Author: blschrad

According to this Wall Street Journal article from April 8th, the Chinese government has elected to relax some of the restrictions placed on the people of Wuhan. The epicenter of the Covid-19 virus has been on total lockdown for 11 weeks and, “At the drop of midnight Wednesday morning, Chinese authorities began allowing people who can prove they are healthy to enter and leave Wuhan, and relaxed restrictions on many local businesses, in an effort to resuscitate a local economy devastated by the disease.” So, the Chinese government is not simply letting things return completely back to normal, but some of the restrictions they had placed on the people of Wuhan have begun to be relaxed. However, before we get too excited that the epicenter may be coming to an end, that is certainly not entirely true. As the quote suggested, these relaxing restrictions definitely do not apply to everyone, and it may simply be to restore some of the economy in the area, not because they believe the area is in better shape. “Millions of others in Wuhan, however, remained under effective lockdown in their homes after the city government said residential restrictions would remain in place—in part because of the recent discovery of dozens of asymptomatic cases in the city.”. So, yes, some of the restrictions on the people of Wuhan are being lifted, but those lifted restrictions may simply be a ploy to get the world’s attention and restore some of the area’s economy. The great majority of the city are still on lockdown and the end does not quite seem to be in sight, especially with the discovery of all of the new asymptomatic cases in the area, “The city has announced only three confirmed cases since March 18—the first day it reported none—but has revealed 194 new asymptomatic cases since it began reporting those numbers on April 1, raising fears of a second wave of infections in the city.”. The world may be incredibly far from the end of this pandemic.

1.) First, I’d like to say that both The Cairo House and The Bridegroom were very enjoyable and engaging reads for me. Obviously there were differences with Cairo House being a full novel as opposed to The Bridegroom being a set of short stories. I would say that I learned more from The Cairo House and the depictions of Gigi. That is partly because I had learned about Chinese culture prior to this class, but it’s also because Serageldin makes Gigi quite relatable and down to Earth while also discussing the political struggles and cultural struggles as well. The Bridegroom was also an excellent read because many of the common cultural characteristics of Chinese culture came out throughout those short stories. Some of which I knew about, others however, I did not, and those were fun to try to figure out and learn about. Both of these fictional stories gave insightful looks into both of these cultures, and I feel that the fictional reads are better looks into the every day common culture of these places over a non-fiction book.

2.) Secondly, I have found the course as a whole to be very beneficial. It was quite disappointing that we were not able to continue this class in person, but the discussions have still been beneficial. The knowledge that I gained about Islam was particularly good about this class for me being that prior I had almost no knowledge in that area. There were also some things about China and their culture that were brand new to me and were interesting to learn. Lastly, I think that the fiction stories were one of my favorite aspects of the course, and when we were in person the discussions were particularly good because they allowed us to collaborate and discuss our perspectives on the cultures we were reading about.

First of all, I come from a small town in Michigan, so my interaction with Muslims and Muslim culture has been somewhat limited, however, there are some parts of Michigan around me that are very heavily populated by Muslims. So, before coming to Butler I had not much, but a little contact with Muslim people, and even at Butler there are not a great majority of Muslim people, but I have had some interactions with Muslims at Butler, all of which have been delightful. One of the stereotypes that I have heard throughout my life is that Muslim women are oppressed, coerced, and beaten throughout their lives, and that they are not treated as equals. However, the article PBS Global Connections article directly refutes that claim, as would conversations I have had with Muslim people in the communities around my home. Muslim women are supposed to be treated like equals, and the great majority of them are happy to follow the teachings of the Quran and Islam. It is the uncommon, bad cases that get captured by news outlets and blown up because it is out of the norm, and we all need to do some more research around the world to make sure we are avoiding anti-Muslim stereotypes at all times.

