Free the Nipple

source: pixabay (CC0 public domain)

 “Blindness separates people from things; deafness 

separates people from people.” -- Helen Keller

by Gill Chi

    Free the Nipple is a social movement launched by a film maker Lina Esco in 2013 to promote gender equality. Supporters of this movement argue that people have double standards on male and female breasts and nipples. People allow males to bare their breasts but discourage females to expose their breasts in public, and this leads to mass discrimination against women through a general denial of the female body. This movement is not about encouraging women to show their upper body anytime anywhere, but about disconnecting the female body off from sexual arousal. This movement aims to legalize women’s right to their body politics and to promote general gender equality throughout western society. 

    Although some states in America amend their laws and allow women breasts being uncovered in public, women are still faced with ridiculous charges against them if they show their breasts or nipples: weather problems, other legal problems, violation of social order, obscenity in public, etc. For example, a lady from the City of Phoenix was accused because of the exposing of her upper body in 2005. All charges against her were actually invalid in New York City, where concerning laws had been changed 15 years earlier. And yet the lady from Phoenix was adjudicated of 29,000 US dollar reparation. 

    And in 2015, in order to make amend regulations that effect mandatory removal of on-line photos of female upper bodies (self-willedly taken and uploaded), an Icelander student Adda Smaradottir launched Free the Nipple campaign again, encouraging females to upload their bare-breasted pictures to Facebook, and tag “FreeTheNipple” on Twitter. This movement has the Icelandic member Björt Ólafsdottir’s support, she uploaded a picture of herself being uncovered to support these teenagers in action.

    The movie Free the Nipple was on the big screen in 2014. This movie is about a group of passionate young women protesting against laws and regulations suppressing the female body. They staged a highly artistic protest through their performances and graffiti on the streets of New York. The movie was produced in 2012 was not available to the public until one year later. Therefore, Free the Nipple was launched in 2013. 

    When people talk about gender equality, the first thing that need to be done is to eliminate the prejudice they have on the female body. If a man can take off his shirt whenever he feels like, then a woman should enjoy the same no less. After all, it is a person’s choice of and right to her own body, without intention to hurt or affect anyone else. Hence, other people do not have the right to judge and certainly should not have a say in another person’s body.

Faculty Evaluation

source: shutterstock (CC0 public domain)

“Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” 

                            -- Malcolm Forbes

by Chelsea Huang

     Everybody needs to be evaluated, from time to time, no matter who. It is essential for every education institute to have faculty evaluation. The faculty evaluation system exists not only to ensure that the institute provides conducive courses for the students, but also at the same time to help lecturers learn about students’ feedbacks to their course plans. The system intends to be beneficial for every party: the school, the students, and the teachers. However, it was not so in the case of Instructor Flamingo Kuo, who failed his entire class after receiving a slightly negative feedback from one student in the faculty evaluation questionnaire. 
 
     The incident with Kuo caught immediate and immense media attention. It was reported that Kuo, allegedly after learning this feedback of his evaluation, demanded the university to let know the name of the student who described Kuo’s course as “a bit empty”.  After being denied of the student’s name, he posted a screenshot of the anonymous student’s review on his personal Facebook page, and threatened to fail every student in that class.

     The action of Kuo makes people wonder how the evaluation system works. First off, students in Kuo’s university need to finish the questionnaire for faculty evaluation before the computer system shows them their final grades. However, the professors do not need to finish all their marking and grading before they can see the feedbacks from the students. They get to see the feedbacks way before they upload their grades. And this is where such a system goes wrong. It seems only fair when teachers have access to their feedbacks and comments from students only after they upload the grades, i. e., before they can see the feedbacks and comments which might or might not agitate teachers to misjudgments.

     On what ground could Kuo demand the name of the student who gave him a negative remark? Is not the system designed to be anonymous for a reason? Anonymity is necessary for students to feel protected while speaking their mind. With this understanding, Kuo’s demand to know the name of the student sabotages the purpose of this anonymous system, although some may argue that absolute anonymity can leave the evaluated person open to untraceable malicious remarks.

