The First Week at UBC School of Journalism

This post will read almost like a sequel to the previous one. Perhaps some things are just meant to be. I was the only non-white person at work (in my office) before. Now I am a Master student at UBC School of Journalism, where the majority of students are white. I did a count during my orientation. There were probably at most six Asians, including myself, present. Later on I realized that most of them were second-year students. I am a newbie! There is actually an Asian guy in my Wednesday and Thursday classes. Woohoo.

I don't know about you, but I am beginning to sense this great danger in journalism. The lack of ethnic diversity will have an effect on media content. Most of my earlier posts in this blog revovle around the topic of ideological news discourse in Western mainstream media. My role as a specatator has officially been "promoted" to a position as an insider in the industry. It's true. The back end of news media is made of mostly white Caucasians. I wouldn't be surprised that media content ends up reflecting their values and ideologies exclusively.

We are talking about what should be considered as news. The Asian guy brings up Beijing Olympics. Human rights issues pop up in my head immediately. The cat killing incident still bothers me a great deal. This white guy, second row, disagrees and claims that it shouldn't be news anymore because it's over already. I almost want to get up and question him why he doesn't consider all these human/animal rights issues surrounding this defining historical event relevant. Then again I realize, ah, maybe he doesn't have a deep understanding of Chinese history and all the cruel things that Chinese government did in the past and is still currently doing. I won't go into them, either, simply because they're too sensitive for me to blog about. Let's just say I am disappointed with Beijing. Not just cat killing. I do have a cat, yes. It's the fact that the Chinese completely ruins this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove to the world that they deserve to participate in such significant occasion that celebrates freedom, liberty, and human rights. In my eyes, they completely blow it. Somehow the white guy from the second row doesn't really see what I see. Well, we are all entitled to our opinions, and I respect his. I am just more concerend with why we care about certain things and why we don't care about some other. These differences would be even more dramatically reflected in such lack of ethnic diversity at my School....

At any rate, I would like to introduce my post-undergraduate blog on Wordpress. I blogged here a lot during the last year of my undergrad and the year after. It's time to move on! A new chapter.... life since UBC J-School!

The Token Oriental

I'm the only "coloured" person in the office. We have multiple locations all over Canada. There's even an office in Seattle. In total, there are about only four "coloured" employees. Three Chinese and one Indian. Take a look around. I am not one of them. No matter how "multi-cultural" Vancouver is supposed to be, in fact, it is extremely racist and discriminating. You have no idea how many times I have heard Caucasians telling me to get hell out of their country and move our sorry butts back to China. Mind you, I am not even from China at the first place. Apparently, a lot of Caucasians just assume those with yellow skin are from China because maybe that's the only country in Asia that they have ever heard of, except Japan. I personally find it funny, if not ridiculous. Of course, I don't encounter anything so bold on a daily basis. Only once in a while. However, I can often feel it, sense it, such unspoken discrimination, wherever I go. I can't always quite put my finger on it, and I might be paranoid, but regardless, just because it creeps onto us in a subtle way, it doesn't make it ok. It doesn't make it go away. It just doesn't.

Women in Politics

I have been wanting to write this particular post for a while. The reluctance originated from my fear of possibly offending a female acquaintance, who is undoubtedly brilliant and capable, yet highly indecisive. You may wonder why I would make such a big fuzz about someone's indecisiveness. Everyone has flaws. To satisfy your potential curiosity, I admit that my biggest flaw is that I am either extremely insecure or extremely arrogant -- no middle ground. However, in this case, this lady's indecisiveness may play a vital role in how women in politics are perceived in the eyes of the masses. Her name is Xenia Menzies, who ran for SFSS President this year and lost by merely 30 votes.

Xenia ran for the SFSS President three times in the past. I absolutely admire her determination. I know that I would not have the courage to do the same if I were her. Before she decided that she was to run for the last time, she seemed to have some struggles. Her uncertainty was normal. Most people would have shared the same agony. She initially thought that it was time to move on. Nothing wrong with that. Later on she decided to run for real.

While Joe, a personal friend of mine, claimed that Xenia was too indecisive to be a President, I, on the other hand, was concerned with something different. Imagine this election went beyond the SFU campus. Imagine this was a real life election in a city, province, nation, you name it. Could you imagine how the media would have portrayed Xenia? Her indecisiveness would have been the one and only characteristic that the media projected onto her. It would have been entirely linked to her sex. Nothing else would have mattered. Her capability, intelligence, active involvement with so many wonderful, rewarding projects would not have mattered. It would have all come down to one thing -- her indecisiveness. They would have said it was because she was a woman. If Joe had been the indecisive one, he would have totally been able to get away with it.

Quit the racial and gender stereotypes. Women deserve to be portrayed and reflected fairly in the mainstream media without bias and ideology.

As much as I am happy for Joe, I believe that Xenia truly would have deserved the position.

Discrimination Against Single Women

Carrie Bradshaw from the television show "Sex and the City" attends a friend's baby shower and is forced to take off her shoes at the door because the family likes to keep their floor clean. "But...." Carrie attempts to bargain, timidly, "This is an outfit," as she eyes herself from head to toe. Still, a guest is a guest, gotta abide the house rule. At the end of the party, another size-seven shoe-aholic with undoubtedly impeccable taste has apparently stolen her shoes. The Manolo is nowhere to be found and remains mysteriously vanished for weeks. Carrie's friend then offers to pay for them until she learns the price and gasps, "I don't think we should pay for your extravagant lifestyle, Carrie." in her own defense, Carrie claims that her friend used to wear Manolo herself. She admits, and yet she insists that is only before she has a life.

