Obviously I am not very organized; when I want to write a blog, usually it includes different things, which can be very different from each other. Besides, sometimes I simply forget what I want to write when I am writing. This is probably brought by my nervous disposition.
1. Regional broadcast
Compared with Hong Kong, Perth, where I am now down under, is a regional city and far less internationalized. It is a very spread-out city, with around 1.3 million people only. It is full of local culture that Billabong and Roxy are everywhere and only a few international brands are found.
This partly reveals how the broadcast here is like. Perth is in Western Australia (WA), the biggest state in Australia, so the broadcast covers I think the whole WA.
Being the Aussie biggest state, however, does not mean having a good quality. I do not mean to harshly criticize the broadcast, yet it is very much different from my home city that is very business-like.
The quality in technical aspect is very considerable. One time when I was watching SBS, a commerical TV channel, I found very interesting that the sound is faster than the action on screen. The presenter was like chasing the action induced by the sound. It made me think that the sound and the action are very seperated from each other. I have never found this in the TV programmes in HK lest it is some kind of comedies or funny shows.
This is not the only discovery. I don't remember what channel I was watching, but it was a news bulletin. The anchor was always watching his left-hand side to read the news. He could hardly look at the camera to face the audience. In HK it only happened very long time ago. I did a course about broadcast journalism in my home university last year and I had the chance to be an anchor in my school's studio. I could just look at the camera because the script was just reflected in front of the camera. I did not have to look at anywhere else. This technique is in my school, and so I expect it is just a simple trick. Thus no wonder I feel strange to have found this in the news programme here.
It is only my opinion, but not criticism.
Then it is the time to jump to the content of the news bulletin. To me it is an interesting finding because it puts more than three quarters of time on regional or national news. In Hong Kong I can have at least two or three pieces of international news; here sometimes I can only watch one piece. I can hardly know from the news bulletin about the war in Lebannon or the nuclear development in Iran. If I were a permanent resident, I would have hardly known what is happening in the rest of the world from the TV. Trivial matters are able to contribute to the news content.
I think this is under the influence of proximity and the nature as a regional city. Perth is definitely not a cosmopolitan city and people are not very city-like. Some Australians told me this is a place where the country is found in the city. A big country part can be found just next to those high-rise buildings.
Just in the beginning of my words I said WA is very localized. It is also shown by the sports news. Much emphasis is put on the Australian football, a kind of sports which is only popular in Aussie. Other sports like basketball or soccer only occupy a short time of broadcast.
Whatsoever, it is quite interesting.
2. Control
My doubt is whether the restrictions we impose on ourselves, for the sake of ourselves, are really doing good to ourselves, or limiting our freedom increasingly.
There is a controversial issue over the ban of junk food. In Denmark, a legislation bans to sell food that contains industrial produced trans fatty acids. It is said that trans-fatty acid does not have any taste and have no influence on the price or availability of junk food. In Australia some people advocate the idea of banning the fat as well. Other places in most countries usually encourage people having a healthy diet and stop eating junk food.
I am surprised to hear that obesity is regarded as a global problem. Last time in my tutorial lesson we discussed obesity. We do not know how the surveys and statistics came out this conclusion. Obesity is a healthy problem, but we are hardly convinced how serious the problem is getting to be. The definition of obesity is too simplified by the health index BMI, but then suddenly many people come out and tell us we are too fat and our life is threatened by obesity. Thus we have to carry out some measures and control it.
It doesn't sound scientific or objective to me. Also I can hardly imagine if the society restricts the food in this way. I can understand some harmful substances or ingredients are banned, but I am not quite sure if it is good to control the junk food market. There is a suggestion in Aussie that the government should control the advertising of junk food.
This is an example of my doubt about control. I am confused about what is good to us -
a. Our consumption behavious is sometimes influenced by advertisments, but this is not absolute.
b. We can choose what we want to eat, and currently we are in fact always told about the negative impacts of junk food. I guess most customers in McDonald's understand before they go into the shop and buy what they want to eat.
c. When we have sufficient knowledge about the harms, I consider we are free to decide what we want. If I choose to eat junk food, that is my own choice because I choose to let my favourite overwhelm the harms.
These are the matters in my mind, and I would say I am objective to make these conclusions. In so-called a free and liberate community, I am not certain whether imposing more and more restrictions like smoking ban contradicts to our philosophy of freedom.
All in all, what is the genuine utopia we are seeking? From absolute to democratic rule, from communism to capitalism, what is our society actually transforming to?
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Originally I want to discuss sex and prono as well, but this is such a soft topic that I lose my interest to express my view after the above interests. However that is also very interesting that I may do it next time.
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