I was really interested in the article about the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese voting rights activists working to boost awareness of representation issues in Japan. I thought it was especially interesting that Yuka Hamanaka--the one nationally Japanese woman of the trio-- wanted to align herself with the other women to speak out against the lack of political representation that people of other nationalities living in Japan experience. This article made me embarrassed to realize that beyond not being a voting rights’ activist in the U.S., I’ve never even thought about how people from maintain citizenship in their birth country instead of the U.S. must feel about their inability to participate in our political life.

During yesterday's lecture, I curious about why now 1/3 of all Japanese housholds consist of only one person. In Aziz Ansari's book, Modern Romance, he uses Japan as a case study for loneliness and largely attributed the decrease in dating, marriages, and childbirth to extreme work stress and business, so I wondered if these are in fact the primary casues of more people living alone than in the past, or if there are other factors that have led to this demographic change. For instance, does the fact that the population's aging and fewer people are choosing to live in three-generation households mean that more elderly Japanese are living on their own or in senior facilitites? Or is decreased romantic partnership among the younger generations the primary cause of this trend?

Sara, I love that you brought up Ansari's Modern Romance! I have read it as well, and his case study certainly came to mind while we discussed the "single-person household" in Saturday's session. Without discrediting Ansari's work, I feel that it may be too gross of a simplification to infer that the main cause of the single-person household is stress or a resistant attitude toward sex/dating. 

I truly had no idea - until Saturday's session - of the intense lack of space Japan faces. (6-8 individuals standing on one newspaper is truly mind-boggling to me!) Dube's comparison with California was especially notworthy: although California is still larger in terms of physical size, it only has 39 million+ inhabitants compared to Japan's 126 million+. I would like to infer that perhaps the single-person household has grown in popularity, because Japanese citizens simply want to feel they have their "own space." Although it may certainly not be the only reason for the rise in these households, perhaps Japanese adults crave this "space," since they lack it so much in their day-to-day lives...

Chinese Child Policy and Big City Blues-I connected these two because of the difficult issues in the city for housing and rights. I was surprised by the desire of parents to have daughters. My whole life I understood that the main problem with one child policy was the idea that parents needed a son to take care of them when they're older. I have pictures in my mind of parents sending daughters away on ice flows to avoid supporting a daughter who would just go off, find a husband and be no help in old age. It surprised me that parents wanted daughters, because sons were too expensive to set up in life. As cultures grow from farming and rural areas to industrialized and urban, needs change and daughters become much more appealing to parents. I connect this to rules in large Chinese cities requiring the expense of boys to be set up in apartments and the lack of rights for education and voting if not set up properly. On a side note I also found it interesting that the Chinese government spent money advocating daughters over sons and their decision to adjust the policy over time. Lastly how will these policies effect their population division in the future?

The NPR report on the death of a North Korean defector in South Korea struck a chord for me. It's really heartbreaking to know that a country could be so torn apart due to the war, and over 70 years later, still be separated. When reading this article, it made me think about the perspective of Han Seong-ok and what she may have gone through before she and her son starved to death. Similar to Los Angeles' homelessness crisis, I feel that the Korean government needs to step up and take measures to provide adequate support and resources for North Korean defectors who resettle in South Korea. I'm hopeful that this tragedy will cause a shift in the South Korean government and society to have more ownership in supporting North Korean defectors.

I was intrigued by several things in this article in The Economist (June 15, 2019).  Firstly, is the sheer number of Chinese students who are enrolled in American colleges and universities.  According to the article, approximately 333,000 students are currently attending classes in the USA.  Secondly, I did not realize that there was a "negative" perception by some for those who choose to study in the US.  I knew that on the positive side, many view studying in the US as a good career move and the chance to study cutting edge subjects.  I did not consider, however, those who view those studying in the US as taking the "soft option" due to their families being well-to-do or that it may be considered a "cop-out" for those students intimidated by the Chinese university entrance examinations (gaokao).  On a more positive note, in my opinion, is how the American education system encourages students to appreciate the other side or sides of an argument.  While Chinese education emphasizes one correct answer, American education helps students "think outside the box" and understand opposing views.  While one may not end up agreeing with an opposing view, one would at least gain some empathy for how the other side is thinking.  I am guessing we will all get some practice in this "American-style debate" during our next sessions and our debate about How to Save China!

This article definitely shed some light into some of my Chinese students' behaviors in class. They are much more comfortable in math where typically there is a right answer and a wrong answer, but even if I offer them options as for how to solve the problems, they are uncomfortable and ask me which is the right one for them to use. In language arts, when discussing (simple) texts and making inferences about characters and themes and giving opinions, it definitely takes them longer to develop answers, than if I ask them to sequence events from the story. Their behaviors make a lot more sense now.