Travelling within a country may make you witness a lot of difference. Travelling to different countries exacerbates this. Travelling between continents might be the ultimate of witnessing the change between peoples. In my travels it seems I have been travelling not only in places but also in time. Not just linearly in one direction. The travel took me back and forth technologically. Going from Europe to China in very early 21st century was indeed like going back in time; they seemed to be slowly catching up with the development of internet and IT solutions. Over a decade later coming back home was just a similar experience! In spite of government limitations and censorship the Chinese have embraced the technology to a level surpassing that in Europe. And then the unexpected turn for me happened and I found myself in Africa and the technology is present here but it seems I was taken back in time even further.
Being a teacher one is more acutely aware of the differences of available technology in different countries and how it is utilised in every day life. Here I am in a top-notch international school and on the notice boards in the homeroom of year 8 I see students’ introductions where they drew their portraits! In pencil! In China no year 8 student would disgrace themselves with such a thing! The pictures would be taken, airbrushed and polished to perfection before they would be laminated and put up on the wall. Here, in Africa, a scrap of paper with a mere stencil of remote resemblance to the subject will suffice. Apparently the colour printer is somewhere but it takes a lot of back rubbing to get a colour print. Not saying it is wrong; just observing. The waste of resources was shocking to me in China, I am hoping this might be e refreshing change.
The students have access to mobile phones and to computers or laptops but they somehow do not seem too obsessed with them. Or maybe this is just an illusion.
In China getting a taxi was super easy even for foreigners once an app was installed and familiarized with. Apparently the government had to meddle with that too and made it difficult for the drivers to sign up for the service that ultimately reduced the number of taxis available on the didi app. The reasons behind it are all obscure and I am sure everybody is hiding behind the safety curtain. Funny how the safety regulations usually just inconvenience the ordinary folk. Back to the point; mobile phones are widely used here but trying to get things done online is paramount to impossibility; everything must be arranged by a friend of a friend who knows another friend. So, as long as you have a friend to start with, life should be relatively comfortable.
It’s very simple to find out any matter on web as compared to textbooks, as I found
this post at this web page.
My point is that resources on the internet can be of varying relevance and quality. Just like what you found here was probably miles away from what you were looking for 🙂