Reading response week 4

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Hijab online: the ethnography of a website

Observation 1: The author mentioned the problem of youngest people don’t want wear jilbabs, because it is not fancy.

Location 1: “There was a real problem for youngest brought up in this country. I could see it with my sisters and their friends. Many didn’t wear jilbabs because most of the jilbabs in the shops were catering for the old generation which the younger generation didn’t fancy, so didn’t wear. At the same time there were some sisters designing their own jilbabs but these weren’t so widely accessible. So i thought I’d try branching into that and make them available over the Wed.”

Interpretation 1: I thought the author noticed what happened in her society, and do some research about it and solve the problem the younger generation had.

Observation 2: The author said that she made one hijab fitting on all size.

Location 2: “After about a year of trying to sell jilbabs, I hit on the hijab idea. I realized that the hijab is easy. It’s compact, easy to stock and you don’t have to worry about sizes. One size fits all. It’s just a square or a rectangle, and everybody needs it, and they will but more hijab than they will jilbabs.”

Interpretation 2: I think there is always some thing better than what you do, also you have the ability to do it. But in most of the case, we didn’t find it. From the book, the author also tried a year to sell jilbabs, but later on, the author found that the hijab might sell better than jilbabs.

Observation 3: The author said the way how the society judge the way of models wearing the outfits.

Location 3: “I must say I would rather show the faces of the models. It looks much nicer cos you get the whole package, the whole outfit, but I think people are reluctant still. It will change, but not yet. I think by next year I might be able to get away with showing the face!”

Interpretation 3: Personally, I think the designer should have the power to manipulate the way of showing the outfits. I could feel that the author also have the same faith about that.

The Craft of Research

Observation 1: The author gave the idea if we got too much freedom to choose our research top in a short time, making the decision is gonna be very difficult.

Location 1: “If you are free to research any topic that interest you, that freedom might seem frustrating—so many choices, so little time.”

Interpretation 1: I agree with what the author said, because in my case, I have the same problems.  The topic teacher gave me is too big, I had to spend a lot of time on choosing the right topic. But if we narrow our topic a little bit, we have fewer things to choose. Which means we can get the topic we want easier. Also as what the author said in the next few pages, author also gave the same idea to solve this problem.

Observation 2: The author mentioned the importance or the meaning of the research to the public.

Location 2: “Many high school teachers would reward such a report with a good grade, because it shows that the writer can focus on a topic, find data on it, and assemble those data into a report, no small achievement—for a first project. But in any college course, such a report falls short if it is seems as just a pastiche of vaguely related facts.”

Interpretation 2: I think each thing should have some meaning in it. As well as the research, the result of your research that people should care about, or it should be helpful. As a guide, it could make research better, we don’t have to waste time on the topic nobody cares.

Observation 3: Each title of the chapter five are quite important to us to learn how to do research.

Location 3: “Knowing how to use three kinds of sources.” “Locating sources through a library.” “ Locating sources on the Internet.” “Evaluating sources for relevance and reliability.” “Following bibliographical trails.” “Looking beyond predictable sources.” “Using people as primary sources.”

Interpretation 3: Basically, the author just list the steps for research. I have to say that we have a lot of sources can be used, library, the people, the Internet, a lot of things we can do research or get data. Meanwhile, also because the source is too much, sometimes it is difficult to choose the right source. The instruction above is the right order to do the research.

East village research questions

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1. How the traffic light works?

Most of the streets are single way, which is easy to control and reduce the mistakes of the traffic light.

2. Why people walk through the street before the traffic light becomes green?

The city is a rush city, people all have very busy life. If they run out of time, it becomes very often to rush for time.

3. Why most of the streets are single way?

It could help the city to become more efficient rather than LA.

4. How the government decided where the communal facilities located?

Each neighborhood has subway station, grocery store, park, bank and so on. Each one is walkable distance.

5. Why there are some huge differences between blocks and blocks?

Different people live in different blocks and neighborhood. Upper east is rich people’s place. Mid town is more like a landmark. Downtown is mixed. Because of different people live in different neighborhood, the appearance of the neighborhood is different.

6. Why does the specific group choose to live in this neighborhood?

In my neighborhood, the most of the people are students, also some young people live in this neighborhood.

7.Why the culture in that neighborhood could survive in that neighborhood?

Japanese food, Chinese food, Mexican Food, American fast food, Pakistan food.

8. Compared with other cities or countries, what is the difference of dressing style?

Compared with other city, such as LA or SF. New Yorker more care about their dressing style. In the west, people could wear like a cow boy to go to work or go to school. But in NY, everyone wants to be styled.

9. Why in the neighborhood choose this kind of building style?

The building style is very old, it is not like a modern American city.

10. Why people pay attention to that public activities?

Each holiday the neighborhood or the city will have some activities. Some political event happens, people will parade.

