Lesson 1.

Currently looking at what we will be doing for the semester, I am quite excited. The topics are interesting, debatable and current. I think that this programme does incorporate both sides of the bicultural spectrum of US and China, and does make attempts to link them together. On the case study of China's Me generation, on how because the Chinese are becoming more well off, they become more indifferent to the Chinese politics. However, I think that this assumption is quite far-fetched. True, most of the citizens would not be overly concerned with the politics of China, but can we say that this is due to their economic well-being? Many countries in the world with people not as well off as China are equally apathetic to the country's politics. Furthermore, China's politics is unique. It has one party, the communist party, and it is unlikely anyone will be able to challenge it in the near future. Everything that the communist party says is the law, and they have been considerably fair in recent times. Or you could also they have been conservative, and have not done or passed anything controversial. Compared to the Chinese government of the past, who starved and mistreated their citizens, what is there to complain about? With a stable economy and a stable government, there is no need for the people to overly concerned about anything, thus the lack of interest in Chinese politics. Moreover, Chinese politics, as stated above, is uniquely one sided. There is not much that one can do to change anything. The people do not get to vote, they do not get to put pressure on the government's rule, they have little power in controlling the government. At least, this has been the case in the past. People of China thus get the impression that nothing they do is able to affect the government, least change to what they are after. Chinese people would think "So what use is there to be overly concerned? Just let the government have their own internal power struggles and everything will turn out as it should be."