Simple Life 2013 Jan 10

This is such a Cranbrook piece!

It is a critical design. It presents such a precise point of view, definitely a conversation piece and probably win an award if placed on a pedestal. Yet it is also so innocent.

So here’s a first grader walking to school on a Thursday morning. In a rather unusual sight, she was behaving just like a city kid, walking with her head down staring into a handheld device, working her stylus pen like as if she’s in a hurry to email the power point presentation out before the 8 o’clock meeting.

Yet, this hand held device is like no other. It requires no battery. It is extremely light weight and compact. The screen has excellent response and unparalleled tactility, with a stylus pen giving a natural feedback and resistance, with absolutely no lag or visual parallex from a thick glass, like most LCDs do. The pressure sensitivty cannot be described through “bits”. It just felt like what all stylus pad is supposed to feel like.

No wonder this girl’s attention is glued to this handheld device. It’s arguably the best interactive portable device ever created!

Now let’s watch her give you a live product demo!



So you have it, an age old trick applied to micmick the lastest and greatest, with such simplicity that it really becomes an irony, or a sartire, and is something you would see in a Cranbrook critic session, or a sketch on The Onion. For those who didn’t understand what was going on in the video, it is basically a elastic piece of clear pink plastic laid over a white soft back. When the pen presses the plastic against the back, it sticks to the back piece showing a color contrast. That’s how the drawing is created. Of course, the slider simply separates the two pieces of material, hence “clears” the image.

So why is this ironic? Well, this toy has existed since when we were young as a drawing board. In the world of today when everything is moving towards digital and virtual interface, and when every city kid wants an iPad, someone answered the desire of digital luxury with a very low cost technique for the country kids who can’t afford first world technology. To me, the irony is that in pursue of the ultimate interaction experience, we’ve gone so far to develop tools using advance technology and exploiting such vast amount of resources, only to be recreated with such a simple technique that already exist since before the digital age even started.

Oh and BTW, this girl got this toy as a prize that she won at a pin ball machine at the weekly Monday night market. It’s literally a give-away.

Simple Life 2013 Jan 16

I don't know how many of these videos I will get to film. This was taken by chance and I've been wanting to do this, just without the courage. Here's a student from my school, a third grader who was from here, but left for the city with his mom for two years before being sent back to live with his grandparents. He's considered lucky, because he got to live with his mom for a while. The other little girl in the video is a first grader. I asked her where her parents are and how often she gets to see them. She just said once a year, for a few days. This is pretty much the norm here. This boy is also the best performing student in his class, academic wise, simply because he's been to school in the city before. The expectations between city and rural is huge. The kids here lack stimulation from home because they are mostly raised by their grandparents who don't know any better. This is a complicated vicious cycle of inadequate education, family values and low prospects.

Christmas 2012 Berlin and Madrid!!!!

Just a happy little quiet village

Over on the other side of the mountain is Hualien county. The rice harvest is over and farmers plant particular types of flowers on their land as fertilizers. Within a month or two, with they will bulldoze the flowers, the remains of the flower plants will become fertilizer for the next batch of paddy.

On the way to Hualien, there's a community along the mountain pass. It sits within a valley with monkeys as their companions. It is really quiet here, but people care about decorating their homes with gardens and bright colored windows and doors. Most importantly, everyone seemed to be having a pleasant time.






Plum Flowers along the mountain pass.













Drying pickled veggies