Learning More About Blogs

It was my friends who encouraged me to set up a blog. I had written articles, jokes, etc. and emailed to them. They found the articles to be interesting and refreshing and encouraged me to start a blog. "What is a blog?" I asked, immediately smiling because I associate the word with block as in block head. Since I am not a technical person, I was somewhat apprehensive.... my knowledge of computer is only limited to emailing.

Lim Win Nie, a college student, helped me to set up a blog. An old buddy, Mo Shin, from my university suggested I should call the blog "The Oriental Express" since I am like a Choo Choo Train that goes chugging merrily around. For some reason I could not use my name as a blog name... hence have to contend with using my pen name of Ganchau.

Dr. Kumaran Raju, my client, who does research at the University, helped me to set up the site meter counter. He is a geologist who has never studied computer... yet he could just naturally figure out what to do! Some people are just so talented!

Hence I was so thrilled when I found out from my site meter that my blog had been read locally as well as far away as America, Canada, Europe, Australia, South America and Middle East. Often I would click on the blog addresses of those who read my blog. Some of them are very good writers of poems, etc. However I was surprised when I saw a few who had nothing but sheer pornography. There was this French couple who delighted in nothing but sheer exhibitionism of themselves! There was not even a single article in French but faceless photos of body parts! I mentioned this to a friend, and he said that in overseas they are somewhat more liberal and have more freedom.

I heard about Xiaxue and her popularity. So one day, I thought I would read to find out how a 21 year old writer could have 10,000 hits a day. Wow... she could be a future Catherine Lim or even better, a future Singapore Lu Hsun. Being a great admirer of these two writers, I often hope that our small island of Singapore could produce the likes of Catherine Lim and Lu Shun. I was surprised at the constant usage of expletives and four letter words, and even more surprised to find that Xia Xue has free porn in her site! When Win Nie helped me to set up the blog I had read that bloggers are not supposed to use their blog for use or promotion of pornographic material.

I am now half a century years old, and only now do I understand why parents must guard their children's use of the computer! What great infiltration of filth and garbage that can go into the little screen! Two Thai fishermen in their early twenties got drunk while watching a porn movie and then decided to swim to shore and rape the first foreign tourist they saw at Koh Samui. Poor Katherine Horton had just stepped away from her beach hut to get bettter reception for her handphone while speaking to her mother back home. Her mother heard a bloodcurling scream from her daughter, then silence. Poor Katherine was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The two men beat, raped and killed her. "Delicious, very delicious" shouted the two murderers as they boasted of their deed to their crewmen!

I am glad I am now a retired schoolteacher because with the advent of computers, I would end up like mothers constantly worrying about the young students in my charge. I would appeal to all the young people to read good literature and materials. There are so many distractions and with the limited time that you have for reading, why waste the precious time on reading materials that do not build you up into the mature, confident, wise, happy and balanced adult you should be.

Gan Chau