effort paid off中文的八卦，Yahoo名人娛樂都在討論

感激Selina Kinyee Chau翻譯我的散文作品，讓香港及台灣以外的朋友都能看得明白，從中文走向英語，是我作品的大突破，感謝妳一字一句的用心翻譯：）

《WhatsApp and its USD0.99》
by Roy Kwong Translated by Selina Kinyee Chau

The WhatsApp software developer has informed its users to the app to be payable, triggering a fight between iPhone users and android users because iPhone users only pay USD0.99 once to enjoy life-long service but android users need to pay the same price every year.

Android users complain, “Why iPhone users only need to pay once but we need to pay every year?” iPhone users retort, “You didn’t say anything when we were being charged at the beginning. And now you are complaining.” So the two parties are stuck at whether the charge is unfair to Android users.

After the Two Ticks and Last seen on (Please refer to the previous article of the same writer), the WhatsApp started a fight again because of this USD0.99 issue. From between lovers to friends, now it has even extended to the whole user group of the two giant software developers. It should be named the Most Evil App of the Century.

The inconsistency of charging is of course WhatsApp’s fault. However, for those who can afford a smart phone that cost thousands dollars will be able to afford USD0.99 which is only the price of a can of coke, won’t they?

Some student users may complain, “I don’t have a credit card, I’m not able to pay at the App Store, WhatsApp are not considerate of us.” It is reasonable for users under 18 to complain if they don’t have a credit card. But if the charge is a disaster of WhatsApp, isn’t it just time for people to show their kindness? Friends who have a credit card can rescue others at this time, “I have a credit card. Let me pay it for you.”

Friends without a credit card will appreciate what you have done for them, although it is WhatsApp’s fault of the forbiddance of sending messages before the expiry date, reactivating the function for your friends by buying them a can of coke is meaningful, isn’t it? The USD0.99 of WhatsApp has created a chance to show your care to your friends, how nice as a social networking app!

Recall those days when we were still texting, it was actually not financial friendly at all. For the sake of keeping in touch with our friends, we were compelled to use the same service provider as theirs even its service was the worst in the world and we had to survived three times every day from losing connection just because to keep the text messages free of charge.

Still, the Two Ticks and Last seen on functions have created a lot of problem. But the invention of WhatsApp allows us to send messages for free, save us from paying for every text messages. It deserves to be granted a credit. And the simplified process by just clicking a few buttons to send pictures, videos and audios when we could only do so via email in the past. What’s more, WhatsApp had actually stated in the Terms and Conditions that charge may be applied after the first year.

So there have been so many complaints about WhatsApp being unfairness and has been given the name “a broken app” when it announced to charge? No one ever said something like that before the charging. After the charge applied, negative comments has swept over the Internet. Some suggested to use another communication app, Line, which is free of charge, and WhatsApp has become the public enemy. Despite the inconsistent charge, what’s wrong for WhatsApp to charge for using the app?

Have we become too comfortable enjoying free lunch without notice?

I still remember how hard I tried to save to buy a CD home and listened to it again and again when I was a kid. I had never been tired of it because it wasn’t easy. When there was a movie I liked, I saved hard to go to the cinema for it. If I didn’t have enough money, I bought the VCD when it was released. But VCDs were only available for movies not for TV shows. I had to start sitting in front of the TV before the show I liked started so that I wouldn’t miss any parts. And recorders became my good friend too. I really cherished the only-180-minute memory of every tape.

After I grew up, thanks to the advanced technology becomes able to store everything, the TV, computer, CD player, VCD player, game station and recorders, into ONE smart phone, only without the air conditioner. Want to listen to a song? Go to Youtube; want a movie? PPS, internet TV! A TV show? There are also apps you can watch live TV or play back. Want some games? From Angry Bird to Candy Crush, there are thousands of choices waiting for you.

However, The advance of technology has devalue our attitude towards making efforts. Because everything has become easy to get nowadays.

Have you noticed the songs nowadays are not as good as those in the past? That could be the problem of quality itself but more likely, it is because we have too many options. Now we just need to click a few buttons, thousands of search results will come out and we can listen to them right after. We are spoiled to be greedy unconditionally. We didn’t realize how long we hadn’t paid for a CD until the news of HMV’s bankruptcy spread out.

In the past we had to sit still and paid 100% attention to the movie to enjoy it, now we can just watch it from a few-inch-wide screen on a train. But the price is we keep being interrupted by the surrounding noise and people. When the character is saying something moving, we would just realize we’ve missed the stop and have to rush to get off. It may be free to watch a movie like this but I prefer paying to buy a ticket to go to the cinema.

