Author: ahabel

Before coming to Butler I had very little experience with anyone in the Muslim community. Even after being here for a while, I found myself knowing very little about their religion and culture. I took the first step towards learning about Islam last semester, when I took a course titled “Religion in American Politics.” In this class, we learned a lot about Islam and the culture that surrounds it.

For one of my assignments in the class, I had to attend a religious ceremony that I was not familiar with. I decided to visit the Nur-Allah Islamic Center, as I was very curious about how they worship. I know that one of the ICR’s we could have done was through the Nur-Allah Islamic Center, so the people who are involved in that can see if their experience matches up with mine.

I think that there are a very small number of times where I have felt more welcome then when I went there. They immediately welcomed me in and taught me about their worship and showed me what to do and when. Everyone who came was just as welcoming. I was able to talk to a few people after the worship, as I was curious about their experiences of being a Muslim person in a country that seems to harbor distaste for the Muslim community. Everyone was very honest and sincere with there responses, and I learned a lot about them. Attending worship at Nur-Allah Islamic Center was a very interesting an enlightening experience that I recommend to everyone.

In my last blog post, I discussed how basketball has become a huge part of the Chinese culture, and how the NBA is widely watched and loved in China. There has been a bump in the relationship between China and the NBA, however. In 2019, the Hong Kong protests against the human rights violations from the Chinese government gained national media attention. This happened to coincide with a trip that several NBA teams made to China to play against teams in the Chinese Basketball Association.

While in China, the players and management of these teams got a closer look at these protests and their impact in China. This led the general manager of the Houston Rockets to tweet his support of the protests.

This tweet led to a huge controversy in the US, forcing people to take sides with either Hong Kong or the Chinese government. The Chinese government was not happy that the Rockets allowed Morey to tweet this.

China decided to cancel all showings of NBA basketball in China. This cost the NBA a lot of money, as China was a huge portion of their revenue. This prompted the NBA to come out on the side of the Chinese government, attempting to lessen their revenue loss. Many people were very upset with the NBA for this, saying that they have chose to side with money rather than human rights, which I can’t help but agree with.

I love basketball. I have played it since I was a small child and still play it today (recreationally). I can often times be found watching basketball, college or professional, I love it all. One thing that is on the rise in the basketball world is the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

Basketball is beginning to become a world-wide sport. Players from all over the world come to play in the NBA. One player, by the name of Yao Ming, became a huge star during his time in the US, and captured the attention of many Chinese viewers. When Yao Ming retired from the NBA, he went back to China and helped grow the CBA to the popularity that it now holds.

The CBA used to be a very small association, but has shot up in the ratings. The Chinese people have become captivated by this sport, just as Americans are. Now, many players who don’t make it in the NBA will go play in the CBA to help make a name for themselves. They go there because China now has one of the best basketball programs in the world, and has become a part of the Chinese culture.

As I previously wrote about, as part of my ICR, me, as well as several of my classmates, have been learning how to perform the lion dance. This week we continued to learn and were able to increase what we knew how to do. Kwan returned to teach us again, but this time he brought more than just the lion costume. He also brought a drum and some pom poms.

The main purpose of this lesson was learning how to bow properly. It was more difficult than it seemed to get it right, and we had to practice a fair amount before we got it down. Kwan showed us how percussion is used in the lion dance, and how big of a role it has. It allows the dancers to keep time and to stay in step, while also providing some more entertainment for the audience.

The purpose of the pom poms is to have one or two people in front of the lion waving them in its face trying to get its attention, leading it around. This gives the illusion of the lion being a real animal that can be captivated by such things. It also allows for the people holding the pom poms to go off and do their own thing every once and a while, making sure the performance doesn’t get stale. I am excited for next week, where I hope to learn how to properly play the drum.

Last Monday, February 17th, as part of my ICR (which is through the Indianapolis Association for Chinese Americans) we began to learn the lion dance. One of the members from the IACA, Kwan, came to teach it to us. I was very curious what we would learn, as I had never seen a lion dance performed before.

Before we started to learn, Kwan showed us a full performance, which was astonishing. The dance consists of two people in a lion costume, working together to create the illusion of a lion dancing on stage. The coordination and chemistry between these two people was astounding, and made me very excited to start learning.

We then began actually learning how to do the basics. This consisted of us learning how to properly hold the head and shake it around, or to be in the back, creating the illusion of the lion breathing while walking around. I quickly learned that holding the head up for so long takes far more strength than I originally thought. This was just the beginning of learning how to properly perform the lion dance, but I feel like I learned a lot.

In class today, we discussed recent presidential drop-out Andrew Yang’s idea of universal basic income. There are many people who consider this idea to be an extension of communism, as it would mean that a lot of the economy and payroll of people would be controlled by the government. However, there are some important differences between the UBI and communism.

Communism is focused on completely turning over all economic factors to the government, and allowing them to completely control everything to do with the economy and people’s livelihoods. This relies heavily on the integrity of the leader, because if the leader is corrupt, then it turns into a dictatorship, instead of a communist community.

The UBI idea does take some ideas from communism, but there are also major differences. The idea that it takes from communism is making sure that no one is completely without income. This makes sure that no one goes hungry or freezes to death. However, that is where its parallels to communism stop. There is still a very strong capitalist part of this, in that you still are able to work your way to make whatever you earn, just as it is now. The only difference is that this idea tries to help mitigate poverty.

In class we discussed what happened, and possibly still happens, in China when you made a joke making fun of Chairman Mao. This leader was a dictator who had very thin skin, and did not tolerate anything negative being said about him. While we were having this discussion I couldn’t stop thinking about how similar this is to our current president.

Ever since he has come into political prominence, and probably before, Trump has been known for his thin skin. He is not able to take a joke, and feels like he has to make a statement refuting whatever was said about him. The example that comes to mind is that during his campaign people made jokes about how small his hands looked. He made multiple comments about how big his hands were, which just showed how much he cares about what people think about him

People in power command a lot of attention, and not everybody is going to like you. Those that don’t like you are going to make fun of you. That is how life works, and for these two major leaders to not be able to accept does not show good qualities of a leader. You need to be able to have thick skin if you are going to be in the public eye.

While reading the “Sources of Chinese Tradition” piece, I found a very strong comparison from that society and our modern American society. That is the idea of Xenophobia. While they are afraid of different groups of people, both of these societies seem to have a strong Xenophobia embedded in their cultures.

In the Chinese society, they discuss a lot about what is China. They want to define China as a relatively small area of land compared to all of the land that is controlled by China. They don’t believe that all of these other areas are part of China because they are “others.” They are outsiders who depend on China, but are not actually Chinese. This xenophobia shocked me at first, but then I thought about how similar it is to our society.

In modern society, there is xenophobia all over. A huge population is very afraid and hateful towards many other countries. The other factor that goes into this is that the countries that we hate are almost all non-white countries. There is a distinct racism in our xenophobia, and it is causing us to build border walls and distrust anyone who identifies as a Muslim.