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Critical Practice Final Essay: Chungking Express and Postmodernism

Chungking Express is a Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai and released in 1994. I believe this film is a great example of postmodernism. The film includes two stories in which the location is the same, but the characters are different. However, the characters are all distanced and lonely, they question their life, their reaction to their surrounding is often not logical, and the plot is sometimes unstructured and unclear. The film shows a sense of ambiguity and the feeling of chaos in the society, it questions traditions and everything that’s already developed. There’s more to explore in this movie that is related to the concept of postmodernism.

The main character of the first story is cop 223. In the beginning,r we see a scene of the crowd, people are bypassing each other and bypassing every possible encounter. The focus is on cop 223, and another woman with a blonde wig who seems to be running away from someone. Cop 223 ran into the woman, and as the narrator, he says: "At our closest point, we were just 0.1 cm apart, 55 hours later, I was in love with this woman." This is a foreshadowing of following plot, but also symbolizes one of the movie's theme: the endless possibilities of encounters between strangers.

In the next scene, cop 223 appears at a food stop, which becomes an important location of the story: where the main characters meet. He broke up with his girlfriend on the April Fool's day, she said he doesn't know her at all. Cop 223 tried to convince himself that it is only a joke, but it’s very hard for him to get over with the relationship. Cop 223 went jogging, because "everyone's heart gets broken. When mine is, I go running. Running evaporates body fluid, so there's none left for tears."

Everything has an expiration date, even their love. His girlfriend May likes pineapple cans, he decides that he'll give himself a month to get over with the joke, so he buys a can of pineapple with the expiration of May 1st every day. After May 1st, he will admit their relationship has expired, and he will move on. Cop 223 is trying to escape the reality and he questions "is there anything that's never expired?" To him the world is cold and everyone is so distanced, especially when he gives a recycling man the pineapple can, the man madly throws the can to the floor, saying he doesn't want it because it is expired. It is just like the love from May is expired, on the morning of May 1st, cop 223 realizes that "To May I was nothing but a tin of pineapple," that could be thrown away easily.  

The idea of postmodernism in this movie could be also supported by the illogical decisions that characters made. Cop 223 doesn't want to accept the truth, the 30 cans of pineapples are his escape from reality. On May 1st, He went to a bar, and decides he will fall in love with the first woman he saw. That person is the blonde wig woman, who is very stressed from running and chasing a drug-smuggling ring. Cop 223 starts talking to her, even tho she's "not in the mood of talking." They are both lonely, so they talk and she became drunk. Cop 223 takes her to a hotel room and lets her rest. In the meantime, he watches movies and keeps eating, to release his stress of being lonely and lovesick. He helps her taking off her high heels and cleans them before leaving.

Cop 223's story ends with jogging and a happy birthday greeting from the blonde woman, while he thought no one would greet him since he broke up with May. He's ready to move on, after running and eating the 30 cans of pineapple. He appears at the snack store again, which introduces the second story and the characters: Faye and cop 663.

Cop 663 is also dealing with a breakup, with a flight attendant. Cop 663 thinks about his ex-girlfriend while looking at her old uniform, he irons her uniform and talks to dish, towel, and dolls. He's so deeply lonely, he imagines her girlfriend's still with him, guessing her still hiding in his closet when he gets home.

Faye secretly falls in love with him. She finds opportunities to stay with him when she could, asking him help for carrying heavy stuff or pretend to stop by when he's eating on the street side shop. Cop 663's girlfriend left a letter with his apartment's key at the food shop, asking the owner to give it to Cop 663. Faye secret kept the letter and the key, she enters Cop 663's apartment without his acknowledge, cleaning and decorating his room. Fayer changes his worn-out towel, brings him goldfish, changes his tablecloths, she even tries his ex-girlfriend’s old uniform. When Cop 663 finds out, he asks her out for dinner at a restaurant called California. However, she does not come, instead, the shop owner tells cop 663 that Faye left for California in the United States.

The atmosphere of this film is very subtle, quiet and even melancholy. The shop owner keeps telling cop 223 and cop 663 to not be sad about the breakup, just find another girl. But to them, finding a new one might not be hard, what's hard is to find one with little distance in their hearts. Cop 223 breaks up with May because even though their physical distance is close, they are not connected emotionally, and that's why the relationship is expired. In the movie, there's a lot of scenes reflected on a mirror, representing the vague reality and the unsureness of people's connections. One of the examples is when cop 223 and the blonde woman are drinking in the bar, does cop 223 really understands her loneliness? Another one is when cop 663 kisses his ex-girlfriend, a mirror shows that they are not really in love with each other, they are connected to nothing but sexual desire.

