Outpatient helper

Paying a visit to a public hospital or a public clinic is very exhausting, especially for elderly. Even though you have already got a booking, it does not guarantee you can soon finish your business. Every one is waiting for doctor consultation, picking up drugs or waiting for confirmaton of next visit. Workers there are just too busy to be attentive to all patients. You’d better take care of yourself and turn back so that they can keep the queue moving.

This explains why suddenly there is a demand for outpatient helpers to take patients to hospital and take care of what they needs. Some patients are too weak to deal with the workers there. Old people may even need someone can take them to toilet and help them around. But as a usual working guy/ girl, you don’t have the luxury to constantly accompany your parents to hospital. If someone can offer you a helping hand, that will definitely reduce your burden. At least you will feel more relieved than letting your parent to go alone.

Most outpatient helpers are housewivies who would like to make extra income to susidize their household expenses. But this is not easy money. Taking a weak person around requires a lot of physical strength, leaving alone that you have to be careful enough to avoid hurting her. Plus a sick person often does not feel good, leave alone kept waiting in somewhere she can't take a good rest. Working hours are not regular and sometimes you are held and unable to leave for picking children up or prepare dinner while you may have no order received next day. It seems a quick way to earn easy money but not every one enjoy doing it.

What I talk about when I talk about Shine...

Yes I know the Wyman concert has become hot topic of the town but I did’t go to see it. Before the show was held, as an iconic lyrist, with many star friends, it would cause Wyman no pain to make big names on his guest list. But who surprised me is that Shine appeared in the show! It truly makes me regret to give up a ticket!

Shine is a boy band formed by Wong Yau Nam and Tsui Tin Yau debuted in early 2000’s. While most boy band usually sold their handsome faces, vitality and cool appearances, they took an other approach by expressing sensibility of local yourg peoples. Taking their first album as example, names of songs all were adopted from famous movies, with themes of covering from signs about fast changes in the city (Swallowtail Butterflies, 燕尾蝶), buddies leaving for girlfriends (One One, 一一), teens wandering on streets in Mong Kok (The MK Lords, 旺角渣fit人)to identity as a common boy (Jules and Jim, 祖與占). They sang not particularly outstanding, but remarkably capture the spirt of the songs. It might not be the very first time but had reminded young people what issues they were concerned about other than dating. I think their producer James Ting and Wyman should be attributed to for the success. If they were not smart enough to capture the essense of the band, the boys would be Boy’z, their major rival at the time.

Sadly this was not enough to make them a bright career as singers. Unable to make breakthrough, few years later they virtually disppear from stage. It is heard that they focus on acting now.

I suspect Wyman saw Shine as media to experiement his new form of teen oriented lyrics. I think his major contribution is that he never holds himself from exploring new issues with his unique , precise and therefore impressive wording. Shine had never shone like a supertar but still were luckily enough to meet Wyman or today we can barely remember them.

Meet the "Technologically Trendy Kids"(科技潮童)

In Hong Kong,“潮童”, a popular term in cyber space whch can be literally translated as “Trendy Kids”, is not about kids who are very trendy and dress up fashionably. Instead, it is often regarded as a disapproving term describing a group of teens who urge to prove themselves trendy and smart, sometimes being very childish, ignorant and disturbing, causing trouble to others. Today, as the power of the internet is becoming more and more pervasive to our life, here we comes second wave of trendy kids booming. They are similarly very childish, ignorant and disturbing, which always cause trouble to us. The only difference is this time they shows no interest in dressing up or going shopping in Mongkok. What they care is how they are able to be online.

Although the senior citizens in your family never stop complaining their children are too additive to the internet, finally the parents cannot resist the pleasure of digging up treasures there and join them. The problem is that they are not the generation growing up with digital device who can work it just liking breathing. We are ocaasionally stuck up with the deivce, but we manage to fix it like go googling, posting questions in a forum or send a MSN message. We all know how to take care of our cyber life. Compared to experienced users like us, they are curious and innocent juniors in front of a computer. They ask questions like, “The pop up window said I have won a big prize. Do they mean it?” “It asks me to install a software. Should I click “Yes”?” What’s the differnce between being a registered and a non-registered one?” “It ask me to agree the terms and condition before going into the site. What’s that?” These scenes repeat over and over. Yesterday you showed them how to edit bookmarks in the browser. Today they might ask for a demonstraton again. With a such passionate user but knowing nothing, it turns you to a 24 –hour technical support of the family.

But sometimes their stubbornness really makes you cry. My dad, a senior citizen who finds himself uncomfortable if he has not enjoyed enough his Chinese Opera videos in Youtube and other video sites. One day, he discovered a treasure providing some rare oldies, only with a little technical problem that the videos played audio tracks, with no motions and pictures. Luckily he found his way out to switch from IE to Chrome. But as a big fan of IE, he did not want to simply accustom himself to a new browser. He kept asking me why the web site was not compatible to IE and how I could fix it. As a an amateor IT support in a usual household, the only meaningful piece of advice was ask him to give up IE, which was the last thing he would agree to do. After hours of trying over and over, the reality he faced forced him to stop.

From the experience of dealing with my dad, the “Technologically Trendy Kids” drives you crazy because everything is new to them arising their curiosity. When you give a new device to them or install a new software in the PC, there will be another tons of questions. They are not quite as us who feel comfortable to dynamic changes in digital world. So I think they welcome devices highly comprehensive and very intuitive. And if you are patient enough, with good tolerance to repeatedly raised questions, it may be a new blue sea out there for you.

Idol as a professional in Japan

I know AKB48 is now on the top of all idols in Japan. But when I first noticed that the idol group even has taken top 5 places in the Orion best selling chart at 2010s, it’s a little bit shocking. To me they are no different to a group of teenage girls selling their youth and energy. How can they beat the others, including some of the best singers and experienced entertainers in Japan to make such achievement?

