Readings for 10/8

The readings for tomorrow seemed to have an overall theme of different corruptions of the government in China. Both short stories detailed wrongdoings of the police as an authority figure. In the short story, “Saboteur”, the police officers who arrested Mr. Chiu took advantage of their power and disrespected Mr. Chiu, his wife and his former student on multiple levels. They even took it as far as torturing the former student for trying to stand up for what was right. In “Bad Joke”, the two men who made a joke about the Party and were arrested for what we consider freedom of speech. The authorities proceeded to charge them with the crime that they may or may not have committed just so someone would take the fall. Basically, both short stories, as said before, detailed the mistreatment of citizens of the country. Situations like these also happen in America which begs the question, is is just human nature to get power hungry or to take advantage as an authority figure? The pages from the reader went in detail about how the authority of a country should run and support its people. It explained details about how a leader is put into power by his people and is therefore there to serve the people and how this may fail due to greed. But the authors proceeded to explain how a country can work to overcome its failures through breaking down the bad, old ways and reconstructing them as well as incorporating new ideas to enhance the country.