Ervin Cheng EAD 1-Sec 10 Pro. Akey 2/22/2020 Paper2 RD Idealized Communities, Or Not? Community is an indispensable part of people's life. Every person will join many clubs in his or her life, of which family is the most important. When people choose a club, they usually choose according to their own intentions, or they all want to join an idealized club. But real life is often disrespectful, and people may not belong to idealized societies. Or people may see the particular group they want to join as their idealized group. But the reality is often different from the imagination, like Catherine Latterell proposes three hypotheses for communities, they are “communities provide us with a sense of stability”, “communities serve our needs”, and “communities accept us for who we are”. The author explains what real communities are like. Dineaw Mengestu also talks about some trouble of himself in his article, “Home At Last,” when he finds somewhere he really wants to belong. He eventually found his true place, and this community is his idealized. Similarly, in Roland Kelts's article 'The Fifth Flavor,' he chose Japan over The U.S. He should also choose according to his attention. People should also give those three assumptions to find their own community. Because there is a difference between the real society and the idealized society, people imagine too good will lead to people always in a comfort zone. This is a great harm to people. And sometimes people can't completely decide which club they want to join, such as family. So people should wake up to reality. Finally, if people always pursue their idealized community, they will gradually lose their sense of belonging, because it is not easy to find a community that truly conforms to their idealized community. This can cause people to get lost in their own world and lose contact with the outside world. First, often, people choose a club according to their will, which leads them to idealize a club that is not so nice, or to make a good club that they hate. Man is a very subjective creature. Everyone has their own ideas, so everyone's ideas are different, and their idealized communities are different. But when people choose a club, because the club is their own choice, they idealize the club. A policeman, for example, belongs to a just society, but a just society is not necessarily a good society. There should be frequent incidents of criminals getting away, but he would not let them keep him away from his society, for he had idealized it, and he liked it as long as it was just. As Kelts wrote in his article, “In Morioka, a northern capital city, I attended the neighborhood kindergarten. My memories of those days are uniformly positive. But my mother tells me I was miserable, especially at school.” (P42) After reading the article, we can know that the author prefers Japan to America. Therefore, it can be seen here that the author has idealized his favorite club, but in fact it is not so beautiful. I.

1. Ervin Cheng
EAD 1-Sec 10
Pro. Akey
2/22/2020
Paper2 RD
Idealized Communities, Or Not?
Community is an indispensable part of people's life. Every
person will join many clubs in his or her life, of which family is
the most important. When people choose a club, they usually
choose according to their own intentions, or they all want to
join an idealized club. But real life is often disrespectful, and
people may not belong to idealized societies. Or people may see
the particular group they want to join as their idealized group.
But the reality is often different from the imagination, like
Catherine Latterell proposes three hypotheses for communities,
they are “communities provide us with a sense of stability”,
“communities serve our needs”, and “communities accept us for
who we are”. The author explains what real communities are
like. Dineaw Mengestu also talks about some trouble of himself
in his article, “Home At Last,” when he finds somewhere he
really wants to belong. He eventually found his true place, and
this community is his idealized. Similarly, in Roland Kelts's
article 'The Fifth Flavor,' he chose Japan over The U.S. He
should also choose according to his attention. People should
also give those three assumptions to find their own community.
Because there is a difference between the real society and the
idealized society, people imagine too good will lead to people
always in a comfort zone. This is a great harm to people. And
sometimes people can't completely decide which club they want
to join, such as family. So people should wake up to reality.
Finally, if people always pursue their idealized community, they
will gradually lose their sense of belonging, because it is not
easy to find a community that truly conforms to their idealized
community. This can cause people to get lost in their own world

