Brand Names on the Wane

Do you think brand names will still be popular in the future?

            I believe brand names will recede in importance in the foreseeable future. Though the number of brands may fluctuate, arising from the closing down of one company and the establishing of another, it will decrease in the long run.

            Brand names affiliate themselves strongly with their own products in order to represent their high qualities and fashion. Normally when the price of merchandise escalates, the demand for them plunges. As for the extravagant brand, on the contrary as we all know, the higher the price, the more we purchase, as we tend to show off the external adornment of lavishness or are falsely induced to buy expensive but plausibly good-quality things. But this doesn’t hold true now in the rough time. Not since the Great Depression in 1930’s have the condition of financial been so bad. We have undergone crises such as subprime mortgage and European debt for the past five years. Now people are generally only willing to buy basic pieces of clothing to replace the worn out ones in their wardrobe

            On the other hand, brand is to the goods what trust is to the bank. If the banking industry’s credibility is shot, and without trust the business is doomed to crumble. Along with the rise of China, companies with reputable brand have moved their manufacturing line there, causing the quality of clothes, shoes and many other things to decline and leading the case of food produced with scandalous additives. Like the banker failed to justify the confidence of his clients in him, the reputation of the brand has been thereby dented.

            Despite the fact that factors unknown can be seen for the blips on the path of decline, which we cannot possibly predict, the popularity of brand names is on the wane.

The Poor

            The birth rate has always been high in the underdeveloped country, resulting in escalating population and congested residential area. On top of that, with the government and corporation's provision for health care, infant mortality and death caused by disease has declined over years. Consequently, population has continued to spiral out of control, and this alarming trend shows no signs of abating. However, critical food shortage combined with a growing food requirement by individual nation has led to a race to grasp resources through whatever means necessary, including riots, wars and uprisings. These altogether has brought about poverty and a vicious cycle.

            Unfortunately, it is poverty that makes a family keep bearing more children to create more human labor. Lack of labor will only lead to greater poverty. Also, organization like WTO aims to eliminate customs duties and create a fair market, but it's impossible for a poor nation to take any advantage of the free market. On the contrary, they are forced to open their own market, and the gap between the poorest and the richest groups of people have and will widen in the foreseeable future.

Everyone can be successful at work if they work hard.

DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE?

These days it is common for people to claim that some people are failures because they didn’t try hard enough. This is because it is believed that it is possible for everyone to be successful if they just work hard enough. This is a dangerous idea because if it is true, then is also means that unsuccessful people didn’t try hard enough. This essay will examine whether or not it actually is possible for everyone to be successful.

First of all, it cannot be denied that many successful people today are successful even though they didn’t complete college. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropping out from school is a case in point. As a result, some may contradict the value of hard work. They say the reason why some people achieve good results could be attributed to their intelligence instead of working hard. In other words, it is said that the more intelligent one is, the more one is likely to succeed. Take Bill Gates for instance again, he has an intelligence quotient of 160. But it is only partially true. What people don’t realize is that when his business was just taking off, he worked, ate and slept in his office continuously. Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, quoting from Thomas Edison. I believe that if you are intelligent, and know how to apply your intelligence by adding hard work to it, you can achieve anything.

Another problem is that people tend to think that rich people have more opportunities to succeed regardless of how much effort been made. They say children of rich families have private tutors, and access to better schools and a more supportive home environment. In this case, you may even ask me if Bill Gates came from a well-off family. He does. But that is one out of a million cases. Studies show that people who are poor have greater will to fulfill their dreams, whereas the rich display more laziness, arrogance and a greater tendency to rest on their laurels, all of which combine lead to their failure. There is a saying in Chinese, fortune last nor more than three generations. Also, children of entrepreneurs are more likely to start their own business.

To sum up, you work hard, but may still fail to win. But if you don’t work hard, you’ll never make your dream come true.

Parents versus Teachers

Good parents are by far more important to a child's development than good teachers. Teachers come and go fleetingly, having only passing influence on children. Parents, on the other hand, are stable and steady. Education comes about everywhere. But it is parents that the foundation of learning relies on.

We come into the world without possessions but only the love of parents. I believe that no matter what happens, parents always act kindly towards children. Because of natural ties of blood, parents often sacrifice themselves for their children, grudging nothing for them. From day to day, we can often see a father holding his kid's hands walking along the sidewalk, or a mother feeding her baby. From my own experience, even a prudently frugal mother would buy her child daily necessities of a tiptop quality and spend with immoderation. On the contrary, teachers are only people of some importance that we invariably have to meet. Normally, teachers just don't form such close connections with children. If a child is labeled a bad student, teachers usually give up on them, or sometimes, they're just hardly serious enough education and treating each of the students.

