Month: February 2020

During the lion dance ICR practice this week our instructor, Kwan, brought a traditional Chinese drum. This drum gave a background beat to our dances, especially during the beginning and the end of the dance.

At the beginning and end of the dance, the lion dancer bows three times. During these bows, the lion shackles (shakes back and forth). After seeing Kwan do these bows, I felt that this would not be that hard of a dance move. The move was in fact hard because the head position must bend and hold the lion sideways in order to complete the bow. Doing this bow three times is tiresome, using all of your upper body strength, core, and legs.

Kwan would rumble the drum during the bows and then hit the sides very loudly in order to show that the bow was complete. The drum, pictured below, was brown and worn on the top. The sides of the drum are painted black and there is two red and yellow ribbons draped around the sides. In addition to this, gold holding rings are placed to the sides of the drum, creating detail.

Hey guys, today I want to look at what impact the coronavirus is having on global economics.

First a little background and I’m not a business major so take this with a grain of salt. Many manufacturing jobs now a days are shipped over seas where labor regulation or lack there of make manufacturing cheep. The countries, especially china, allow foreign companies to make use of their populations labor at reduced rates compared to the US. This makes these supply chains very reliant on the health of these countries populations to maintain a steady stream of product. This has seen an effect in stock prices with Apple’s Stock price dropping $15 earlier this week.

I found this extremely interesting that our reliance on other countries labor can be heavily swung by the health of that labor pool. This was an extremely surface level look at what The COVID-19 virus is doing to the global manufacturing sector. If you want a more in depth look please follow the link below to a story i found on the subject.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/covid-19-coronavirus-china-5-year-plan-growth-gdp-poverty-income-12457926

Today the class worked on exponential mathematics. This involves the meaning and the use of exponents. Most of the issues I assisted with was what the exponent truly meant. To accomplish I explained the meaning of exponents as successive multiplication the extent of which is outlined by the value of the exponent. First I had students write out the successive multiplication then count the number of times the base of the exponent appeared in the multiplication.

Overall I am loving the environment of the class. To monitor progress the teachers assistant, a french man named Charles, conducts progress tests and reports the results on a spreadsheet. When the students improve the teacher gathers the class’ attention and congratulates the student. I love this as a teaching technique for adults especially because it reinforces the idea of progress.

Reading the last pages in Craig about China’s most recent history and its rapid economic development got me thinking about the US-China Trade War. Recently in January, Trump and the Vice Premier Liu He of China, signed Phase I of the trade deal after the start of the trade war in 2018. This is a small step in the right direction as, the trade war has had some very interesting and unintended consequences.

Last semester I took a course on US and the Asia Pacific. We focused a lot on US foreign policies with different Asian countries and spent some time on the trade war. I was so shocked to be informed about all of the unforeseen issues stemming from the trade war. One of these being the degradation of our environment. Since the United States put massive tariffs on the China’s import of our agricultural products, China went seeking crops elsewhere. One the places China turned to for soybeans was Brazil. This was great news for Brazil’s economy because they now have a huge new market for their soybean production. However, China’s demand for soybeans is exceptionally high and Brazil needed to make up for all the production that China was no longer getting from the US. In order to make room to grow more soybeans, Brazil cut down more parts of the amazon rainforest which supplies 25 percent of the world’s oxygen. This is a huge environmental concern that needs to be carefully monitored for the sake of humanity’s future.

What is interesting about the article that I previously linked is that the South China Morning Post is a Chinese newspaper, so it is obviously bias in the fact that it completely failed to mention the negative environmental consequences of the trade war. This reminds me that it is important to always consult other sources when trying to form your own informed opinion on an issue.

As I mentioned in my previous ICR reflection, I have been volunteering at the IPS Newcomer Program, where many of the students are of hispanic heritage.

