Clothes make the man. From Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing, Sanders mentioned that “A person’s physical appearance affects his or her self definition, identity, and interaction with others”(page 1) Absolutely, your clothing, hair style and other body decoration are very important for you to show who you are.

The first one is my neighborhood. He is tall and he was walking the dog. He wore a light yellow t-shirt and a shorts. He is tall and he is an American. By his appearance, I can find out he is a easygoing man because his clothing is simple. Besides, he might be an man who love the clean. Because his t-shirt is light color and it is clean and tidy. Also, he was wearing a pair of flip flops instead of a pair of sports shoes. He is probably kind of lazy guy.  However, he do not like to talk to me when we meet each other, he just smile. So, I can see he is probably a guy in poor words also.

The second person is my roommate, a Chinese guy. He is tall and he looks like Korean. Because his hair is medium long and a little bit curry. He wears a basketball shorts and a brown vest. And there are some coconut tree logos on his vest, which is “Hawaii style”. I can find out he is a energetic guy who loves playing basketball. And frankly speaking, he does like play basketball, because we always play basketball together. Besides, he do not like wearing glasses though he is high-degree myopia. I can find that he pays attention to his body looking!

The third person is my classmate. He is a guy who really like to show off. I met him in the library, and his backpack is Gucci’s, and his shoes is LV’s. Whenever I met him, he always wear as a business man though he is still a college student. By his appearance, I can find out that he is trying to use the clothing to represent him as mature and luxury. His family might be rich so that he can afford these luxury goods.

“Would you like to join me to see a horror movie?” When my friends ask me some thing about this, I always refuse them, because I really can’t stand the tensions from the horror movies. So why horror? Why some people like and enjoy the horror things?

In WHY HORROR?, Carroll mentioned that “The horror genre gives every evidence of being pleasurable to its audience, but it does so by means of trafficking in the very sorts of things that cause disquiet, distress, and displeasure.” (page 275) In my perspective,  this is the magic of horror, because it can show us another kind of form of art, which is opposite to the original beauty. People might feel bad when they see the horror pictures or movies. Nevertheless, they can feel more excited when they see these scary things. Frankly speaking, I am afraid of some horror movies from Japan and Thailand, By seeing the movie poster and introduction, for example a very popular Japanese horror movie- Ju-on, It is really challenging for me to watch it. However, there are lots of horror movie fans love it.

People like  finding some fresh and new things. Sometimes the thing is weird and abnormal, but they still want to challenge it and finally show off how brave they are. For me, the horror movie is kind of challenge; but for some people, it might be a kind of entertainment because they enjoy the tensions and horrors which is provided by horror movies.

I love food because I love eating. And at the same time, food is a  form of a culture and art.  From Food as Art, Tefler mentioned that “We naturally associate the word ‘aesthetic’ with the arts, but we can also speak of an aesthetic reaction to natural things such as a beautiful landscape, or to man-made, non-art objects.”(page 9) So, the food is not just a thing we eat and consume everyday; on other hand, it is deemed to be  an aesthetic thing. Then, I would like to introduce something about Chinese food.

As a Chinese, the food is absolutely important for us, no matter what kind of the food material is,  Chinese people could cook it deliciously, and in different ways. As many people knows, there are seven main kinds of food style in China, which are distinguished by their flavor and the food location. Chinese is a long history country, which has a long food making history as well. People eat different flavor food because they live different locations of China. And, do you know why there are some spicy Chinese foods? Because the geographic position is different; for instance, the people who lived in cold places like Hunan Province, they prefer to eat more spicy to prevent the cold in winter. However, the spicy food is gradually becoming the main and traditional food. So this is why some Chinese food is so spicy. Besides, the a good Chinese food is require three main points, which are appearance,  smell and flavor. Just like an art work, it is always judged by people by these three points. Chinese people would not satisfy by only good looking or only good taste of a food; appearance, smell and flavor are equal important for Chinese people, even just a dinner in a normal family. Hence, that is the art of Chinese food.

Finally, I would like to show you guys a funny music video in YOUTUBE, which named “CHINESE FOOD”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWLhrHVySgA

Art is an abstract concept, which is complicated and simple. The art is complicated because lots of artistic work are hard to understand and meaningful. The art is simple because the art is from people’s daily lives, it can be a song, a talking or a movement.

