The subject of this week's lesson paints a fascinating picture of Chinese youth: in many ways they are practically indistinguishable from American youth. From the May Fourth movement in 1919, the youth have seen themselves as a force for change and revolution, a conscience for China.
Then came the ugliness of Tiananmen Square, and the youth decided that direct confrontation was probably not the best way to bring about change.
Nowadays, with a popular culture that is a blend of East and West, and more Western ideas of freedom and democracy creeping in every day, the youth of China are still a conscience for the country, albeit on a much longer time scale.
I think what is happening is more evolution than revolution.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
China's World Power Status
From this week's assignment:
With all that you have learned from these recent reports about China's current internal problems, do you think that its world power status should be reconsidered? Can China successfully overcome these difficulties to achieve such status on the world stage? Create a blog entry and post a comment to at least one fellow student's blog entry.
Despite its internal problems, China's status as a world power is, in my opinion, pretty much assured.
Unless there is some sort of catastrophic upheaval, the Chinese economy will continue growing and intertwining with the economies of other nations. The fact that they've managed to establish a manned space program makes a pretty good case that they should continue to wear the "World Power" badge.
With all that you have learned from these recent reports about China's current internal problems, do you think that its world power status should be reconsidered? Can China successfully overcome these difficulties to achieve such status on the world stage? Create a blog entry and post a comment to at least one fellow student's blog entry.
Despite its internal problems, China's status as a world power is, in my opinion, pretty much assured.
Unless there is some sort of catastrophic upheaval, the Chinese economy will continue growing and intertwining with the economies of other nations. The fact that they've managed to establish a manned space program makes a pretty good case that they should continue to wear the "World Power" badge.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Promoting a conservation culture?
From the Shanghai Daily...last October; I suppose any article you haven't read is a new article: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200710/20071016/article_334632.htm
The Daily quotes Hu Jintao: "We must give prominence to building a resource-conserving, environment-friendly society in our strategy for industrialization and modernization and get every organization and family to act accordingly."
Pretty words, but given how wimpy government organizations like SEPA are, I'll be interested to see what comes of it.
I'm betting it's rhetoric to get folks to get busy cleaning the place up before all the foreigners show up for the 2008 Olympics. China will be trying to put on its prettiest, cleanest face.
As for how I would do things differently, I think I'd need a time machine before I could do anything, because the environmental mess on China's hands has taken decades to get to this point, and it will likely take even longer to clean up.
The Daily quotes Hu Jintao: "We must give prominence to building a resource-conserving, environment-friendly society in our strategy for industrialization and modernization and get every organization and family to act accordingly."
Pretty words, but given how wimpy government organizations like SEPA are, I'll be interested to see what comes of it.
I'm betting it's rhetoric to get folks to get busy cleaning the place up before all the foreigners show up for the 2008 Olympics. China will be trying to put on its prettiest, cleanest face.
As for how I would do things differently, I think I'd need a time machine before I could do anything, because the environmental mess on China's hands has taken decades to get to this point, and it will likely take even longer to clean up.
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