Sunday, September 30, 2007

Why should we watch American horror movies?




Photo: SF





Surely that you already heard about this kind of film.
I just don’t know what is your favorite type. So now I strongly have a desire to convince you why should we watch it. If you have the same hobby with me, don’t hesitate to drop a line helping me to strengthen my opinion, or simply don’t try to undermine my effort.

From the starting point, I want to re-introduce what is horror movie.

Dig in Longman Dictionary and I find out one simple definition:

  • Horror movie: a frightening movie about ghosts, murders, etc.

Is this explanation clear? Yes, I can say without a doubt that it is the simplest one we can make.

Oh, then you might want to question on me: “How can we get benefit from ghosts and murders??? They’re so terrible”. You will seriously wonder at the moment. Calm down!

  1. The first and also the easiest good thing we can withdraw from horror scenes is getting familiar with frightening situations.

It could be helpful for us when we have to face such difficult circumstances. For example: stay in a cetemery lonely in the long night/captured by some dreadful terrorists. In such kind of cases, your heart will obviously beat faster than it does in normal condition. So if we did see horrible films, it could be better for us to dig ourselves out of this feeling. It’s quite reasonable, huh. But don’t completely believe me. I might not be able to control myself in case of standing in front of Dracula. I‘d rather be easier to meet some zombies than to talk to Dracula.

2. The second: we can learn reasoning skill as well as problem solving skill from horror movies

If you already watched many of these films, you certainly know how did they kill Dracula, how could they escape from terrorists or how did they plan to have top dog in captivity, …etc.

Yesterday I watch a movie with the title “Vampire Bats” on HBO channel. In this film, many students and people have been killed by vampire bats. They drained all of their victim’s blood. These devastating bats were very terrible and really too difficult to handle. How can people manage this problem? A biology professor and her students tried to capture few of these bats. And then the police cover three of bats with poisonous power as well as stick them with tracking devices. After that they find out one of the bats’ place and execute them to death. But it was not come to a happy end. A large number of bats were still out of control. Finally, biology students thought out a method to use music - sound wave to drive bats to go to wherever they want. They trapped all of vampire bats by music to an old house and massacre them to the hell. How did they do that? They simply caught up on the most basic characteristics of bats: bats position their flying way by sonic radar.

3. But why American not Chinese or Hong Kong?

American movies are more logical than their Asian fellows. Moreover, we often learn from something different from us than from something familiar with us. It’s also a chance for us to get in mind the Western culture as well. One of my secrets: I usually watch these films to improve my English listening skill in a very enjoyful way. Just because I’m a lazy man and I feel inconvenient to study English in formal method. Believe or not? Just try and see!

Bye my friends, I have to watch an interesting horror movie now!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Vietnam - Singapore from both inside views

How to buy a Vietnamese girl?


Few days ago, I guided some friends from Singapore to go around Ho Chi Minh city. Actually they are friends of my niece. Two of them are Nanyang Technology University's students studying journalism and the last one is a journalist from The Strait Times - the most popular newspaper in Singapore. They've come to Vietnam to do research for their thesis: The social issue of getting married with foreigners of Vietnamese girls (of course specially with Singaporean men) .

You might already know about this story, there are so many match-making agencies now in Singpore to help old Singaporean men to" own" Vietnamese brides. These men are approximately 40-50 years old. They are poor, old... and not "qualified" to sucessfully seduce Singaporean girls whose ages to get married become over 30 to pursue their career and enjoying their freedom life. My three Sing visitors already surveyed their countrymen in the above agencies for few months before this Vietnam trip.

I asked them if they find out what is the crucial reason to cause Vietnamese girls want to live together with strange people from a farway country. Few answers were provided but it can be understood that they assumed Viet's girls are too poor and try to turn over a new leaf or help their families to get rich by this way. I agreed with them this point but also gave them my voice of reason: we have to see the whole picture in combination with the whole social background. From my point of view: Vietnamese girls in this case mostly from Southwest provinces where have the lowest education in Vietnam (I read this info somewhere) and they're not from the poorest area of Vietnam (the poorest zone of Vietnam might be the Middle) . So poverty is neither crime nor the excuse.

***
One more story


Few days ago too, Tuoi Tre newspaper - the fellow of The Strait Times but in Vietnam - published a report about Singapore governmen. This report completely praised Sing administration as well as Mr Lee Kuan Yew (Ly' Quang Die^.u) - former Singapore Prime Minister. So I questioned my Sing friends what they think about their previous country leader. Some of their original words in criticized voice: "He is not the right person now" (I learn it: "Ông ấy đã hết thời rồi" ) and "He think he know a lot" ("Ông ta nghĩ rằng ông ta biết mọi thứ") .

They seem not admire
Lee Kuan Yew at all. From their saying, I realized Sing goverment is family-based (gia đình trị), it's also a good place for nation leaders and their relatives to reside. You can argue that this is just one group's opinion, but I did ask the same question to a Singaporean who is working for a Sing government department in my trip to Sing last year and received the same tone. It might be "Bụt chùa nhà không thiêng" (I dont have info to jot down this proverb in English, if anyone know pls tell me) . Sing gov could be not as good as what we think, but it's a thing we can not deny: their outcome is excellent.



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