No other people spend more time on looking after children than their parents. They protect and advise them in every possible way. Parents are worried about their children all the time, making every effort to follow their latest status and to keep track of their welfare whether they are at home or at school, or any other place you name it. Teachers just won't constantly keep company with children either throughout the course of the day or through their path of youth. They have their own kids and personal matters to be worried and concerned about. Parents instill knowledge, teach manners and share values of life in the very first place. Consider that children come into existence resembling a blank sheet or a clean sponge, they learn and absorb things the fastest and most profound as a baby. Teachers are only people who interpret knowledge in books in rather explicit meanings. On top of that, a good mentor is hard to find and only appears once in a while.

It is parents that toil so hard to support their children who are relatively vulnerable both physically and mentally. Regarding teachers, other than teaching stuff from books, their main concern is not the overall well-being of their students.

I have two affable and respectable parents. They set a good example for me to model myself on. Loving parents have contributed more to my acumen, happiness and health than decent teachers. Because of them, I'm not proud of what I am and what I have.

While a child goes through ups and downs, facing every adversity, parents have and will always be there for them.

Re-cycle

A sudden chill of horror swept over me as the only bare bulb on the ceiling burnt out above me. Shattered glass scattered over me like hot coals. Where was I? Scarcely any light came through a few small holes; that most of them were muffled with dirty rags or sealed with stiff cardboard. I saw that I was in a room, rather small, reflections of narrow beams of light in a haze of heat roughly illuminated the backdrop, turning it bloody red. There was garbage everywhere! The paint was peeled off the wall in every direction. A wooden cross was nailed into a rotted window frame still blocking any exit. And a huge portrait of a strange person hung crookedly on the wall. The smell of mildew and decay and, somehow, death hung over the room. The building seemed about to fall apart. Suddenly, the portrait fell to the ground and behind it a tunnel covered with moss, mud and rubble came into view. I guessed it was probably the way out; without a second thought, I dashed in.

Lights became fainter and fainter while echoes of my heavy steps grew louder. Closing my eyes, I felt a warmth like a sun upon my head and my face, humid, moist... No, it's wet! Something tepid was dripping down on me. All out of breath, I slipped and tumbled on the wet ground, hitting my face on the dirt,causing me to lick some gruesome, copper-tasting liquid. Blood, I recognized it instantly, yet it felt like time itself had suspended. It took me a while to collect my thoughts, stand up and realize my current circumstance. I was stuck in a cave of flesh overhung with countless fetuses and live babies tied with dripping veins and umbilical cords. Their muddy eyeballs were wide open, staring at me with luminous pupils. I didn't dare to look back, and yet I saw at the very end of the cave a little girl waving at me. I shouted for her help to take me out of there. Somehow I heard her whisper, "You had your chance to live with me. " The outline of her body became dimmer as I perceived my heart pounding louder and louder, steadily beating slower until it vanished.

It was just a dream. I woke up in the morning. The light of dawn was just beginning to fill the stifling, lonely room. It was inevitable that spiritless babies and dead corpses would remind me of the fate of unrequited love. There was hardly a shelter where I could escape the torments of memories. The dream was shapeless and incoherent, but in time I came to believe that perhaps its disorder could revealed obscure message. The abandoned will emerge again; the forgotten will be dreadfully reborn.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” I met my girlfriend eight years ago, and bought a small apartment for us. Our love was unacceptable, but it was precisely her love that completed me and gave me everything I needed. Unexpectedly, she got pregnant. So came the brutal abortion, deserted house, extinguished hopes, dying embers of hapless love and a completely wasted life over the years. I've been trying hard to tear my memories apart and discard them in the recycle bin of my soul, despite the fact that it had become all too clear that I was overwhelmed with the burden of disillusion. My efforts to purge myself of this hell only seemed to provide the incitement needed for malevolent characters to fully manifest themselves in my life.

Funny it was, that the souls of aborted babies being held in tormented limbo was continuously haunted me even though I had discarded so many other things. Merchandises bought last year, faces once encountered but never again remember, dead loved ones left behind, drafts of stories started but never completed, thoughts no longer able to recall, and promises never fulfilled were long since dumped in recycle bin. Do these things constitute my dreams or my reality? Or am I now only a fictional version of the real me that has been lost over time? Does my memory of my self betray me? Fantasy becomes reality. Memory becomes monstrous. And terror becomes destiny.

