Friday, March 30, 2012

Please read this story, Thank you.

Central argument – According to Linton Weeks, manner and etiquette are changing throughout the century, however, it isn’t becoming better. People are starting to lose their basic and simple etiquette towards other.

Manner? Etiquette? Are they something which gentlemen should have? Well people should have basic and simple etiquette towards each other, such as greeting or even opening the door for older people. According to Linton Weeks, manner and etiquette are changing throughout the century, however, it isn’t becoming better. People are starting to lose their basic and simple etiquette towards other. It is occurring everywhere in the world, and it is spreading quickly like a diseases. I agree with Linton Weeks after seeing how teachers are treated in school, misusage of public transports and with my own experience.

In Korea teachers are respected and they have rights over anything inside the school. However, when you look at international schools you can clearly see how students are disrespectful against teachers and how students have no etiquette to peers. In my school, Woodstock, there was a big incident which has upset both students and teachers. It was due to the misbehavior of a student who talked to a teacher with disrespect saying “it is duty for you to feed us” Even though the student was joking the teacher was hurt by these words and few students were even upset about it. In 1900’s teachers were fully respected, however, nowadays unmannered and people without etiquette seem to disrespect the teachers.

Having manner also includes not disturbing others in public places. Few weeks ago in Korea, a 20years old woman was punished for smoking in metro, she refuse to throw her cigarette away and also swore at people. Smoking at public places like metro is out of law and it is also breaking the etiquette. She not only smoked, but swore at people who ever looked at her. Well is this a right action to take. If she was well mannered woman, first of all she wouldn’t have smoked inside metro, secondly even if smoking was allowed if others request her to throw it she should agree to it. These typical young generation people has no manner or etiquette, it is spreading like a virus all over the world in a rapid phase.

In Korea my family owns an organization for poor people. Last year during holidays we took about 60people in the community to a trip to sea. On the way we stopped for lunch, since we were in such a big group we had to find a place where there were lots of seats. When we got to the restaurant there was a family already having a meal. One of the person, who was about 70years old, went to a children from the other family; since she didn’t have any grandchildren she wanted to see them play. However when she went to the family, the father of the family whispered to his children “don’t stay next to these people there are just bunch of baggers who live their life with our tax.” However, we could clearly hear it. How rude can a person get? I could not hold my anger, however, before I even did anything my father went to their table and said “I will pay for your dinner, it is not like we don’t have money to help these people, but it is the government who gives us money, if you want your f***ing tax back I will give it back to you.” People are just getting rudder as the time goes by. Just people someone is poor that doesn’t mean he or she should be treated differently.

As Linton Weeks said, manner and etiquette are changing throughout the century, however, it isn’t becoming better. People are starting to lose their basic and simple etiquette towards other. Time cannot be stopped from flowing, however, we can stop people from having such a terrible manner and etiquette.

Why We Like What We Like

Central Argument – People seem to spend money on the product depending on the price of it not the quality.

In the article, Why We Like What We Like, Alva Noe talks about people spending money on goods because of its price not because of its quantity. Alva Noe strengthens her main argument by giving simple examples like types of food and wine people purchase due to the price and not being able to tell the differences between them. Noe also mentioned that people could not tell the difference between red and white wines and also difference between dog food and pate. Therefore Alva Noe thinks that People seem to spend money on the product depending on the price of it not the quality. I agree with Noe because of the mind set people have, sports team sponsors and my personal experience.

Any object can be different from one another even if it is missing a small thing. However, for most of the people and their mind set makes big deal out of it. According to a test in Naver, famous Korean search engine, when a person buys a bag from an expensive brand he or she seems to be satisfied. But when a person buys a bag from a local shop or bag without a proper brand no matter how good the quality is he or she will not feel as satisfied as purchasing a branded bag. This clearly shows what kind of mind set most of the people have, it is not about the quality, but it is the price which makes them satisfied and happy.

Nike, Addidas, Puma and many other companies you might have heard of or Kappa, Nice and other companies you might not have heard of, they usually have same quality product. However, it is proven that the product produced by well known companies seems to cost more. As an example, EPL (English Premier League) all of the team has a sports-fit sponsor and most of them are well known companies with charging high prices on majority of the product. Why do you think these teams choose such big companies as their sponsor when they can get same quality sports-fit or any other items for cheaper prices? It is because people care about the price more than its quantity. It is just set in people’s mind more expensive it is better the product is. In fact it might be true for some objects or food, however, it won’t have that much differences.

The price doesn’t have to be expensive or cheap for the quality of the product to be good. When I go back to Korea I buy lots of cloths, until last year I only bought cloths from branded companies, however, after going to shopping malls I realized expensive products isn’t the best products. Especially in Korea branded cloths are really expensive due to its tax, however, we can get the cloths for cheaper price if we go to malls which doesn’t have famous brands. After realizing this fact I could decrease the money spending on the cloths. If I was to buy a T-shirt in Nike, with that money I could possible buy two T-shirts from unknown brands. Plus as a teenager, I know that I will not wear the same cloths for a long time since I will grow as the time goes by and I will have to buy new cloths. Not only that, but those cloths also had same quality as branded companies. Therefore I spent half of the money I used to spend years ago and purchase same or more cloths.