We don’t need to worry about missing the best part of a TV show because our friends always share them on Facebook. We don’t need to watch every scene but you know what is going on in every story. But why is there still something missing? It turns out that we only keep the concentrated part of everything while the every well panned detail has been wasted. We don’t spend time building a connection with the characters in the story. However, if we don’t even spend time watching the the TV show by ourself, how can we feel the same way as the characters do, like we did in the past?

You don’t feel the pain losing something if you have never made any effort. It is just like we keep those old comics that we spent all our pocket money on even they are old and worn , but we are able to uninstall an app on our phone without a thought. Well, just take a couple seconds to download and we will own it again anytime.

While we are expecting making no effort, we are also destroying creativity. Creators lack of motivation. Creativity is worth nothing nowadays. People will search for replacement when one creativity starts to charge. This is not just about the USD0.99 of WhatsApp, it’s about our value on Give and Take.

Technology has changed our life, but we should never let it change our values.

We avoid Giving. But giving is vital for us to learn to cherish. Sometimes we get back more by giving than not giving, not just about money but also about love. Think about it, if we get what we want easily without paying any effort, comparing with that you devote yourself to a relationship while the other devotes to the relationship as much as you. Then none of you will give up on the relationship easily.

If you think WhatsApp is good, it deserves the USD0.99. Although I am still annoyed by the evil functions such as the Two Ticks and Last Seen on. WeChat is free but you have to pay your liberty of speech for it. One user once tried to send the name of Southern Weekly in Chinese, the system reminded him that “The message has involved sensitive words, please try again after making modification.” What’s wrong with the name of Southern Weekly? The even more ridiculous thing is, while I am writing this article, I get the news that WeChat now has tightened up the regulation that users have to use their real name, phone number when posting on the public forum and are even required to upload the photo of them with their ID card, like you have committed some serious crime.

To avoid paying USD0.99, you need to escape to somewhere that and be monitored. One day if you really encounter some sensitive issue, you will realize not paying actually pays more than paying. I believe most of readers are willing to pay for this USD0.99. We hope WhatsApp will open up more channels for payments.

Don’t let the wheels of Time make us forget the value of giving.


Writer for Yam Taiwan, Roy Kwong
http://goo.gl/aQD8B

<<冒用亞裔姓名而獲詩作入選所引發的軒然大波
A White Poet Borrows a Chinese Name and Sets Off Fireworks>>

New York Times, Sept. 8th (by Jeniifer Schuessler) -- This year’s edition of the anthology “Best American Poetry” has come under criticism for including a poem by a white poet writing under a Chinese pseudonym, touching off intense online debate about diversity, inclusion and racial entitlement in the poetry world.
在收錄了一名用中文筆名寫作的白人詩人的作品後，今年的《美國最佳詩作》選集受到不少責難。此事在網路上引發了詩壇中關於多樣性、包容性和種族特權的熱烈討論。

“The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve” was submitted to the anthology, published on Tuesday by Scribner, by a little-known poet named Michael Derrick Hudson, under the pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou. After the poem’s selection, Mr. Hudson revealed his identity to the volume’s editor, Sherman Alexie, who decided to include it anyway, along with a note explaining the use of the pseudonym.
默默無聞的詩人Michael Derrick Hudson用周一峰(Yi-Fen Chou)作為筆名，向《美國最佳詩作》投稿了自己的作品《蜜蜂、鮮花、耶穌、古代的老虎、波塞頓、亞當和夏娃》。詩選由出版社Scribner於週二刊出。作品入選後，Hudson對《美國最佳詩作》主編Sherman Alexie表明了自己的真實身份，並附上對使用這一筆名的相關解釋。結果Alexie依然決定收錄這首詩。

In an essay on the Best American Anthology blog on Monday, Mr. Alexie, a Native American, defended his decision, saying he had paid closer attention to the poem because of the author’s name — a kind of “racial nepotism,” he said — but ultimately chose it because he liked it.
週一，身為土生土長美洲人的Alexie在《美國最佳詩作》部落格上發文為自己的決定辯護，他聲稱因為作者的名字，他給與了這首詩更多關注─他表示，這是一種「種族裙帶行為」─但選擇那首詩的最終原因是自己喜歡。

When Mr. Hudson revealed his use of a pseudonym, Mr. Alexie wrote, he debated how to deal with this instance of “colonial theft,” but decided that dropping the poem “would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen” and “implied that I chose poems based only on identity.”
Alexie寫道，當Hudson表明自己用的是筆名時，他考慮過該如何處理這起「殖民盜用」事件，但後來下定決心，認為放棄這首詩「會讓我對選出來的每首詩產生懷疑」，並「意味著我只是根據作者的身份來選詩。」

“I hadn’t been fooled by its ‘Chinese-ness’ because it contained nothing that I recognized as being inherently Chinese or Asian,” Mr. Alexie wrote.
「我並沒有被它的『華人元素』給欺騙，因為它並沒有包含在我看來是華人或亞裔固有特色的成分，」 Alexie如此表示。

