Pop Culture

When I was in China, I used to listen to CDs. However, when I came to the United States, I found that listening to mp3 was much popular than listening to CDs. When I was in train, I always saw people listen to their mp3s. After that, I realized that Apple brand was the most popular one. For this reason, I bought one iPod, and it was so convenient. As time went by, I found that Apple product was not only fancy but also quality. And today, I am still in interested in Apple like a lot of people are.

After taking this class, I realized that pop culture plays an important role in people’s daily lives. Although some people prefer high culture to high culture, I still think that people should pay their attention to pop culture more or less because it can make people know more about this society. It is not only good for native residents but also for new immigrants. For example, when I just came here, I don’t know anything about this country. However, as time went by, I watched American TV, read magazines, and visit famous places. For this reason, I began to know more about American people’s lifestyles gradually. As a result, I believe studying popular culture is a good way for new immigrants to know more about America.

Cultural Identity

My poster is consisted of classical Chinese literature, Spring Festival, famous places, traditional foods, and handcrafts. The part of classical Chinese literature is my favorite. In ancient China, there were a lot of famous poets, and they created various poems to express their feelings of life and society. After reading classical Chinese literature, it helps me get deeper understanding of ancient China.

A lot of people think that ancient China is like a mystery, and it is the same as my thinking. The Forbidden City can be considered as a symbol of China. I’ve been there for several times, but it always gave me different feelings. During my visit, there were also some pictures in my mind. At that time, I often combined pictures and the books I’ve read. That kind of experience even made me feel like transcending time and space. That’s the major reason why I would like to explore the ancient China. Besides, I also like traveling in some modern cities.

There are also a lot of traditional foods in China. These traditional foods are not only delicious but also have their own meanings. For example, dumplings mean wealth. Thus, people eat dumplings on Spring Festival Eve. Moreover, Tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) means reuniting. People eat Tangyuan at the beginning of a year because they want to be together with their families.

Reading

The reading “They’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” leaves me this deepest impression during the whole semester. It is about a teacher who always tries to ask her students about their races. Rather than unifying them, she likes to put them in different groups according to their different cultural backgrounds. I don’t think the teacher’s strategy is a good way for teaching, since it not only makes the author’s daughter be confused, but also let other students get lost as well. Moreover, the Cultural Diversity Month makes the preschool students think that they are different form each other. For this reason, these students start taking about the things that make them separate instead of connected. According to the author’s description, these children like to learn something that they have in common, such as the indigenous folk tune. However, because of the teacher’s concept and interest, these kids begin to look for some difference between themselves and others. Consequently, some children will feel excluded. I think this kind of consequence will not be helpful for these children. In my opinion, if the teacher could teach the students how to embrace the cultural diversity, that would be much meaningful than just focusing on finding out the differences.

Music

Music plays an important role in my daily life, since listening to music not only can let me know what the popular thing is, but also can help me relieve my stress. “Before I Fall in Love” is my favorite song, which is the soundtrack of the movie Runaway Bride. The artist of the song is Coco Lee. I like her very much, because she is so talent; Coco is not only a singer, but also a songwriter, record producer, and actress as well. Besides, Coco is the first Chinese person to perform in the Oscars with the song "A Love before Time", which is from the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I am also attracted by her musical styles, which are ranging from pop, hip-hop, R&B, adult contemporary and soul.

Movies

“My name is Benjamin Button, and I was born under unusual circumstances. While everyone else was aging, I was getting younger.” Some people will admire Benjamin Button, since his interior monologue shows people that when others became older, he became younger. However, is it always a good thing? We are not sure about the answer, since only Benjamin Button was able to explore the secret.

Life, love, and death are the themes of this movie. For many people, it is a good thing to stay in their youth when others are getting old. Because of the reverse aging, Benjamin Button was designed to be different from others. He was born as wrinkled baby, and died as an infant with senile dementia. In his lifetime, he had to not only witness his relatives and friends’ death, but also see Daisy’s being old. For this reason, I realized that it is not always a good thing for people to become younger while others are getting older, since nothing perfect can stay. Also, I think the director also wanted to deliver the audience that people should treasure the present people, since people who are in the real world cannot have a clock, which is running to backward to bring the late people back.

Respond to a current movie review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball. This movie review shows the audiences that the movie is about a young inventor’s dream; he wants to create something that can change people’s lives. Finally, his dream comes true. I like the explanation part of the movie review, since the reviewer described the content specifically. However, I did not see the part that talked about the director, main actors, or the rating. Also, the reviewer didn’t pain a picture of evaluating the movie, either. For this reason, I think this movie review did a good job on expressing the main idea of the movie, but it didn’t provide enough other information of this movie to the audiences. As a result, I believe that it is uncompleted.

Technology

In the 21^st century, modern technology products not only improve the quality of people’s lives, but also provide people all kinds of variances. Today, one can reach anybody in any part of the world by the simple touch of a button. Since the advent of computer and Internet changed people’s lives greatly, many people’s habits have been altered. People check their e-mails at least one time per day to make sure they do not miss any important information. Shopping on the websites has become much more popular, and some people even take classes through the Internet. For this reason, I believe that computers and Internet have been a central part of people’s daily life, and it is hard to picture a life without computer and Internet.

Glog

Link to My Glog: http://mta119.glogster.com/Marisol-Thalyta-and-Alices-Glog/

This Golg is based on the scavenger hunt that we had in November, and the theme is pop culture. For this reason, on that day, our group decided to find out the "4 characters" of pop culture, which were objects, people, places, and events. First of all, we found a good product that could stand for pop culture. It was called Clear; Clear was a new product that had super fast mobile Internet. It was like a flash drive, and people could use it everywhere they want. Since the Internet plays an important role in people's daily lives, more and more people will need this kind of product. For this reason, Clear could be more popular in the future! In addition, we also interviewed a sales woman who was very interested in popular culture. She liked to pay attention to pop culture, and she also liked to be involved in it. Besides, we had been to the Chicago Theater on that day, since it could be considered as one of the most famous landscapes of Chicago. We also found that there were a lot of famous shows in this theater; many people were attracted by it, and the most recent one was called the Banana Shpeel.