This movie also has a bunch of stylistic lines, including cop 663’s conversation with his furniture: “Since she left, everything in the flat is sad. Everything needed lulling to sleep.

(to a bar of soap)”, “You've lost a lot of weight, you know. You used to be so chubby. Have more confidence in yourself. (to a threadbare wet dishcloth)” “You have to stop crying, you know. Where's your strength and absorbency? You're so shabby these days.” Other remarkable quotes include “Actually, really knowing someone doesn't mean anything. People change. A person may like pineapple today and something else tomorrow.” by the blonde woman when she’s at the bar. Most of these quotes are implying that in the world of chaos, on the surface we are connected with one another, we can easily be close to someone, but within our deep self, we are always by ourselves and alone.

In the ambiguity and the illogicality of the plot, the doubt toward the real world, the question of individual existence, I believe this movie has expressed the idea of postmodernism.

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Weibo (website)

Nowadays, almost everyone has a cell phone with them. Since high technology is becoming more convenient, people are also relying more on them. With a cell phone, we can do many things. The most basic tool is to contact others through calling and texting. Then people use it to share their social life, take pictures, listen to music, watch videos, search for information, and so on. I also use it to set alarm, write reminders for myself. Through social media, I could become relevant to the current world, in many aspects such as economy, society, fashion and entertainment.

I use a Chinese microblogging website called Weibo almost everyday. On this website, you can follow different accounts that post different stuffs, some of them are funny, some are useful tips, some share nice photos or books, movies. You could also follow celebrities and track their activity. I didn’t use it too much before because I thought it took me too much time. It is very fun to read the posts, but there are too many and every time I opened the website, it would take me twenty minutes until I realize I need to focus on something else. It is definitely a good way of entertainment tho, through Weibo I could also know what the public trend is and what people are interested in. About one year ago, I started to follow a Japanese idol group named Arashi, and it was then when I started to use Weibo more often. I found other fans like me on Weibo and we followed each other: we shared our obsession and we understood each other in the aspect of fan. It was a new kind of experience to me, because I couldn’t find people who like Arashi around me, and I was very happy to find friends on Weibo. Even though fans are from different areas, most of them are friendly and we scream for Arashi together. When I see new post about Arashi, I would be so excited and it can even make my day.

However, internet could be hideous as well. There are people who comment mean stuffs on other people’s post for no reason. Sometimes fans also fight each other over little issue. When I see such situation, I would normally ignore. Internet is very interesting but we should be nice while using it, and try not to attack others over the screen.

I believe cell phone  has become a huge part of our life: we both entertain and work or study with it. It is very likely that once we don’t have one, our life would be very different. Technology definitely helps a lot in terms of efficiency and conveniency, but consider this: are we becoming too addicted to it? When you walk into a restaurant, you could see most people are using their phones while waiting, instead of enjoying the direct contact between human being. I think while we are using internet or cell phone, we are sort of losing the connection to our surroundings, or our real life. In order to avoid this, when we are with our friends and families, we should have more conversation with them and feel the warmness of the real touch and the direct connection.

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Final Essay Proposal

Chungking Express is a movie written and directed by Wong Kar-wai in 1995. I believe this film is a good example of postmodernism. The film includes two stories in which the location is the same, but the characters are different. However, the characters are all distanced and lonely, they question their life, their reaction to their surrounding is often not logical, and the plot is sometimes unstructured and unclear. The film shows a sense of ambiguity and the feeling of chaos in the society, it questions traditions and everything that’s already developed. There’s more to explore in this movie that is related to the concept of postmodernism.

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Simulacra and Simulation Notes

The simulacrum is saying there’s no truth and everything is to conceal this fact. Our world is a generation by models of a real, which is no longer the reality. There are no more charms of real, everything could be produced and represented by references or models in the past, it’s nothing more than operational. Even divinity can be represented. One can live with the idea of a distorted truth. Our world could be the reflection of a basic reality; the mask of an ugly reality; the mask of the absence of reality; something totally different from the reality. An imaginary station such as Disneyland is an example of such philosophy. It is a completely happy place without any ugly elements. It is an imaginary world, the representation of “real” American life, “real” American values and idealized transposition of a contradictory reality, but in fact, it is not saying the truth, it is concealing the fact that the real is no longer real.  

