Trivia Goddess: The One With HPAIR 2007

Finally! This post is about the conference that I went to. I submitted a paper about 'Densha Otoko' a.k.a. Trainman - for the Pop Culture workshop. It was written in a short period of time, thanks to the DVDs of Trainman provided by my darling, and some further research. It was surprising that I got it, considering I threw my hat into the ring hours before the deadline!

There were also workshops about Security, Leadership, Social Policy, Economic Growth, and Information Society in HPAIR 2007. I presented a paper in the Pop Culture workshop. Overall, the conference was FUN, EDUCATIONAL, and ENLIGHTENING. I will recommend it to any undergrad or postgrad. I met so many people from all over the world, and learnt alot in those four days!!

Opening ceremony. Funky... We had plenary sessions on Energy and the Environment, as well as the Olmpics - enlightening topics, and relevant to China, which is where we are, too..

Some of my workshop mates... Our workshop watched movies, listened to songs, and saw interesting pictures, and had notable speakers. Bollywood, Tibetian tea-houses and movies, HK movies, animes, mangas, sculptures, religion, TV, were all discussed. People from other workshops 'migrated' to ours because it was so cool! GO POP CULTURE!!

Me and Natasa of Slovenia. We were probably the oldest pop culture workshop participants. An interesting thing about the participants of the conference is that they all have interests in Asia, be it Asian economics, culture, politics, and so forth. There were 3 Malaysian participants that I know of, me, Peter, and another Chinese gal who is studying in China. I think there are more, but they are 'hiding' as students from our neighbouring island-state uni's and Chinese uni's. It is saddening that we have Malaysians who do not want to be identified as such, and this is our younger generation! Something has gone wrong somewhere...

Having said that, I noticed that some of the students are really 'citizens of the world' - they come from one country, spent their childhood in another 1 or more country, and pursued their university studies in another! I think we need more people like that to have less wars...

The always-cheerful Singaporeans - it IS a country with a million smiles! They set up a booth during International Night, along with the Germans, Koreans and others which for the life of me, I cannot remember now. There were performances (singing, dancing, fashion shows) during the night as well, by the Koreans, Indonesians, Japanese, Chinese, Singaporeans, and many more. The one that caught my attention was the one by this Ukrainan girl - she was the ONLY rep from her country, and gave a short talk about Ukraine. Now, THAT is what I called patriotism!

The coolest speakers on the block! On the right is Prof. Helen Hardacre from Harvard - the speach was in a Q&A format with Linda Stein, a feminist/sculptress - who had her one minute of fame in Borat's movie.

On our last day, we went on a field trip to the Living Dance Studio and the 798 Art District. A fellow participant, Amanda told a silly but farnie joke - Q: Why were the other numbers afraid of "7"? A: Because 7 ate (8) 9!! hahahahahaha... err... not funny?? :P

These are the faces of people who partied too hard during International Night and the after-parties held thereafter - we were all trying hard to stay awake to listen to the presentation about the independent Modern Dance movement in China...