The Three Old Ladies

As I was walking down the street 

With a morsel of meat 

I bowed down to greet 

Three old ladies 

Three old ladies 

Walking down the the street 

Together side by side 

Carrying a morsel of meat, too! 

 

One’s Madam Hess 

A lover of chess 

The other’s Madam Bess 

Who used to play brass 

 

Last but not least 

Prepare yer curtsy, ladies 

The only living descendant…. 

Prepare yer bows, gentlemen 

Of the House of Yeast! 

She’s the only person who can claim 

The House of Yeast’s 

White and blue crest 

Lady Le’Jess! 

And so here ends 

My introduction of our new friends 

The three old ladies 

That we met down the street 

With a morsel of meat 

Madam Hess, Madam Bess, and Lady Le’Jess! 

Global Warming, Influencers, and Social Scientists.

 Global warming. A topic heard almost everyday and found everywhere. It is the gradual but quick heat up of Earth because of the greenhouse gases that we produce. This is a problem that has been going on for years but was just brought to public awareness in the late 90s. The problem snowballed in the last 10 years and scientists have been warning the world that immediate actions must be taken to tackle it. However, we don’t see much progress. More innovative ways are needed to influence individuals to be more active to reduce their carbon emissions as the call to slow down climate change is so far ineffective in Indonesia.

Environmental activists and scientists have stepped up their efforts to bring awareness to the public about the peril of climate change. However, sadly, their efforts are futile. One of the reasons for that is because it’s very difficult to change people’s habits and lifestyles. Modern lifestyles are full of convenience and comfort, mostly due to the advancement of science and technology. Electronic appliances have made our lives so much easier. We use washing machines to wash our dirty clothes, refrigerators to keep our food fresh, and AC to keep ourselves cool during hot summer. These are essentials that we can’t live without, but they are also one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases. Knowing this, we should attempt to do something about it. It may be daunting to change lifestyles, but everyone can start small. We can start by reducing the amount of electricity we use. Only using electricity when necessary, such as turning on ACs after a certain temperature and humidity and purchasing energy-saving electronics are a few ways to save energy.   

A change of lifestyle is a difficult one to make, especially when it’s about the usage of electronics and vehicles. To help encourage the change into a greener lifestyle, I think the government and scientists can work together with influencers and social scientists, like psychologists and sociologists, to influence the public. They can create a movement or trend that subconsciously influences people’s lifestyles into a greener one. Social scientists will then analyze the results of their experiment to create better methods in influencing people. An example would be an experiment that was conducted in an apartment complex. Three different stickers are prepared and each symbolises the amount of energy used by the residents. These stickers are put on each resident’s door to represent the amount of energy used by each housing. A red sticker for residents with the most energy usage, a green one for those improving, and a golden star for those who used the least amount of energy. This type of social competition evokes every person’s competitive side and each tries their best to reduce the amount of energy used. Perhaps through this experiment, social scientists could analyze how our competitive nature increases our efforts to create better results. This experiment might be more popular if influencers take part in these competitions and broadcast how each and every of them are trying to live an eco-friendly lifestyle.

To encourage this eco-friendly lifestyle movement, governments could also pay influencers to create the image that the eco-friendly life is the new elite. Eco-friendly products are usually more expensive than others, so this fits the image of a high-class person. Governments could buy and distribute to the influencers the eco-friendly products from the many eco-friendly entrepreneurs in Jakarta. Or perhaps they could give an eco-friendly house to the influencers to live in. An example of an eco-friendly lifestyle is the VSCO girls/boys. VSCO defines the lifestyle of a middle class teenager. They are well known to promote the use of metal straws and bring their own hydro flasks, with “Save the sea turtles” as one of their slogans. In a kind of way, this brought the public’s attention on how plastic garbage is harming turtles. If VSCO teens are a thing in Jakarta, then perhaps the government could fund the influencers’ VSCO life with all their eco-friendly products and lifestyle. As the public, especially the young generation, tends to follow and idolize influencers, they might follow whatever the influencers do. Sociologists can then be brought in to analyze the public’s response to this new trend and give new ideas for the influencers and governments to try out.