Soccer is one of my favorite sports, and by far the world’s most popular, so I thought that it might be interesting to look into the world of soccer in China. The top division of Chinese soccer is called the Chinese Super League, and their league has been gaining quite a bit of popularity over the past several years because they have been known to spend a ton of money in transfer fees and wages to get superstars of the European game to come play in China when they are arguably either past their prime, or simply a snake wanting a huge pay day. Now, that’s great for the Chinese game that they get to grab some big name players to play in their league. The MLS does the same thing with players like Landon Donovan, David Beckham, and Thierry Henry. The problem in China however, is that the big wages their clubs promise those big name players, are driving some clubs out of business. This article from the South China Morning Post details the financial struggles of Liaoning, a former top Chinese club who is now in the second division and facing bankruptcy. The team has in fact not been able to pay quite a few of their players because of the money they have spent on big name players and the under performance of their club. So now, with the Covid-19 pandemic, everything with the details of the club is far more confusing. Players do not know whether the club is going under or not, so they do not know whether they can speak to new clubs or not. FIFA and the Chinese FA have gotten involved with the club, trying to help their players get paid, and considering whether the club will be able to stay afloat or not.

For this post I’d like to talk about a topic that has always both troubled and fascinated me since I’ve begun studying about China. That being, the re-education camps that the Chinese government has set up in Xinjiang province for their Uighur population. Uighur’s being the Turkic, Muslim minority that is based mainly in China, but also Uzbekistan, Turkey, Russia, Australia, and the U.S. The Chinese government has carefully constructed a narrative around these camps, claiming that they are “voluntary vocational camps” where people come to learn new job skills, and most importantly, are free to leave. However, what these camps have actually been revealed to do is hold Uighur peoples in them, until they can learn to be “good Chinese citizens who also speak Mandarin”. There have been horror stories of these camps leaked to the press and yet, nothing has been done about them up to now. Stories have come out about the conditions of the camps not just from the former inmates, but also from former staff who have fled China. This CNN article reveals the stories of a former staff member at one of the camps who fled to Kazakhstan. “Overflowing toilets in overcrowded cells. Food and sleep deprivation. Forced injections”. “Those who cannot learn fast enough or meet daily goals are deprived of food…For those who were not easily taught or who fought back against the ideology, Sauytbay claimed, even darker methods of coercion were used”. These kinds of things are happening to innocent people living in China every day because of their ethnicity and their religion and the international community is doing nothing to stop it because the backlash from China and their allies would be heavy. I’m not sure what the right answer is here, but I know that the world cannot stand idly by and let this happen to innocent people.

The concept of the Five Pillars is quite interesting to me. I knew about a few of them prior to this class, the Salat, Sawm, and Hajj were all concepts I had heard of before regarding Islam, but I did not know that they were part of the Five Pillars, nor did I know that one of the Five was Zakat, or the paying of alms to the poor. Nor did I specifically know that the Shahada was part of the Five as it seems like a basic tenet of any religion. Secondly, the fact that these Five things are the central part of Islam tells me that the religion is very focused on the act of rituals and paying homage to Allah. Four out of the Five are directly related to paying homage to Allah in a very ritualistic type way. Always staying sincere to the Muslim faith, praying five times per day, always facing Mecca, fasting during Ramadan, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca. Zakat seems more like a central tenet of most religions, giving of your own to help the needy and poor. In my opinion its emphases are more or less quite similar to those of many other religions. Believing that your God is the one true God and staying true to the faith is central to most religions. Prayer is central to most religions, but I don’t think most religions require their followers to pray five times per day facing a certain direction, so that is a bit different. As I said, giving of yourself to the poor is a central tenet of most religions, and fasting and having rules about which foods you can consume show up in many religions, most notably Hinduism and Judaism. Also, there are some passages in the Christian Bible that restrict the eating of shellfish. Lastly however, there is nothing quite like the Hajj. It is a terrific thing for any follower of Islam to be able to do, let alone more than once. As far as I know, no other religion has anything quite like the Hajj. Lastly, the documentary really helped me to see just how important the Hajj is. As every Muslim must make the Hajj at least once in their lifetimes, it is an incredibly important milestone in a Muslim’s life, and the documentary really helped hit that home for me.

