HIEA 114 Self Introduction
Hi, my name is Katheryn Lin, but I go by Kathy. I am a 3rd year student double majoring in Japanese Studies and Economics. As a Taiwanese, I grew up in an environment that Japanese culture is everywhere. I began to watch anime from 3 or 4 years old, and became super addicted to anime since then. My closed family members are mostly Japanese-friendly, too. I later found myself very interested in subjects about Japan. Therefore, I started to learn Japanese at around 10 years old, and chose Japanese Studies as my primary choice for college major. My dream is to live and work in Japan. I pick this class because I have to fulfill the requirements for Japanese Studies major, but I am also very excited about studying Japanese history. I will look forward to see what I could learn from this class.
From Cooke’s article, we can know that she thinks the pandemic is double-sided. Of course, the pandemic is a disaster to the whole world as many people died, the economy gets influenced, people are forced to change their lifestyles, etc. But, Cooke also sees some good things that happen because of this pandemic. I personally cannot make any comment on this statement. I agree that the pandemic somehow connects people together as people start to help each other and family members start to contact each other more, but from other hand, I also think the pandemic pushes people away from each other since we have the quarantine and social distance policies. My life became a terrible mess because of this pandemic. I will never forgive it even if it has a good side.
When Cooke mentions new forms of entertainment, it reminds me about my new love I found in last year, vtubers. Vtubers, or Vstreamers, are youtubers/streamers with virtual avatars. This new industry came out in around 2016 or 2017, gradually grew in 2018 and 2019, then suddenly sky-rocketed in 2020, right after the pandemic outbreak. I think this can be an example of new entertainment as people could only stay at home so many of them choose to either watch livestreams or become streamers. Not only vtubers, but the whole concept of “virtual” has boosted after the pandemic happened. Online classes/meetings and Metaverse are also examples. If cannot meet in real life, then just meet in the virtual world! I believe that the virtual industry is a change the pandemic brings to us. However, I genuinely do not know this change is good or bad though. Because can social interactions in real life and in virtual world be the same?