However, as much as influencers and social scientists can affect people to change their lifestyle, many might not be able to follow them due to the lack of infrastructure in Jakarta. Infrastructures are one of the main pillars of a person’s lifestyle. There is a lack of eco-friendly infrastructure to support an eco-friendly lifestyle. One thing that almost everyone in Jakarta owns, from the poor to the elite, is a type of private vehicle. Almost everyone uses private vehicles to the point that it has become Jakarta’s lifestyle. Affordable vehicles and lack of access to comfortable and safe public transportation results in a lot of people owning private vehicles. In addition to that, many of Jakarta’s roads are not improved or built, with many roads already outstripping the space capacity for all of Jakarta’s vehicles. This causes traffic jams to be frequently found in Jakarta’s roads. Large amounts of diesel is wasted and carbon dioxide produced more than necessary due to these traffic jams. As roads could take a long time to build, some people might  think of switching to electric vehicles. However, they might have second thoughts due to the lack of electric stations to recharge their vehicles. Even if there are electric stations, most of Jakarta’s electricity is powered by fossil fuels. While the list of problems goes on, these are just some of the problems Jakarta experiences with their infrastructure. 

Even though Jakarta’s progress in infrastructure is slowly improving, Jakarta needs drastic changes if it wants to speed up their reduction of greenhouse gases. I think that the government should first and foremost replace diesel powered plants to nature-powered ones. We are a tropical country with lots of water and sunlight, so surely we are able to maximize our usage of them. In this way, the use of household appliances won’t contribute any greenhouse gases. Secondly, governments should replace gas stations with electric charging ones. Before the replacement, the government could ask all private transportation owners to switch to electric ones before a certain date. They could offer incentives and affordable prices to encourage the public with this change. Influencers may also play a big role in this by promoting their electric vehicles. Perhaps with this collaboration, we can create massive transformations in our use of private vehicles. 

Teamwork makes the dream works, and if governments, influencers, and social scientists work together, they can create a huge movement in the rapidly changing Jakarta. Every person in Jakarta is aware of global warming, but we need an extra push from governments and the media to create massive change. People are encouraged to change their lifestyles, but as changing habits isn't easy, influencers can influence the public to change while social experiments can be held to analyze factors that cause people to improve themselves. Infrastructures also need a massive and quick upgrade by the government to support the change of lifestyle. To create change amongst a large number of people, not only do we need scientists now, we will need the help of sociologists and others that specialize in human behavior.  

A Picture to Describe 2020

I chose this image as the image that represents 2020 the most for me. It is the logo of a video-telephone software programme called Zoom. 2020 was the year that the Covid-19 virus took over the whole world, killing more than 2 million people and infecting much more in a short amount of time. As a vaccine for the virus hasn't been made, lockdowns are imposed nearly everywhere to avoid more people getting infected. Zoom has suddenly become very crucial in everybody’s life. Teachers use them to teach students; businessmen use them for meetings; and housewives use them for cooking lessons. I'm sure that if you ask any random person if they knew this program, I'm 99% sure they'll say yes. 

If historians or archaeologists 100 or 1000 years from now study the visual culture of 2020 and 2021, I think that they'll mark 2020 as the year when everything went online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWvSJqB3Q3Y

Sesame Street's Newest Muppets for Rohingya Children

The Rohingya is a stateless ethnic group from Myanmar. They are persecuted by the Myanmar Government as the government considers them to be illegal foreigners from Bangladesh. However, Rohingya claimed to be descendants of Arab traders who had settled in Rakhine in around 7th century. The conflict grew worse in 2019 and around 750 000 Rohingya fled from Myanmar to other ASEAN countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia; more than half are children. These children suffered emotional trauma and led a very impoverished life in the refugee camp. Sesame Street attempts to help these children with some new initiatives, but more assistance from international organization will be needed to ensure that these children will have a future.  

Working together with several other charity foundations, Sesame Street, an educational TV series from the US, created a special TV program with two new Rohingya muppets, Noor and Aziz, for the Rohingya children. Noor and Aziz are twins and share many similarities with the Rohingya children, allowing the children to identify themselves with and thus learning from the muppets. They have similar features, speak Rohingya’s native language and share similar backgrounds with them. For example, Aziz is steeped in the Rohingya tradition of storytelling and Noor is afraid of loud noises as they reminded her of gunfire, much like many Rohingya children. The cartoon shows how Noor and Aziz handled their trauma and deal with their emotions, thus allowing the Rohingya children to apply those solutions in their own life too. Sesame Street hopes that this would provide psychological and emotional support for them. 

Another idea featured in the show is gender equality. Aziz helps with household chores and Noor loves to study. This might be unusual in a Rohingya household as girls usually do the house chores, received very little education, and are married off at quite a young age. With Noor as an example, Rohingya girls emulate her and see that there's nothing wrong in getting an education and having high dreams. Sesame Street hopes to show Rohingya children that both genders are equal in every aspect of life and deserves to be regarded as such.

