Conclusion for my blog

Throughout the sources I have read and commented in my blog, the word "utopia" is described differently in stories, songs, speeches, myths, philosophies, films, novel, etc. Most of them is a combination of utopia and dystopia. I think that the dystopia parts may be better to influence readers, listeners, or audiences about what is true happiness or what a better world should be. Despite of the diversity of utopian ideas, there are some common characteristics that are loving and sharing to others. And I definitely agree with that. One cannot be happy alone by himself or herself, but one is happy because of love from others. We are all connected in one world in a certain way. If there is misery somewhere in our world, it can happen to everyone including you and me. Therefore, we have to make a better world together from today by being better ourselves. 

The three main things that I want to do in the Rainbow City

As a citizen in the Rainbow City,  I first can benefit myself with the knowledge in the Universal College and become a pharmacist to benefit the city. With my family, I can help the community with social activities such as entertaining patients in the hospitals so that they can recover faster and not feel lonely. I also want to contribute my invention of new medicines and treatment methods to the city and share it to others by devoting my invention to the Universal College.

work cited for The Rainbow city

Work cited

Bacon, Francis.  “The Riches of Salomon’s House.”  Ideal Commonwealths.  New York, NY: P. F. Collier & Son, Colonial Press,  1901.  Internet Wiretap.  Ed. Kirk Crady.  August 1993.  Great Voyages in Western Philosophy.  Ed. William Uzgalis.  July 1996.  Oregon State University.  23 January 2008  <http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/bacon/atlantis.html>.

Johnson, Samuel.  “The Happy Valley.”  Chapters 1-4.  The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. 1759. Books and eBooks.  28 January 2008  <http://textual.net/johnson/rasselas.htm>.

More, Thomas.  “The Island of Utopia.”  Book 2.  Utopia.  1516.  Ideal Commonwealths.  New York, NY: P. F. Collier & Son, Colonial Press,  1901.  Internet Wiretap.  Ed. Kirk Crady.  July 1993.  Great Voyages in Western Philosophy.  Ed. William Uzgalis.  September 1997.  Oregon State University.  18 January 2008  <http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/more/utopia-II.html>.

Yuanming, Tao. “Peach Blossom Shangri-la.” 421. Project Gutenberg eBook. 26 October 2008. Ed. Rick Davis and David Steelman. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive

Foundation. <http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2090/pg2090.html>.

The Rainbow City

 The Rainbow City

Visitors can enjoy music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z26BvHOD_sg
In general, utopia is a perfect world, but everyone has the “perfect” word in different way. We have own utopia world which we call the Rainbow city. Our land is protected by nature as it is in the Happy Valley of Samuel Johnson and the Utopian island of Thomas More, and our people, who name ourselves Rainbowers, are all family-lovers, enthusiastic learners, and delighted workers who are inspired by other utopian ideas such as the peach blossom Shangri-la of Tao Yuan Minh, the riches of Salomon’s House in New Atlantis of Francis Bacon. In addition, artificial intelligences assist our daily lives. Unlike the Matrix, a dystopian fictional movie about human lives controlled by a system of machine, every Rainbower knows how to make and use robots and machines. For entertainment, music is appreciated by our whole city.

  The geography of our Rainbow City is a combination of the Happy Valley of Samuel Johnson and the Utopian island of Thomas More beside its own features. Like the Happy Valley of Samuel Johnson, the city is located on a valley surrounded by mountains. There are green fields of grass and daisies growing freely from the bottom of the mountains toward a river that flows around the city. Although the idea of water protection is similar to the Utopia Island Thomas More, the city is enclosed by a deep, wide river instead of the sea and dangerous rocks under the water. Boats and harbors are not necessary for entering the land because there are seven automatic bridges that respond only to the finger prints of the citizens. The finger print readers are on both sides of the river. When activated, the bridges come out from the city ports and return to the ports when deactivated. Even though they are transparent, the bridges will reflect the sun light or moon light and appear seven colors of a rainbow. Inside the city, big trees and beautiful flowers are everywhere along streets and around houses. With simple but various types of architectures, houses are built for each family’s size and are redesigned in the next twenty years. The doors are always kept open so that others can come and visit each other anytime. However, the open doors will alert the host whenever someone comes in. Those are some general environment that one can see when visiting our wonderful city.

