Starbucks

Received a call from ex-colleague, asked me out for lunch. Why not, i told myself. Ended up having lunch at Starbucks. Third times to starbucks in two days. I was in 3 different city, meeting 3 different people, but had the same kind of coffee and foods. If Starbucks is all about selling a lifestyle, then i guess i've sold my lifestyle to the Texan

personally i was never a fan of starbucks, but in terms of their business model, i am full of admiration. The price is high, the coffee is seriously nothing to shout about, the decoration is just typical. You can find thousand of reasons that it may or it shoul fail, but not only it survived, but it is forming part of our life. Starbucks may be a sunset business in European countries, but it has no sign of wilting in the Asia counterpart.

now it has appeared to me that things that are popular in USA will make way to Japan, taiwan, HK or Singapore, then it will make way to Malaysia or maybe thailand/ indonesia. Eventually it will reach China as the popularity declined in European countries. Thanks to the technology, many trends no longer going through the cycle, but the theory still valid in many terms. Many traders or businessman have successfully ride on the bandwagon and make a big bucks out of it, Berjaya Group definitely is one of them.

My question is, why are we so willingly to be culturally conquered by the western counterparts? Theis grass just seems greener in every way. With small alternation, their popular items will definitely stormed into our life and accepted it as a cultural norm. I try to struggle and failed, but i am still holding my last breath. No idea what was i upholding with, but i just cant stop myself but feeling pity for the 90's babies. no doubt they apdoted well, living a better life, breaking through a lot of so call tradition that restricted social advancement, but i just felt the human touch and soul is missing somewhere. Individualism is rising to the mainstream, and social pride just seems a little bit far off...

my pessimsim may be due to the group of 90's babies i am observing are from higher income group, which have absolute no idea the actual value of RM10,000. but it is good enough to keep me shivering.

age gap

yesterday had a reunion dinner with a few schoolmate of mine. Inevitably our conversation involved 'facebook' very much. " remember to tag me!" " ur singapore trip seems so fun!" i do find it kinda freaky that we were still unable to offline even when we are meeting up physically. We have not met each other for more than 8 years, and know nothing about our education background or current job status, but everyone seems to know that who has been to bali, and who is currently happily attached. So now the world has change so much you will know all the private matters of a person, but besides that, you know nothing about him or her. hey, this is so different from the defination of aquantance from merely 5 years back!

as much as i personally hooked up to facebook as well, i am actually hating the effect that it broughts along. This schoolmate of mine asked me why would a guy change their status to 'in relationship with' in facebook n thus causing their market price to drop. I cheekily answered that mostly likely the gf used the account and change the status (which i strongly believe so), and i made some comment about how silly of people declaring that you turned single or having a relationship with who to all the people be it friends or acquantance.

then my friend made a really good statement that caught me thinking until now :" well, they definitely can and will do so because facebook is the platform of showing off your narcissistic, telling the world that look, i am soooo cool looking."

seriously, the statement actually change my perspective towards facebook as i tried to digest the statement. i am beginning to think that the reason i despice those showboat in facebook because i am putting my slightly conservative perspective on them without realizing the creation and the reason of facebook being so popular. Narcissism, i have overlook your existance.

many things i've failed to comprehend yet, and i am actually seeing age gap among group that are merely few years younger than me. The true reason is because internet only slowly infused to my life as i entering college where those younger than me 2 yeras or more actually have internet as part of their life. in internet world, i am older b 20 years. this maybe a general statement, but this is how i generally felt towards those city boy/girl that are younger than me.

good example is that i havae concern over privacy and the importance of keeping things to myself in certain things/occasion, but this seems to be a weird idea to others. I thought having a blog is already the biggest breakthrough in terms of privacy, but twitter just proved that young people thirst to be heard and to be known, and nothings else seems to be an issue.

call me old fashion, but i will not bow down to twitter as it definitely crossed my final line. And what's more important, i have lost the fun of writing and receiving letter from pen-pal, i do not wish to lose my blog.

p/s: have the sudden thought that most books lover are the one hold thight to the great feeling of written letters, does it make us more conversative?