From the reading material, What is art for?, Dissanayake shows us a comprehensive definition of “What is art for?” At first, he mentioned that “art must be viewed as an inherent universal(or biological) trait of the human species, as normal and natural as language, sex, sociability, aggression, or any of the other characteristics of human nature.”(page 1) That means human nature has the ability to find and view and appreciate the art. Then he described his past living in other countries, which “made him realize that different as other people’s beliefs may be from one’s own, we are all still recognizably people-and so you wonder what is universal.”(page 2) Dissanayake’s method is biological or evolutionary, which is “looking at all humans as members of one species and then thinking of art as a kind of behavior that developed as they evolved, to help them survive.” (page 2) Then, he discussed the development of the western concept of art.  In western art history, the pattern of manifestation is beauty, poetry, and image making.  Then Dissanayake introduces the Modernism, which is “Art as Ideology.”  The the main pattern of manifestation is similar to the earlier western concept of art, such as beauty and taste. All this things are sensorial. As the tittle said, “Art as Ideology.” Then, Dissanayake introduces the Postmodernism period, which is “Art as Interpretation.” This concept means the Postmodernism artists focus on the description and decoration on these art works, such as poetry and the architecture. Finally, Dissanayake gives an answer of “What is art for?” The answer is “Art for life’s Sake.” It is really true because “art is a normal and necessary behavior of human beings that like talking, exercising, playing, working, socializing, learning, loving and nurturing.” Hence, art is from life, and art is for life’s sake too!

If someone ask you what is your value, how to answer it ?  Actually, there is no a standard or a true answer for this question.  Because it depends on the different personal evaluations and beliefs. For example, if you ask a monk what is his personal value, he might answer you he is trying to figure out why the tree resting and why the river is flowing. And if you ask a person who has the same living environment of you, you and the person may have the similar answer about the question.  However, on the other hand, this question is kind of ridiculous. Because it is like “which came first-the chicken or the egg?”  Nevertheless, from the reading material, the author shows us how to sort it out:

“We cannot know the right questions to ask without some kind of framework, but we are asking the questions in the first place in order to develop a framework! Fortunately, there are other ways to proceed. We might, for example, try to stand back, get some detachment form the hurly-burly of what people say and do, focus instead on some of the simplest, most basic questions about values, beginning with what values are, and see where these questions and answers lead us.”(Lewis, 1990)

Lewis also mentioned a diagram of value:

Mental mode(Emotion)-> Way of forming value judgements(Emotion)-> Dominant personal value judgement(Emotion)-> Specific personal values and value system-> Behavior

This diagram is clearly demonstrate how a personal value form and finally effects  the behavior. We can easily find out the “Emotion” is pretty important in forming a personal value. In other words, the personal value forming process is a kind of emotion process. Because of the changing and forming of someone’s emotion, it will finally effect his/her value and behavior. Let me show you a series of phenomena in China, which is “Please don’t help old guys on the street”. This may sounds silly but it is true in China. Some of old people pretend they need help or just fall over on the street, and when you try to help them up, they might ask you more instead of the “simple help”. People used to be afraid bad people, and now, they are afraid of these old people too.  The sole result of this phenomenon is “Never help these old guys on street!”  So, in conclusion, value are easily be changed by emotion; and if your personal value is changed, your behavior will change as well.

Social media is a great platform for us to communicate with other people. Most of us want to be popular in these social medias, because there will be more people following you and you will have a chance to communicate with all kinds of people, even some famous people. However, the point is how to be attractive on social media? How to make others follow you?

From an article from Technorati, which named 10 ways to grow your followers on social media, we can easily find out the answer.

The author gives us 10 methods:

1. Follow people in your target audience

2. Share other people’s content

3. Focus your content

4. Leverage Google Authorship

5. Keep your update consistent

6. Build your Facebook profile to attract more users to your page

7. Make your social icons prominent on your website

8. Include your profiles in your email signature

9. Join LinkedIn Groups

10. Build relationships with industry influencers.

All these are useful for us to grow followers. People would like to follow you because you are “real”. The “real” can be represented by many ways; for example, building your Facebook profile, people can see who you are, what you interested in and what you do everyday. Another key point is to share other people’s content. For instance, if I am a fan of NBA, and today I just shared a Lebron James’s status, maybe other fans of him would comment the shared status and we might have opportunity know each other. Social media is so indispensable for us nowadays,  also it will not be so hard to get more follower on your social media, if you follow the above rules.