Journal 2

Today, both China and America are major economic superpowers in the world. America, having undergone massive industrialization over the past century, found itself with a rapid economic growth and emerged to be one of the most developed countries in the world. China, on the other hand, discovered the potential of its huge population and domestic market, fully exploited it, and burst forward in the past few decades to become a country with one of the fastest economic growth. As such, both China and America have come under the international spotlight and they are now two countries that are most frequently discussed about in the world.

For China, one of the most evident progresses is visibly the economic aspect. China, being the booming economic superpower, has evidently been extremely successful in its economic development. During the three decades to 2010, China recorded the most rapid and steady economic development in the history of mankind, with its economy growing almost 40-fold between 1978 and 2010. With its rapid economic growth, benefits are also reaped from its citizens and the average living standards of Chinese have significantly risen. The vast majority of China’s newly created economic wealth has seeped down to Chinese workers, who have moved from oxen and bicycles to the verge of automobiles in just a single generation. On the other hand, economic progress is limited for America due to its exponential increase in debt-to-GDP ratio. While median American incomes have been stagnant for almost forty years, those in China have nearly doubled every decade, with the wages of workers outside the farm-sector rising about 150 percent over the last ten years alone. In 1978, America’s economy was 15 times larger, but according to most international estimates, China is now set to surpass America’s total economic output within just another few years.

Progress of gender equality is another topic that could be used to measure the maturity of the Chinese and American society. This topic is broached in the class discussions, and I am hereby going to expand upon it. Even though female rights are gaining recognition in the world, the progress of gender equality in China, however, is rather limited. The advance in the status of China’s females is heavily deterred by the Confucian beliefs ingrained in most minds of the Chinese: males are superior as compared to females and should therefore be given more opportunity and power. Hence, the status of women in China still retains an all-time low even today. Although the government made a gender equality law in 1949, discrimination against women continues. In 2005, the Chinese government released a white paper to mark the 10th anniversary of the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, promoting equality between women and men in nine aspects including politics and family life. The white paper points out that the government is doing what they can to eliminate discrimination in education but at the same time acknowledging the fact that the gender equality problems have not been resolved.

For one, education opportunities for Chinese girls remain restricted and without education, it is difficult for women to improve their socio-economic status in China. In China, many rural girls are not sent to school, as many rural parents generally withhold the opinion that supporting their daughter for education would be an unnecessary “wastage” of money, since daughters would eventually end up being married off to another family. Over 70% of school dropouts are girls and over 70% of about 220 million who are semiliterate or illiterate in China are women. Gender inequality in China is all the more prevalent in the workforce. Polls revealed that men and women work equally but women get paid 78% of the pay the men get. While women work to weave household accessories out of maize husks, young women get hired at embroidery factories so that they can continue to have babies but be able to work at home. Women in China are seen to be the weaker sex who is incapable of handling important national affairs, and with such a stereotypical in China, not many women play an important part in the government.

However, in America, progress is seen in the liberalization of women’s role. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 guaranteed covered workers up to 12 weeks unpaid leave after a child’s birth or adoption or in case of a family illness. Although only about half the total work force was eligible, it seemed a promising start. However, gender equality is still a faraway goal yet to be attained as discrimination against women is still rampant. In America, the median annual income for women working full time is 23 percent lower than for their male counterparts. According to other estimates, women in the US earn only 82.2% of men’s earnings. Under current law, employers who refuse to make accommodations for pregnant women that they would make for workers with disabilities are guilty of discrimination. But according to Emily Martin of the National Women’s Law Center, who is filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Crosby’s behalf, employers still commonly fire pregnant women rather than providing such accommodations. “We don’t have numbers,” she told BuzzFeed, “but looking at published cases, it seems to be a story that’s repeated again and again.”

Now, I am going to briefly touch on political apathy since it is also one of the topics mentioned in the CDE presentations. In both Chinese and American societies, progress is political awareness seemed to be pretty limited. In China, political roles are perceived to be corrupted, and to succeed you will have to be dishonest and pull strings to emerge victorious in your career. Needless to say, most parents have actually advised their children not to step into the corrupted world of politics. They are also coined as “Little Emperors”, spoiled by their parents and are therefore uncaring to anything around them except for themselves. Political apathy is also present in youths in America today. They only care about indulging unnecessarily in materialistic growth.

