i have moments when i'm in the middle of a tech moment where i marvel at the speed at which i can gather information or complete a transaction thanks to the tech age we live in. yesterday i had to explain to my elderly neighbors how we write research papers these days, browsing through thousands of online journal articles, reading at least 50 of them, and writing at least a 30 page paper. my neighbor told me that back in the 1930s, when she was in school at UT, she remembers having to write a "term theme" by hand and slaving hours over it at home wishing "she could be out on dates with willie (now her husband)." times have really changed.
on that very same day, i had a flashback moment when my mom was trying to teach me how to cook a favorite chinese dish of mine. chinese turnip cakes. while she probably could have sent me a recipe (or i could have found one online), i needed to have her demonstrate, face-to-face, and orally, how it was to be done. "first you cut up the turnips and grate it in the food processor. then you add this much water if you had this much turnip." i don't think the tools of technology could have captured the depth of this learning moment. how does one define "this much water with this much turnip" through written remarks without something going awry with my recipe? i needed that oral coaching and proximity to fully understand just how to make a recipe that probably was passed down to my mom from her mom.
so i guess im trying to say that we're walking in between different worlds these days. sometimes we slip back into the roots of oral tradition, but for the most part, we are walking the path of technology. i feel fortunate to be living in this awkward age of in-betweens. i can't imagine not having my mom teach me how to make my favorite chinese dish any other way. i can't imagine writing a term theme by hand. and i sure can't imagine writing a paper without online journals.
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Alice, I completely agree with you! Even though there are many things about this tecnology world we live inthat I love, I can't imagine certain moments without speech. When I read of the experience with your mother, I'm reminded of my cooking lessons with my grandmother. There was no written recipe. It was a matter of memory and eyeing the right amount. At one point I asked her to write it down and she couldn't. So in this day when we complain when things are not put online yet and when we expect things to be a the speed of high-speed internet, we still crave for moments from the past and wish that, for one moment, technology would cease to be an option.
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