GHS208-01 Spring 2020 China and the Islamic Middle East

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.

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.

There was a moment in class today when the idea of speaking out against a leader was mentioned in the context of “Bad Joke.” Last semester, I took a class on Machiavelli and the first thing I thought of when it came to this story was the idea of power and authority and how you keep power. Machiavelli teaches the idea that a leader must stop revolutions before they begin because a spark will produce a flame and any revolutionary ideas can grow. This idea was very present in both “Saboteur” and “Bad Joke.” The police stop speech against authority before it become something more. A Machiavelli quote from The Prince that sums this up is his ideas about fear and love, “Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved.” The communist party realizes that it must employ fear to keep the people in line, and this concept is very present in Machiavelli’s teachings. This is still seen today in the rule of Xi Jinping. He evokes love in the citizens who follow his laws and benefit from them, but he is not afraid to produce hate in those he needs to control. Whether it is other party officials who disagree with him or ethnic groups that challenge the China he wants, Xi Jinping understand that he must suppress these groups in order to maintain absolute power. However, before we judge China, we must remember that the United States was founded on some of the same beliefs that Machiavelli had, and Thomas Jefferson is known to have kept a copy of The Prince.

The first time our group met for our ICR, Kwan came to speak and teach our class about the very famous and well known Lion dance. As I mentioned in my first ICR blog post, this traditional Chinese dance brings good luck, health, and fortune to many people not only around China but around the world. It brings the community together and represents peace and solemn. Not only did he teach us about the dance, but he brought an actual lion costume that is operated by two people. One of the people operates the movement of the head as the head is supposed to be moved rapidly up and down and side to side as well as shake. There is must exert energy that goes into operating the head. The other individual in the costume operates the body, and this part does not exert much energy, but they must bend over at a horizontal level and sway its arms up and down to act as though the Lion is alive and breathing. They also must keep the same pace as the individual operating the head. There is also a lever, in the head, for the lion to blink to make the Lion seem very real. Not to mention, there are two so-called cheerleaders to guide the lion and be very energetic to keep the individuals in the lion energetic.

The Lion dance symbolizes power, wisdom, and superiority. It helps bring good health and fortune and pushes negativity and evil out of peoples’ lives. It is seen as more of a “good luck charm” in the Chinese culture. The Lion dance is divided into two styles and they are a southern style and a northern style. The difference between them is that the northern is related to kung fu and other Chinese martial arts, and it is best to see them at martial arts theaters. The southern is more based on the lion’s behavior, and it’s seen as more comical being shown usually on the Chinese New Year. Overall, I am looking forward to learning more about Chinese culture as this event was fascinating.

https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/special-report/chinese-new-year/new-year-lion-dance.htm

A few weeks ago I attended a talk by Dr. Fleet Maull.  Dr. Maull is an author, certified mindfulness teacher, and social activist who founded the Prison Mindfulness Insititute.  However, one unique fact about him was he had to serve a fourteen-year prison sentence for drug smuggling.  He was originally from St. Louis, and his life was forever changed from his experiences inside the prison.  When he first arrived to prison there was no real religion course or area for people to express and practice their faith.  The way he grew the program from nothing to something so large was very impressive and showed how passionate he was about his beliefs.  In his talks with us he told us what it was like to practice Buddhism inside the prison, and how mass incarceration is more of a policy failure than a moral failure.  He did mention how recently there have been some reforms, but not nearly as many as he thinks are necessary.  He also mentioned how he really enjoys going on retreats and sharing his life experiences with others around the world.  After hearing his talks I definitely have a different outlook on both the prison system and the individuals inside them.

The first time our group met for our ICR, Benny and Kwan came to speak with our class. It was a very informative discussion about how they came to the U.S. years ago and got acclimated and learned English and our culture through education and many different experiences. We then shifted to how they believe our ICR and our volunteering can benefit society as well as learning and embracing the Chinese culture better. We talked about the possibility of doing this Lion Dance, which is a traditional Chinese dance that brings good luck and health to many people. This interests me very much since I went to China for an internship two summers ago, but I wasn’t there long enough to embrace more of the culture as I wish I did. Learning this dance and other aspects of the Chinese culture is something that I am looking forward to now and for the rest of our ICR. Not to mention, Kwan is a very understandable and nice man who teaches us the right and wrong ways about learning the Chinese culture and explains each very well. He understands that we are college students who are new with learning about a new culture, which makes him a very qualified teacher, especially for this subject matter. I am looking forward to the other events to embrace their culture some more, as well as better the Indianapolis society for other potential events that come forth.

As everyone knows the coronavirus has been all over mainstream news over the last few weeks.  It has infected hundreds of thousands of people and has left many people in a large panic.  Some cruise ships have been quarantined and I’ve recently seen videos of people being dragged from the streets in China because of the disease.  To make matters worse this whole outbreak is coming at peak flu season,  leaving hospitals and health centers extremely busy. I recently read an article online about how the United States is preparing for this world pandemic. The articles mentions how health care providers need a plan for a patient “surge”, and how they must make sure they have the proper staff and equipment to deal with this difficult situation.  One step hospitals in San Diego are taking to address this shortage in supplies is to consolidate medical supplies such as masks, gloves, and gowns.  It will be interesting to see how this disease will impact the world over the next few months as more and more individuals are exposed to the disease.

When thinking about the disease it reminded me of some of the readings we have been talking about in class.  Specifically, it reminded me of when we talked about the Tao Te Ching and Doaism.  In class we talked about finding balance in our lives and how there is a cause for every effect.  When thinking about the individuals directly affected by the virus, I realize how hard it must be to find this balance in their lives.  They are most likely struggling with the realization they may not have much longer to live, which is a tough thought for any human to have.  I look forward to learning more about this balance throughout the semester and how it relates to current problems across the world.

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.

Recently when interviewing a friend of mine Mario, I found that he recently had an internship in Shanghai at Microsoft headquarters. During his time there while teaching English to many of the people who he worked with, they had a discussion about what it was like to live permanently in this government when working inside of an industry that has to use the internet so much. And all of these employees were totally willing to explain to him that everyone knew the government regulating the internet was a bad thing, so they all had VPN’s and they all had good ones. Even the business overall, the Microsoft HQ, had a company wide VPN. I found this extremely fascinating because VPN is a much less necessary thing in the US unless you have information to protect from the general public.

The other thing that he told me about this business culture that brand names were literally everything to these people. Your socio-economic status is everything that you are when walking down the streets and even inside the business. So he said almost every single person there would have some kind of Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Bradbury, and etc. whatever name brand you can think of people had it one their person. Mario was telling me that one of the crazy things about this business culture was the fact that rather than celebrating a big closing or deal with a dinner in an extremely professional setting. That these people would actually go get super drunk, and go on a shopping spree at super nice name brand stores. Which is honestly hard not to giggle at a bit, but pretty different compared to what happens here.

That’s all there is to this blog, a pretty simple one, although I found it extremely fascinating.