However, these empowerment and modernization of children, could put the children, especially girls, at risk. Some of the ideas taught by Sesame Street, like gender equality, might go against the norms of a traditional Rohingya community. This might cause conflicts and estrangement from their family and community. There have been cases of violence towards young adults for breaking a traditional norm. If the Rohingya finds Sesame Street as a threat to their customs, the programme might be banned among them. The younger generation won't learn the same ideas the older generation did. In this way, many wouldn't be able to improve themselves in certain aspects due to the limitations put on them by the customs of the community. 

Not only do children need to be taught to be open minded, I think adults in the community need to be educated to be open minded too. I think that this is where social welfare organizations can step in. NGOs like Gugah Nurani Indonesia and SHINE provide seminars and workshops for parents. These organizations usually teach both children and adults new skills and ideas of the 21st century. My mom and her team are invited by Gugah Nurani Indonesia to teach teachers on how to teach story writing and illustration to children and the importance of creativity to both Indonesian children and parents. She will also help out in their parent seminar on using technology in a productive way. I used to participate in SHINE and the organization has taught new skills such as making organic soaps to both parents and children. Through these kinds of social welfare organizations parents in poverty can broaden their minds and improve their living standards. 

In my opinion, Sesame Street's Rohingya programme is very beneficial to the Rohingya children. They provide not only entertainment and fun, but also attempts to educate and empower them. However, it can also be a double-edged sword as the modernization could bring more harm than good. If all these charity foundations work together, these displaced children will be able to have a better quality of life and brighter future.

The Covid-19 Vaccine

 

As we come to the end of 2020, people are seeing hope for the end of the pandemic as various Covid19 vaccines are in their final clinical testing stage. The Pfizer vaccine is one of them and it has now been approved for emergency usage in several countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada. Despite announced to having a 90% efficacy, it still receives mixed opinions from the public. With the launch of several Covid-19 vaccines around the world, we will now need to weigh the pros and cons of taking the vaccine to make a crucial decision that will affect not only our individual lives but the global community.

Vaccines are crucial to combat Covid-19 and enable us all to return to a semblance of normal life before the pandemic. Vaccines will help us achieve herd immunity. Herd immunity will only happen when a half or a third of a population has the immunity to defend themselves from the virus. It’s estimated that an infected person can spread the virus to at least two or three people. If a lot of people are already immune to the virus, then the spread of the virus will be contained. Thus, this is where the role of vaccine becomes very important. Vaccine can provide Covid-19 immunity in a safer way. When 75% of the community has been vaccinated, the risk of a person getting the virus will be lower. Therefore, we will all be able to go outside again, back to our daily activities.

Even though we all know the benefit of being vaccinated, the short time it took to test the vaccine is one of the main reasons people are hesitant to take the vaccine. Countries are rushing to be one of the first to have a viable vaccine. US Government even set up a program called the Operation Warp Speed. It offered large amounts of money to companies that can produce a vaccine by a certain deadline. People worry that the drug companies might be pressured to deliver the vaccines according to the demand of the operation, affecting how they conduct the clinical trials. Normally, before a vaccine can be distributed to the public, it is required to go through multiple tests and trials. These can take many years to ensure the vaccine's safety. When the trials are rushed, there are great possibilities that there might be mistakes or inaccuracies.

Vaccine development usually ranges from 4 to 10 years. So when drug companies announced successful Covid-19 vaccine in less than a year, I was really sceptical. There must have been some mistakes. After further research, I discovered that one of the reasons researchers were able to speed up the vaccine development was due to past researches of SARS and MERS. Both viruses are a type of coronavirus. In addition to that, the massive amount of funding made it possible for drug companies to run parallel tests. These 2 combined are the ultimate formula in the race to fight Covid-19.

As countries around the world are rolling out the vaccines, all eyes are watching closely for the effect and result of the vaccination. I am fairly certain that drug companies would not be so careless and risk their reputation in creating vaccines that are not safe for the public. Therefore, I think that when the vaccine is available for me, I will choose to be vaccinated. At least I would have done my duty as a responsible citizen and contributed to returning the world back on track.

 

 

The Mau Mau Uprising

 

On June 11 1920, Kenya was colonized by the British for their fertile land. They became part of British Africa with little to no advantages on their sides and experienced an unjust period for around 42 years. Their lands robbed, taxed heavily, and the people forced into labor work. Needless to say, it created resentment between the British and Kenyans. Many revolted, with the most significant one the Mau Mau Uprising. While they are regarded as terrorists, it was this uprising that ultimately led to the independence of Kenya.

