Essay

Generation Gap
“Generation gap is a difference in values and attitudes between one generation and another” (“Generation Gap”, n.d.) and it has become more and more conspicuous in my hometown in China. In particular, many elders feel that they cannot understand the young generation and mistake a characteristic of the outspoken young as disrespect (Husan, 2005). As time goes by, this misunderstanding between the two generations grows and subsequently widens the gap. Sometimes, the consequence of the generation gap can be severe. For instance, it might tear the family, or even more seriously, it might tear the nation (“Queen Calls for Young and Old to Bridge Generation Gap”, 2006). Though bridging generation gap needs both generations’ efforts, the elder generation needs to contribute more. That is because how the young generation behaves is an outcome of the rapid social change. Therefore, what could be done to dissolve the misunderstanding and bridge the generation gap between two generations is that the elders have to adapt to the young. Specifically, there are three solutions: controlling parents’ temper, educators improving the professional knowledge, the government preparing relevant steps.
Firstly, it is very important for parents not to lose their temper when their children disobey their orders. Nowadays, many children prefer to speak to their parents in a direct way. For example, if a child catches his/her parents interfering in his/her personal life, he/she probably will yell at his/her parents or slam the door heavily in front of them. These behaviors may contradict the norm the parents learnt before which is respecting the elders in any conditions. Nevertheless, the parents cannot lose their temper. Instead, they should figure out the reasons their children go against their orders and think about an alternative way to enter into their children’s world. For instance, the parents can pat their children’s shoulder when the children are upset or frustrated (Dadashri, 2001). Day after day, most of the children will not contradict their parents intentionally and the distance between two generations will become smaller. In summary, parents controlling their mood can bridge the generation gap and make the children listen to them more.
Secondly, educators need to improve their professional knowledge and understand the words and deeds of students. Since many students are now very outspoken and impulsive, they won’t be as polite to the teachers as their elders were when they were at school (Prasad, 1996). If a teacher has a high reputation in certain academic area, almost all the children will admire and respect him/her. They will behave properly in front of the teacher. Sometimes though there are still some students who would like to test the boundaries of the discipline on purpose; if the teacher is able to see the purpose of the students’ action, he/she will be able to educate the students well and have a good relationship with the students (“Pupil Discipline is Key Issue for Students and NQTs - ATL survey”, 2006). To sum up, improving the educators’ professional knowledge and the ability to understand the student can minimize the generation gap with the young.
Thirdly, preparing measures for the young’s unexpected opinions is crucial for a government to rule a nation. Lacking of measures sometimes will cause unnecessary deaths and injuries. A famous example would be the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989. Due to some unsolved disagreements between the representatives of the student union and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, students held a series of demonstrations which were against the government. After two months, the government didn’t find any peaceful solution; instead, they used military to beat down the demonstration parade. The crackdown caused at least two hundred deaths and several thousand people injured (“Tiananmen Square Protest of 1989”, n.d.). Thus, if the government has prepared measures such as setting up a special department to deal with the student’s opinion, serious demonstrations like the above case could be avoided more or less. In short, the generation gap can be reduced by the government preparing measures for the young.
In conclusion, if the three groups of the elder generation, parents, educators and government can control their mood, improve professional knowledge as well as prepare measures for the young respectively, the misunderstanding which is mentioned in the beginning can be reduced and consequently the generation gap will be minimized.


References
Darash, R. P. (2001). Generation gap: The relationship between parents & children. Retrieved on Oct 16, 2007 from http://www.dadashri.org/bookpandc.html
Generation gap. (n.d.). Retrieved Oct 10, 2007, from http://www.answers.com/topic/generation-gap?cat=technology
Husain A. (2005). Bridging the generation gap – A critical and worthy endeavor. Retrieved Oct 9, 2007, from http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1157962510122&pagename=Zone-English-Youth%2FYTELayout
Prasad, R. (1996). Generation gap (2nd ed.). India: SanPark Press
Pupil discipline is key issue for students and NQTs - ATL survey. (2006). Retrieved on Oct 16, 2007, from http://www.epolitix.com/NR/exeres/19DA5E54-2CC5-4676-9FD8-8C4F5DC0252B
Queen calls for young and old to bridge generation gap. (2006). Retrieved Oct 7, 2007, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2006/12/26/1818246.htm
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. (n.d.). Retrieved Oct 15, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

