Media Autobiography

Thanks to the One-Child Policy in China where I grew up until the age of 14, I spent most of my childhood with accompany of television, radio, and books.  I was lucky that my parents were “open-minded” enough to let me watch TV for an “appropriate” amount of time.  Well, there weren’t many choices, speaking most of the time I was choosing channels by pushing 7 buttons that were actually working, literally on the television machine. But, I still made the best out of them, quite enjoyed at the time what was popular: my detective cartoon, lost princess soap drama and evening news. My grandfather made radio not a choice, but a must, on every weekend when we kids go visit.   By constantly playing it in the background,  My cousins and I were able to catch some juicy “world news” every now and then, which we didn’t care much to understand at the time. Books are our “Daily Bread” so do speak by our teachers at school, not those self-growing , motivating stories or classic literature you think they would be, but rather encouraged more text books outside of classroom, which those books supposedly to facilitate your better understandings of the materials already in school. I called them “put-your-brain-in-a-box-and-locked-it-up” books. Not until 9 years ago, my parents decided to move to U.S., that I am more exposed to newspapers, magazines, movies, and Internet. The first thing I was warned, when I first landed was not to watch “rate-R” movies , recordings, Internet etc, which I didn’t have a clue what it means until three years later, when I picked up my English from watching Disney Channel.  I am very fond of the media choices I could have now, but I do have to admit I was little intimidated at first. Internet to me was “www.blank.com”, until Google;  Movies ‘ choices were made upon my friends who could read and understand critics review; my fingers were sprinted on trying to  read newspapers because I looked up dictionary way too many times;  Magazines and CD recordings were much more pleasant , of course with the magazine choice of having a lot of visual pictures. So my story now is just like any other typical first generation immigrants, with our horizon suddenly expanded, under great influences from our nourishing Silicon Valley here it is. And now I am writing my first blog sharing my experiences with various media and many more to come.