Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas in Hong Kong (and layers of technology)

"Kev Jumba," the fan asked in his video response to the number 1 most subscribed comedian on Youtube. "Speaking of names, and race, you're Chinese right? Why is your name Kev? It makes no sense to me...you're Chinese!" (not an actual quote...just an approximation pieced from my memory)

Mark Poster in his book Information Please thinks of the internet as a way to bring chaos to your soul. Bringing chaos to your soul was conceived by Nietzsche, basically as an exploration of self-identity, putting yourself out of your comfort zone, out of your familiar world-view, almost to the point of a masochistic psychology, all in order to emerge out of this interior battle with a new cultural innovation. "One must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star." Poster thinks that the internet is a system that brings all sorts of individuals into exposure to other unfamiliar individuals, bringing the whole global society into chaos, producing cultural innovation in the end.

That's the abstract theoretical background I provide for now. If somebody can't conceive of an Asian person having an English name, then they'll have to learn to conceive of an Asian person with an english name. Likewise, Christianity, Christmas, and Christmas caroling all find their origins in the west, and sure, we could link it to the evils of European imperialism - but we shouldn't think of it as globalization as much as we should think of it as glocalization.

In Hong Kong, Christmas time is not time for family, but time to go out with friends, walk amongst the crowds, get drunk, party, etc.. That's how Western-imported holidays are like (esp. Haloween and Xmas), family-centered holidays are of course the traditional Chinese ones.

During Xmas, unlike for New Year and Chinese New Year, there are no fireworks, people are just walking around on the streets. But since Christians in Hong Kong are more firm believers than your average Christian in the US, you get caroling with strong religious overtones ('caroling' in Cantonese, bouh gaai yam, translates as spread the great gospel)
[please bear through the beginning...I walk around later]


And finally, I end with video of an event taken a couple weeks back. The layers of technology involved here are a bit much! There's my camera which is recording video of my nieces and nephews in Hong Kong webcamming with their cousins (my nieces and nephews) in America who are playing videos from their camera of sledding into their webcamera. Did you get that? Video from their camera->their webcam->our computer screen->my camera->youtube video about transnationalism and childhood friends reuniting through webcams and cameras.

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