In conclusion, China is a rising star in the economic arena and it is soon catching up with America’s economy. However, while both America and China have developed impressive economies, with the gender inequality and political apathy in their societies, there is no doubt that both China and America are still at a distance away from being a mature and aware society.

Journal 1

CDE had been a fruitful and enjoyable course I had undertaken in my secondary three year. From the course last year, I gained a lot of knowledge about differences of Chinese and Western societies, especially the functioning of several reputed companies such as Lenovo, Apple, and Google which indented a deep impression in me. I learnt about the importance of innovation, and the importance of great leadership, and plenty other interesting facts. Secondary 3 CDE definitely had been an enriching course, and to my delight, for this second semester of IHE in secondary four of HCI, CDE is back!

With the course basing itself very much on students’ self-initiated research and the sharing of their findings with the class, CDE was definitely an interactive course in which students have the opportunity to practice their speaking and listening skills, and hone their critical thinking ability, especially in the Q&A sessions of the graded individual presentations. For this short time of 5 minutes, students had to do a lot of background research and back themselves up with plenty of knowledge regarding the topic they have chosen in order to survive the relentless and sometimes difficult questions which the audience posed for him. What makes it more even daunting is that our CDE teacher would be standing at the side or back of the class, looking upon the whole scene and silently grading you based on your 5 minutes of speaking. Hence, I have always felt apprehensive for the coming of this session last year for fear that I might stumble during the presentation or get struck dumb by a critical question asked by my classmates, as I am definitely not the eloquent and quick-witted kind of person. But luckily I got passed it smoothly last year. Yet, this year, CDE syllabus still has the 5 minutes of presentation in place, and again, I feel that tingling apprehension for the coming of this presentation…

Another component of students’ grade is the research paper. This is definitely the section that depends a lot on the effort and hard work and time that students are willing to invest. To me, writing research papers are never easy; it requires a lot of determination especially for the beginning when one is still trying to formulate the structure of the essay and what to talk about. In the start, it seems like starting from scratch of some insurmountable task, but slowly and slowly, you would pick up the momentum, and as you approach the end of your essay, you would feel an indescribable sense of delight and satisfaction! But the starting of the research paper is always a difficult and imposing task – it is similar to searching for light in the vast darkness. And since I have not started composing my research paper this year, I am feeling rather apprehensive (again), as I am not sure when I would be able to find the correct direction, and how much precious time I would be able to take in order to complete this task. In especial, being in the third term of secondary four, every subject teacher is pressing hard and trying to extract the most out of us, hence with another research paper to write is simply stressful for me!

Yet, to my relief, CDE still has another mode of assessment, which is the journal writing that I am currently doing. This is the enjoyable task that I most like to do, as it not only gives you the opportunity to write with simply and effective language, allows you to express your thoughts, it is also a good way to heighten our level of command for English Language. It does not take up too much time, and it is not too much of a burden to our already heavy workload, hence serving as a sort of safety net which ensures that all of us would attain a minimal grade for CDE!

Though CDE had been a pretty successful course last year, I still feel that there are some areas for improvement, and I hope that my expectations would be met! For one, I hope that the presentations would be conducted with a greater amount of control exerted over the students. From my past experiences, the presentations had been pretty rowdy; if not, students were not listening to the presenters and hence would not benefit from the course, since the presentations are one of the main components of the whole course. I also hope that perhaps Mr Karplus could make a simple summary and provide an add-on to what is not mentioned by the presenters, so that the whole session would end up with a better conclusion. This is especially important as many a times I could not catch what the presenters are saying (even though mindmaps are drawn on the whiteboard) as some of them speak too fast for me to catch. Another suggestion is that more educational and informative videos could be shown to the class, as this is what that snatches the students’ attention and makes lessons more lively and vibrant. Of course, these are just suggestions, and finally I also wish that the light-hearted and less intense atmosphere during CDE lessons could be maintained!

That’s all I would write for today!