Assessment 3 - I will always love you

“Why God doesn’t want to come and take me away. I’m done suffering with all these.” She said that with shaky, slow, rough and deep voice. Sitting on the cane chair, she was sad, crying and telling me why God had to torture her. This was what I always heard from her at the last year of her life. I was scared. I was too young and immature to think correctly.  All I know is I hated her for saying that and I was terrified to lose her. Instead of accompany her as much time as I could, I avoided. Instead of visiting few times a week, I made it once a week.  And I regretted so much for doing that. I did not understand why she wanted to leave us so much. But now, I do.

She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever know.  Not just she survived 3 strokes at the last stage of her life, she raised 12 kid by herself and made sure they are all healthy.

Her husband died when she was 40, few months after she gave birth to her last son, who is my father. She raised her children independently with love. She went through the terrible World War II era and forced to separate with two of her eldest children. She had no choice but to left them with the relatives in China and came back to Malaysia. But she never gives up getting them back to her side. Hardship never beat her down.

She was 70 years old when I first know her. Age had done something on her face with the wrinkle and scars on her body tell stories. 70 may be a big number but she’s young at heart.  Moving around actively as she is ten years younger. I was told that she worked hard after the death of her husband in a rubber plantation from dawn till dusk. I have no idea where she got the unlimited energy to keep her active. After one whole day of work, she had to cook for the entire family and did house chores with the help of her daughters.

The Chinese Malaysian still practices the tradition. As a Taoist, she lit up 19 joss sticks as a respect to the every God every single day, twice a day and never miss a day. When she’s out of town, she’ll make sure someone at home will do it for her. Chinese believes that if you respect your God, your generations will be blessed with prosperity and health. She loved her family more than she loved herself. Her enthusiasm was answered. Market in the Malaysia language is ‘pasar’. There is one morning ‘pasar’ nearby my house.  Every morning she woke up before the cock crows and breaks the dawn. One cup of ‘kopi’ (Americano coffee in a Malaysian style) and biscuit started her daily routine. She walked to the ‘pasar’, picked up newspaper, bought groceries and our breakfast, talked to the neighbours, visited her son and daughter-in-law who owned a grocery store in the market and helped them out. She never stopped moving.

Wise and well respected in the town for her generosity on offering her help, I grew up many people coming in and out, most of them are family friends. Either they looked for traditional medication treatment or choose a decent date to get married. Chinese believed that having an event on an ideal date will help ensure that everything is going to be smooth. I could not thank her enough for giving me such a big happy family. I vividly remember where every Sunday night, all the family members gathered around in the house. There are about 50 of us, filled up the entire living room with laughter. Something I look forward to every week. She did not just influence the outsiders; she did it on me too. She always tells me to be a good girl, study hard and do not disappoint my family. She told me the stories during the hardest part of her life, said that I am very lucky to be born at this time. She wanted me to be grateful of what I have now. I remembered everything that she taught me.

Did I mention what an excellent cook she was? Growing up in a Hokkien family, she had responsible for my taste buds preference. I cannot find anything similar outside there in any restaurant. Even my mom and aunt said they cannot do better than her. Now that she is gone, she left no recipe but a great memory to be remembered.

I lived in the same house with her until I was 14 when dad got us a new house right behind her house. She refused to move in with us as she said she earned and bought that house with all her hard-earned money and it is hard for her to leave it. We thought it would not make a difference as we are still near to each other and we can visit her frequently.

Being stubborn made things worse, she was old and needed to take care of. She refused to be taken care by full time maid and insisted that she can do it by her own. One fell on the stairs triggered her first stroke. Slowly she recovered from the first and she could not wait to start walking. This time, she had to walk with a stick. I always visit her and she never stop telling me her progress of how she can walk without stick. Another stroke hits when she tried to let of the stick when she was alone in the house. That took away her mobility.

Being unable to move no matter how hard she wanted is killing her. She used to be so active. Now I understand. She was losing her memory and ability to talk like a normal person. Her pessimism scared off some family members. People did not visit her like how they did anymore. My father felt he had to be responsible for all these. He visited her on daily basis after he finished working. He hired a full-time maid to take care of all her needs. I rarely visit her by myself like what I used to do. To distract her from that, sometimes I brought along my dog or my rabbits to cheer her up. I updated her news of family members or current news. I hate her for being pessimistic but I tried my best to make her happy.

Not sure when the last stroke hit but she had to lie on the bed since and lost most of her conscious.

On January 27^th 2010, she was brought away peacefully. I was far away from home when mom called and delivered this sad news. Tried my best to hop on the first bus back home. When I finally got there, she was still breathing vaguely without conscious. Doctor told us that she will leave in an hour. I was sad but feeling happy at the same time. Now she is in somewhere happy and freed from suffer.

