Monday, January 31, 2011

I feel like digital media expands my existence in space. Media such as texting, emailing, skype, and Facebook connect me to people who are not physically accessible to me. In many ways I love this—the way that I am able to maintain ties with people who are important to me. In other ways, I abhor it. I don’t like the way some media refuses to let me flow with the pattern of times and seasons. It seeks a sort of absoluteness in a vacillating realm. Sometimes, I will look at the Facebook pages of people I haven’t seen or talked to for a long time and it makes me feel uncomfortable. Our lives have diverged, the nature of the relationship we once had has changed, and I don’t want to observe what their life consists of now. It feels like looking at something that doesn’t belong to me. I want to let them live their lives and I want to live my own. If we meet again, then I will embrace that new season, and if we don’t then I will love the seasons that have passed and seek out my new ones with excitement. I feel like Heavenly Father takes great care in placing me with the people I need the most at any one time. Who am I to try to go around this? At the same time, action proceeds faith and faith proceeds the miracle . . . have you ever found the person you need through digital media?

I also want to talk briefly about The Chinatown Idea. I went to a Chinatown for the first time over Christmas break, which I spent in San Francisco. I expected something somewhat touristy because from what I heard it is a common place to go when traveling somewhere where a Chinatown exists. When I got there, I wondered how the idea of tourism could be associated with it. To me, it felt so Chinese. I was with two of my brothers who speak Chinese (one Cantonese and the other Mandarin), and because of that I felt like I could get away with being there. I felt justified in moseying around the spice and food markets, as they told me about different foods and translated nameplates for me. But what of everyone else? I wondered what brought these modern immigrants to this place and why they sought out their former home in their new one. I also contemplated America’s subheadings: the traditional “melting pot” and the rival “salad bowel.” Is one better than the other? And how do we establish home—and maintain our genealogical identity—in this place of such diverse cultural heritage?

1 comment:

  1. I really enjoyed reading your post. I also consider media like Facebook to be great for communicating with others, but also somewhat of a burden. There are many people that I haven't seen in ages, but rarely talk to and see that they are completely different then when I first met them. I too would like to keep that memory of them in the past and maybe not what is being presented in the present. I also agree that we really cannot say what defines our homeland... the definition of that concept is broad, especially here in the states. I was born in Peru, but lived most of my live in Utah, how am I suppose to choose one over the other? Both nations are part of who I am.

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