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The Matrix

Morpheus says this quote to Neo at the end of his kungfu training: “I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.” Morpheus believes Neo is the one, and he’s trying hard to let Neo realize it. Morpheus could only tell Neo the truth because if the brain is not convinced, the truth is never becoming truth. And obviously, Neo’s brain, or any others’ brain is something Morpheus can not control over. Just like how Neo feels blood after falling onto the concrete ground, even though he thought it is only a program, his brain makes out the fact that the falling seems very true (because it appears to be very real as well.) People’s brains are never easy things to control, even by themselves. We see things and instantly we have something in our mind about them. It’s very difficult for Neo to believe the whole story, he has to experience and walk along the road, to meet the agents to understand how the matrix works.

Then in the jump mode, where Neo is at his first try to jump from one rooftop to another, Morpheus says another quote to hint him: “You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.” In order for Neo to get out of matrix’s control, he has to let go all the feelings, routines, response, thoughts that he had since he was “grown”. Those are simply programs, or orders matrix designed for everyone in the “dream world”. Everything he was, and everything he felt in his past is fake, they are not real. The reality is they are controlled by the matrix. How do you know the taste of steak is the real taste? It is a hard time for Neo to let go since he gets used to it. He should not doubt anything but know everything.

Morpheus also tells Neo that nothing else matters but what Neo believes in: when they are fighting, Morpheus says “do you think me being fast has anything to do with my muscles?” Next round Neo becomes faster than before. If Neo knows he could be faster, then he could. If Neo knows there’s no spoon, then he could bend the spoon. Neo can’t be hurt because he knows nothing is real in the world of the matrix, including bullets, pain, and people. The movie is about Neo’s adventure in believing the world of the matrix, in the end, his mind is completely convinced by the philosophy of it, that is also the reason why he becomes able to stop the bullets, beats the agent, and see his surroundings in codings. That is the reason why he could be the one.

Why does Neo wake up after Trinity kisses him? 

What is Neo going to do at the end?

Who is the oracle? Is she human or machine? Is her prediction wrong or she did it on purpose?

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Fight Club

One of the main theme that I would like to talk about is the questions of identity.

In this movie, narrator Jack has insomnia, he feels every day is a copy of a copy or a copy of another copy. He lost reality and can not fall asleep. This symbolizes him losing the perception of his own identity. Tyler Durden is introduced when Jack can’t find any more comfort in crying by staying with dying people. Tyler is a powerful, wild, strong figure, he’s careless to the materialistic world and he is the type of person Jack desperately wants himself to be. The truth is he is a personality Jack created involuntarily. Tyler blows up Jack’s condo so he loses everything he had. “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” The bombing is only the first step of Jack’s transformation. In his deep inside, he’s desperately trying to get out of the boring, real world where people repeat their days and nights. After “losing all hope, Jack didn’t care about anything anymore, he’s “free” because he has no more to lose. A new life is ahead for him to experience, and to actually be the one he wants.

The first thing Tyler and Jack start was the fight club. They fight for no particular reason, but they find comfort in it. Days go on, sometimes Jack is Jack, sometimes he becomes Tyler unconsciously, and that’s why his problem of insomnia is not mentioned anymore after he meets Tyler: he thinks he’s sleeping when he actually becomes Tyler. Jack experiences a lot of new things: fighting, clubbing, making soups out of women’s fat, and a car accident. From all of these craziness he did, he found the feeling of real life.

The fight club gets more well-known, but things are getting more violent. Tyler starts to organize the groups to destroy public buildings. When Bob was killed, Jack realizes something’s wrong, and he finds him and Tyler are one. There’s part of him thinks the world is being too cold and meaningless, because people are chasing after things they don’t really want or need, just like how Jack bought many Ikea furniture to fulfill his inner emptiness. (which doesn’t help at all) Then he creates Tyler and the fight club to fight against reality: gradually he doesn’t show up or dress up well during work, he threatens his boss the way he wants.

The Fight Club talks about the theme of identity by asking who we are, and what do we want. Jack, or Tyler’s philosophy is that society is driving everyone into becoming the same type of person, we all become timid, we copy one another, we are afraid of difference. We become what we are because we are asked to, not because we want to. When Tyler asked fight club members to fight strangers, most people wouldn’t fight back. The modern world teaches everyone to avoid trouble even if they cursed so badly inside. Your job, your money, your car doesn’t define what you are. You are not a special and unique snowflake because you get used to the society and don’t ever want to do what you truly want. The scene when Tyler pointed a gun at a stranger and threatened him to be a veterinarian in six weeks was a great one. Only when people are pushed to the edge of the cliff, they would dare do what they’ve always wanted to do.