As a smallest unit of a society like the base of a big building, family plays the key role in the Rainbow society. The people in Rainbow city have a tight relationship in their own families.  Each family has at least three generations living closely together in a house where members show love and respect to each other. Members in a family have responsibility to take care for each other. Children are raised by their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents (if it is possible). Like in the Shangri-la village of Tao Yuan Ming, “the elderly and children all seemed to be happy and enjoying themselves”, we want youngsters and their elderly to have a happy relationship in family. The elderly teach and give the youngsters advices for what we are doing at school or at work. In turn, children talk to older adults frequently and respect their advices. To increase the free time for family activities, there is also an assistant robot for each family. The family robot is a master cook and an excellent cleaner. As the result, families have less time for chores and more time for other activities like family conversation, art, music, social activities, etc. Family activity is the most important thing that draws everyone closer in a family. The family of Ryan, a typical Rainbower, is a good example of family activity in the city. His family may not see each other in the morning because family members have their own schedule based on their ages. Seniors and under five-year-old children have more leisure time at home beside home-pre-school; children who are from six to fifteen go to public school from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon; adults who are sixteen or older go to special colleges or work at various time, but all come home by five or six in the afternoon. However, they usually spend time with family for dinner or supper every weekday night and entire day on Sunday. In Rainbow City, Sunday is family-society day. Ryan’s family usually does social activities together and with other families on that day. There are many common places where his family has spent time together such as public gardens, public farms, friendly- zoos, etc. The public gardens are taken care by biologists, biological scholars, and other assistant machines from Monday to Friday. These gardens are located near citizens’ houses, so it is more convenient for everyone to visit and grow plants and food together. Because of new combinations of genes, the food is three or four times bigger than regular sizes. Therefore, families often share products together when they harvest on Saturday. When Ryan’s family came on Sunday, they had fun to sow seeds, water them or do other things in instruction books. The public farms are also interesting places for family activities. The farms are huge with all kinds of beasts that are in normal sizes but controlled of growing speed. For example, based on the demand of the city, the farm technicians can set up the number of eggs produced by a hen and the time needed for the babies to become adult hens or cocks. Feeding and breeding are the main activities that families can help when they visit the farms. There is no supermarket for food supplies because people can get fresh and organic vegetables and meats from public gardens and public farms. In addition, the friendly-zoos are fantastic places for families as well. The animals in those zoos are trained so that they can communicate with human. It does not mean that the animals can speak their languages, but it means that animals are tamed to understand the Rainbow language, and that people learn the animals’ languages like their sounds, their gestures, and even their knowledge of nature. Ryan’s family had good time to have conversation with elephants, monkeys, doves, foxes, etc. They even enjoyed music of mice.  Those areas are the most popular places that families can spend on Sunday, yet they are always welcome at hospitals to encourage patients to get well faster with music, dances, plays, and other entertainments that the families can perform. Sometimes, they just go there to talk and read books for the patients. Night time is also a good time for family. Thanks to the help of their assistant robot, Ryan and his family can have more time with each other after dinner. They play music and dance on one day and do art or play indoor games on the other day.

With the inspiration from the House of Salomon in the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon, the knowledge of every field is maintained and improved in the Universal College located in the center of the city. The important purpose of keeping knowledge is to educate the citizens in the city. Therefore, everyone in the city has the opportunity to learn at schools since they are free of charge. As mentioned above, little kids who are under five year olds are taught by their older adults in their family. These kids learn how to love and cherish every member in the family as well as the knowledge for pre-school from their elderly. When they are six to fifteen, they can go to public schools where they can learn and be inspired for their careers in the future schools where they can learn and be inspired for their careers in the future. Field trips to actual working places are mainly the lessons for the last two years in public schools. The purpose of these trips is to help students to experience themselves and later on figure out what subject can give them the passion to learn. After finishing eight years in public schools, students are all eager to enter the knowledge center of the city, the Universal College where they get the knowledge by themselves and become what they want to become. The college has a giant system of computers to store data and document of all aspects of life that people have discovered, and thousands of professors and researchers who have devoted their lives to maintain and improve the college. Students can either study by themselves from the computer system or learn from the college’s teaching staff. Even though people can choose their desire major to study, pharmacy and high-tech machine industry are the two most attractive fields for Rainbowers. Those two branches benefit the whole community and the students themselves with better health and more convenient life. In Pharmacy department, students are taught to make medicines mainly from nature like herbs, plants, fruits, etc, which are abundant in the city so that they will never be short of raw materials. Besides, special treatments of high-tech machines are invented with rapid speed. For example, we have machines that take video inside human body so that doctors can diagnose diseases easier. Assistant robots and other automatic machines that are used to aid people in working places belong to the high-tech machine industry as well. Rainbowers are interested in creating and improving machines in the city. The security system of the citizens’ finger print is one of the interesting products of this industry. With this system, citizens’ identification and personal information can be updated and pulled out from any machine of the city via their finger prints. Hence, high-tech machine industry is a necessary and basic for everyone in daily activities. Besides these two popular departments, one can study more in other fields. The information is always available in the Universal College. Invention is encouraged in the whole city and will be reported and stored in the Universal College. To make sure every aspect of knowledge can be shared equally, there is no copyright. Nevertheless, the name of the inventor will be the name of the product what he or she creates.

Jobs are offered everywhere in the city since everyone has high education and ambition to practice what they learned. There is no force to work or study in this land because these things make the people satisfied and happy with their lives. After the first five years studying the College, students can be able to work or continue to study more. For most of the Rainbowers, working after five years in the College is the common choice. They usually work until they find other interesting thing that makes them come back to the College and learn more. However, they eventually get back into the working force of the city. There are certain rules in working environment. Males and females have equal right to work at any position based on their abilities and talents. Eight hours of working is the maximum time per day for the workers. Workers get paid equally for any type of jobs. At the age of sixty, Rainbowers can retire from the working force and concentrate more in building family relationship. However, over sixty-year-old workers can work partially if working is still their fascination.

The city is not only about working and studying, music is also necessary for Rainbowers’ lives. It helps us to relax ourselves, to improve our learning capacity, and to get everyone closer. Everyone in the land can play at least one kind of instruments. Music is played every day and everywhere in Rainbow city. Music is present in family after dinner time, in school during break time between classes. There are even some special holidays that people come out on streets and take turn to play their music. We usually perform street circle dance during these musical events.

Rainbowers all love this peaceful land. We not only benefit our community but also ourselves. Everyone enjoy one’s family time and help other with social activities such as planting in the public gardens, raising beasts in the public farms, entertaining patients in the hospitals. One has equal chance to get education jobs, so one can enjoy what they are working. We use music to entertain everyone in the city and invent new high-tech machines to make our lives more convenient.