Hanji
Things you can't imagine.

My daugher is 29 years old. She asked me how I did if I missed my favorite TV show 40 year ago. I said I couldn't do anything. She was so surprised. 

I see many young members on this board. Do you have anything you are wondering? There are older people on this board and can answer them.

Hold on,  we had refrigerators. anything else? 

Apr 10, 2019 1:51 PM
Comments · 7
3

I find it funny that you think 29 is young. I’m 30 years old and there are a lot of things younger people do today that I just don’t understand. I already have a lot of “back in my day” thoughts.

I turn off my phone every evening and some people find it weird. It’s like I’m expected to be connected and on-call all the time. I know a few people who also turn off their phones, but some people get annoyed that I’m not easily reachable and ask me why my phone was off.

Some younger people say that they are expected to call or text their friends back within 30 minutes or something like that. I can’t imagine having that kind of pressure. I text back whenever I can, which is sometimes within a few minutes and sometimes within a few hours or even the next day if I’m too tired. Even my partner does not expect me to be on constant call, and likewise I don’t expect my partner to be on constant call. People have separate lives and I can’t imagine being so dependent on someone’s availability, but this seems to be very common nowadays. Like if you don’t respond within a few minutes, many people will feel that you don’t like them or something.

April 10, 2019
3

I was born and grow up in former USSR as drasvi.


I think we had a lot of everything. We read books, we played REAL games, not virtual ones. We had REAL friends. We danced, we had parties, we traveled and hiked or we just walked in the city. We had a lot to do and didn't have time to sit at the front of the TV.

April 10, 2019
2
(2) computers and video-games.

I dreamt about computers and video-games when I was a child.
I didn't have one, but I had a book with listings of video-game programs! I was running them in my mind:) 
You could think that I must have become a great programmer if I was reading programs as a little boy? No, I don't like programming and I'm not good at it, though once in a while it is my job:/ 

I also loved sci-fi novels. There were computers there, and even games. But what neither me nor sci-fi authors could imagine was the Internet.

If you don't understand: I DO live in the world of sci-fi now! Moreover, our world appears more excting, more crazy, more wonderful than what I read in books. We live in a funny time: the world is changign a lot and it is changing quickly and there are more and more and more interesting things. I think Hanji feels the same.

April 10, 2019
2
Hanji, I don't have questions. I can tell some stoies though. 

(1) books. I told this already in past.

USSR, the country where I was born, was somewhat strange. It was very well educated. But the government decided which books to print and in which quantity. There were not as many titles printed as today, but some were printed in huge number of copies. Of course, books which were printed in many copies were often NOT the books people wanted to read:)))) And the books people wanted to read were often printed in smaller numbers (when they were published at all).

Another peculiarity was that the government distributed books evenly over the whole country. The idea that small towns must have good book stores is great! (they very not big though;/ They just had a random assortment of books which arrived there yearly). But it happened that some titles which were sought after by everyone in Moscow but were impossible to obtain could easily be bought in provinces, where they were lying on shelves for years. So some people from Moscow returned from trips to villages, small towns and republics like Uzbekistan with their bags full of precious books.

As result, dedicated readers should have hunted for books. And that was... exciting! That was an adventure, like hunting for ancient manuscripts.

As a child I could know  "who is reading the copy of ... from the local library, who will be reading it next and when it is my turn" and there were "expeditions" to province:)

Also I knew names of translators. Often good translators selected good books and were able to convince publishers and censors that a book is worth being published (because it reveals the vices of capitalist society or just because it is great).
April 10, 2019
1
Val
Yes, we had real things and real friends. We thought the information in the newspaper was real and true. Did we believe media? I did. Now we have a lot of information from the mass media and small twitting of ordinary people. It became complicated but some people tell the truth on the internet. I like nostalgic things and also new things which have expanded the possibility to convey the true story. 
People don't sit in front of TV recently either. They are in front of the computer.
April 11, 2019
Show more