Blog #6

I knew this would happen!!

From March 31^st to April 3^rd, the Sina Weibo comment function was shut down due to the government pressure. A group of people were accused to spread the rumor that there were military vehicle entering Beijing. Those people were arrested and the Sina Weibo was punished for allowing rumor spreading on it. 

This event happened because the sensitive political atmosphere now in Beijing. Approaching to the leadership transaction period, some says that there are people who have been plotting to strike at the government during this vulnerably time and wanted to take over the dominating power. Since then, there were all kinds of rumor spreading on Sina Weibo. But this one was the biggest one that the government finally decided to take action to stop it. Since Feb. 14, when the crackdown began, China has arrested 1,065 people and deleted more than 208,000 online messages that they deemed "harmful," according to a report in China Daily.

The impact of this comment function crackdown was immediate and tremendous. With no doubt that users on Sina Weibo all hated this action. “What a stupid act! They only made the rumor spreads faster because now they get everyone’s attention!” People “shouted” on their post. (We can still post our own messages and people can forward/repost your post.) This was so true! Take myself as an example: I have no idea what was happening before the comment function shut down, not even a slight piece of it. But knowing that shutting down the comment function, there must be something big happened out there. I called my parents immediately and asked if they knew anything. My dad said: “No we don’t know what happen. They must have covered everything! Don’t ask us! You can access any information in Canada. Go dig up and tell us if you got anything.” LOL I said to myself: “What an advantage that I am in Canada! And now I become their news resources! HA!” 

This incident had me thinking of what we had discussed in the class before – “Who owns the Internet?” The answer in this circumstance is definitely “government”. Yes, it indeed appears that everyone who can access to an internet-connected computer has his/her right of doing anything. But this incident makes us remember who’s your daddy…LOL

 

Retrieved from: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sina-tencent-weibo-punished-spreading-012225753.html

Blog #5 Draw Something

The topic of this entry was supposed to be my experience of learning with simulations and games in my other class since it is related to Honey & Hilton’s article. But after the class on Thursday night playing Draw Something I changed my mind. In this entry I want to talk about my experience with playing this game and some thoughts.

I have this game installed on my iPhone but I did not start playing with it because I can hardly draw and I will be cursed because of my awful works. LOL But at Thursday night when I draw my first picture, it turned out I am better than I thought. Although it is still awful but at least people can figure out the answer, and that, gave me satisfaction. It never occurred to me that I would have the feeling of satisfaction when people get the correct word from my drawing. I thought satisfaction only comes with me getting the correct words from other’s drawings. 

That was my first “enlightenment” gained from this game. When I got home I posted my user name on Sina Weibo calling for opponents and a few minutes later I was immersed in the game. After playing for two days. I discovered some interesting phenomena. My opponents from this class, they got almost 100 per cent accuracy rate even though sometimes I can tell from the video that they have no idea what my drawing is but according to those provided letters they can get the correct word after a few rounds of trial and error. In contrary, my opponents back in China, they could not get the correct word even though they know exactly what the picture is. The reason is that ESL learners do not have adequate vocabularies. Moreover, some of the words in this game contain cultural elements. For example, the word “Mohawk”, my friends in China could not get it even through they knew what it is from the distinguishable hairstyle. This is because we do not have the corresponding word in Chinese and as a consequence one cannot figure out the word even though with translation tools.

And there was one drawing that contributes to an immediate hit on Weibo.

I am a hundred per cent sure that no people can guess what it is if they do not know Mandarin Chinese. Let me explain.  Obviously the picture is about “A horse is killing a rooster”. To simply it, it is “horse kill rooster”. In Mandarin Chinese, “horse” means “马”(ma); “kill” means “杀” (sha); “rooster” means “鸡” (ji as in “Gee”). So “horse kill rooster” is “mashaji” which the pronunciation is similar to “massage”.

Well that is some of my thoughts to this game… universal but also includes cultural differences.