One thing that Japan has been always fascinating me is her magic to change nearly anything to a profession, no matter how silly it seems to be. For example, they do have a “Datsujin” (Expert) in Ramen not because of his ability to prepare a bowl of delicious Ramen, but because he has traveled around Japan to taste different types of Ramen for his whole life which turns him into a “Datsujin” to define what’s a good bowl of Ramen. (So, that’s why we have a self-claimed “Japanese Drama Datsujin”…)

OK, let’s go back to the idol thing now. We all agree every body who’s doing business in entertainment business must have her own specialty to draw attention from the audiences. Even good actors have their own characters to distinguish among themselves, for example, Stephen Chow, Wong Tze Wah and Sandra Ng are actually representing 3 types of comedians. So what’s the position of a species called “Idol” in the entertainment business?

Idols are simply selling fantasies which do not require much acting or singing skills, not necessarily very beautiful but must be charming enough as a sweetheart that can be an object of desire that cannot be found in real life. The cost of being an idol is so low that attracts amateur young people who have a super star dream rush in. It is a highly competitive area for any idol to survive long. If she is unable to demonstrate her real ability just to secure a place in the business before the audiences become tired of her, she is going to lose her place to a younger, cuter counterpart. It’s time to wake up from the star dream.

However, the Japanese have found their way to turn idol career into professional business. Many idols are arranged to start their career as early as there are still in primary schools. Johnny & Associate, a big name specialized in male idols first train the little boys to dance, sing and perform on the stage, being prepared to back performances of famous idols of the same agency. This is a way to make them be customed to the business and draw attention from the audiences by making use the fame of existing idols. The agency would later form groups for the boys who considered to have potential becoming successful stars. With the huge influences of the agnecy in the Japanese entertainment field, the boys are kept busying to appear in many variety shows, music programmes, dramas, concerts and so on. Johnny’s do everything to keep bringing exitement to the fans. The fans, who grow up with the boys, having developed attachment to the idols, never quit supporting them. Top idols like SMAP manage to maintain their status for years without fading.

This highly systematic idol generating formula is of course adopted by other producers and agencies who have equally incredible resources and networking. Like AKB48, positioning themselves as “idols that you can see in person”, schedule their periodic performances at their theater in Akiba to please their fans. Although it is the most popular group in Japan, the competition among members very intense. These girls, aged from teens to tweeties, all have their individual character. They rival each other exhaustingly not just simply to stand out from the group from the group, but to secure a place as a member as well since many apprentices are out there waiting to replace any of them. These apprentices come from recruitment, or waitress working in the café in AKB48 theater. From a cluster of girls of different styles, you at least be able to choose one as your favourite. If you are becoming tired of one, you can soon turn to another. Yasushi Akimoto, the father of AKB48, has created spin-off groups, such as SDN48 and SKE48. A member of a group can be transferred to another for business strategy. The world of idol is actually very complicated which is not simply about the appearance of a teenager. It’s more about the influential power of and supports provided from the agency.

Training a kid into a sucessful idol is an expensive and long term investment. This explains why agency act like a control freak, watching the idols tightly to ensure they are not doing anything to harm the interest of the agency. Top idols desperate for winning the right to control their fate may attempt to ruin the fantasy for fans by getting herself, or his girlfriend pregnant, and married quickly during their golden period.

On the other hand the idol has contributed her invaluable teenage time for future career in performing. Her only skill is entertaining people. After long time being exposed to a circle of fame and vaniy, it’s hard for her to adjust herself to a normal life.

13000 ppl sang K with me @ Concert YY

Cass didn't come tonight & the song was performed by Joey alone. Anyway, lyrics reminds me some bad things a few years ago, hummmm, OT...

The show makes me think of many good old days, most of the songs we used to sing in karaoke in the past..., weh, time flies....

The brain outsourcing our memories

Brian is the most mysterious part of human body. It is said that we are now using only 5% of brain function, which implies potential exploration is possible. This 5% has already been enough contributing to learning new knowledge, memorizing what we experience every day, inventing anything never existing before, and even conquering rest of the creatures in the world to become lord of this planet.

Ability to memorize is one of the most significant functions of our brain. With memories, we can learn from the past, judging how to make a proper response while encountering a similar situation, or improving based on previous failures. Dating back to prehistoric era, while paper, writing tools, or anything used for record and documentation had not yet created, the only database was human brains. Knowledge and information are transmitted orally. No doubt the elderly in any given tribe was highly respected since she was a living information centre. However, information is easily distorted or even lost during the process. As later paper and pens were invented, information being documented accurately became possible. However, no. of copies created was still limited as could not be replicated in mass scale. Although improved, the age of knowledge booming had not came until the widespread of printing technology, which finally ignited the fire of the Renaissance. By this time, our important memories could be easily reproduced by printing, portable for convenient reading, which are no more luxuries for modern people. Education, in terms of both quality and quantity has been tremendously raised.

But human technology never stops here. Thanks to the inventions of computers, optic fibres and the internet, when you need to check up something, there is no need to ask anybody or turn pages of reference books. All you need to do is to google. With a click or two on your mouse, you will have countless results for you only to select from. Some studies claimed that the generation who live on the digital planet relying it to help them to store and acquire information. They have poorer memory because they just don’t need it. The essential skill has now been replaced by the techniques to pick the right information you are exactly looking for and eliminate noise information. That’s too convenient that we just cannot resist the temptation to use the internet first before we allow ourselves to search and develop ideas in our brain.

The appearing of the internet has reshaped our brain to think and memorize. Given that it provides a massive pool of information, will it further stimulate our creativity because, or just make us lazier and worsen our memories? I think time will tell.