2. and lose contact with the outside world.
First, often, people choose a club according to their will,
which leads them to idealize a club that is not so nice, or to
make a good club that they hate. Man is a very subjective
creature. Everyone has their own ideas, so everyone's ideas are
different, and their idealized communities are different. But
when people choose a club, because the club is their own
choice, they idealize the club. A policeman, for example,
belongs to a just society, but a just society is not necessarily a
good society. There should be frequent incidents of criminals
getting away, but he would not let them keep him away from his
society, for he had idealized it, and he liked it as long as it was
just. As Kelts wrote in his article, “In Morioka, a northern
capital city, I attended the neighborhood kindergarten. My
memories of those days are uniformly positive. But my mother
tells me I was miserable, especially at school.” (P42) After
reading the article, we can know that the author prefers Japan to
America. Therefore, it can be seen here that the author has
idealized his favorite club, but in fact it is not so beautiful. It's
a way of paralyzing the ego, and most of the time people don't
admit how rare a flaw they like. On the contrary, when a society
does not reach people's ideal, they are unwilling to accept the
society. Mengestu is one such person. In the article he expresses
“I never hosted a Kensington night, however, no doubt in part
because I had never been shared with others in a single evening
of cheap South Asian food and beer.” (P125) In general, people
don't struggle with what to eat and drink at parties. Partying is
just a useful way to help the club grow. After all, the author
believes that the society does not conform to his ideal, so he is
obsessed with some small things. People should not always live
according to their ideal way, so that they will miss many
wonderful moments in life. And it is not advisable to think of
paralysis, slowly people will go to an extreme: not their ideal
things all rejected. Not only do people go to extremes, they lose
themselves in the pursuit of idealization and become isolated
from the outside world.

3. Second, it is easy for people to lose themselves or isolate
themselves from the outside world in the pursuit of idealized
communities. It's not easy to find a community that fits your
ideal. People may spend a long time looking for it. During this
time, people force themselves to search until they find a club
that suits them. They ignore other great clubs. People's
communication will gradually decrease, and they will become
more and more empty. And people will look for any means to
cover up their emptiness and pretend that they are living well.
But in fact, they are very tired. But at the end of the day, people
get lost in the search for idealization. It can be found in
Mengestu's article, “There was an obvious and deliberate echo
to my walk, a self-conscious reenactment of my father’s routine
that I adopted to stave off some of my own emptiness.” (P125)
In fact, the author is lonely. He yearns to find a place that truly
belongs to him, but he is in the middle of the idealization of
himself. It made his life very tired. In other words, he has lost
himself. He doesn't know where he belongs. That's why he can't
find his place. When people lose themselves, they reduce their
communication with the outside world. In most cases, they are
reluctant to tell others what their ideal community is like.
Because he was afraid that others would not understand and
might denigrate the community in him. Kelts implys that
“Ascending to 30,000 feet in a plane, watching the New
England and New York State landscapes shrink into swatches of
green and crooked beige-blue below, I felt both liberated from,
and superior to, my classmates, my teammates. for years, I
shared my experiences with precisely none of my American
friends.” (P44) When people are in a community, they don't
communicate less, and they don't feel relieved when they leave.
The reason why the author does not share the Japanese
community with his friends is that he does not want his friends
to think he is a "freak" and does not want them to denigrate it.
Therefore, he chose to be silent, until he went to Japan, his
heart had a qualitative change. There is no distinction between
societies; it all depends on the will of the people. And people

4. should not treat communities differently. It's not fair.
Idealization is necessary, but reality is the most important part
of people. Grasp the reality and live in the present moment is
the best thing people should do.
Tracy Zhou
EAD 1
Section 10
Mr.Akey
4-12-2020
Information Technology
Evolution is the most promising reality of the world and it is
because of evolution that
human society has reached its current stage in civilization.
Although the human race started its
journey on planet earth around 200,000 years ago yet it has not
achieved its ultimate climax.
Over the thousands of years, men have been able to evolve from
living alone to clans and tribes
and creating societies and civilization to creating kingdoms and
empires. Once the settlement
issues became less significant, human beings diverted their
energies to innovate and invent such
things which could make their lives easy and better. The
definition of ease and betterment has

5. been evolving along with the evolution of the human mind. The
most evolutionary phase started
after the Middle Ages and from the 16th century to 21 set
century, the face of the world has
totally changed. The most advanced and impactful invention of
the 20th century is computers and
the internet which was initially created for military purposes
but soon it was commercialized and
made accessible for every human being. In the 21st century, the
technology of the 20th century is
getting more and more advanced. One reason for speedy
innovation is that computes created in
the 20th century are very innovative in nature and they have
helped human minds to speed up the
innovation for advanced technologies. The 21st century can
rightly be called the era of
information technology. Information technology (IT) has
penetrated deep into every sphere of
human life from education, health, food, clothing, living and
shelter, governance, finance and
economics and transportation. With increasing advancements in
every sphere of life, there exist

