How Fortunate I Am
I never realized how fortunate I was to grow up in northern California until I visited Beijing, the capital of China. I strongly remember walking through the crooked streets in the highly polluted city, barely able to see through the thick haze, while doing my utmost not to accidentally step on one of the unfortunate civilians sleeping on the ground. My eyes stung from the poisoned air, forcing me to strain to keep them open. My nose began to swell from the disgusting odors originating from all directions. The intense irritating sound of many conversations taking place simultaneously prevented me from being able to even simply think.
The ground itself felt bumpy and rigid, as if there were miniature mountains emerging
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I not only witnessed many depressed individuals without occupations sleeping on the streets, but I also learned how the system works in general. I discovered China’s economy is unique to the rest of the world's. Since the 1980’s, China’s government has been using a system known as the “socialist market economy”. The social market economy is essentially a mix between capitalism and communism. The system forces everyone who works under the government to be payed the same amount. For example, a top class hospital doctor and a mailman have identical salaries. The salary that the Chinese government supplies is also very little. Over the course of an entire year, a single individual who works under the government makes a horrifyingly tiny amount of exactly 1,832 dollars. The social market economy is obviously unjust due to how no matter the complexity of your skill set, as long as you work for the government, you get paid the same as everyone else. Moreover, this unfair pay does impact the country greatly as over 40 million civilians work under the Chinese government. Furthermore, I also felt the social atmosphere was quite uncomfortable. That uncomfortable feeling was mainly formed as a result of the tremendous amount of people who live in Beijing. The population of the China’s capital is well over twenty million people. To put that amount into perspective, the United States of America’s capital city Washington D.C.
Since the start of the 20th century, with the fall of the Qing dynasty, when China was in shambles with no industry, a corrupt government and no international presence, all the way up until today, where China has evolved into one of the strongest internationally recognized countries with a highly globalized market, the relationship between the Chinese people and its government has been debated on whether or not Chinese society is one ruled and dominated by a central government or a society where social change occurred because of bottom-up forces leading to a government for the people. China, since 1949, has been a country, which has been run by a single party state, known as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). The CCP is organized under the basis of a central, unchallenged party governing the people by the means of communism. Throughout the past century, the CCP has dictated and maintained a rule over the livelihood of its people by monopolizing Chinese politics and penalizing those who opposed it, through central command planning and on the other spectrum, radical economic reforms at the end of the 20th century in the interest of keeping the CCP in power.
“A fortune is of no use if there’s no one to share it with.” Day after day I hear this saying from my mother yet never think much about it. On the evening of Thanksgiving Day at the Broadway Palm Theatre in Fort Myers, Fl I had the chance to experience the meaning of such a quote in the production of A Christmas Carol, titled after Charles Dickens story. As a central figure in the play, Scrooge’s character development throughout the play acts out a major theme of the power of kindness and cheer in relationships in the production.
Fears of polluted air and water, and the extinction of wildlife species due to contamination have overtaken the western world. In an excerpt, titled “The Filth They Breathe in China,” taken from American historian, Michael Auslin’s book, the author focuses on the nation where, due to its rapid industrial growth, these effects of pollution are most prominent, China. In his article, Auslin, uses anecdotes, uses strong diction, and uses appeals to logic and credibility in order to capture the enormity of China’s pollution problem.
In “Plight of the Little Emperors” by Taylor Clark the article talks about the difficulties of young children growing up in China.
Forbidden City Essay Nikhita Srigiriraju World History 11/14/14 Forbidden City Essay Everyone has thought of rebellion at some point. Whether it’s for something like not wanting to clean their room, wanting to drive, wanting to vote, it is still standing up for something they believe in. With some people, it may be a minor thing, but for some other people, they are rebelling for their life. In the book Forbidden City by William Bell, the main character Alex moves from Canada to China for his father’s job.
Kaye Hong grown up in San Francisco and attended university of Washington. At the begging of his essay, he was not sure where he should lie his future in because he sees his future clearly in both China and America. Through half of his essay, we can tell that he is also considered China as a weak and low quality county by saying, “I shall deplore China’s lower standard of living, that the chaos of China’s government offers me no promise of economic security” (62). Although he had thought of go back to China, the bad living condition and insecure economy has immediately stopped his thinking. To put it differently, Hong is also lack of knowledge of China, and they way he looks at China’s future was incorrect. Indeed, at that time China’s economy and condition were not as good as today. But due to his enormous population, it is possible for its citizens to make it strong and rich, which this is also what the Stanford students are trying to express. However, Hong is very pessimistic with China’s
“The population of unemployed and underemployed explodes. There is a vicious circle here. Because so many seek work, wages are very low. Because one wage cannot support even a small family, more and more family members must seek employment. This move adds to the pool of labor and further depresses wages.” (Syracuse U. Press) Further, if wages begin to rise in one country, other countries seize the opportunity and lower their wages even further. With this cycle of falling wages and more and more people needing jobs, poverty increases drastically. With wages so low, the owners of these large companies get richer and richer—the vast majority of wealth in a country becomes concentrated in one small group of people. While this is good for those few, the vast majority of citizens are shorthanded. Capitalism is an excellent system for the elite and for increasing efficiency, but as far as providing for the needs of all of its citizens, it falls short. Thus, capitalism is a system that causes and perpetuates poverty, and exploits its lower class.