Mr. Hudson, who works as an indexer at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., did not answer messages requesting comment. But in the biographical note in “Best American Poetry,” he explained that he often sent poems out under the name Yi-Fen Chou.
Hudson在印第安那州韋恩堡的艾倫縣公共圖書館當索引編輯員，而他並沒有對於被提出的要求做任何回覆及評論。但在《美國最佳詩作》的簡介中，他解釋自己經常用周一峰的筆名投稿其詩歌創作。

“As a strategy for ‘placing’ poems this has been quite successful for me,” he said, noting that “The Bees” had been rejected 40 times under his own name but only nine times under the pseudonym before it was printed by the journal Prairie Schooner.
他認為「作為一種讓詩作『入眼』的策略，這個辦法對我來說相當成功，」，並指出自己用真實姓名寄出《蜜蜂》後被拒絕了40次，用筆名只被拒絕了九次，然後就在期刊《草原篷車》上被刊登了。

“If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print,” Mr. Hudson wrote. (Poems under his own name have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry, this year.)
Hudson還這麼寫著「如果說這真的是美國2015年最好的詩作之一，那為了要刊登它還真是費了些功夫，」。（今年，以他真名署名的詩作出現在了包括《詩歌》[Poetry]在內的眾多期刊上。）

Mr. Hudson’s blunt explanation drew outrage and ridicule online. “Never thought I’d see poets using yellowface to get published in 2015 but here we are,” Saeed Jones, a poet and the literary editor of Buzzfeed, said on Twitter. Jezebel ran a post under the headline “If You’re a White Man Who Can’t Get Published Under Your Own Name, Take the Hint.”
Hudson這般露骨的解釋在網路上引發了憤怒和嘲諷兼有的一陣論戰。「從來沒想過，到了2015年居然會看到詩人為了能發表作品而假裝自己是黃種人，但現在還真就看到了，」本身也是詩人的Buzzfeed文學主編Saeed Jones在Twitter上如此表示。Twitter上的另一個帳號Jezebel也發表了一篇文章，標題是《如果你是用真名發表不了作品的白人，看這裡》。

Ken Chen, a poet and executive director of the Asian American Writers Workshop, said Mr. Hudson was guilty of “cynical mischief” in the service of a “reactionary fantasy.”
同樣身為詩人的亞裔美國作家工作坊行政總監陳聖為(Ken Chen)表示，Hudson利用「反動幻想」的做法是犯了「虛偽惡作劇」的錯誤。

“He believes that he’s being cheated, and things will only improve if writers of color are virtualized away,” Mr. Chen said in an interview. “If only they didn’t really exist, and were just white guys with pseudonyms.”
「他以為別人在作弊，只有當有色人種作家被虛化掉，情況才會有所改善，」陳聖為在接受採訪時說。「他們其實並不存在，都是用了筆名的白人就好了。」

Rigoberto González, a poet who teaches at Rutgers University, Newark, said that Mr. Hudson had inadvertently “given a language to the anxiety that’s out there” among nonwhite writers: that they are included as tokens.
在紐華克羅格斯大學任教的詩人Rigoberto González認為，Hudson無意之間讓非白人作家「本已存在的焦慮具現化了」：他們是作為一種象徵被接納的。

“He’s buying into this notion of ‘I’ll be noticed because I have this ethnic name,’ ” Mr. González said. “But that’s what many writers of color are trying to avoid. We just happen to have ethnic names. But we are getting published because we are also good poets.”
「他相信『我會因為用了這個有種族特色的名字而被注意到』的觀念，」岡薩雷斯說。「但這正是很多有色人種作家在努力避免的。我們只是碰巧擁有了有種族特色的名字。我們的作品能發表是因為我們也是優秀的詩人。」

On Twitter on Monday, Mr. Alexie found a silver lining, writing, “I’m exhausted by the Best American Poetry mess, but wow, how cool that so many people are crazy-passionate about poems.”
週一的時候，Alexie還從這件事上發現了亮點。他在Twitter上寫道，「被《美國最佳詩作》的爛攤子搞得精疲力盡，不過話說回來，哇，有這麼多人對詩歌有著瘋狂的熱情真是太酷了。」

Mr. González, however, said that including Mr. Hudson had distracted from the anthology.
然而，González表示，收錄Hudson作品這件事轉移了人們對《美國最佳詩作》本身的注意力。

“There are good poems and other new names in the anthology, but all we’ve been hearing about is this guy,” Mr. González said. “It’s really a shame.”
González說「選集中有不少優秀的詩歌和其他一些新秀，但我們聽到的所有討論都是關於這一個人的，」他認為這樣「真的很遺憾。」

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