6. two perspectives or school of thoughts. One with believing that
information technology has
revolutionized human society and bring growth and ease to
human life. While at the same time, it
is believed by others that the natural flow of human life has
been erupted by technology and it is
a curse, not a blessing. This essay will explore how technology
is a blessing in terms of its
positive implications on human society. Furthermore, the
shortcomings and repercussions of
technology will also be discussed under this essay in regard to
how it impacts the natural flow of
human life. In brief, the essay will try to build a thorough
understanding whether technology is a
blessing or a curse.
Technology is an eminent force and it is here to stay. After the
technological evolution of
the 20th century and the information technology of 21 set
century, human civilization has
changed and it cannot go back to the way it was. But the
changes are for good. Introduction of
technology has made life much easier than it was before. Every
aspect of life has been greatly
influenced by technology and this influence is mostly positive.

7. A majority of the human
population of today's world believe that technology has made
lives easier. It is because of the
fact that technology has introduced a large number of
employment opportunities for people
around the globe. It has put an end to the previous restriction is
limitation because of the physical
border or being present in different geographical areas.
Globalization coupled with technological
evolution has helped in making the world one entity hence
providing unlimited opportunities for
growth of business and employment opportunities. Similarly,
education, health and hosing as
basic human needs have improved a great deal with technology.
Technological evolutions have
made it possible to develop medicines and antibiotics for
previously fatal diseases. Apart from
medicines, the lifesaving machinery has been innovated and
now human life is way more secure
than before. Furthermore, the transportation and mode of
communication have improved and
made it easier for human beings to travel long distances in a
short time and more safely. Another

8. dimension of life which has improved a great deal is
communication. The information revolution
has made it possible for human beings to contact another human
being in another part of the
world through just one click. That is why it is believed that
"Technologies always improve our
life. Particularly in American culture, "new" is better than "old"
(Latterell, 2014, p. 414).
American and western societies are more open to change and
hence their acceptability graph is
way higher and that is why major innovation is done by brains
in the west. A new innovation of
IT is Artificial intelligence which is in its initial phase but in a
few years it is going to
revolutionize human society altogether as the author put it “The
new kinds of intelligent
machines, however, are autonomous or semi-autonomous: They
create their own assessments,
make their own decisions. They no longer need people to
authorize their actions"(Norman, 2014,
p. 464). Critical intelligence is a refined form of technological
evolution of the 20th and first two
decades of 21set century; they are readily accepted by American
society. These intelligent

9. machines are capable of making their own decisions which is
quite similar to how the human
brain makes decisions which might not be acceptable to some
societies but western societies are
readily accepting these technologies which are acting as a form
of motivation for innovators to
refine it further.
On the contrary to the first group, another group believes that
technology is a curse which
has disturbed the basic fabric of human society. Technology is
believed to be making human life
worse due to some of its shortcomings. The technological
innovations have caused a lot of
changes in basic human society. Civilizations have changed and
the social values have changed.
The current civilization as we know it is an outcome of
technological evolution and it cannot go
back to the way it was because technology has moulded every
aspect of human life. The change
is perceived not as a positive force for those who value
continuity and likes to be connected to
the past. Another aspect of criticism on the IT inventions is

10. because of its inability to deal with
significant problems like a human mind will deal. Artificial
intelligence is a growing force in the
field of IT but Artificial intelligence (AI ) is still far from its
maturity as it is shown in the article
that "Human memory, although imprecise finds relationships
and similarities among items that
machines would not think of as similar at all."(Norman, 2014, p.
466) Unless AI starts
performing as per the human mind, it will not be deemed a
success. Although it is estimated that
in future AI might surpass the functioning of the human brain
but it is not a possibility in the
near future. Human brian yes has not be fully utilized. Research
shows that current capacity of
humans of utilizing their brain is limited to maximum of 15-
20% and that also be most intelligent
minds. An average mind is used even less than 10%. The human
brain has not reached full
utilization as per its full capacity yet it is far away from the
artificial machines. "The gulf
between what people have in common with one another and
what machines people have in
common is huge and unlikely to be bridged in the foreseeable

