[Natali Ramon]

I really glad I participated on this seminar about contemporary China because I got the opportunity to explore a number of topics that are extremely relevant.  I appreciate that the topics presented because these are happening right now because it makes it very easy to implement into the classroom.  Within the Spanish Language discipline, I feel that this seminar provided a lot of ways in which I can make connections between Latin American culture and Chinese culture.  For example, one of the topics that I feel will be very compelling and interesting for my students are the expectations of marriage that both Chinese and Latino families have.  As high school-aged students, I don’t think they are quite critical of the expectations of marriage that young people face, as a matter of fact I feel that at such a young age, they are on par with the expectations their parents have.  However, exploring this topic might offer a glimpse into the social pressures my students will face in the coming years as they enter their 20s. Another very powerful way in which I can connect Latin American culture to Chinese culture is through the exploration of immigration.  A lot of the issues China faces as a result of mass migration are issues that a lot of Latin Americans face but in an international scale.  Most notably, I think it would be particularly powerful if we explored the lives of young children who are left behind by their parents because this is something that central American children experience.  In this way, we can examine the universal effect caused by the movement of people.   

 

[Natali Ramon]

Stephen,

I am so glad you delved into this source.  The videos and documents I viewed for this lecture mostly spoke on the positive aspects of China’s involvement in African.  As I viewed these sources, I kept thinking about the perspective about the China-Africa relationship that was not highlighted.  It seems that the sources you analyzed this week address the questions I have. I once again pose the question I asked on our last lecture about how China will avoid making the same mistakes the western powers have made in the past and how they will make new mistakes we have yet to see.  I am confident that China’s involvement in Africa will reveal a lot about the new economic dilemmas that will come about through the latest economic interactions.   

 

[Natali Ramon]

Nira,

The idea of “face” that you write about exists in Latino culture as well.  By and large, Mexican families are very concerned about appearances or what we call in Spanish “el que dirán” (what will they say).  This concern for what image we project is a huge driving force that influences the way families operate.  When a daughter is unmarried, families are very concerned about when she will find a partner and that her time is running out.  An additional source of pressure is depriving parents from experiencing being a grandparent. I am curious to know if this is also another source of pressure that is used on unmarried people in China.

 

[Natali Ramon]

Marcos,

As a Latina, I also had the same feelings about left over park. In Latino culture, single people are often bombarded with the marriage question, (and then the children question) but I also thought Chinese parents were far more strategic and organized than our Mexican aunts and mothers.  When I saw this video, I was also reminded that the idea of romantic love is fairly recent since not too long ago, people married on the basis of economic and political alliances.  I wonder of leftover park is a continuation of old traditions in which family members arranged marriage based on economic, social and political prospects.  I also have a lot of questions about how online dating factors into finding a partner in China.  At least in the US, online dating has basically become the norm, and as Professor Dube has cited, two thirds of marriage start online here in the United States.  I am curious to know how young people in China are using online sites to find a partner.    

 

[Natali Ramon]

Marcos,

I am not too shocked to see that China’s literacy rates are higher than the US.  As you mentioned, China has a long legacy and history and I feel that we often forget that just few hundred years ago, China was one of the most powerful empires in the world.  Added to this long history is an immense list of academic development.  Within the global scale the US outperforms many countries in various aspects, however I don’t feel that our education attainment matches our global prominence.  I feel this has a lot to do with the fact that we don’t invest in our schools as much as we should. If I am not mistaken, other less developed countries such as Cuba have a higher literacy rate than the US, because they have put forward a great deal of effort in alphabetizing the population.  In regards to how the European powers and the US were able to develop at such a rapid rate during the industrial revolution, I feel that a lot of the raw materials they used to develop were sacked through the process of colonization of Africa and Latin America.  That might also explain why the western powers were able to outpace China in development during this time.       

 

 

[Natali Ramon]

Lin,

Thank you for sharing these images, they really help to visualize the transforming experiences of women in China.  You also bring up a very interesting topic that wasn’t really touched upon much during this series lectures.  Along these lines, I am very interested to know what the feminist movement looks like in China and how it has transformed with the rise of choices for women.  Within the US context, with women’s liberation, we saw the rise of women in the work force.  First of all, I wonder if women in China were confined to the home as much as women in the US, and I am curious to know how the latest economic development has affected women’s job prospects in China.   

 

[Natali Ramon]

Stephen,

I didn’t view the sources you viewed for this week’s lecture but I am fascinated by the fact that a lot of of social problems you write about in this post mirror the social problems that arise in the Americas due to migration.  I know that within the North American context, remissions play a huge role in the economies of Central America.  I wonder what role remissions play in the role of rural Chinese economies.  Additionally, you ask a very good question about the role of religion in providing a moral compass in rural disenfranchised areas.  I feel that generally there is usually urban areas are more prone to be more on the secular side, whereas rural more impoverished communities tend to rely more on religion.  I wonder if religion serves as a coping mechanism that helps people get through the difficulties that arise from poverty.    

