Amusing Incidents

Sunday 28th March, 2011
12 noon Singapore Time - The Singapore Immigration Counter

The officer looked at my passport and then at me. I don't look like the person pictured in the passport so there's always a reaction and I waited patiently for it. "You've lost weight, haven't you? How much? 10 (kgs)?" Now that was certainly a first, "16," I replied. He was satisfied; scanned, stamped and I was ready to go.

1800 hrs Singapore Time- Guangzhou International Transfers Counter

The officer again looked at my passport at then it me. And again. And once more. About ten more times. Then he mimed at me to pull back my hair. Still dissatisfied he told me to look at the screen and took a picture. I was beginning to think that that would be it but he kept looking back and forth and puzzling over the difference for another ten minutes. Finally came the stamp and I walked on to get lost in the apparent signlessness of transfers area.

Monday 29th March, 2011
0130 hrs UAE Time - Dubai International Arrivals Passport Control

This time he didn't look at me and the picture in the passport. Instead he spoke to me in Hindi, which was entirely unexpected yet made me like the place instantaneously for whatever reason. He scanned my eye, was relieved to get the image first shot, and stamped and signed so I could go see the place that I had already decided I liked.

I'm not much for blogging, tweeting, etcetera about personal experiences, but for some reason I HAD to write this and write it without my usual dose of opining.

The Crystal Balls of Journalism

The future of journalism is a topic which has generated a fair amount of journalistic material. It was getting to the point where I was beginning to think a large fraction of people in or related to the profession of journalism had become more interested in figuring out the future of journalism than actually working with the tools of the times and moving ahead (in which case the future of the profession could definitely be forecasting; tarot card tellers and mystics were getting old anyway). Then I read this amazing article called "Journalistic Nuclear Physics" on The Economist website.

Changing the meaning of the word "story", what an elegant and exciting thought! It's not really a prediction if you think about it. At this juncture with the juxtaposition of technology, the internet and social media, life has become persistent and continuous with fewer degrees of separation. What we do persists digitally, what we do next is linked to what we did before and the world has become a smaller place. Life is a succession of stories, and the stories are evolving in much the same way as the stuff they embody - life.

This was one article out of the seemingly endless ones on the "future" of journalism that actually made sense. I'd still maintain that the future is created by action, not speculation, so I guess I'm still not in favor of the obsession with figuring out the future instead of working on it. One article isn't quite enough to change my mind I suppose!