11. future"(Norman, 2014, p. 470).
The gulf between the human brain and the processors of
machines is still not comprehensible as
the human brain is very complicated and scientists are not able
to comprehend all human
thoughts to replicate them in machines through AI which leads
to creation of gulf between
human brain and machines. The smartest machines are
replications of smart human brains but
the human brain is complicated and often acts in unique ways.
This ability of the human brain to
formulate unique responses to novel situations is the lacking
factor in the smart machines and it
will take some time to bridge this gap.
The debate of technology is a curse and blessing is going on for
some time but neither of
two sides is right as technology has improved life in many ways
but there are some negative
implications to it as well. The important thing here is to find the
right balance where the positive
implications must outweigh the negative implications of the
information technology. As the AI is

12. taking over the world, it is becoming more and more refined.
"The fundamental restriction on
people's successful interactions with machines is the lack of
common ground, but systems that
avoid this danger, that suggest rather than demand, that allow
people to understand and choose
rather than confronting them with intangible actions, are
perfectly sensible" (Latterell, 2014, p.
415). Previously the issue lied in the fact that there was no
commonality between machines and
humans but now machines are becoming smart and they have
opted a different technique to
interact with human beings as now machines provide options for
suitability of humans to use as
per their suitability. This is making the interaction between the
two races of human beings and
machines a success. Machines are now developed in such a
format to facilitate the human lives
which is acting as a positive notion and making advances on the
relation between machines and
humans. But the race of technological revolution sometimes
gets out of hand as the firms are in
neck to neck competition and the basic purpose of technology to
serve the human race has

13. changed to profit maximization which has resulted in the
unchecked competition which is no
longer healthy. "Technology is not a destiny but a scene of the
struggle. It is a social battlefield,
or perhaps a better metaphor would be a parliament of things on
which civilizational alternatives
are debated and decided” (Latterell, 2014, p. 413). Technology
is the biggest reality of 21set
century and it is deemed as the determining factor of success
and failure for organizations and
countries. This excessive competition is against the true spirit
of technological evolution which
was to help the human race. To ensure that the competition over
technological revolution does
not go out of hand and that it becomes a curse rather than a
blessing it is crucial to understand
that technology is not the end of human growth. It is a tool to
help the human race evolve and
grow and reach its ultimate destiny. But since the ultimate
destiny also evolves hence the process
of technology, invention and innovation must remain as one
aspect of human life, not complete
life.

14. It has been some time that the debate between IT as a curse or
blessing has been going
on. This debate cannot end with one side as the winning side
and the other losing the debate
because somehow both sides are true. It does have both
advantages and disadvantages. Over the
years IT has transformed the world into a global unit with a
revolution in communication.
Innovations and inventions by technology have impacted every
aspect of human life including
health, transportation education, shelter or housing, governance,
policing construction,
agriculture and finances. The businesses are growing and there
are more employment
opportunities and more chances of business growth as IT has
made it possible to do business
with anyone in the world without any regard for the physical
boundaries anymore. IT has
somehow created opportunities for everyone to grow and
prosper that is why it is believed to be
a blessing. But it is also a blessing because it has raised living
standards by improvements and
automation in basic things. This automation has increased
efficiency and reduced resource

15. utilization. It has also led to help humans create more advanced
technologies. In recent years, the
most promising innovation is Artificial intelligence which is
working forward to remove human
labour altogether and create smart machines which can work on
an equal basis as the human
brain. But this technology is in its early years of development
as the AI machines still cannot
replace human brains although their decisions are much
calculated and precise in unique and
unprecedented conditions they are unable to yield fruitful
results. There will be improvements in
the results of these tech smart products but it will be possible in
coming years.
Tracy Zhou
EAD 1
Section 10
Mr.Akey
2 - 11 -2019

16. Different Community and Different Person
An individual’s life is influenced by several objects in his life
ranging from the area they
were born in, his family, his academic institution, and his
religious institutions to his friends and
the people around him which form the overall community.
However, migration to some other
place and spending some years in the foreign environment
changes the perspective of an
individual in several ways. The community around an individual
can be evolved or rebuilt which
produces a significant amount of impact on the life of the
individual. I was born in Shenzhen,
now the metropolitan city of China, where we used to speak
Chinese and English both. I love to
speak Chinese and I love my country very much, which is the
common feeling of Chinese. China
has a socialist and communist system i.e. single party system
which promotes the common
ownership of the resources and the shared community space. It
is also visible in the lifestyle of
our culture and community. I had a very close relationship with
my family and we were so