Summary

“Generation Gap: A study of Chinese family communication” written by Yam (1977) described the family relationship in Hong Kong. The author analyzed the Chinese family communication in terms of three aspects: affection, socialization, cognitive interaction and physical proximity. Firstly, owing to the different perception of two generations, the family communication between parents and children were very poor. However, children still concerned about their parents when they are sick, for example. Secondly, due to introducing of western education, children in Hong Kong misinterpreted freedom as disrespect. They tended to ignore their parents’ existence and were not appreciate their parents’ concern. Therefore, the parents were not able to communicate with their children very well. Thirdly, television might hinder communication between parents and the children since two generations could not reach an agreement over television programs or news. Fourthly, because some children only understood English while their parents spoke Chinese or dialects, the distance between two generations would grow naturally since they could not have a long discussion.
However, because Chinese still placed a high value on family life in spite of western education, social-cultural structures, the family communication was better than what children and parents thought.

Unlucky Month

In this month, up to now, nothing good has happened. First, my computer system crashed, then I lost my matriculation card, and now I lost a bunch of cards including my two student passes. Though I found all those cards eventually, I felt very tired and unhappy.
What’s wrong with me? What do I have to go through later? Or is it just a rough month for me?

Movie review

A tragedy The Invisible is a new movie in 2007. It isn’t like what most people expect to be a horror; instead, it is dolorous yet very beautiful. The story shows a change of a high school student’s humanity, from a devil to an angel. I don’t want to say much about the plot since it is all on the websites. Here I want to say some of my opinions though it may not be so much relevant to the content of the movie.
First, being an invisible doesn’t seem to be that cool as I thought. Though the invisible can do whatever they want to do and nobody will find out, they feel extremely lonely since they have no friends. Everything can be a double edged sword. Being the invisible also means one has to sacrifice his/her love, friendship and so on. He cannot console his family and friends when they are sad. He cannot warn his family and friends when there is a danger ahead. He cannot communicate with his family and friends when they were lonely. Most sadly, he knows what he needs to do, but he can do nothing, since he doesn’t virtually exist in the world. After I watched this movie, I guess I will no longer fantasize about being an invisible.
Second, who should be blamed for this tragedy? Most people would say that Annie was the initiator of this tragedy because she beat Nick so hard which nearly took Nick’s life away. Yes, I cannot deny that face. However, think harder, in my opinion Nick should take main responsibility for his own tragedy. If he could communicate with his schoolmates as often as possible, if he could understood his mother’s difficulties as much as possible, none of those would happen. He blamed his mother for forcing him to be a person who he hated to be. He looked down upon Annie for her improper behavior and lousy grades. However, he never went through self-meditation. He thought he was a perfect person, but actually he was a hypocrite. He just lived under a fake mask.
Third, children should never question the love from their parents. Generally, the majority of the parents love their children very much, but the ways they show their love vary. In this movie, Nick thought his mother didn’t love him, but when he saw his mother crying so hard, he finally knew his mother did care about him. Therefore, I think, parents would like to sacrifice anything in order to protect their children; maybe, sometimes their deeds are against their children’s will. Nevertheless, as long as their intentions are good, children should understand them before it is too late.

Problem and Solution

A generation gap is a wide difference in cultural norms between members of a younger generation and their elders and it is very common nowadays. In my hometown, when a person is young, the relationship with one’s parents is intimate. Generally, family members spend plenty of time together and share happiness and sorrow. As time goes by, however, the generation gap forms and the relationship between the child and his/her parents chills. Gradually the child tends to keep his/her parents out of his/her world and conflicts between them arise more and more frequently. In order to achieve harmony in the family, there are several ways to overcome this kind of generation gap. Firstly, family members need to find the common interest, such as sports. Different backgrounds might be the main reason to cause the conflicts, and sports can minimize the generation gap. For example, a child can play a game such as football with his/her parent. During the game, the child might know more about his/her parents’ football experience. Later on, whenever something unhappy happened, they still have happy memories. Secondly, family members should talk to each other patiently and politely. A rude attitude scares people and might keep the distance between each other whereas a beautiful smile can warms people’s heart. Especially for children, when their parents yell at them when they are trying to ask for a favor, the children might get hurt and never dare to bother their parents again. Day after day, the generation gap becomes more and more obvious. Lastly, as a family, each of them should be frank to each other and not talk behind others’ back. Concealing opinions is not an effective solution to avoid conflicts and in fact, it might make the relationship worse. If one thinks the other’s behavior is unacceptable, having a little talk could be a way to solve the problem. Overall, the above three ways might help a family to overcome the generation gap and minimize the conflicts between the families.