Why can’t Jack fall asleep (again) after he met Marla?

Does Jack love Marla? Why?

Why does Tyler want to destroy public buildings?

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Post feminism

The first video I watched is the movie trailer for Memories of Matsuko. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5YiO1kSZdQ) The movie talks about Matsuko’s life: when she was little she wanted to marry a handsome guy. However, her dream did not come true at all. She lost her job as a teacher because nobody trust her during an accident, so she desperately left her family. Then she was beaten at her new home by another noteless writer. Next she got discarded by her lover, who had his own family. Matsuko became a call girl; she got into some affair with her pimp and killed him. She tried to kill herself but failed. Then she ended up in jail. After that she was beaten again by her new boyfriend. Matsuko, as a woman character, was in the completely weak side. She was constantly beaten and did not even try to reject the physical violence. To her, the beating comes from a sense of love. Man use her as object, they beat her up to release their stress, they rape her or ask her to get money from others. She has no respect from the male characters, but she doesn’t really care, what she wants is just love. This shows the background or the culture does not allow women to realize that they shall have the same respect as man does. The idea of ownership is not yet developed, as Matsuko thinks she belongs to someone who would give her the love she wants, instead of her trying to gain the love by herself.

The other videos are music videos, Wildest Dreams (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdneKLhsWOQ) and Blank Space (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ORhEE9VVg)  by Taylor Swift. It is clear that Taylor is the main character in the videos. Both videos talk about a man and a woman falling in love at the beginning and breaking up in the end. In Wildest Dreams, the power of woman is shown through Taylor sitting or standing behind wild animals, and she would be swaying her arms or stretching her legs. She looks as calm and free as the lion and giraffe, as if she’s one of them. When the guy treats on her, she’s very sad but she turns away and never looks back. She shows her braveness and compare to Matsuko’s story, this video, which was made decades later is kind of conveying the message that now women are free and comfortable to make their own decisions. Blank Space depicts a more dominant woman character. When the guy treats on Taylor, she rips the painting of him and cuts his clothes. She breaks his car and destroys his belongings. She starts to act violently on him as a revenge. There are scenes when she holds a knife, or she stands on the back of a horse, which are very powerful on demonstrating the female power against the male.

Another thing I noticed is women character are usually dressed in sexy clothes. Matsuko became a call girl and she performs to please man, which was not so strong because she’s not willing to do it at first. Taylor is often revealing her skins. However, I think this could be very powerful, because the woman body’s strongness is the power that only woman possess. Once woman knows it, and they start to understand they they control themselves, they then are very strong.

To see these videos through postmodernism aspect, Matsuko is taking a radical stance that she lives for love, no matter how much she’s beaten and how bad it becomes. At the end it leads the audience to consider what’s the meaning of living. The music videos depict perfect and dreamy lifestyle, which is full of playfulness.

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Postmodernism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW4VchHUbws  Music Video of Heart Attack by Radwimps

The music video talks about the sadness of having to see this crazy and violent world. At the beginning, a man is sitting on the swing, singing out “I'm glad I only have two of these eyes. If I were to see all the sadness in this world, I possibly couldn't continue living. This world is so well made it's sickening.” Then he stands up, a little girl appears in front of him. She sits on a wheelchair and has her eyes covered with a blindfold, her ears with a headphone. The man starts to walk the girl toward the darkness.

The girl has a flashlight in her hand, and she’s slightly shaking as if she’s afraid. Into the darkness, we gradually see more. A dead bloody dog appears on the ground. Then an ugly, alien-looking guy that looks like the killer shows up. They both appeared for three seconds, the main guy and the little girl keeps walking as if they are only outsiders passing by. Then we see people fighting, shouting and beating each other. There’s fire, smoke and dark empty ground with little white light. The mood is pretty depressing, everything is in a slightly slow motion. As the man and the girl keeps moving on, we see they are now walking on the street, several groups of man stand on the side and stare at them with unpleasant, cold eyes. Some are drinking alcohol. This first part is saying the man doesn’t want the girl to see the sadness of the world, so he protects her by covering her eyes, ears and leading her way. She’s totally protected and knows nothing cruel.