17. close-knit that we would not even think of spending life outside
of our family and community.
We had a collective lifestyle in which everyone would help each
other in all the tasks ranging
from preparing food to visiting the market together for home
shopping. We would share
everything, even with my extended family. We learned to be
dependent on each other, which is
usually a culture in Asian households and all the decisions are
taken mutually. I moved to
America when I was sixteen for my studies because of the better
opportunities here. Since then, I
have been living with the host family. The lifestyle of America
is quite different than what I was
used to. At first, it was quite difficult for me to adjust here but
with passing time, I have accepted
the reality and community has accepted me because “community
accepts us for who we are”(
Mengtus, pg125). Sometimes, when I visit back, I feel like an
alien in that community but at the
same time, a sense of belonging makes me miss what I was used
to at some point.

18. After moving here, I have learned to do everything by myself
which was hard for me at the
start but then I realized that everyone here, no matter, they live
with their family or not are
self-dependent and do their chores. I learned to do my laundry. I
started washing my dishes and
cleaning my room. At first, it was hard for me because when I
used to live in my home in China,
everyone used to help each other with tasks, mostly my mom
used to prepare food for us and we
would take turns in cleaning the kitchen after or we would help
each other in doing laundry
together at the weekend. Now on vacations, when I visit my
hometown I do my work i.e. setting
my room and washing the dishes myself because I have learned
it from the changed lifestyle
here. America has an individualistic lifestyle and culture which
is different from how we manage
things at our place. It seemed like a whole different world to me
at first because people here have
different priorities and perspectives towards almost everything
than what I learned in my early
sixteen years. Asian countries have a communal lifestyle that is
collective in nature where

19. everything is done collectively by the whole society and our
near community. I still remember
my first days here in America, when everything and everyone
seemed alien to me and I did not
know where to go for simple necessities. At that point I realized
“what it meant to lose and be
alone”. Gradually with the help of my host family, I got familiar
with the neighborhood. I used
to visit this small coffee shop often in the evening where I
started to know people and I preferred
talking to Chinese fellows at the start. Similarly in my
institution, Chinese people had this
community where we would visit Chinese places and restaurants
and inform each other of good
places to visit. Sitting with them, remembering our country and
culture there, it used to feel like
home in that place within these people. It felt like a safe place
for me where people understand
what I am going through and this feeling of being alien was also
familiar within the circle.
However, gradually I started making more friends in my
institution and my neighborhood as well
from different backgrounds and locals. Knowing more of

20. society started to reveal this new
culture and community here. I have adopted several aspects of
American society as well. “could
stake my own claim to it, and in doing so, no one could tell me
who I was or that I didn’t
belong”. ( Mengtus, pg 124) My upbringing as a Chinese is the
major aspect of my personality
but I have accepted and learned new ways of doing things and I
feel that my personality also
mirrors American society because I am now part of it and I
believe American culture and
community are now a major part of me and I have developed
and evolved my perspective in
several ways. I feel like I'm at home here now. Whenever I pass
through the streets of my
neighborhood or I go through the hallways of my institution, I
feel assimilated with it. I see
familiar faces that are kind and are now part of my life. The
street vendors and the shopkeepers
of my locality know me by my face and when I pass their shop,
I greet them. I have a community
where I am recognized and where I know what others are doing.
I find myself at peace here
because this community has accepted me as their part. In our

21. culture, the concept of tattoos is not
acceptable and whenever we see someone with a tattoo, we find
him sketchy or a bad guy but
here, getting tattoos are so common. I remember back in my
hometown when the older brother of
my friend got a tattoo, his family made a big deal out of it to
remove it. Here I got a tattoo when
I was 18 because this perception has been changed by the
lifestyle here. Before I cannot do
anything against chinese culture, such as tattoos. InChina,when
somebody gets big tattoos on
their arm, they are the bad person. Right now, I do not feel that
getting a tattoo has to do
anything with how a person is. I am starting to accept the new
ways here. Homosexuality is not
acceptable in China. Before I came here, I also considered it
unacceptable and I thought that it is
impossible to love a person in a sexual way of the same gender
and on some levels, I found it
unnatural. But coming here has completely changed the
perception of homosexuality. It is
common here and I have learned and accepted that love has
nothing to do with the gender, age