As I am writing this, something that I never thought would be the case has become the case. The United States has overtaken China in total number of coronavirus cases. Today is March 30th, and the stark differences of the handling of the outbreak in China as compared to the United States is the clear reason as to why the US numbers just keep skyrocketing. According to the WHO’s daily coronavirus statistics reports the United States currently has 122,653 total cases, and 19,332 “new” cases. The WHO defines a “new” case as one occurring within the last 24 hours. Meanwhile China currently has a total of 82,447 cases, just 106 of those being “new” cases. Now, to me, something about the handling of this virus in the US seems very off, because China has more than three times as many people as the US does, and yet, they have far fewer cases than we do. Yes, don’t get me wrong, China still has a lot of cases, currently they rank third in the world for most cases behind Italy, and the US. However, in a country in which the outbreak began, and that has over 1 billion people, keeping the case count that low is quite impressive to me. Our two countries have taken very different approaches to this catastrophe. China and president Xi have taken a hardcore approach, locking down everything they could as soon as they could to keep everyone indoors and got the necessary testing out as often and as numerous as they could. Meanwhile president Trump has said things like the virus was a hoax, and he along with many lawmakers have not taken this virus seriously, and as a result, we not only have overtaken China, we are the world leaders in coronavirus cases. The WHO daily situation reports can be found here

First off, Professor Asma Afsaruddin’s piece greatly challenged my expectations of what Sharia law was, what it encompassed, and how it was created and understood. All my life all I have heard about Sharia law is the fanatical hysteria that accompanies it in most American discussion settings. All I had ever heard about it was that it horribly mistreated women and homosexuals and had horrific punishments for any kind of crime. The debunking of the anti-women sentiment that the term Sharia tends to carry was really eye opening for me. When professor Amsa talked about the Quran granting rights of equal access to knowledge for women and that they must consent before being married was astounding to me as I had never heard of these things before.

Secondly, the second articles made more sense because I read Professor Asma’s piece first. Without her article explaining all of the basics in an easy to understand way I would have been lost reading the other two. I did however do some digging into any terms I did not understand. Dictionary definitions were helpful, and I always do whatever I can to stay off of Wikipedia and find credible sources. On this topic I preferred to find sources that seemed credible, and were also at least somewhat associated with Islam. Sure American/British sources may be credible on the topic, but they can also carry a different skew that I was not looking for on this topic.

The president of India Narendra Modi is a very popular figure in India and has done some excellent things for the people of his nation, but his policies toward the Muslim minority of India are controversial at best. Modi defines himself as a “Hindu Nationalist”, which means he believes that India is a strictly Hindu nation and Muslims should not be a part of the Indian nation. Religious tensions have been part of Indian life for decades, and Modi has been at the head of state for many violent acts against Muslims and has done nothing to stop it, and has barely made temped apologies when he was asked if he regretted that the violence/killings happened. Modi himself has not directly used anti-Muslim sentiments in his public speeches, but what he has done is appoint other “Hindu Nationalists” and far more vocal anti-Muslim people in his government, and Modi has done nothing to stop them, even taking steps to put laws in place to hurt and even get rid of the Muslims in India. For example, he is planning on releasing a new citizenship test for the Indian people, a nationwide registry. Those who cannot provide documents for their citizenship will be considered illegal aliens, and only non-Muslims will be protected under this act. This would likely strip millions of Indian Muslims of their citizenship. In a nation with millions of Muslims, this can have some devastating effects.

I’m sure that all of this information is shocking and they may have people asking where I got my information. I got all of it from an episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which can be found here: Last Week Tonight: Narendra Modi

The racism that has spread as a result of the corona virus is quite stunning to me personally. Sure, the virus was first discovered in China, but that does not mean that the virus is “Chinese”, as some people would like to put it. There has been a big push in America to label this virus as something foreign, or alien when that is simply not the case, it is a virus, it has no national allegiances. A great majority if not all of the people trying to brand this the “Chinese” corona virus are on the right side of the aisle politically, most notable among those is obviously President Trump. Recently President Trump did a press conference in which he was directly asked why he called Covid-19 the “Chinese” corona virus and he flatly answered because it “came from China”. Calling this virus the “Chinese” or “foreign” corona virus only seeks to deflect the attention away from the job that the administration has done to mitigate the outbreak, and it could seriously stoke racist tensions among a public that is already in panic due to the virus. I fear that it could have a very negative impact on the well being of Asian Americans in this country.