At first I thought I'd slack off blogging a while, and then I read something on the Net that made me think of blogging again. :p Inspiration strikes.
From Tomorrow.sg, I read a China forum post about the blog posts of a Singaporean exchange student studying archi there. Because of the parallels to Candle studying there, I got curious and started reading. [all those years of reading Chinese comics paid off finally]
It became... an interesting read on the Arrogance of 2 Nations?
Summary for the linguistically challenged: The girl is studying archi in Xian on exchange. And she posted a lot of potentially very insulting items on her blog about the air in Xian, the people, how arrogant they are, how bad they are, how poor they are, how she doesn't like the food, how behind the education system is, blah blah blah.
Funny thing. I thought pple generally went on exchange trips to learn and experience other cultures, not insult them and compare them to your home country. But hey, maybe that's just me.
I read through her blog and I realised why so many forum readers in Xian were getting so upset. I'd be pissed off too at some foreign upstart who came here seemingly to tell me constantly how bad my country was. Granted that no country is perfect. But after a while, I realised that the Xian posts were starting to take the same line as the girl.
No, I don't mean that they started insulting Xian as well. I meant that although some of the posts were written in righteous indignation, some other posts started insulting the girl as well, like how she was fat, ugly, should just go back to her own country, think your own country so great ah, actually ah... blah blah blah.
Alamak. What's with some people? they always believe in getting an Eye for an Eye, but they never wonder what they're gonna do with all them extra eyes. And all they achieve is a lot of bad blood on both sides.
The problem here, of course, is that the Internet allows anyone to post their honest person opinions on the Internet, even if some government officers think that these honest personal opinions should be moderated.
On one hand, the idea of controlling the flow of information on the Internet is ludicrous, and is reminiscient of the Great Firewall of China.
On the other, you get blogs and forums like the Xian archi student. -_-!!!!!!! Whose posts n forum opinions you wish were never posted.
Know what we need? We need Moderators. We need more Mods with moderate opinions to stand up, n spray the hose on all the fighting dogs on the Internet. Then maybe we can have more balanced opinions.
In other words, we need more individuals with mature, balanced opinions to speak up more on the issue. We need people with unprejudiced views, who are able to look at both sides with a clear and just eye.
No point in closing down opinions or policing the Internet. Negative reinforcement will only result in more negative results. We need more Mods.