When talking with the music teacher today, I asked if all of the classes were taught in English, or if there were some in Spanish. She herself does not know Spanish, so I’ve noticed her resort to hand gestures and pointing in some circumstances. I thought that maybe there were no bi-lingual requirements for the position. However, I was surprised when she told me that all of the classes are taught in English. This is surprising because all of the students I have interacted with will not attempt to speak english to me or each other.

I understand that I would also prefer to speak Spanish if it was my native language, but the fact is many of these students will be moving on to high school soon, where everything is in English. In their position, I would worry that it would make further learning difficult… but then again, many of the students were perfectly singing along to “I don’t care” by Ed Sheeran, and “Let it be” by the Beatles. So maybe they understand more than they let on.

I hope I can find ways to encourage and help the students in their learning of English.

The “Corona Virus” is no longer just a Chinese concern.

• South Korea – 833 cases, 7 deaths
• Italy – 219 cases, 5 deaths
• Iran – 61 cases, 12 deaths

Along with spreading mass panic across the eastern continents, here are the effects of the virus:

• Italy has locked down 50,000 people in 10 towns
• Schools and colleges are closing
• Carnivals, trade fairs, operas, and soccer matches are being cancelled
• Pakistan and Turkey have closed their borders to Iran
• Shortage of masks and disinfectants
• Global markets are dropping heavily

The virus is testing the limits of Europe’s “open-border” policy, as countries are restricting access to travelers. Sadly, study abroad students are having to face the choice of cutting their semester early and leaving, or risking the chance of getting stranded in a foreign country. I studied abroad in the spring of 2019, and I can’t imagine how devastated I would be if I had to leave. Being abroad is supposed to be a great test of independence, with learning and growing obtained along the way. To instead have to fear for ones life, or not know if they will be able to return home, is a terrible circumstance.

What are some practical ways Butler students and faculty can support the affected countries?

Even though my ICR is through the Al-Fajr Muslim Center, I’ve noticed plenty of similarities to the current unit on China. I think that a lot of the readings that we’ve been doing for class have had a big focus on cultural differences and focus a lot on people experiencing and adapting to these cultural differences. As I was born and raised in Plainfield, Indiana, I obviously haven’t had many opportunities to experience other cultures. However, within Al-Fajr not only do I get to experience the overall differences of the Muslim community, but I  even get to experience differences within the Muslim community itself. Over my past several visits to Al-Fajr I’ve gotten to attend multiple prayer services, meet lots of new people, and be able to help and connect with the community. I’ve met older more traditional Muslims, and I’ve met younger more liberal Muslims who have all had different ideas and experiences to share with me. It’s been a great experience so far, but it was still a big culture shock at first and I think this where it relates to a lot of the Ha Jin readings. In many of his stories the characters are experiencing cultural differences, whether it is in or out of China. They all have to adapt to these new cultures and I think that’s what I’ve been doing during my time volunteering. I’m excited to start the unit on Islam as I think it will only enrich my experience and help me get more out of it.

As many know, the coronavirus is an outbreak occurring across Asia, specifically in China. Even though this deadly disease is starting to become common knowledge in our culture, many associate the name with a popular beer, (Corona beer). Even though I believed that many took this association as a joke, research has concluded that many have searched for a linkage to the virus and the beer. Since the virus began to become widespread in  January, online searches for the phrase “beer coronavirus” went up by over 3,200% across the globe as “corona beer virus” sky rocketed by 2,300% (Duprey).

Besides people truly believing the virus and beer are linked, many have taken this linkage as a joke. Many have taken to social media to express this relation, tweeting and creating the hashtag #coronabeervirus. On a meme themed day in my sorority, my friend wore a corona t-shirt and wrote virus under the word “Corona” on the shirt. Many took pictures of it as the confusion between the beer and virus is amusing.

I questioned how the virus’ jokes have effected victims physically and emotionally. If I was in their shoes I would feel disheartened by the jokes that had come with my illness. Should media stop the overbearing content on this virus as it exploits individuals suffering?