11. How about the crime rate in this neighborhood?

My neighborhood is very good, No Crime.

12. How does the weather affect people’s daily activities?

Cold and snow in winter. Hot in Summer.

13. Which language was spoken by the people in this neighborhood?

Almost all language can be spoken in this neighborhood, but the majority is English.

14. Why people choose that way to celebrate holidays?

Fashion Week, Restaurant week! And regular holiday.

15. How does people use the city? Or how does the city use the people?

Entertainment, shopping, studying and relax.

16. Who is famous in my neighborhood?

Warhol Superstars, Kiki Smith, Perter Halley, Keith Haring and so on.

17. What the famous people did in my neighborhood?

Art work.

18. Why people love to stay in the city?

Different food, art supplies, street art working place, different brand of cloth.

19. Why so many homeless people live in the city?

I don’t know yet, it depends on the future.

20. What is the living style the people lived in this neighborhood?

Busy Busy Busy.

21. How does people feel when they walk through the city?

Indifferent, fancy, independent, busy.

22. What is the most common traffic way people choose?

walking and subway.

23. What is the night of city looks like?

Still like day time.

24. What is the goal of the people lived in the neighborhood have?

To be self.

25. What kind of relationship between human and the nature in the neighborhood?

From what I see, the city and the nature is quite in peace. But the city produce to much trash….

Deconstructing the Design Process

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Petra Högström and Matilda Maroti are two high fashion designer, they work for Shoise. In 2014, their shoes collection was Refraction. In 2013, their shoes collection was Remotion. Today the shoes in killer heel exhibition is Mother of Pearl, which belongs in Refraction 2014 collection. About the material two designers choosing, I don’t know. I guess that designer might choose something as jade. The shoes are definitely hand made, they made each small pieces of the shoes and assembled them together.

 

East Village Photo Blog

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alphabet city

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menu

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bicycle

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spring

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This picture was taken on 7th Ave and 34th street. There is a camera on that screen, which projects what is on the street. Michelle and I both on that screen to take a selfie. It is a very interesting way to interrupt what people are doing. We saw that, and we stopped there waiting the advertisement end for 3-4 minutes.

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For those 9 pictures are the intervention project I did for Time Class. The reason I did this because I realized that many culture moved from one place to anther, during that time period, almost all the culture had some things changed. For example I used that the Chinese food, I have the Chinese background, so I could tell the differences between the traditional Chinese food and the Chinese food in NYC. But obviously, Americans didn’t know the difference, so I bought some KFC and put them into a steam contain to invite someone to eat it in a public space. People in that restaurant might have totally different thought about it. The result is that people got shocked. Especially the waiter in that restaurant.

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This week I focus on the graffiti in my neighborhood. I found a lot of walls, people sprayed it over and over. The mail box on the street is the most interesting thing I found. I saw that on the street side, people did a lot of drawing on that side. But on the other side, it is very neat. It is also very interesting that, in school we learned that human’s manner, however in a lot of culture, the bad words become the symbol of each culture. As the Chinese Identity, in my mind, I think graffiti bad words are not a good things. Well, in China I only saw tons of posters on the wall, which is kind of like the third picture above. In America, I saw a lot of graffiti instead of news posters, and a lot of bad words. People make fun of the city, people express their ideas through graffiti.

 

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All the photos are Union Square. I took it from five different angles at night. Last class, Tamar showed the class a movie about a photographer keeping taking photo of one location. So it brings me a idea of taking one picture from different angles.

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We went to Matise Exhibition to observe a numbers of art work, the most part of them are paper cutting, but a few art pieces were stained glass. The bright color and the connection between glass and glass caught my eyes. The third picture is a piece of wall nearby Union Square. I guess this piece of wall also is used stained glass. But compared with the one I saw in MoMA, it uses more different color and more delicate shapes. From my perspective, this one has too much information, so my eyes get too busy. I prefer Christmas Eve in Matise exhibition.

 

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The picture of the empty fountain was taken in Washington Park after snowing. There was a man playing the piano in front of the fountain. That day was not super cold, some people were listening to his soft music, some people were taking photos for him. From the park, we could see the Empire State, meanwhile it is also the start of Fifth Ave. Why I took this picture without any thinking. I guess maybe because of the music. I was walking around the park, I heard the soft music out side of the park. At first, I thought someone was playing radio, later on, I saw a black grand piano setting in front of the fountain. I was totally shocked, a giant grand piano on the ice, a man was playing music. People passed, people stopped, people took picture, people listened. This music became a surprise gift for the everyone who passed the Washington Park. Street art is very popular in NYC, when I first time heard crazy music in subway, I never thought people could play music in this way. I believe that all the pictures I took should related to the culture of NY, a mixed art city. For me, every building could be very unique, they all have some story. I am very happy to stop to listen to the story of NYC.