Individual reflection — Jason
Connecting cities have offered me a rare opportunity to incorporate with students in another country, and I have really accumulated much experience during the process. During the study, I have also learned more about Melbourne and Girona, and I started to have a better understanding of these two cities. The cooperate experience is essential as well because this is my first time to work with people who lived in another country with the help of social media. Before I started this class, I was afraid that there might be problems, for example, language barriers exist, but actually, the communication between the Girona group and me is quite well, and we both got a decent experience from the conversation. I believe that this experience will be crucial in my future career. I will know what’s to do if I have a job which needs me to communicate with foreigner through the internet.
At the beginning of the class, I think that Girona is a small city located in Spain, it’s near the sea, and there must be a large number of old buildings, which means it’s a city with strong historical atmosphere. It looks like there is no connection between Girona and those concrete buildings. But when I got to know more about Girona through communication with my international teammates. I found that Girona is not a city with only historical buildings, there are many things in Girona to discover, especially the modern part of Girona. It’s another side of Girona, and it made Girona not only a historic old town but a modern city as well.
I think our film capture the connection between Melbourne and us through the journey from home to Yarra river. As an international student, I think the life in Melbourne to us is a type of journey. Our understanding of Melbourne has changed from strangeness to familiarity. In the beginning, Melbourne is just a huge international city, but now it feels likes home. As I said, when I get to know more about a city, I will see that it’s not just what it seems. Same as Melbourne, there is not only the concrete forest and fast-paced lifestyle in this city. After this journey, we found that there are many places in Melbourne which you can enjoy your life there at a slower pace, for example, the last place of our journey, the Yarra River. Besides these kinds of place, there are also places like the train station which give Melbourne a cultural atmosphere. Through this journey, we have been getting to know Melbourne and have a deeper understanding and sense of belonging here, and the journey itself connected us with Melbourne. For our international group in Girona, I think their connection with Girona is more clear and straight. Girona is their home, and this place is too familiar for them. Therefore, their footages are more like their daily life in Girona, for example, there is footage shooting the stadium and Girona people watching football competition, it really gives me a feeling that I’m at Girona and watching the football competition with them, and I can really feel their love to their city and football.
When we were shooting our footages, we have referenced some of the scenes in the movie. For example, some of the shots in “Taxi Driver” help us a lot in the process of footage shooting.
I think the limitation of using media to communicate the city is clear, even though we have various media nowadays in different ways, and there is a large amount of information for people to know on the internet. But still, people are not able to have to see the core of the city on the internet.most of the video are only talking about the famous part of the city. For example, like Girona, people will only know that the Game of Throne used to film there. They don’t know where is the best restaurant in Girona and how can they arrived there, what public transport should they take if they didn’t do detail research about Girona. Also, the present form of city introduction media is likely to cause people having a stereotype of the city. And the stereotype may affect a person’s first impression of the city. However, if there are more types of media invent in the future, which can give people a more detail understanding of the city than text and video. I think the problem will be less effective. For me, the game may be the best media form to get to know a city, even now some of the games chose real cities as a place where their stories happened. And I believe that in the future, there will be games specially designed for tourism, in which people can experience the local customs of every place. I think it will be a great help for them to know more about these cities.