This past Tuesday, we talked about concepts of marriage and homosexuality. This blog will cover my opinion on the question of “what’s the definition of marriage” and my opinion on the short story “The Bridegroom.”

We had a question given to us about marriage by Dr. McGrath and what marriage symbolizes. To me, the meaning of marriage is about finding someone you love and living a life with that person. Some people tend to get married for the sake of getting married, or get married to help them have better socioeconomic benefits. However, I think getting married means growing as a person and learning more about yourself through a person who you love and loves you back. When talking with my small group in class, I remember hearing that getting married is a milestone in life, like it’s expected. I do agree about that in our culture, where people in their twenties have a few important goals-graduating, getting a job, getting married. Marriage is kind of expected for our society, but that doesn’t mean to get married just for the label of husband or wife. Marriage should be about actually loving someone who can make you a better person and someone you actually care about.

We also discussed about The Bridegroom, which focused on homosexuality. Even though the story takes place in the near 1980s, there were many themes that in my opinion, seem to take place in our current society. First of all, the uncle and the factory workers believe that homosexuality is some type of disease. This made me think of the Stonewall Riots in the late 1960s, which helped start the gay liberation movement because homosexuality wasn’t common back then. The people in this story were shocked about how Baowen and his wife haven’t had a child yet after being married for almost a year. The uncle was confused and mad at Baowen for marrying his niece after finiding out that he wasn’t attractive to her. “Homosexuality isn’t a disease, it’s just like being left-handed…” is a great quote because people can’t control their sexual preference, it just happens. This means we as a society shouldn’t judge people on their sexual preference, just like we shouldn’t judge people on their gender, race, religion, political stance, etc. Second of all, reading about how people think electric shock therapy can help seems ridiculous to me. When talking about conversion therapy in class, I felt bad for people who might have had to go through something like that. People shouldn’t change who they are in order to not be looked down upon from people. It’s just sad that people can except others that are apparently “different” from them. It was sad to read that Baowen didn’t want his mother to know the truth or his coworkers to know because he knew he would be treated differently. Just let people be who they are supposed to be, then most of these stupid problems in this world would just go away. This story overall was just sad to read.

During a class discussion, it was a subject based on the very broad difference between good and evil. It revolved around how do you constitute between good and evil. This is an interesting debate since it can be based on certain ethical standards and boundaries that some people may interpret to be good and others may have a different opinion on that matter. There can be levels of extremity to constitute what is really good and what is really evil. For instance, there is a level of extremity for evil when it comes to stealing someone’s pencil and stealing someone’s car, or for a “good” example, would be saying bless you to someone sneezing and saving someone’s life or donating to a charity. I believe there is obviously a fine line one the good to evil spectrum, but again, some people may have differing opinions.

A second discussion was brought up, still on the difference between good and evil, about are people born either good or evil. Again, there were many differing opinions, but I saw this as more of how do you learn a language. You’re raised to learn it by people around you otherwise you won’t know how to speak or whatever to say. The same applies to people born good or evil. It is how you are raised and brought up because when you are born, you’re born with no knowledge as well as a “veil of ignorance” that there is no “ultimate position or decision” and no one is biased. Once people learn how to act and speak a certain language then they arrive in the “original position”. So, I believe that it’s all about how you grow up and are influenced by the people you surround yourself with.

I spoke up in this discussion and gave my opinion about how I dislike the comparison between good and evil as I saw it as too extreme. I believed that a better comparison between people who are selfish and people who are unselfish resonates with people all over the world. It can be as simple as whether or not to hold the door for someone or tip the waiter at a restaurant. People use these examples to determine whether or not they may like or dislike an individual based on how selfish or selfless they come across. Again, there are certain levels of extremity like theft or stealing to make someone be evil or selfish, but there are also debates like if someone were to rob a store in order to pay for medicine for a sick friend or family member, is that considered selfish or evil? These are the real questions that go up for debate, and how I perceive it as to whether it’s selfish or unselfish to act on this. This was a very fascinating class discussion, and I enjoyed participating.