22. color or anything like that. I have friends and people around me
who practice it and we accept it.
I find this aspect of individualistic lifestyle fascinating that
people are free to do whatever they
feel right and no one does or can object to what we choose for
ourselves.
America is a capitalist country which is also reflected by their
individualistic and private
lifestyle, which is different than how I am brought up but I am
now the part of it and I accept its
attributes as well. It has changed my perception about several
things. I have learned to respect
the choices of people in different ways which were not known
to me before. I have learned to
make myself dependent on me and I have learned to be self-
sufficient in this new lifestyle. My
Chinese upbringing has shaped who I am for many years, even
after leaving China. It is part of
me and the values that I learned will always stay with me but
the changed community of
America is reflected through my personality. I have learned
several things that were
unacceptable in that part of the world. The place which used to
be my home feels unknown to the

23. version of me which I have become here. I feel like home at this
place now which has accepted
me as well. In a nutshell, communities play a significant role in
shaping the personality of
individuals.
Tracy Zhou
EAD 1
Section 10
Mr.Akey
2 - 11 -2019
The Communities in the past
An individual is formed majorly by the ways of the people they
find when they are born,
parents, siblings, religious institutions, academic institutions
they attend and even the social
activities they find upon being born. Although I studied in
America for about 5 years, I still love
my country and my family in China. I came to this country at
the age of 15. I was born in China

24. in Shenzhen, where my father was owner of a real estate
company while my mother was working
with father and doing accounting work which means organizing
the money. I grew up speaking
both English and the Chinese language and adopted the ways of
English children who I had
formed close friendships with. My parents then sent me to
school in the United States, although I
occasionally visit Chinese especially during summer to visit our
other relatives in China. Life in
China is so different from how people live in this part of the
world especially on the aspect of
socialization. In the Asian country life is fully communal and
everything is done nearly by the
whole society contrary to the individualistic culture of
Americans. My Chinese upbringing has
shaped who I am many years even after leaving China although
a few aspects are gradually
changing to mirror the American society and their ways of
doing things, something I noted last
summer when I visited Shenzhen.
In China, there is little of an individual life. Most of the things
are done collectively and

25. the society has values which enhance this kind of living. A
collectivist culture drowns the
specific aspects of the individual and smoothers them with a
common pool of values which
makes the person inseparable from their societies. When a child
is born, it belongs to the parents,
the school and the locality. These parties instill moral values
and perspectives towards life. When
I was in primary and secondary schools, I was at school, home
and tutor every day. It’s kind of
boring and dull for me, but my parents wanted me to do it and
said: “is good for you”. According
to the article Home at Last: “could stake my own claim to it,
and in doing so, no one could tell
me who I was or that I didn’t belong” ( pages 125). These
quotes can represent my confusion and
helplessness towards life at that time. I follow every step that
my parents plan for me, I don’t
have any thought or choice to do what I want to do.
After I came to America, I still remember my first days here in
America, when
everything and everyone seemed alien to me and I did not know
where to go for simple

26. necessities. At that point I realized “what it meant to lose and
be alone” (Home at Last and 124).
Gradually with the help of my host family, I got familiar with
the neighborhood. I used to visit
this small coffee shop often in the evening where I started to
know people and I preferred talking
to Chinese fellows at the start. Similarly in my institution,
Chinese people had this community
where we would visit Chinese places and restaurants and inform
each other of good places to
visit. Sitting with them, remembering our country and culture
there, it used to feel like home in
that place within these people. It felt like a safe place for me
where people understand what I am
going through and this feeling of being alien was also familiar
within the circle.
Tracy Zhou
EAD 1
Section 10
Mr.Akey

27. 4-14-2020
Technology has, for a long time, shaped our culture in many
ways, ranging from the way
we do our daily work to our health issues and even how we
communicate with each other. In our
communities, most people will get the current flow and follow
the community rules to live their
life. Families, in other words, is all people's community. In
ancient China, people live together
to become a new community called neighbors. They need to talk
to each other face to face.
However, with the progress of the present age and the
development of science and technology,
people's living standards have improved. Culture is inalienable
of technology; they influence
others and progress each other. Technology is an essential tool
that helps people to communicate
now. Lots of hotpot shops have a robot to help people get the
dishes and drinks. In the future,
technology will improve, and people's life will become better.