     The current faculty evaluation system can potentially act as a double-edged sword as both students and teachers hold the abilities to jeopardize each other with a hate remark or a hate grade. It is needless to say, there are still room for improvements. 

Western and Eastern Makeup Talk

by Penny Lai

        Whether it is a regular day that calls for a light makeup or a crazy night out that demands something enchanting, makeup plays an important role in quite some girls’ lives. People might think doing makeups is no more than dashing powers onto one’s face, but the styles and techniques can be widely diverse. With two examples, we are comparing and showing the difference between western and eastern style.

Eastern (modeling: Joyce Wu)

      Joyce would describe her style as more of a Korean style. Before she applies her makeup, she would simply use toner, essence and lotion, respectively. For the foundation, she applies some concealer before using cushion foundation compact, which is the trending makeup product throughout Asia in these two years. Compare to normal compacted foundations, the cushion foundation compact is moister and it gives the skin a silk-like effect.

Western (modeling: Vanessa Jao)

      Vanessa prefers the western style which she pulls off perfectly. She describes her skin condition as oily, which is why she only applies toner and a bit of eye cream before putting on the makeups. And a bit of light consistency lotion on dry areas for the winter. She uses liquid foundation and some concealer afterwards for her daily foundation.

             

Eyes: Eastern

     One of the most obvious difference between western and eastern makeups is the shape of the eyebrows. Joyce tends to draw her brows flatter. She uses eyebrow pencils to draw the shape first and enhance the color with eyebrow mascara. As for the eyes, Joyce prefers to use brighter colors such as pink, red or orange. And eyeliner is not her choice for a daily look.

Eyes: Western

     The part Vanessa cares about the most in her makeups is her eyebrows. She’d spend most of her time on the brow shaping. And her sharp-edged eyebrows characterize the western style perfectly. Moving on to the eyes, she prefers dark colors like gold or brown, which enhance the overall look. Vanessa does not wear eyeliner very often, but she uses two layers of mascara, first black then brown, to go along with the eyeshadows.

Lips: Eastern

     Joyce enjoys using colors such as orange or peach for her lips. The light color lipsticks give her overall makeup style a young, vigorous and fresh look.




              

Lips: Western

     For Vanessa, red or nude are always the choice to go for. She feels that brighter colors like pink do not suit her well. And she has a thing for matte lipsticks. Matte-effect lipsticks are a huge trending style in western world in these few years, it is also the iconic look of the reality show phenomenon – the Kardashian sisters.

     Both girls have their own styles and both are comfortable with how they present themselves to the world. With this comparison, the differences and some trending makeup trivia between the two parts of the world can be seen easily. All styles are good, and every style is better for a certain group. It is also very important to be confident and proud of who you are and what you represent for.

Resident Evil 7: A Brilliant Game to Test Your Stomach

source: en.wikipedia.org

by Penny Lai

     For gamers, one of the most exciting things that happened in the beginning of 2017 is that, Resident Evil 7, after almost 5 years since its last issue, came out and swept the players off their feet. And the company is the world-famous Capcom, a Japanese video game developer and publisher, which is most famous for its significant games such as Street Fighter, and Resident Evil franchise. This time, Capcom is turning over a new leaf of Resident Evil. and introduce the fans to a whole new perspective of this game.

     Capcom tried various and relatively new ideas in this new work after a long pause. Unlike the previous main series, Resident Evil 7 is to be played from the first-person perspective. To go with that, they also published a version of the game that can be purchased in VR in Play Station. This change of perspective in the 7th edition of the series also modifies and spices up the game experience, the protagonist can turn 180o degrees in a short time, attacks can be parried off to reduce the harm, only to name a couple of examples. Some players might experience a certain degree of dizziness due to the first-person perspective on either normal screens or VR headsets. However, it certainly gives the players an extra kick of excitement in horror games like this.