Next, some policeman came and shoot everybody. Someone throws a torch into the car and more fire come. It was an extremely violent scene, more people get caught by the fire and run everywhere. Several seconds later, corpses are piled up on the ground and some of their families are crying. The walking man came up to close a dead girl’s eyes, seems like he wants her to leave without staring at the tragedy. The protected girl stands up from the wheelchair, she takes off her blindfold and earphone, her eyes were stitched, she starts screaming in the wind (the sound is covered by the music) and looks very painful.

The whole walking through the violent scene symbolizes the girl growing up in a horrible and violent environment, but she’s so “protected” that she doesn’t know. However, when it gets to the end, where the corpses are piled up and she realized how bad the world is, she’s in a great disappointment and sadness that it’s even worse than her seeing what happens from the very beginning.

There’s postmodernism characteristics in this sequence. At first when I see the bloody dog, it scared me, which is a bad-taste and creepy image that wouldn’t normally be used. The girl’s eyes are stitched in a creepy way as well. Also the blurring reality between the violent world and the main characters’ world could be a trait of postmodernism. They are both not hurt in this violent world, among the fire, smoke and bullets. They just walk through and watch the whole event happened. This short story is kind of too pessimistic, and we can say it’s someone’s own reality about the current society. Postmodernism is about creating another truth, and it could be any truth as long as it feels right for someone. There’s also hyperreality and playfulness in this story: it’s full of imagination. There’s lack of depth, in which the man shouts and kills for no concrete reason explained. We only see the rough outline, but it totally makes sense.

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Monster Theses Response

A monster is a mysterious creature that scares people and warns others from getting deeper into anything relative. It is a symbol of warning, but also some sort of invitation. Some people would be cautious enough to not get any closer, but others get excited and want to explore more. I would define the word “monster” as myth, unrealistic, either ugly inside or grotesque outside. From my point of view, monsters are often created within a fiction story, with strange descriptions about their parts and life.

When Cohen says “the monster’s body is a cultural body”, he means the existence of monsters reflects the creator’s emotional state and many other aspects. Whether it is a person or a culture, the creation of monster comes from the creator’s daily life. These two are relatively related, it is the creator’s surrounding that impacts the creation of monster.

I think people who become crazy on drugs are monstrous. I feel they are monsters because when they are on drugs, they are almost insane compare to normal people. Their brain stop working and they are no longer responsible for their actions. I am scary of drug people, and I wouldn’t consider having any conversation with them. I refuse the idea of them unconsciously. Just like what Cohen says, drug person keeps me from knowing the unknown, which is drug, and keeps me from going deeper.

To the question of why we create monster, I believe we create monsters upon curiosity and fear of the unknown. We create monsters because we need to find a reason for things that we are not sure of, that we can’t recognize. When something strange and different came into people’s life, we become in desparately need of naming it so it’s not longer unresonable, and we become emotionally stable.

I don’t really agree with the third thesis. Monsters could be only thoughts, and these thoughts could be played through forms of human and animals. Like I said, I believed drug people are monsters. In this case, they are absolutely human beings. On the other hand, to some people, tiger could be monster just because they are scared of tiger. It depends on how people feel, and our fears made our monsters.

The first, fifth and the seventh thesis resonate with me the most. Before I read this essay, I never really thought about the reason why monsters exist within ours and others cultures. That shows monsters do warn people from seeking deeper. However, once we start thinking about it, we become curious, and we ask ourselves, why does it exist? It must be created with a reason, and that reason is merely being discovered due to the warning effect that monsters do. Then we find the relation between monsters and our own world, we see that we are the one who keep monsters mysterious, because we are scared by them and never go deeper, and therefore we are the one who actually “create” them. There’s a lot more to explore about our mind, upon the issue of why we create monsters.

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Music Video Response

This is a music video of my favorite band Radwimps. The title is Order Made. The video starts with a clock at 11:58, which turns to 11:59 in a few seconds. Then we see two little boy in a white kitchen, one in red and the other one in blue. The red boy sits on a chair, the blue boy is cutting bread. Red boy’s face shows no emotion. Then the music starts.

The lyric talks about “me” being asked to choose whether to see the past or the future. In the screen we see the blue boy taking out a toast and a hot dog bread, and he shows them to the red boy. The red boy points at the toast, and the lyric indicates he chose the past, because he wants to become a kind person rather than a strong person, and he wants to understand what it is about his past and memories.