The Mau Mau first started as a nationalist group dominated by Kikuyu people. The Kikuyu is the largest ethnic tribe in the colony and they suffered the most in the hands of the British. They pressed the British for their lands back, but with little to no results. As time progressed, radical members of the Mau Mau created a splinter militant group which used violence to drive away British authority. To be a part of that group, the native African had to take an oath. It was believed that if one break that oath, the repercussion would be death.

As the British didn't want the world to know that they were the reason for the war, they portrayed the Mau Mau as the culprits. In British news and media, they represented the Mau Mau as a barbaric and cult-like group who made it their job to raid both English settlers and local people alike. Meanwhile, they portrayed themselves as "saviors" and claimed to help the locals against the Mau Mau with weapons and soldiers. They labelled the locals that worked with them as loyalists, so it sounded like the war is between the Mau Mau and loyalists. They showed the British's compassion towards the locals in the broadcasts, such as British troops honoring a fallen local tribe leader, and predicting the Mau Mau's positions with Kenyan locals. In these broadcasts, there were no words about the British coming to Kenya to claim the lands. Now that we're able to gain more information about what really happened, we can see who the real culprit is. It was the British who was the real perpetrator of violence in Kenya.

It was true that Mau Mau killed thousands of their own tribe, those who are loyal to the British. However, the British also caused a great deal of deaths that they didn’t report. Many Kikuyu men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps with little food and poor sanitation and some were killed without trials, just because they were suspected to be part of the Mau Mau group. I think it’s a pity that so many lives were lost in the Mau Mau uprising, but at least the movement freed the Kenyans from the rule of the British.

Thus, I consider the Mau Mau as heroes of their country. Their determination for independence brought more troubles to the British than its worth. Even when the British had caught the Mau Mau's leader, Dedan Kimathi, the Mau Mau did not dwindle and continued to fight. While the British came for fertile land to plant crops, all they'd done is waste money on these wars. This results in the British granting them independence 3 years later.

If I were a Kikuyu, I would feel upset to be framed as a villain. I fought for my independence, then why would I be the "bad guy"? However, it is also difficult to judge an organization in times of war, as information may be hard to achieve. If the whole world listened to the British news during the time of war, I think many people would believe that the Mau Mau are terrorists. I am pleased that more information about the Mau Mau were discovered after the war and we can see their point of views about the event. It’s interesting to see that historical perspectives about a historical event could change greatly in years after. It’s always crucial to keep this in mind and be critical for new evidence and facts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising

Friends In My Drinking Bottle

Doing chores is a bore for most people, including me! As they're no fun, I always try to find a way to reduce them. One of the things I did to avoid washing my large water bottle was by using it for 2 whole weeks. Can you imagine all the germs and organisms collected there? Ewww. Speaking of gross, I decided to check the water with a USB digital microscope in the hopes of seeing the little friends I had cultured over the past 2 weeks. I predicted that I will find many microorganisms and immediately wash my water bottle after the observation. Please do keep in mind that this was just a fun observation so there aren't things like hypothesis and variables. That being said, come and have a look at them:

Please pardon my Dad's voice :D

The first thing I did was setting up the microscope. The one I own uses the computer screen to see the results, as it doesn't have an ocular lens. Next I used an acrylic tent card holder as a glass slide with a pencil case underneath to make it horizontal. This was a bit difficult as I tend to nudge the pencil case around with my elbow, making the card stand diagonal again. Last of all I put a white sheet of paper under it to get clear results. 

I observed that there were microorganisms and cat fur in my water! The latter was unexpected, because I never saw or felt a thing when drinking it. I also observed that the microorganisms moved away from the light of the microscope, seeking a darker area. However, the microscope is only able to magnify until 500x (half of the common optical common microscope) so I can't identify their species. If anyone has any idea what they are, please do tell me! As for the cat fur, it must be the effect of me kissing my cat too much, but it won't stop me from continuing to do so! 

Located on the side of the microscope is a button to take pictures of the things we see under the microscope, but I couldn't snap a photo with it. Pressing the button will make the microscope shake, which will result in a blurry photo. So, I used my cell phone to capture my computer screen for a clearer photo. I know that the photo quality would've been better if I used the microscope camera, so please do pardon the lines you can see in the picture.

After I had a laugh at my disgusting behaviour, I immediately brought that water bottle to the kitchen and scrubbed and cleaned it like I've never before! In conclusion, whenever I feel afraid when I'm alone at home, all I have to do is remember that I have little tiny friends to company me! Nah just kidding.