I got out of bed, stretching myself, stepping into the bathroom when suddenly, the only bare bulb burnt out above me...

I wish I could finish all the things I started.

Irreconcilability

SERIOUS CONFLICTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SET ABLAZE by having an idea irreconcilable with another, even though there is a correct answer or one has patchy knowledge of the subject. I'm saying this because it has no doubt stirred up trouble in my life. I've seen many paradigms but no conclusions. Formidable though the problem is, I would like to share my experience as well as crack the problem.

In the Space Academy in America, not only did I have a lot of fun, all the spacecrafts, equipment, events and American cafeterias, etc, were incredible, but my life experience was irreconcilable with the people I met. After a handsome triumph in a game of structuring two-stage rockets, by using two balloons, a string, a rubber band, some paper clips and tape relying on the three laws of motion, I was given a nickname of “Big Boss.” However, I was not so lucky on the next game, I messed up my relationship with my team. Perhaps I acted too conceited as though everybody was wrong, even though I might have been the only wrong person. Or perhaps, if I may be so bold as to criticize, some of them designated themselves as elites living in an intellectual capital, having discrimination against my hometown, as if is was a rural backwater with only one life – me.

This game was mainly about how to keep things from burning out in an extremely high temperature, resembling the time when shuttles rush into the atmosphere. We took a small, square copper cube stuck on the bottom of an iron pen with glue, and used some wire netting and steel wires to shield if from the flame projector. We all knew there are three ways heat is transported, convection, conduction and radiation. So the more distance between the iron pen and projector, the less heat the iron would get. It's like common sense. Nevertheless, my friends set an opposing opinion, he covered the iron pen all around instead of keeping a distance with wires. And undoubtedly, there began an irreconcilable conflict.

The problem was a dilemma: you could choose the wrong solution and fail the competition in order to keep a good relationship, or else argue with them, but you might beat him in a fiasco after finally he figured the truth out. If there appears to be an answer, I will still remain unconvinced because it was an unsolvable mystery.

Immortal Imaginarium

        What would you pay for immortality? What if the devil made a bet with you and your triumph has yielded its reward of immortality? It might have been mesmerizing had you been given an opportunity to live beyond the restraints of time. You would go through many eras, encountering Caesar and Alexander, listening to Beethoven fingering or maybe receiving Von Gogh's paintings.

        After 14,000 years from the time of being a cave man, everyone and everything you counted important have vanished one after another. You would find the loneliness was unendurable as in the memorable line from Socrates, “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which to the better fate is known only to God.”

        Because your body still aged despite your inability to die, you might make a deal with the devil once again for youth in order to become acquainted with the woman you fell in love with. In exchange, any child you have would belong to the devil when they were sixteen. Sounds like a satisfactory, fair deal, doesn't it? However, things in the world don't take exactly the permutations we have anticipated, like Romeo couldn't possibly have expected the fact that Juliet was in suspended animation at Wright's grave. When your own daughter has grown and steadily became a well bred lady with perfect symmetry, you'll regret what you've done. When people give a standing ovation to your daughter's beauty, I doubt not that the contract would be torn. Maybe another deal is necessity. The devil might said “Let's start a new bet, whoever gets five human souls first wins your daughter.”

        Catching one soul, then the second, the third and the fourth soul, the devil would stop you from getting the fifth. As the bet continued, the fact of your secret wouldn't stand long. Your daughter might have a mental breakdown, and be the fifth soul accidently. Like I mentioned before, things in the world don't take exactly the permutations we have anticipated. Your wife has gone and your daughter has gone. After all, they were just some pathetic bets.
        I have heard a story. An egg farmer told his grandchild to “candle eggs” to assure there weren't any cracks or imperfections, and to put the bad ones in the bakery bucket. The farmer came back after an hour, and discovered there were three hundred eggs in the bakery bucket and asked, “What the hell are you doing?” “I found flaws in every single one of them. The thickness of the shells or hair-line cracks.” If you look closely, you'll find everything has a weak spot where it could break sooner or later. The devil just found you're a gambler. And I'm afraid that my enemies will find out I'm a winner, no matter what the situation is, whatever happens.

        In infinite time, the devil is an immortal banker, and a banker needs a gambler who has bets to play together until the end of time. Luckily I am not immortal. I do not fear the end of the world because it won't happen in this generation, and I do not need to fear the cases above. All I need to fear is what happens next.