The blue boy starts to cut slices of tomato, different colors of pepper, and also meat. He cuts two pieces of each, and placed them on the bread, looking like he’s trying to make a sandwich. The narrator says “arms, legs, mouths, ears, eyes, hearts, breasts, and the holes in your nose, I’ll give you two of each, so isn’t that great?” Two pieces of  onions, eggs and lettuce were shown on the screen. The blue boy puts two slices of tomatoes on the top, and he looks pretty satisfied.

The red boy now turns into a red teenager. Once again he shows no emotion. In next frame the the red tennager became an adult. The music sings “but I asked a favor. I am fine with just one mouth. So that I don’t fight with myself, so that I can only kiss one person.” Then he turned his head to see the television, there’s a girl’s face showing on the screen, whose age is probably in her twentieth, and she smiles very gently. I think she might be the red boy’s lover in his past.

Then the screen goes back to the kitchen, now the man turns into his mid-age, but still wearing a red sweater. The blue boy then takes out one slice of tomato. He says: “for the most important heart, I will give you two, how’s that?” The red man now ages again, now he’s an elder. The old man refuses, he points at the right one of two pieces of meat,  saying he doesn’t need the right heart. Blue boy takes away the one slice and eats it.

The same girl in the television earlier came to the room, and she sits in front of the man with the same gentle smile. Now the man went back to a teenager, the table between these two gets smaller and smaller, and the distance between them gets shorter. Two heart shapes beside them are jumping and getting closer as well. Then both hearts get together. The message is that we only need one heart, so we can find another heart to complete it; and when we don’t find the other heart, we see something missing and we know we can not live alone. The next scene shows the old man looking sad or dull, and in front of him, the girl and her heart are gone.

Next the blue boy asks the old man if he needs tears. A drop of tears came out of the old man’s eye, he says he needs tears, so he would understand what “importance” is. The blue boy takes out several ingredient  containers, asking him the flavor he wants. There’s sour, salty, hot and sweet. The old man points at one container, then the next frame he became the mid-age man, pointing another container, and each frame he’s getting younger and pointing a different container. He decides to taste every kind of  tears in his life. Many more scenes came flashing quickly, including the smiling girl, daily life pictures, seas, the streets… random shots are shown. The boy decided to see every aspects of life, and wishes he would never forget what “importance” and “memories” are. Now the clock turns to 12:00.

Finally, at the end, the blue boy carries the big sandwich to the red boy, and the red boy holds this sandwich up. The video ends at the scene where the red boy tries to eat the sandwich, which is a representation of life and grief. The whole concept of this video is about the man in red looking back his life, feeling so regretted, but decided to be what he was, or the way human are made: to taste both the bitterness and sweetness of life, to have just one heart for finding the other one.

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Writing Response #1

Several years ago, the once-popular bell-bottoms became popular again. My sister told me that nowadays people like clothes that were popular many years ago. At that time I didn’t think more than that, until I read this article today, I find that this could be a more serious issue than it looks.

In this article, Andersen talked about the devolution of the current America’s cultural aesthetics. Andersen stated that in America’s last century, the cultural landscape changed dramatically every 20 years. Since the late 80s, America had been growing rapidly both economically and technologically. However, on the contrast, we were constantly looking back to the history in culture-related regions, including fashion, music, movie and buildings. According to Andersen, the reason why this happened was probably because the newness in technology is too much for us, so we became comforted by “a world that at least still looks the way it did in the past.” This phenomenon is not good, yet it is happening for several decades. Andersen believes the stagnation of popular style and the reject of radical change would reinforce economic stagnation as well.

I agree to Andersen’s argument. After reading the article, I found that economy is the only thing that changed dramatically in past decades. Now we could gather informations in one minute; produce products faster using machines that didn’t exist before; shop at home on a laptop… Our life is more convenient, but these things are all done based on machines. We focus more on creating and buying high-tech products, and we neglect the creation of cultural values. Companies are more concerned about profits and for the stability of its economy, they also deter dramatic changes. Culturally, the way of production is changing, but the product itself had changed very little. With the creation of technology, we are never easier to review the past, then we began looking back and are immersed in technology and the dream of the past. We study the past and unconsciously stop going forward. I would say the stagnation of popular style comes from the over-grow of technology, and is a coming tragedy for us. While our world is becoming mechanized and we are getting more materialistic, we should not forget that in last century, our former generation created such rich cultural outputs with little form of technology. The richness of our characteristics is what makes us different and beautiful as a civilization.