MSN messenger is cool stuff

After sending our son to my parents in china, we found that we rely more and more on MSN messenger. Actually, we set our MSN messenger on all the time so that we can watch our son anytime we want. It is a great feeling to see the development of the baby day by day while listening to my parents’ comments. Before writing anything else, I would thank my parents for their priceless love for our family. My parents were very tired by taking care of their grandson, but still they are enjoying every moment so much.

Recent internet communication disruption in East Asia has brought inconvenience on my parents’ MSN access. I have not been able to efficiently contact them through MSN messenger for many days. I changed to make international phone calls instead. Although this phone call cost only about 2 cents per minute, still it is not free like MSN messenger. We could not talk while watching each other any more and neither could we send different kind of files.

This inconvenient experience also reminds me one scene happened more than 20 years ago when I was in my hometown. The husband of my neighbor was a visiting scholar to USA at that time and it was very difficult for him to contact his family. Since my neighbor had no phone set at home, they have to come to my house occasionally to receive the phone calls from USA. Since it was very expensive for an international phone call, they rarely called each other and cherished every second on the talk. They would break into tears every time on the talk, which was quite a scene and my parents would calm them down by effort. What a big leap in communication technology during the passed 20 years. Now I can call my parent whenever I want and I can see them on computer any time I want.

Thinking about the development of internet technology, I could not imagine how I will contact my parents 20 years later if I am not living with them at the same place. All I can imagine is to have a tiny foldable computer, which look like the Jin-Gu-Bang (金箍棒, the Monkey King’s famous weapon). Unfolding this computer followed by super-high-speed wireless internet access will bring whoever to me if they would like to take my invitation.

No matter how advanced that current IT technology could be evolved, a real hug or a freshly cooked dinner are just missions impossible. To transfer a real substance to a long distance within seconds is just beyond people’s imagination and lack the support of any scientific theory at this moment.

Anyway I really hope that my son will be back to my side soon. Following pics were copied from my MSN messenger and that’s the best we can enjoy from the other side of our planet earth.