 

[Natali Ramon]

I watched Professor Dube’s lecture on China’s social transformation and its expanding choices and it was very interesting to see the transformation that China has undergone through its development.  For instance, the lecture delved into how everyday life was transformed in very practical aspects such as the colors people wore, to the cinema they could choose from and the food they could eat.  With all these changes and with the rise of choices, I wondered about the drawbacks China is experiencing as a result of the rise of choices they have.  For example, just recently, I’ve been watching and reading a lot of material on the effects of US fast food on other countries.  With the rise of fast food franchises in the rest of the world, there is a rise in the levels of obesity and diabetes.  I am curious to know how the presence of fast food in China is affecting people’s health and how that in turn affects public health in China.  When professor Dube spoke about the children that are left behind as their parents migrate to urban areas to seek better economic opportunities, I was reminded of how this phenomenon is also happening on an international scale here in the Americas.  A lot of parents in Central America migrate to the US in search of jobs while their children are left behind with other family members in their countries. I am curious to know about the similarities and differences between the children left behind in China and in the US.   

 

[Natali Ramon]

I watched David Shambaugh’s lecture, China Goes Global: The Partial Power and I was taken aback by the tone of his lecture.  I thought that Shambaugh had a lot of well researched points but I also feel that he judged China in a way that was not fair. I feel that to a large extent he measured China with the standards that one would measure a more established country in Europe or the US.  I don’t think he took into account that only recently has China been rising as a giant global economic power and that they still have a long way to go in their development.  For example, Shambaugh mentioned that when it comes to China’s global governance policy, they tend to punch below their weight given its size. Most notably, he cited China’s small contribution into the UN’s peace keeping operations.  When he mentioned this fact, I thought about the initial reasons why the UN was created, and it was largely created as a result of the world wars that deeply impacted the Western Hemisphere.  Given that the US and other European countries are the biggest actors in the UN, it only makes sense that they contribute more to the UN. Given that China is still a growing country on its way to development, Shamabaugh’s critiques are given a bit too soon.  Perhaps in the coming decades when China is developed enough to really be in the same bracket as the rest of the world powers it would be fair to compare their contributions to the other world powers.    

 

[Natali Ramon]

Upon seeing the video on closing the gap between China and Africa, I had a ton of questions and connections with how other developed countries have utilized China as their production workshop.  First and foremost, I noted that the purpose of this video was to highlight the benefits of China’s investment into Africa.  China needs a place to produce and Africa needs investment.  This trading arrangement will eventually make it so that the millions of labels that read “Made in China” will eventually read “Made in Africa”.  The workers interviewed had a lot of positive things to say about the job opportunities that are opening up in China, however, given the literature I’ve read on working conditions in sweatshops in China and worker’s rights, I was very curious to know about what injustices are taking place in Africa as a result of the factories that are opening up.  Additionally, throughout the course, we have covered environmental challenges that China faces as a result of the factories, and I was curious to know what environmental issues will develop in Africa as a result of the workshops that are being developed.   I was most struck by an interview of a worker from Hisense in which he said he was pleased with the knowledge he has gained in learning to fix refrigerators and televisions.  He mentioned that someday he hoped to open his own small shop to fix appliances.  This interview raised a few questions about the possibilities of opening a small business in an age of large corporations.  I also wondered if the governments in Africa are doing anything to stimulate and support the development of small mom and pop shops.  

[Natali Ramon]

Upon watching the video on China’s plan for the Belt and Road initiative, specifically in ASEAN, I was really surprised with the attitude with which this video presented and open border.  The video focused on the border between China and Myanmar in regards to how both nations benefit from frequent interaction. It was specifically refreshing to hear one of the representatives say that the main goal to was to create an arrangement that maximizes the benefit, and minimizes the negatives for all countries involved.  I watched this video in awe and skepticism.  First of all, it was uplifting to see a video that shows such a positive attitude about collaboration across borders.  When I saw the segments about the border being opened and people from Myanmar coming into China to work and going home back to their country in the evening, I was reminded about a time in which the US-Mexico border was not militarized and a lot of Mexican migrants came to work seasonally to eventually go home.  On the other hand, I was also skeptical about the video in that I wanted to know what Chinese nationalists have to say about having an open border. We are all too familiar with the attitudes US “patriots” have towards the border between the US and Mexico and I was curious to know if there are any attitudes in China that are comparable to the ones that exist here in the US.     