People seem to spend money on the product depending on the price of it not the quality. Doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, rich people will buy expensive products to show off and the poor or middle class people will buy cheaper goods. However, the price doesn’t matter at all, the quality of the item that is the main thing people should be concerned about. If you can buy a better good with cheaper price why not, or buy little expensive good, but much better quality. People should think before they take any actions, they don’t even know what they taste when they are blinded. Don’t do things people it makes you feel better, but do it so it benefits you.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Surveillance

Central Arugment: Surveillance can be used in many positive ways, however, in conclusion it destroys people’s morality towards their rights.
Surveillance, careful observation of a person or group, Surveillance can be used in many positive ways, however, in conclusion it destroys people’s morality towards their rights. It discourages people from big things like committing crime and small things like playing a prank. However, the problem with surveillance is that it takes away our privacy. In this article written by Emrys Westacott, she concludes that surveillance is a bad thing because it stops us from the morality. I agree with her because morality is something which one should learn from a lesson, and people should have their own choices their path, lastly privacy is important for lots of people.
When someone is forced or told to do something they don’t usually learn the lesson from it and seem to do it again. When there is a CCTV inside a shopping mall, it is obvious that a person won’t steal front of CCTV. Even though the person have demand to steal stuff, because of the CCTV the person will be forced not to steal. However, that person won’t learn any lesson from it, but to repeat the same in other shops without CCTV. The person doesn’t learn anything from it he or she is just destroying their morality. The person needs to learn a lesson by him or herself, nothing should be stopped because of surveillance.
Taking the correct path is also our choice, it totally depend on what we want to do and what we can do. However, because of surveillance people seem to forget what is right and what is wrong. This can have positive impact, such as if the student know there is a camera watching over them while they are taking an exam, he or she will not cheat front of camera, not because he or she thinks it is wrong or right, but just because of the camera. However, it is not a good way of keeping the students away from cheating. We need to give those option, we should not destroy their morality and what they want to do. Their choice might be wrong, but the will learn it from experience isolating them from choices will just make the situation worse. What if there was a CCTV in Edison’s lab in the train, because it is illegal for him to experiment inside the train he wouldn’t have been a great scientist. Because there wasn’t any surveillance he could make his own choice and lead into success.
In Korea sexual act in group young aged people are one of the big issue, they said to prevent this from happening again they will place CCTV in public and school toilet. This was not a success due to people’s disagreement, not because they wanted the sexual act to happen over and over again, but because they wanted privacy. Imagine someone is looking at you while you are in bathroom doing number one or two. This just destroys all your privacy. Other event which happened in Korea was placing CCTV in all the fitting room and it didn’t work out well either because some of the recorded copies were released in internet. Because surveillance destroys our privacy it shouldn’t be used in our society unless it is necessity.
Surveillance can be used in many positive ways, however, in conclusion it destroys people’s morality towards their rights. It makes our life miserable by destroying choices we have and brain washing the positive and negative effect of doing something. Lastly and most important taking away our privacy. It might have few positive effects on our life, however, as a whole surveillance should be used less in our society.

Friday, March 23, 2012

The Rise of Awesome.


Central argument : Everyone in the world advances and follows the changes after recognizing things which have changed.

The Rise of Awesome written by Robert Lane, demonstrates how different words have changed its meaning throughout the period. However, it is not only words which have changed throughout past decays and century; things change as the time goes by. Everyone in the world advances and follows the trend after recognizing them after changes. Such as the women rights, how women had no rights at all before 1900’s. Rights for the dark skinned people, how they were treated differently and unfairly compared to fair skinned people. Lastly the technology, it changes every day, and majority of the people seem to follow the technology and advance themselves.

Businessman, chief, priest, architect, artist and many more, these are the list of the jobs men used to and still have. Housekeeping this was the only job for the women until early 1900’s. However, as the time went by, women started to gain more rights and in present day women are more likely to have more rights than men or equal to men. For example, in Korea women has formed a group called “Yeosung dang” and they basically has control over majority of the groups in Korea. They not only formed groups, but today most of the women has high position jobs in companies and firms, one great example can be the prime minister of Australia elected in 2010, and she is one of the first women prime minister. When water is spilt on a table it will spread as far as it goes, after women gaining few rights they started to seek for more and after short amount of time they are equal than higher than men. And sometimes women take place in big movement of the history.

Rosa Park, a dark skinned woman who has taken risk to show dark skinned and fair skinned people should be equal. Because dark skinned people were treated as slaves in 1700~1800’s after all the slaves were freed, people still had a same mindset in their head ‘Dark skinned people are untouchables’ until a small movement was started in the society. Starting with a small change and putting in time brought a big change. It was only a person, Rosa Park, who started the rebellion, but as the time went by people started to follow and support this rebellion which leads it to its success giving rights to dark skinned people. The biggest event which clearly shows this rebellion has succeeded is election of president Obama, the first dark skinned president in USA. It did take them long time to succeed their goals, but as a result it was a successful movement. I think the reason was due to the technology which was underdeveloped during 1800s.

Facebook, Twiter and many other social networks which is used by majority of the global citizens. I-pad, I-phone and many other devices which use new technology, ios5, are demanded by lots of people. People seem to demand for these technologies because they know the changes between the past generation and the new generation. Buying new devices with technology doesn’t necessarily means it is better, but people seem to do it because they follow the changes which have occurred in the world.

Everyone in the world advances and follows the changes after recognizing things which have changed. It is like the root of the tree once it starts growing, it will grow as deep as possible and as wide as possible to obtain all the minerals. Because some things are so widely spread it is easy for people to recognize them and follow them and also advance themselves to the new ideas.