About eight years ago, May 2006, Facebook was still at its infancy, and Google was still in its incubator, I published my first issue of VTVAA. It was not for general distribution; it was only for colleagues and friends who agreed to receive a copy. I never forced anyone to read my writing, nor spammed anyone’s mail box.
Before VTVAA, I used to post articles to the Staff Bulletin Board provided by the college I was teaching in. I had some rather vocal followers. One day, I wrote an article about the morning after contraceptive pill RU486, and all hell broke loose. I was called to the Manager’s office, and asked to remove the article from the Bulletin Board. Some teachers reported to the college’s CEO that the article was inappropriate and had created too much controversy. Was I in Australia, the country that was supposedly blessed with freedom of speech and expression?
VTVAA covered many disciplines; politics, economy, philosophy, social issues, real estate, environment, IT, travel, food, etc. I really enjoyed seeing my thoughts and views revealed on my computer screen.
Three years later, I began to put a lot more onto Google blogspots, and compiled a year book. The latter was rather “bulky” - each issue had more than 200 pages. I decided to stop sending to my readers, but to use this as my own personal life reference.
Facebook eventually took over which gave me the flexibility to post writings and photos. Unfortunately, Facebook is now losing its flavour and has too much unwelcome advertisements and junk posts.
I have now come to a decision to relaunch this newsletter. If you or your friends are interested to receive a copy, please drop me a line.
You may contact me or give me your feedback at
sin_fong_chan.vtvaa@hotmail.com
