You're hi-tech, man!

When being a foreigner, everybody would face language problems unless you speak the language well, not to mention you do not understand it at all. Yes, that's true, I'm talking about myself. Here I am, in Turkey, knowing nothing about Turkish. Luckily, I can still survive, because there are some certain kinds of "languages" that humans share, such as music and smile. And interestingly, technologies help.

The 3rd day of arrival in Ankara, Erasmus Bilkent organized a trip to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations for us exchange students. When everybody was showing an expression of lost, Seyoong, one of the Korean exchange students, seemed to be quite confident after taking out his electronic dictionary and pressing several buttons. "You're hi-tech, man!" Seyoong got compliments on his "hi-tech" dictionary. The Korean looked happy.

The other day when several of us exchange students were chatting with each other about the food of our own country, I mentioned that Asian people eat a lot of rice and we use rice makers. Well, "rice maker" seems to be something new to a Slovenian girl because she couldn't understand how rice makers work. After I explained to her that this kind of technology makes rice-cooking so much easier, she commented, "You're lazy, man!"

I find it quite interesting that people have different views towards hi-tech. Well, I would say, we become hi-tech because we are lazy and we are smart.

One of the most powerful examples is vehicles and spacecrafts. Transportation nowadays is so much more efficient and more convenient than a few hundred years ago. Our ancestors would have never expected that centuries later, it now takes only a few hours to cover the distance which might took them a few months or even years.

They walked. We fly. They rode on horses. We ride in cars.

My Dad’s office is only 15 minutes’ walk from our house in Shanghai, but he drives everyday. Guess how much time does it take to drive? Ten minutes. The time used for starting the car, waiting for traffic lights and parking makes his car ride less enjoyable I guess. But he’s a typical lazy person, I think.

What makes it worse is that, a bunch of lazy guys like my Dad complain about the traffic jams without realizing that they’re actually among those who make the jams happen. Sadly, technologies make us lazier.

See what happens afterward? As people drive everyday, they lack exercises. Being fit, however, is what we generally pursue nowadays. Therefore, some people spare extra time and money for gyms. Huumm, maybe we’re easy to get bored of the most natural ways of exercises. Are we simply spending time and money for freshness? I hope not.

Hi-tech vehicles which really fly high in the sky appear in some scientific movies. Personally, I believe that is how the vehicles will look like in the future. Aren't you excited about this?

There’s no point criticizing being hi-tech nowadays, because we need technologies. What really matters is how you use them.