Feb 15 2008
Water Buffalo, A Giving Story
Today in class we watched a video called 4 Generations: Water Buffalo by Robert Thompson. Me and my partner Victor took collaborative notes on the video. In the video first Will Richardson discused the intrnet where for the first ten years you could strictly only consume information and in recent years how that has changed. How that where we are at on the internet is a turning point in the technology industry and possibly the world. That its not about them, instead what they can bring to their students. From there in the video it switches to the footage of Robert Thompson and his voyages in China. Robert went on to explain how the price of a water buffalo is a years salary for a farmer in China, and that they can help their owners working the land for 15 years. They went out to a market and bought a Water Buffalo for a poor family in China. They had picked a person to deliever it to from a person they knew in China. He explained he knew a family that could use it to help their family, because it would alleviate many problems the family was facing including debt owed to a bank. Upon deliever of the water buffalo the family they gave it to was speechless, the grandmother was so overcome with emotion she went inside to cry because its considered disrepectful to cry in front of guests. This all began when Philip Greenspun posted a story on his blog about where he talked about he knew a person who was getting a water buffalo as a Christmas present but that she would refuse the present. Turned out it wall all fake and the money was simply being dumped into a charity fund. After reading Philips blog post, Robert Thompson decided to take action and actually went out and bought a water buffalo.
