourage to learn about local conditions, remind

officials of his command, and publicize his concern for the people. The Kangxi Emperor issued

the Sacred Edict, sixteen moral maxims based on Confucian teachings to be read at public

places. The Kangxi Emperor sponsored many ambitions literary projects like dictionaries and

encyclopedias, to win over Chinese scholars.


Kangxi's son Yongzheng had a short reign but strengthened the powers of the monarchy by

setting up an inner core of advisors called the Grand Council and warning officials and scholars

against making political alliances or forming factions.


The Qianlong (Ch’ien-lung) Emperor, who reigned from 1736 to 1796, combined his father’s

authoritarianism with his grandfather’s support of culture. He sponsored an enormous literary

enterprise that both benefited scholars

and kept them under his control. This was the compilation of the Siku quanshu (The

Complete Library of the Four Treasuries), which included 3450 titles in 36,000 volumes and a

descriptive catalog of over 10,000 titles, which is still consulted today. These projects provided

scholars with rewarding work, but they were also used by the court to find and destroy all

books considered harmful to the empire.


Because China's name in Chinese means "Middle Kingdom," and the Chinese believed that they

were the middle of the world, the Qing emperors took China's superiority for granted and

demanded tribute from nearby foreign countries. Only some countries, like Japan, did not give

in.


The early Qing rulers helped small farmers, who made up eighty percent of the population,

giving them tax cuts when harvests were bad. The government established granaries, bought

grain when crops were over abundant, and distributed grain when crops were bad to keep

prices low.


From the beginning of the 19th century, Qing prosperity steadily waned. A population explosion

stretched government resources and capabilities to the limit. The actions of foreign powers,

who took advantage of the weak Qing government to gain Chinese trade and territory, hastened
the decline. Furthermore, factionalism and division at court prevented the Qing dynasty from

dealing effectively with these problems. Eventually, problems grew so severe that the people

began to take matters into their own hands. In 1911 Chinese Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang,

led by Sun Yat-sen, overthrew the dynasty and founded the Republic of China.

Source(s)

Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/)

Encarta

Vocabulary List of Words I (Previously) Did Not Know

pe·nu·ri·ous /pəˈnʊəriəs, -ˈnyʊər-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[puh-noor-ee-uhs, -nyoor-]
–adjective
1. extremely stingy; parsimonious; miserly.
2. extremely poor; destitute; indigent.
3. poorly or inadequately supplied; lacking in means or resources.

pol·i·ty /ˈpɒlɪti/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pol-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1.a particular form or system of government: civil polity; ecclesiastical polity.
2.the condition of being constituted as a state or other organized community or body: The polity of ancient Athens became a standard for later governments.
3.government or administrative regulation: The colonists demanded independence in matters of internal polity.
4.a state or other organized community or body.

aug·ment (ôg-měnt') Pronunciation Key
v. aug·ment·ed, aug·ment·ing, aug·ments v. tr.
To make (something already developed or well under way) greater, as in size, extent, or quantity: Continuing rains augmented the floodwaters.
Linguistics To add an augment to.

pol·y·math /ˈpɒliˌmæθ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pol-ee-math] –noun
a person of great learning in several fields of study; polyhistor.

treb·u·chet /ˈtrɛbyʊˌʃɛt, ˌtrɛbyʊˈʃɛt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[treb-yoo-shet, treb-yoo-shet]
–noun
a medieval engine of war with a sling for hurling missiles.