another sam chan: the student blogger

I am ecstatic to announce the launch of Another2010Blog.com. As many of you may have known, the Winter Olympics have hit my home town, and this blog will follow the events and the buzz (sorry Yahoo, I mean Google) going around the city during these couple of weeks. If you’re a big sports fanatic like me, you will definitely want to stop by.

The personal branding and ‘business’ (used loosely) side of me tell me that I should cover the Olympics here, since I haven’t exactly been overflowing with posts and it’d make for more visitors, hits, and other goodies that us bloggers love. However, I ultimately decided against that and here’s why:

• I see blogs as story books. Another Sam Chan is my personal story, and I believe having the Olympics in my home town is worth it’s own story – with it’s own binding and cover. 50 years from now, I want to be able to read back as about the time the Olympics hit Vancouver as its own book, and not as simply a chapter.
• The Olympics are not about me. Although I am extremely lucky to be here during this time, the 2010 Olympics are about celebrating sports and the city of Vancouver, and reporting news doesn’t keep in line with the idea of a personal blog.
• It’s an opportunity for me to use Tumblr. I have been itching to try out Tumblr for a while now and am very excited for it’s re-blog feature. It allows for greater content to be posted on a blog from different perspectives, and allows for better community building. It is my hope that during this short time, I can use the blog as a collaboration to find many more amazing experiences and stories that will live past these next 17 days.

To make it easier for you, I have added a tab at the top that links directly to the new olympics blog. I hope that I can share some of the excitement of my home city in the upcoming days.

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There could be a million things I could write about after all the hockey action that has happened within the last 48 hours (Vancouver Giants going to the conference finals, Vancouver Canucks taking game 1) but I’ve decided to leave that to the pros and talk about something else. Thanks to inflation and the ridiculous popularity of the Canucks in Vancouver, I couldn’t afford to attend the first playoff game for the Canucks tonight. However, thanks to the NHL sponsoring an official ‘tweet up’, I don’t feel like I missed a thing. Before I go any further, a ‘Tweetup’ is really just a meetup of people from Twitter.

Canucklehead Twittering away at the NHLTweetup

Now a couple hours later, I realize that I just saw two of most powerful community driving things work together: sports and social media. There is nothing quite like what a sports team does to a city. I walked down the street in downtown Vancouver at 11:00pm at night without any fear that I would be shot for the first time in a long time because I knew I was just surrounded by other Canuckleheads, just like me. People would honk at my friends and scream out “Go Canucks Go”. You could start a conversation with anybody on the street by throwing random player’s names around. The feeling of community is tremendous and it is just as the marketing suggests: we are all Canucks.

NHL Tweetup Pregame, Picture taken by Miss604

Social media is a different beast. There’s tons of blogs and marketing ‘gurus’ who have been preaching this web 2.0 stuff for years, but regardless, I thought that it might be a quiet night (other than the screams in joy and agony) in terms of conversation since I was just hanging out with a bunch of strangers. But when I walked into the room, I quickly realized that I actually knew these people. It wasn’t like walking into a mall; these were people that had the same hobbies and interests as me and the night went by like any other night with your regular friends would. Is it possible to become real friends with somebody without ever meeting them? Five years ago, it would have been a straightaway ‘no’ (unless you’re one of those pen-pal advocates). But now, I’m not so sure. We sure looked like we had fun here:

To wrap things up before I forget what I’m talking about, the impact these two seemingly forms of ‘entertainment’ on community building is amazing and anybody doing business, politics, or anything that requires people to be involved should pay close attention.

Special Shout Out to Richard, who did an awesome job organizing the first ever #NHLTweetup.

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Last Friday the 13th, I had the benefit of going on the first field trip created by the SFU Communication Student Union ever. It’s the first field I’ve been on since grade 8 when I went to the nearby pool for a year end party (hardly a trip at all) so naturally, I was pretty excited. The destination was CBC Vancouver and I have to say, even though I was pretty sure I was going to have a good time, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I am pleased to say that everybody we met there was extremely down to earth and highly encouraged us to ask questions of any caliber and were extremely informative, sharing career advice and behind the scenes tricks. They even answered me when I asked them if news anchors wear pants while on air (The answer was no, but Claire Martin said that’s a lie).