     Another difference that Capcom made in their new hit game is the background of the story and the protagonists. In the previous series, the protagonists had some level of skills and well trained for weapons and combats. While in this one, the protagonist, Ethan Winters, is no more than an ordinary husband who got a call from his missing wife three years after her disappearance. Thus, he steps out on the adventure and is determined to rescue her. Ethan enters the property of the Baker family in order to find his wife, Mia. The Bakers, seemingly possessed by some kind of evil spirits, vow to rid themselves of any intruders and restore the family whole. Players have to find all the resources they can in order to survive through the story against the Baker family. With little weapon knowledge and few combat skills, Ethan must gather what he can find and make the best of them. That is also a crucial difference that the players and critics have been discussing -- the change of styles.

     One of the issue under heated discussion among fans is its transition from action horror to survival horror. In the previous editions, the game style focused more on action and horror. During some combats in the story, the game presents the fights through cut-scenes; it gives the players a cinematic similitude. In the 7th edition, the game developers start a new story line and focus more on the survival and horror aspect. The developers with Capcom realize that the story of Resident Evil franchise has gone too far from the original concept by the issue of the 6th edition of the series. The story line expended widely as the biohazard terror grew world-wide. Therefore, Capcom decided to switch to the story line of a side story that happens in the year of 2017. And with the feature of first-person perspective, the gamers can feel the tension constantly building up; the whole atmosphere in the game differs greatly from other games in the franchise. 

     For the diehard fans of the Resident Evil series, this new page might be the most wanted. Capcom wins over the old supporters’ favor and takes the first-timers by surprise after the 5th and the 6th edition were given the criticism of “going down the slope” and something along the lines. However, in this edition, the story can be considered as an episode of the bigger story line. It will be a challenge for the developers to decide whether to pick up the original adventure or to keep on going with this sidetracked but delicate exploration for their next story.

Zack’s Game Review: Welcome to the World of Onmyo-ji (陰陽師)

source: pixabay (CC0 public domain)

by Zack Lee

     Nowadays, mobile games have been gradually replacing PC games. After the touch screen was invented, many mobile games came out and attracted people’s attention. Onmyo-ji is one of the most popular mobile games at the moment and it becomes this popular for three reasons: the use of professional voice actors, efficient maintenance, and the level-playing-field gaming environment.

    Onmyo-ji is famous for its cast of professional voice actors. To create the world of Onmyo-ji, the game company invests in an impressive dubbing troupe which includes some of the most famous and probably most expensive voices, such as Noriaki Sugiyama (杉山紀彰) as Sasuke Uchiha (うちはサスケ) in Naruto (ナルト/火影忍者) and Kazuya Nakai (中井和哉) as Hijikata Toushirou (土方十四郎) in Gintama (銀魂). By contrast, most mobile games seem to ignore the effect and impact of what a troupe of professional voice actors can do, and this is one reason Onmyo-ji stands far apart from them.

    The second reason why Onmyo-ji becomes popular is their efficient maintenance. Working with a strong sense of timing, the regular maintenance of Onmyo-ji is always finished as scheduled. A lot of mobile games, however, often dampen the gaming experience by falling behind their maintenance schedules and making people wait with bated breath and probably in writhing wrath. Onmyo-ji, on the contrary, always stick to their server time for regular maintenance and offer generous giveaways for whatever meager time that takes them to finish the maintenance. That is one reason why Onmyo-ji stays popular up till now.

    The third reason why Onmyo-ji becomes popular is its level-playing-field gaming environment. Onmyo-ji does not have an exclusive VIP system for players who would like to spend money playing the game. That is to say, everyone can play this game without spending any money and non-spending players can enjoy the exact gaming experience without defaulted disadvantages in contrast to spending players.  On top of that, Onmyo-ji has a built-in automatic system, so people at work can keep the game going without tending to it. For reasons stated above, the gaming experience of Onmyo-ji distinguishes itself from that of others.

    Let me recap: professional dubbing, efficient maintenance, and a stress-free gaming environment are the three major reasons why Onmyo-ji becomes a popular mobile game and stays so. I have played numerous mobile games and Onmyo-ji is still my favorite till this day. If you want to become a powerful player, you can reach your goal without spending money; if you want to stay a casual gamer, you can keep up by making use of its considerate automatic system.