Compare and Contrast

Both intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence make a great contribution to the development of an undergraduate which includes both academic and social performance in different ways. In the academic area, intellectual intelligence guarantees the essential knowledge the undergraduate needs whereas emotional intelligence equips the student with the optimal mood to face a series of examinations. For example, if the student is required to solve a problem in the test, he/she needs to use the mathematical skills to solve it. However, if the student encounters an extremely difficult question, he/she needs emotional intelligence to overcome the fear in the heart and concentrate on the paper. Therefore, the contributions of the intellectual and emotional intelligence are different yet important to the student to graduate and get the certification. With regard to the social area, the effect of emotional intelligence is very obvious while intellectual intelligence seems subtle. In terms of forming good relationships with schoolmates and teachers, emotional intelligence’s contribution is significant. It teaches the student how to communicate with different people and detect the potential problems such as others’ unsatisfaction of his/her work and discontent of certain behaviors. At the same time, the contribution of intellectual intelligence cannot be neglected, because without a smart head, nothing can be achieved. For example, while doing a project with classmates, intellectual intelligence helps a student to develop an excellent idea, while emotional intelligence assists a student to present it in an effective way. In conclusion, intellectual and emotional intelligence contributes to the development of an undergraduate differently in the above aspects.

09/09/07

University students who are possessed of high emotional intelligence generally perform satisfyingly in both academic and social arenas. They study well and are highly enthusiastic about the social committees. Specifically, in the academic area, the obvious and strong evidences are high grades and good results. The university students with high emotional intelligence have agile minds and they know what is important and what is useful. They read a lot beyond the scope of course requirements and relate what they learn outside the class to the books. To them, learning knowledge is not a painstaking work; instead, it is a fun. In this way, the more they enjoy the study, the higher the performance they have. Emotional intelligence makes the students know that adapting to the university life is more important than getting a high score. In the social area, students with high emotional intelligence seem to be more passionate to about running for the leadership position of certain clubs than other students. They know how to communicate with different kinds of people and care about their friends. Most importantly, they will never give up even when they encounter failures, such as being rejected by the employers. Instead, they summarize the experiences and think about the next step. They see the opportunities in the scourge. In conclusion, high emotional intelligence benefits the university students in academic and social areas.

My Life's Meaning

Hope is life. Without hope, life is nothing. Hope brings people life expectation and makes people fight for it. In this way, hope endows lives with different meanings. People grow up for different purposes. Some desire to be white angels to save people’s lives; some dream to be scientists to use magic technology to solve global problems or promote the living standard. Some wish to be teachers so they can foster the next generation.
As for me, since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a chief of some company or a female leader. I would like to be in charge of everything. As time goes by, I realized that nothing can be achieved without knowledge. I learned a lot from my teachers and read a lot about being a successful person. My life was fruitful. I grew up from an ignorant child to a leader of a class. However, everything changed after I came to Singapore, a new environment to me. For a period of time, I lost myself. I couldn’t remember what made me come here and what I wanted to do. That situation went on for a while until my mother told me not to feel too much pressure and just be myself. Suddenly I found that I was still that ordinary girl. Being a leader is just a sprit backstone to support my life, to make my life meaningfully.
There is a famous sentence in How the Steel was Tempered. It says “our dearest possession in life. It is given to us but once. And we must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past”. Thus I think, the meaning of my life is to live with a goal which is to be a leader. Maybe people find that is quite ordinary, but that is the uniqueness of me.