If there was one minor setback, its that no video cameras were allowed inside due to security reasons. As a result, I have compiled a bunch of pictures, along with the pre-trip and some of the student’s thoughts into a short vlog. Special thanks goes out to Brianna and the SFU CMNSU for making it happen, and Tiffany from CBC for showing us around.

Also, introducing Queenie as the co-’host’! Enjoy!

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We have a really special post today, with our first guest ever on anothersamchan.com, Mati Ma from Vancouver’s very own One Arm Bear! We talk about the band, Twitter (@anothersamchan, @onearmbear), the weather, American history, football, and get really deep, like diving board deep. We’re also giving away their debut CD, Blurred as well as NCAA Football 2009 for PS3 (in honor of Superbowl Weekend). So make sure you watch the whole show and get in on it! We realize its a bit long, but time flies when you’re having fun, and we sure did (have fun, not make time fly). Check it out and leave your entries in the comments section, or on twitter, facebook, email, and the rest of the social media round table. We’ll put anyone’s who has the correct answers in a draw and pick from there. The contest will go until February 10th, 2009. The questions, as promised, are below.

Battle of the Sexes Questions: One Arm Bear Blurred CD:
1.Vodka, Triple Sec, Cranberry Juice and Lime make what trendy cocktail?

2. Finish this ad slogan: “Maybe she’s born with it, _______”

3. Who won four MTV Music Awards for his/her pop hit ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’?

NCAA Football 2009 (PS3):

1. What basketball star fought Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer?

2. ‘Bonita’, ‘koi’ and ‘plaice’ are types of what?

3. What dot-gobbling icon became an electronic arcade game sensation in the 1980s? Remember to enter all three answers for a chance to win and leave your email so we can contact you.

If you’re interested in more of One Arm Bear’s songs, there’s a couple of them up on their virb, and remember to get tickets for SHOCKWAVE. We’ll see you there.

ps – go pittsburgh!

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Every morning, millions of people are delivered a newspaper and inside, there are countless stories about car thefts, acts of violence, homicide, and suicide. Then, when you turn on the television, you’re welcomed with C.S.I and 24 – shows where death occurs more times in one episode than the amount of meals the main character has had. Sick of fiction? Turn on the sports channel for some U.F.C. In many ways, our society has become accustomed and perhaps even immune to violence. Still, things like shootings and stabbings only happen overseas, or in the projects, or when people hang with the “wrong crowd”. But right in the middle of day on a Friday in the the biggest mall in BC? Nah. That can’t be right.

But that’s exactly what happened today around 5:30pm right in the heart of Metrotown by Off-the-Wall and the escalator. A multi-person fight that started with belts ended with knife wounds. ‘Luckily’ (using the term very loosely), both men who were stabbed have been reported to be in stable condition. It was an extremely graphic scene for mall traffic, and despite security and police claiming there was nothing to see, a crowd naturally gathered as rumors boiled up from store to store. It really hit home to be near such a violent event up close. Even though I did not witness the stabbing personally, it was still shocking to hear about it. A distant acquaintance of mine was stabbed to death this summer and this incident reminded me of it once more. Are there really issues that simply cannot be resolved with peace and calmness? It makes me wonder once more about the relationship of violent media we consume and our levels of aggression. We are fed this because “bad news is good news”. That’s pretty sad.

From when I initially threw up a posterous online to see if what happened, many have responded by to offer their point of views on what happened. You can go ahead and take a look but be forewarned that the language is at least 14a and there is a graphic photograph at the scene. I would recommend that anybody that has any information about the stabbings to step up and give the authorities a call so appropriate action can be taken. The number for the Burnaby RCMP is 604.294.7922. Also, if you are experiencing shock from first hand imagery, I recommend you talk to your family members as well.

If you want to know more about the situation you can take a look at these sites:
Metrotown rush-hour stabbing ends with two in hospital
Metrotown Stabbing (warning: graphic image)
Fight at Metrotown ends in double stabbing

I will update as more information arises. What can we do to lower violence within our cities? Seems like a question usually only comes up in a politicians speech, but with news like this, it ought to be on everyone’s mind. Another reason to vote.

ps – I know I usually post about all things tech, sports, and the ‘life’ of a student and this is more of a news item, but I couldn’t ignore this: guess its the mini-reporter in me.

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