Despite extensive criticism, proponents of the measure feel that it has improved life in China. The policy, implemented in 1979, “was created by the Chinese government to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems in China” (Cabrera). Supporters of the policy claim that is has been successful. One measurement of a country’s success is its financial growth and China has seen an improvement in that respect. “With that rapid GDP growth, has come better nutrition, rising levels of education, longer life expectancies, and higher living standards for the vast majority of Chinese people.” (Azubel 2). Unfortunately, that financial growth has had little impact on the isolated farms and villages.
As I looked outside the dirty window of my Chinese classroom, I began to sit and think. Why are they so nice to me? Why do they want to talk to me? Why do the treat I like a celebrity? I’m a normal kid from America. As my thoughts raced around the room my day came to an end at a joyous 10 PM in Foshan, Guangdong, China. Everything was different, the people, and although my nose burned at times because of pollution, I still felt the lucidness of the city. When the bell rang for class, I ran to my dorm, stopping for pictures, and the occasional hug. Everyone stood and stared, we all wore the same clothing. We all had the same rules and regulations, but I was different. They knew, but still treated me as a friend. Once I arrived in my dorm, Lulu, 5’6, fair skin, dark brown eyes, and short cut black hair barged through my paparazzi and shut the door behind her, and said, “My parents are ready! Let’s
As many other countries around the world China has its long history of a struggle for equality and prosperity against tyrants and dictatorships. The establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949 seemed to have put an end to that struggle for a better life. “The Chinese people have stood up!” declared Mao Tse-tung, the chairman of China’s Communist Party (CPP) – a leading political force in the country for the time. The people were defined as a coalition of four social classes: the workers, the peasants, the petite bourgeoisie and the national-capitalists. The four classes were to be led buy the CPP, as the leader of the working class.
China has been the biggest economic structure for quite along time, but there are horrible reasons for these, and these decisions are made by the people 's republic of china. The people 's republic is China 's government, and they make all the decisions.A dystopian society is an unbalance in a nation about the people and the government; such as china, the people 's republic of china, or their government, makes many decisions that have affected their country. The three points one can analyze through researching the topic of dystopian societies are the influence of the government, the impacts and change the people 's republic made on china, and the how literature can be used to educate people about the problems in a dystopian society and the progression toward inequality.
School, to me and among many peers of my age, is not a distant term. I have spent one-third of my life time sitting in classrooms, every week since I was seven years old. After spending this much time in school, many things and experiences that happened there have left their mark in my memory. Some are small incidences while some have had a great impact on me. However, regardless the degree of significance, things that happened all contributed to shape the person that I am now.
In the film “China Blue”, a seventeen year old girl, Jasmine Li, works in a Chinese jeans factory. From this documentary we learn about the pay Jasmine was receiving for her hard work, half a Yuan an hour which is equal to about six US cents. We also learn about the condition of the factory and dorms, the rules that the workers have to abide to, and how important these factories are. From just these sweat shops we learn about the economic, social, and political problems that has arisen in China. It also shows us inequality and inequity of the society in China.
There are three very important aspects that play a major rule in my life. They can be categorized as intellectual, social, and spiritual. My intellectual self is interesting because I am mainly right-brained which means that I tend to use my creativity more than my mathematical skills, also making me a visual learner. My social self consists of friends, family, and my surroundings. I spend most of my time at home with my family. Whenever I am with my friends, I observe their behaviors and listen to their opinions. I am more of an independent type of person. Being with different people has influenced me into appreciating different cultures and beliefs. I have learned things that have now been incorporated into my own set of beliefs and
This explains the beginning of my life all the way to the end of my life. My life from the beginning was very fun as I grew up living with my mom’s friend and my friend. But there were a lot of fights and I was very hyper back then. I have ADHD so back then when I was little; I was very hyper and wouldn't stop moving around the place. I always was annoying back then and never seemed to get my homework done at school.