As "romantically challenged" as Carrie Bradshaw, I can't help it but wonder -- what is considered "having a life"? Having a husband? A ring that lives on your second last finger? Baby showers? Clean floor? And what is considered "not having a life"? Having seventeen pairs of shoes and twenty two bags? Having three closets in the house? Having a cat instead of children? Having a ridiculously busy, packed schedule instead of a male companion? Carrie then announces that she is getting married to herself. Her friend receives an invitation and is advised to pick up her registered gift -- at a Manolo shop -- she already knows the price beforehand, of course. So, who says we can't get married to ourselves? True love seems to be an idea that exists legitimately only in Jane Austen’s nineteenth century novels. Romance can only be played out by actors on stage with scripts and props and Shakespeare’s fourteen-lined sonnets that make sense merely in the context of Renaissance period. It's twenty-first century and some of us will reach our mid/late twenties. What do we have besides Manolo and martini? He’s Just Not that Into You?

I am against discrimination against single women.

Student Faces Expulsion for Facebook Study Group

University of Western Ontario has accepted me as a candidate for their Master of Journalism program!


I have always been exceptionally interested in news stories concerning relationships between media and the society. I blame it on my background in communications. Please see Student faces expulsion for Facebook study group.

Education in the virtual world has altered the conventional concept of what an education is supposed to be for years. Distance education and WebCT are only the beginning. Even Second Life is being used for purposes of business management, medical practices, and so much more. Who would have thought? Establishing study groups on Facebook should be an accepted norm. How ironic that we let Facebook applications that indirectly promote pornography and illegal activities run wild among users, yet Ryerson University is kicking a student out of school for a cause that's actually worth praising.

In a way, educational institutions are like a form of government. The students, or citizens, rather, must abide to certain rules regardless whether they want to or not. These rules are not laws. Rather, they are preferences established by the educational institutions or the government. Even if a student/citizen participates in a good cause, the University/government would still try to impose regulations on it. Perhaps Ryerson University students could have a system that allows students to vote for their teaching methods. After all, they do pay a ridiculous amount of money for tuition fees.

Voter-Funded Media

I have recently signed up for SFU Voter-Funded Media Contest. I have also signed CJSF up, considering I am the Public Relations Coordinator. It has been quite an interesting experience. I have spent most of my undergraduate career studying media representation, but I haven't really looked at the issue from this perspective. Now that I think of it, I really should have included it in my graduate school application.

How would the system of voter-funded media work in a place like Vancouver? Would all citizens get to vote who works for the media? Would all media acquire permission from citizens before they publish or broadcast any stories? Where do we draw the line of "voter-funded"? If everything has to be determined by the voters, journalism schools probably wouldn't need to exist anymore. A journalist's ability and knowledge have become somewhat secondary because in a system of election, it all comes down to whether or not YOU get the vote, by any means, regardless why. A lot of officials get elected not because they deserve it. Rather, it's because they are better at influencing the masses and promoting themselves. How? Be it personal charisma, racial background, potential sexism, bribery, branding strategies, compliance with the status quo, etc....

I do see a few problematic aspects in today's Canadian media, but I don't think making it entirely based on support of the audiences is going to solve the problem. Instead, it might only worsen the existing politics in media.

Each Moment of a Happy Lover's Hour is Worth an Age of Dull and Common Life

Dear Diary:

You know I have a thing for Restoration and Eighteenth-Century drama. The Rover, The Man of Mode, She Stoops to Conquer, Polly Honeycomb - just to name a few. The genre of libertine is so fascinatingly delicious and painfully realistic that I can't resist relating myself to the tragic heroines in these plays.

In The Rover by Alphr Behn, the highest-class town beauty and female prostitude, Angelica, has never loved a man before, but she falls for a cheap, soon-to-be-married playboy, Willmore, and agrees to sleep with him for free. When Willmore is about to take another woman as his lawfully wedded wife, Angelica points a pistol at him with unspeakable rage and uttermost disappointment. Willmore, the man who roves from bed to bed, surprisingly offers to pay her for her services, yet Angelica refuses. No amount of money could mend her broken heart and erase her deepest regrets.

In She Stoops to Conquer by Olive Goldsmith, the main female character, Kate, is a well-mannered, intelligent woman. Her father arranges her to marry Charles, who suffers from shyness around women of decent classes. However, he transforms into a charming, lecherous rogue when he is around women of low classes. Kate then masquerades as a bar maid in order to get to know him. Charles falls in love with her and plans to live happily ever after with her. He cannot love the real Kate. He can only love the Kate in disguise. In order to win the man's affection, Kate cannot be who she is and must degrade herself.

There is no sinner like a young saint.

Did God Grow Tired of Them?

I worked at a Starbucks in Port Coquitlam when I was younger. I didn't make much back then, but I didn't spend much, either. I sponsored a little girl from Africa under the care of Plan Canada (Foster Parents). My father wanted me to focus on school, so I compromised and never worked again until I finished school. Lucky for me, I landed on this job that I absolutely adored with UBC two weeks after I wrote my last final exam. Ever since I started making money (again), I've been making donations to different organizations for different purposes. For example, in May, I went to a fashion show where all proceeds went to British Columbia Breast Cancer Foundation. Likewise, in July, I supported the clean water project in Africa, which was facilitated by Plan Canada (Foster Parents). My most recent donation was made to a group of disabled, handicapped children in Surrey, so they could have the money to have a Christmas like any other normal kid.

I've begun to think why so many fortunate individuals in this world refuse to be generous to those who are in need. It doesn't hurt them to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of designer jeans, but giving a few dollars to charities seems like some sort of torture to them. I don't understand.

The Thai girls forced into sex trade may be total strangers to them. The African babies infected with HIV the moments they come to this world may fail to win their attention because, let's face it, they ain't their babies. I can go on and on, but think about it. Any of them could have been you, me, or the person next to us, at a different time, a different place, don't you think?