News spread and all the family and friends came back. Funeral was held, everyone attended to paid their last respect for this woman whom played such a remarkable role in our life. I didn’t know what her last word on her death bed was, nor told by anyone about it. One thing I know is she never stop loving us nor loved by us.

Grandma, I will always love you.

Lecture 7 Public Media

As opposed to commercial media, public media is defined as media whose mission is to serve or engage a public. Public media include traditional publicly-funded broadcasters and networks ... as well as public uses of new platforms and distribution mechanisms, such as the internet, podcasting, blogging. Increasingly, the term ‘public media’ is less associated with taxpayer supported media; it may be for profit so long as its ultimate purpose is to serve the public and not to turn a profit.


Quote from Nigel Milan, 'The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens' 
Their main goal is to connect to their audience, not to make a profit from it. Make no profit means they need some help and in this case, they are mostly funded by the government. Isn't that a dilemma? They want to deliver true
and trustworthy news to the viewers but they are receiving help from the government. They cannot criticize the government's mistake publicly but they want their audience to know. How can they draw a clear line between government and citizens? Now that I see commercial media has their challenge to choose between quality & profit, public media is facing this too. 


Back in my hometown, I did not spend much time on TV station that is categorized under public media except for prime time news. Mainly because they are biased towards major political party, didn't report the big news truthfully and often send wrong, biased messages to the audience. Anyway, they make better quality program such as documentary and heart-ripping stories to the audience. While commercial media may neglect these social news, public media will cover it for us. 


I can't help but to compare and try to choose which one is better. Commercial or public media? I have this pros & cons list in my heart. In the end, I found the existence of both media are equally important. They need to be there to balance the choices of audience where they want more entertainment or information. Let's hope the commercial media will find it's way to make a show that is profitable with good quality and public media will be cleared from it's dilemma.

Lecture 6 Commercial Media

Commercial Media, a whole new vocabulary to me. This lecture is very informative even though Bruce is talking about the names of commercial media whom 99% I've never heard of. It was all Greek to me but I know to keep up with the pace I have to know and understand it.

Bruce talked about what is commercial media, who are they, how they make money, what do they produce, their form and function, social responsibility and the challenges they are facing.

Apparently commercial media made their money through advertisers and they are profit-driven. Not funded by government, they have to create interesting program to attract audience so that they can sell these advertising slot! It made them do what the audience wants to see and sometimes biased to the powerful people.

I paid extra attention on this part of lecture : the social responsibility of commercial media. As profit comes before quality, how can commercial media actually deliver quality material to the audience? It made me thinks about nowadays commercial media often deliver news as entertainment because people want to see that instead of a form of information. Over the time, it became more like tabloid instead of news reporting.
To balance well quality and profit, commercial media is struggling to come out with something that is informative and profitable. They need to put in extra effort so that they don't lose audience. Unfortunately, by far there's no commercial media is doing a great job on reaching the equilibrium state.

Commercial media has to be responsible for the social. As they create what people want to see, they should deliver the correct messages of what people should know. Of course, profit is very important to the media but they shouldn't let some powerful people control it and use it as a media to control people's mind.

Lecture 5 Sound

Initially I thought this lecture of 'Sound' will be something Bruce pre-record and talk about this topic. Turned out it is an interview of Richard and Steve. Didn't really enjoy it because I find it not easy to stay attentive. But there's a few take offs.

I agreed with Richard's point that radio is a more intimate media in our life. Growing up, I get most of my information from the radio as I will on it and let it play in the air while I do something else.

Tracing back the history, radio is inseparable to someone's life. Tell you a story of mine.
My grandma told me about her life with radio. When she was in her mid 30s, which was 70 years ago, she was struggling with everyday living. As my grandpa passed away early, she has to take care of 12 kids and raise them up by her own. Before the sun breaks the dawn, she had to get up to work in the rubber tree plantation and work until the sun sets. After she went home, she dealt with alot of housework and she didn't really had time to sit down and update herself with news. She got this second hand radio from one of her relative.  The first thing she did when she reached home is turn on the radio and like everyone else, let it play in the air. It pretty much eased up her little bit. She said without it, she'll not be able to know what's going on in this world.

Richard mentioned that because there's no visual, the host need to make sure his listener feel connected to him. Whatever he says has to, in some way, effectively pass on the message and emotion.

The host has to be very alert during interview because the subject may take a long pause during conversation and he has to fill in these empty spaces with words to make the interview lively and interesting. Yet, there's advantage of conducting interview with voice. Because the interview is not visualize, subject tends to feel more comfortable and open up to the host.

