China Clamps Down on Tutoring Industry. My Thoughts on This:

A question worth asking is, "Why did the Chinese government clamp down on the Education Sector?"

Depending on my vantage point, I may see one or more of the following:

1) The government there wants higher control of state education.

Let's be honest here. State and state-sponsored education exists to serve the state, not the individual. Controlling what the upcoming generation learns means that they are more likely to be loyal to the present government.

Notice that it's the private companies that are most affected by this move.

By forcing these companies into non-profit, they likely calculated that many will either go out of business or bow out. Those who stay, because they are now non-profit, will be returning what they make back to the country (and by extension, the government).

Think of this as a "If you stay, you have to support what we want. If you don't want to support what we want, you have to leave."

It's no secret that the government there relies on heavy-handed tactics to get what they want. It certainly gets things done, but it also causes a lot of problems and unrest.

2) There is an aspect of face-saving here

We all know that the concept of "face" is very important in Asia, especially East Asia.

Allowing rampant tutoring is like admitting that the state-sponsored education system is not "good enough", that it's insufficient or ill-equipped to educate the upcoming generation.

That isn't something they'll want to admit.

3) Their official reason has to do with money and birth rates

Instead of having the money go into the private companies' coffers, wouldn't it stimulate the economy more if more people bought the tonnes of products that China produces?

And, if there are more babies, there'll be more future consumers of these products.

Redirecting funds is a high priority in any organisation that leads. This may simply be their solution of shortest pain.

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I don’t claim to be an insider or expert in Chinese politics or state systems, but these things aren’t that difficult to see.

I can’t be sure of what the future holds for EdTech companies in China, but I hope that they’ll be able to recover, even if not to 100%.

Playing With Instagram Carousels and Seeing What I Can Learn From Them

Not too long ago, I was introduced to Instagram Carousels.

Though I professed in an earlier post that I was tired of social media and had essentially stopped uploading content for the sake of doing so, I thought that making some Carousels might help me to hone my design skills and teach me something.

I didn’t go into it with the hope of gaining a tonne of followers or garnering avalanches of likes and comments, as I already knew that social media only rewards those who slavishly post and spend an inordinate amount of time on it.

No, I decided to do it for my own benefit.

And I believe that I have already learned a few design tricks that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

The initial template took some time to carve out, but once it was in place, it wasn’t hard to put in content in the same format. This was part of the first carousel I made.

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And this is part of the second one that I made, based on the same template for the first.

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And, of course, I’ve made a few more since then.

Now that I’ve figured out a template for this, I might go on to make templates for other things that I’m thinking of dabbling in - infographics, e-flyers, and so on.

Actually, I’ve produced a couple of e-brochures earlier, to help market my newly-written courses for the school market. They were what partly inspired me to see if I could bring what I learned about designing them into a carousel.

I intend to continue producing e-brochures - this time for corporate courses and public workshops.

Let’s see where it goes!

Gen X? Millennial? Caught in the Middle?

Am I a Gen X or am I a Millennial?

According to Wikipedia, 

There are no precise dates for when this cohort (referring to Millennials) starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years.

Being born in the early 1980s, by this definition, I could be considered an early Millennial. At the same time, I may be a late Gen X instead. Again, according to Wikipedia,

There are no precise dates for when Generation X starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use starting birth years ranging from the early-to-mid 1960s and ending birth years ranging from the late 1970s to early 1980s.

Of course, the truth is that neither group is truly defined by their age. It has always been more of a set of characteristics and behaviours.

That said, there is likely no such person who embodies every single trait (and stereotype) of either group. Humans being humans, we are mixed bags.

I wondered about this when I noticed my reluctance to adopt now-popular social media platforms when they first started out. I knew of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the like almost as soon as they became available to the general public but I was never among the first to use them.

Perhaps this has nothing to do with whether I am Gen X or a Millennial and more of me being a bit of a laggard (as opposed to the early adopters).

Even today, I am apprehensive of hiring transportation from private cars, much preferring to get to my destinations by regular taxis (even if I have to book them).

At the same time, I am no slouch when it comes to technology. I have been customising, upgrading and/or fixing up my own computers since I was a teenager, I trawl the Internet for information on maximising my use of computer programs or fixing technological issues that I face (usually very successfully), and I insist on being able to customise my own technological devices - a core reason for my refusal to use a particular brand associated with the fruiting body of the Malus genus.

I recognise some stereotypical Millennial behaviours in myself, such as:

1) Researching product information on the Internet before making a purchase

2) Insisting on finding meaningful work

3) Disliking other people taking up unnecessary amounts of my time

Yet, I hardly exhibit other stereotypical Millennial behaviours, such as:

a) Viewing social media 'influencers' with large followings as celebrities

b) Embracing the Sharing Economy

c) Desiring a workplace that is social and 'fun'

It got me thinking: Aren't behaviour molded by cultures? Since the Millennials are the ones growing up with all this technology around them, is it any wonder that the behaviours forged by technology are picked up most quickly by those who are most deeply immersed in those same technologies?

With high Internet speeds, we become less patient. With mass production, we find blending in easy. With ready information anytime anywhere, we become less easily satisfied and more skeptical of what is presented before us.

The behaviours of a stereotypical Millennial, then, aren't so much to do with when the individual was born but, more likely, how readily they he/she has taken to the available technology. After all, there are 'aunties' and 'uncles' who exhibit the very same behaviours we ascribe to Millennials, and who embrace the fast-paced, high-tech lifestyle of the 'young people'.

So, am I a Gen X or a Millennial? 

I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? 

Welcoming June with a Networking Meeting

June is finally here. I've also just finished my last school project for the first half of the year, and here comes my breather. Whew!

To reward myself, I got myself a new keyboard. My old one was annoying me to no end due to lousy key placements and bad tactile feedback, as well as stuck keys. This one, the C3500 from HP, is so much better! I thoroughly recommend it. It does come with a mouse that I don't need at the moment, but it's always good to have a spare.

So this June is all about reconnecting with people, plans, and projects to come. My 3 p's. To kick that off, I attended a networking meeting yesterday. I was a little apprehensive because I had lessons in the morning, and was concerned that I would be too tired to interact. 

To make up for that, I went home to rest before the networking meeting and was glad that I did. It was (surprise!) a gathering of introverts. Of course, I know it sounds ridiculous, but that's because society has always placed erroneous labels on introverts like 'shy' and 'unsociable'.

Well, I got to meet a couple of familiar faces and a number of new ones. It wasn't a business networking session but a more casual, social one. Thus, there was much less pressure to talk about what we do and more freedom to talk about who we are instead.

I hope to meet some of them again some time soon. It's always great to meet people with whom we share an affinity.