 

[Natali Ramon]

I viewed the Leonora Chu’s lecture on the education system in China.  As an educator, the differences she noted were fascinating and it was somewhat refreshing to see that teachers seem to hold a very highly regarded position as compared to what most teachers experience in public schools here in the US.  It might be by virtue of the fact that Leonora’s observations were conducted in one of Shanghai’s more high regarded schools, but it was fascinating to hear that her son’s teacher was able to get parents to respond to her right away in the WeChat platform.  She also noted that at this particular school, there is an overall sentiment of “teacher knows best”.  This stands in stark contrast to what teachers face in the US, where we are the scapegoats of the ills of the education system in the US.  Towards the end of her talk, Chu speaks on what she believes the US should learn about the education system in China.  She mentioned that we have something to learn in the way of teaching our children about grit and the value of effort.  She says we have this virtue down in sports but not so much in education.  In thinking about my teaching context in a working class, mostly Latino community, I want to say that I impart on my students the value of grit and effort but I also try to help them recognize that we operate in an education system that is not designed to benefit them.  I do this with the intention to help them better understand why education achievement levels are lower of working class minority groups.  I wonder what teachers in China do to help the more disadvantaged communities understand their social reality.  I wonder if students understand that they might not make it to the top tier colleges not solely because they didn’t put in enough effort but because they operate within a system of education that is designed to ”weed them out”.     

 

[Natali Ramon]

I viewed the Professor Hornby’s lecture on the environment and food.  Of particular interest was that she noted what China and the US export to each other.  She noted that China and the US essentially trade pollution.  Professor Hornby went over the various types of pollution and how these are ranked differently when it comes to the immediacy with which the government addresses them because some forms of pollution are more prevalent than others.  For example, the Chinese government is more likely to tackle on air pollution because it’s a lot more visible than something that is less noticeable like soil pollution. Additionally, in hearing her speak about what types of pollution get more attention than others, I noticed a continuing pattern of urban citizens getting more attention that rural citizens.  For example, at the end of the lecture she noted that part of the reason why the government has been so active in mobilizing efforts at mitigating pollution is thanks to pressure from the media and people, specifically urban people.  However, it seems that bureaucrats are more likely to be proactive in dealing with pollution in urban areas while they are more likely to ignore rural are protesters. This really helped me to understand another push factor for the rural population to want to relocate to urban centers.  This lecture also reminded me of how pollution is dealt with here in the US. Most notably, I thought about the Flint Water Crisis and how it has taken a long time to remediate possibly because this area is inhabited by working class people of color.  At the local level in Los Angeles, Exide was a battery company that contaminated the soil in Southeast LA.  To this day, these areas continue to be contaminated and part of the reason why the government has not aggressively invested to decontaminate is because this areas is largely inhabited by working class Latinos.  In this manner, I see a lot of parallels in environmental justice disparities between China and the US.   

 

[Natali Ramon]

I viewed the short video on about “Leftover Park” and it brought up a lot of interesting thoughts in regards to how China’s concern for marriage connects to some of the cultural practices we have in the west.  As I saw this video I thought about the questions I often confront in regards to marriage.  Perhaps it’s by virtue of being bicultural, but when I think about where the pressure to get married comes from, I think it comes from my Mexican relatives.  Within my family’s culture, there is that expectation that getting married and having children is one of life’s momentous rites of passage, and the idea that a person is not quite fulfilled unless they marry and have children is quite prevalent.  I saw these ideas in the video about Leftover Park, however one of the starkest contrasts in this video with my own experiences is in the level of proactiveness of Chinese parents. Although parents in Latino families can be active in helping their children find partners, I can’t say they match the level of diligence that I saw in the parents in the video.  As I saw this video, I also thought about how it contrasts with a previous video I saw on China’s epidemic with bachelor villages.  In that film, the experiences of men finding mates was highlighted, and it elaborated how this fuels the human trafficking epidemic.  This video on Leftover park, I feel focuses more on the experiences of women. Although this particular video did not go into human trafficking it made me wonder if women purchase partners in the same way that men do.  If so, I would be interested to know how the rates of men and women who purchase partners compares.

 

[Natali Ramon]

In our last discussion session Nira posted a question about how we can adequately explain to students why China has chosen to filter media and social media platforms differently than the rest of the world.  This is a tough question that I would struggle to answer for my students, but I think one important factor we should consider when speaking to our students about such a sensitive subject is to remember to put things into perspective.  One of the ways in which we can do this is by highlighting that all countries deviate from the norm, in a number of different ways. Prior to speaking to my students about China, I would probably have our students consider how the US deviates from the norm in the rest of the world.  I feel that our government’s response (or lack of) to the gun violence epidemic might be one such topic in which the US deviates from the rest of the world, especially in East Asia where gun violence is not such a big problem.  I might look for testimonials from people from East Asia so my students could hear their opinions about this problem that is very particular to the US.  Once my students gain this perspective, we might be able to have a more nuanced analytic perspective on how and why China has chosen to use social media platform so differently from the rest of the world.  Perhaps something that seems odd and different to us might be normal to the Chinese population. 

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