Voice expression is extremely important. If the host is feeling empathy, he can lower and soften the tone. If he is excited, he can talk faster and louder! By this way, your audience will feel more connected.

Overall this lecture is quite informative, even though I already have knowledge about it. Although now I didn't listen to radio (refer to my media use diary), I still love to listen to radio.

Lecture 4 Picture Stories

A photo is worth a thousand words.

 That's the magic of  a single still image that has conveyed meanings inside it. A great photo can capture the emotions of the subject at that moment and share it with the viewers. Great photo can even affects the viewer's emotion and give a visual idea of what is happening.


Bruce walked us through the history of picture. From the ancient cave painting to glass paint in church, from the one of the oldest pictorial book - Book of Kell's to the first illustrated newspaper, and now, all with digital. 
He also mentioned nowadays how fast photojournalism has developed from the first printed photo on newspaper to people can capture an image an post it online within a second. 

He also discussed the good and evil of digital manipulation (Photoshop) and showed us a video about faux-tography. That is my first time watching it and very interesting! With the help of technology advancement, we can now manipulate the photo digitally with photo editting software. I have to say the freedom of journalism in my hometown is not publicly known especially when comes to politic. News and photos of major media are often twisted and biased to what their boss wants them to write. For an example, the 20,000 people anti Lynas rally back in my hometown, the photographer took a whole view of the events and cut off half of the people, replacing it with green field grass. This photo was printed on main press and it gave the public a wrong impression. 

So what makes a great photo? Bruce taught us some basic technique of photography to make the photo looks more interesting and captivating such as the framing, focus, angle & POV, exposure, shutter speed, rule of third 

and last but not least, being able to capture 'The Moment'

Capturing the moment is so important that it made the photographer a good one. Is it so important? What about all the skill that mentioned above? 

Let me show you some photos that captured my attention and I always remember it. 

At 1951, Arthur Sasse took a photo of the legendary Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. Not only it showed the playful side of him, it also told us he is not some serious science maniac. If Arthur doesn't know how to capture it in that second, Albert will keep his tongue back and people will never see this side of him.

Next on, 'The Kiss' taken by Alfred Eisentaedt. It became of the most memorable photo of post WWII. In thie photo the soldier and the nurse doesn't even know each other and he randomly kissed her. As a good photographer, Alfred managed to capture that moment with a perfect pose! The pose might have changed the seconds after that!

Therefore, being able to capture the moment make you a good photographer.

When Bruce showed us this quote "If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it makes you rip your heart out, then that's a good picture." this photo came up to my mind. Taken by Kevin Carter during the Sudan Famine. A vulture was behind the skinny and helpless children, there's a thousand message in this photo such as desperation, hunger and hopeless. It did ripped my heart out. I can never forget the first time I saw this photo. Sudden emotion wave rushed into me and I almost cry.

Show you a photo I saw recently that almost ripped my heart out, taken by unknown photographer.

Didn't it made you think deeply what has global warming done to them? And what can we do to help them?

Great photo makes you think.

Nowadays capturing 'The Moment' is more easy than ever. With the popularity of smartphones, people no longer has to carry a camera with them. Photojournalism is now very advanced and easier with the social networking. Now everyone can snap, upload and share. 

Are you a good interviewer?

A great journalist should equipped themselves with great interview skill. 

Yesterday I came across this interesting article :

9 Tips on Conducting Great Interviews

How to dig up interesting and exclusive stories form subject? How not to get common and scripted answers like other press got?

I always know that the person who conduct the interview is the key person who decides what kind of story he will get. Especially when the subject is having few interviews in a day, if his questions are boring and ordinary as other people would ask. He'll lost the news value. Hence, his question has to be interesting enough to capture the subject's attention and willing to answer more and it's better if they give out more extra stories!

This article is short and informative. Worth a read.

4 days till assessment due and 4 lecture reviews to write!!! My time management is really bad.

Highlight of my last 3 weeks.

It has been awhile since I blog something! Can't believe it has been 3 weeks since the last assessment due. Felt like it just happened yesterday. This week is by far the most heavy week of my new semester as I have 2 mid terms on weekend and an assessment of this course due on Friday!

Recalling this few weeks, it was very eventful. I didn't really have time to stop and rest.


One of the highlight is I finally got myself a camera. As I want something that's almost professional and not too bulky, the compact ones fits the best. It has been a tough decision because I had find a camera that balances both quality and quantity(price!). Lumix GF3 in Rose Pink! I'm still getting use to it as there's so many things to play with! Here's a shot I took from Surfers Paradise :) Woke up early in the morning with my cousin sister and watched an amazing sunrise.


Another photo I took. I'm going to practice as much as I can so that I can always capture 'The Moment' !