Is computer gaming generally good or bad？- Part III Q3 refers to activities that when doing it, you have unpleasant feeling and it actually does not have any long-term benefits on you. Sometimes, we do this out of anger. For example, quarreling with your girlfriend after she maxed out your credit card on Black Friday. Q4 refers to activities that makes you “high” when doing it but you may end up with nothing but regrets and guiltiness. We do a bunch of these things, like binge-watching TV shows, smoking, cheating on your wife, you name it. For most people, playing video games falls within the Q4 category. When doing it, you feel great pleasure and can’t stop playing it. Afterwards, you might very likely blame yourself on wasting so much time on it. (Don’t tell me you had never experienced that). If you’re an ambitious guy with a dream of becoming an “A-lister” in the future, you should try your best to avoid doing things in Q3 and focus on tasks in Q1 and Q2. And I would not suggest you get involved in too many activities in Q4 unless you’re an extremely disciplined person.

Is computer gaming generally good or bad？- Part I The horizontal axis represents the instant feeling you may feel when doing an activity. It goes from unpleasant to pleasant feeling. The vertical axis represents the long-term benefits you can get from that activity, and it goes from zero long-term benefits to great long-term benefits. We then have four quadrants in the diagram, i.e. Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4.

Why doesn't China have superhero movie? I agree that we don't have superhero stuff in China. Culturally speaking, Chinese people are more of collectivism that individualism. We value the harmony of the society. When telling a story, we are more likely to focus on the relationship between people than the people themselves. This is the reason that you cannot find a superhero novel in China despite our long history. For example, the major four classic novels in China all deal with a group of people. The Journey to the West is about a story of 1 monk and 3 humanoid characters; A Dream in Red Mansion is about a man with a bunch of women; Water Margin is about 108 bandits; and Roman of the Three Kingdom is about numerous people. Ideologically speaking, the Chinese government and lots of Chinese people are believers of Marxism. Marxism contains the doctrine of historical materialism, holding that the history is mainly created by the ordinary people, rather than one or two heroes. In other words, it is the people behind the scene that makes the history, while hero is just the last straw which breaks camel's back. If it was not George Washington, it would be Peter Washington. But nothing would be achieved without efforts of the ordinary people. That being said, nowadays, western superhero stuff is getting more and more popular among young folks in China because it is really cool. Therefore, I believe as the Chinese society gets more and more diverse, talented young folks will make a superhero of Chinese style sooner or later.

Why It was a Bad Suggestion ? I wrote an entry yesterday, sharing some thoughts generated after a friend of mine gave me a wrong suggestion. After that, several italki friends left message, wondering what was the suggestion. This entry is written to answer the question and explain why. My friend suggested me to read textbook loudly to improve my spoken English. I think it a bad idea, because, while reading something alone, we can not get any feedback in terms of grammar and vocabulary, so we will repeatedly make the same mistakes. The better way is to read something after the sound of a native speaker, mimicking his/her pronunciation and tone. I tried this before, reading the lines of clips from an American TV series "Boston Legal" for 8 months. But even this "upgraded" approach, though helping me solve some problems regarding pronunciation and tone, is not very useful to make you a natural English speaker, because, daily conversation requires instant responses, which can only be improved by practicing with people; also, although we can learn some phrases from the text or lines, if we don't practice them in our writing or speaking, we will forget their usage sooner or later, which makes our efforts a waste of time. Thank you for all of the people who helps me correct my entry. Wish you have a nice day !