Guo Rong, Sweet Sixteen


> From: grw1@mindspring.com
> 
> i beleive this is a spam, if you'll notice the sender, Guo Rong, that would
> be pronounced: Go Wrong.
> 
> >Guo Rong <guorong@pacific.net.sg>

Tom Tadfor Little has properly suggested that such posts should be 
ignored.  However, I can't resist commenting to grwl@mindspring that I 
don't believe Guo Rong is a made up name.

 I did a web search at www.metacrawler.com (which 
searches Lycos, Yahoo, Excite, and four other leading search engines ALL 
AT ONE BLOW) for the two words guo rong (with the parameter "as a phrase" 
enabled), and got 29 hits.

Apparently there is a leading figure in the Chinese government named Guo 
Rong, as well as a Chinese movie star, etc., etc.  There was only one 
Singapore site, and that was INDEED our very own "Guo Rong" who has a 
marvelously sophisticated web site, quite beautiful.  It announces that 
he is 16.  After spending five minutes at the site, I gathered that he is 
a typical Singaporean teen-age boy, and startlingly like a 16-year old 
American boy.  He has his favorite web sites listed (and some with links) 
that lead you to his friends, his favorite pin-up girls (all fully 
clothed, not even as revealing as Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe in 
my day), and a dog that runs back and forth (if you click on him, you 
can see "the person I hate most", a male Chinese movie star, fully 
clothed, who seems to be objectionable because he is too handsome, rather 
as we used to boo Dick Powell in the 1940's because he was a "pretty boy").

When EYE was 16, I would have had similar interests.  The only thing 
different is that I wouldn't have used that kind of language.  But, 
because it's not his native language, it may be that he was showing off 
for friends, and possible had no idea of the shock value.  Maybe he 
doesn't even know what the words mean literally.  Oh, yes, I'm probably 
being too charitable.  But if his web site is a guide, I don't think the 
younger generation is going to hell in a handbasket after all.  I was 
actually heartened; I thought teenagers were much more depraved than this 
web site demonstrates.

I've decided that Guo Rong is all boy, reasonably innocent, and I'm 
amazed at what the Internet, TV and other sources have done to 
Americanize 16-year-olds in apparently every nook and cranny on the 
globe.  Even Singaporean boys' language has been Americanized, as we just 
saw a few days ago, to our dismay.  We're reaping what we've sown.

As a listowner of a monitored list, I am spared having such messages 
appear on my list.  But Tom Little probably doesn't want to pass, 
personally, on EVERY SINGLE message before it's posted.  And I don't 
blame him.

Please forgive me for carrying on so about this teenager.  But if you 
want to know what it's like to be sweet sixteen in Singapore, drop by Guo 
Rong's web site.

www.homer.pacific.net.sg/~guorong/

Harry Dewey 

Alpine-L, the Electronic Rock Garden Society, L.Parsons & H.Dewey, listowners
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