A response to the Angry Asian Man

A response to the Angry Asian Man

Since the beginning of the history of the United States, racism has been a serious social issue existed in this society. In not too remote year racism became one of the hot spots of crime, and the country suffers to compensate for it.  Racism requires everyone to notice the explicit and implicit racism in order to fight it off, and Angry Asian Man is one of these people. His blog mainly focuses on the issues happening about Asian Americans in recent time. I think this blog is very helpful to let people know about injustice happened on Asian people due to racism in this country, but of course there are also some cons about his site.

One thing I think is great about this site is how recent the issues he talked about. For the latest post on Phil Yu’s (Angry Asian Man) blog, he discussed a murder of a Chinese Engineer in Oakland several days earlier by an African American couple. This kind of post will have effect on let people realizing that racism does exist, and it is becoming severe in our world.  By posting this news, he is able to inform people that the racist connections between different races, and because of this whoever reads this will face the truth and give themselves the option of whether or not to make changes. Although this type of action of letting people know what happened can provoke thinking and draw attention, in the process of fighting against racism, it tends to intensify the hatred, which is a drawback of this site.

Not only tragic stories about victims of racism are told on this blog, the Angry Asian Man also features activities that include Asian in entertainment, because one reason Angry Asian Man being angry is that major entertainment Medias don’t use Asian actors that often. So there are a lot of entries that are about Asian actors in American movies and television programs, including Maggie Q, and another actress in the upcoming Sucker Punch. I like the idea of this kind of posts, Phil at this stage is like a vloger on YouTube introducing these events. This will give these posts a sense of objectiveness, and at the same time he will be able to add his ideas through commenting on the movies or TV shows, and let people agree with him. One flaw of Asian Man’s posts is that they are not original, he is simply commenting on them, but I guess he doesn’t really need to be original in order to make him points across.

Overall, the Angry Asian Man’s site is quite interesting, I can find many interesting news about Asian community, including the new WongFu Production’s mini episodes. This is very important to counter the implicit racism in the media. I also realized that the number of posts racism is less than the number of posts on Asian Pride, which Asian Man explained in his About page. I think promoting Asian Pride is a way better way to reduce level of racism, because it involves less hatred, and Asian Man did pretty well on this part. After browsing Asian Man’s post, I do think this is a very good and interesting way to promote Asian values and reduce racism among people.

informal assignment #4

Last Thursday we went to Valley Fair to conduct a very interesting field work, study the behavior of the people there and the mall itself. I went to Victoria’s Secret, Forever 21, Hot Topic, and Disney, etc. Although I don’t like malls nor I am a mall goer, with two girls’ company, I was able to enjoy this trip and learned something from it. The mall has so many features that I didn’t realize or even pay attention to, which allow Valley Fair to provide sufficient amount of leisure and entertainment to its customers, and keeps them coming.

The primary purpose of Valley Fair is shopping, it’s the most important reason why Valley Fair is successful and why so many people go there. Eighty percent of the stores at Valley Fair sell clothes or other products. People from the entire bay area go to Valley Fair to buy clothes. One thing I found crucial about the stores inside VF is their targets. The prices of the wears at most of the stores are at middle price, around thirty to fifty dollars, this shows that the consumers that the stores cater are in middle or upper middle class.

The second possibility of Valley Fair is to provide utility like phone service and hair dressing. Malls that are so big like Valley Fair tend to have this “all in one” ambition, where you can find whatever you need in it. Walking around the mall, you can find not only fashion stores, but also stores that provides hair styling, stores sell phone plans, stores sell toys, stores sell watches, stores sell furniture’s, basically anything you will need in life can be found in this mall, in general, Valley Fair covers the majority of the needs, but not all, if possible.

Another service Valley Fair and other malls provide is leisure, entertainment and a space for people to hangout.  Typically people go to Valley Fair without any specific purposes. Although it doesn’t mean that there aren’t any people who go there and legitimately want to buy stuff, more people just go to the mall with their friends and walk around. The malls provide such space for those people do so and the owners of the malls are more than happy to see people come to the mall, even without any particular reason, but as long as they are walking inside, as long as they are browsing the sales, there will be changes for them to make purchases.

Talking about problems within the mall establishment, there are some, but they don’t really matter that much. The biggest problem would be the “all in one” feature. I have to admit that it is very convenient for people to go in and get all they need at one place, but no matter how big the mall is, it can not provide all the services, and then the question will be that should the mall big this big? Because the size of the mall, it will limit the competition, which monopolize the mall, just like the example of the downtown San Jose we discussed in class.

Despite the fact that a person can find most of stuff he needs in the mall, the level of the service provided at the stores aren’t the best compare to other specialized stores, this gives another reason that malls should be smaller in size and have more specialized stores. Also the clothes stores can’t represent all the brands and styles, this leave the consumers fewer options to choose from in terms of styles, because the clothes they can buy is limited by the stores they go to. This is kind of like dictatorship where choices for people are limited.

The possibility for reform is slim because the structure is still strong and the business is running pretty well. Even though people can’t really find anything they want at this mall, they can always go to other malls or other stores that are not in a mall. If a reform within the mall system is required, the situation would be changed by adding more stores that are very focus in their product, which can provide the best service people, can get around the area. Also, the size of the mall should decrease and open more malls to promote competition and prosperity.

Informal assignment #3 :change within the establishment

change within the establishment

tianzong 

(up: modified legs with short summer uniform. down: unmodified winter uniform)

If you are a student in China (below college level), you are very lucky, the same time very unlucky. Being a student in China you can receive the best and the most restrict fundamental education you can get in the world, academic-wise, of course, meanwhile you need to suffer from a series of meaningless rules that restrict your personal preference of life.  This includes fashion.

I lived in a city named Shenzhen (literally translated “deep hole”),in Canton, China, a place forty minutes to one hour drive from Hong Kong. Like other schools in other provinces and cities, we wear uniform during class time. Although Shenzhen is a fairly modern and developed city with over two million people, the school uniform is very poorly designed. 

I recall that we were actually quite satisfied with the summer sporting uniform consist of shirts (blue for boys and white for girls), and blue short pants, it was comfortable and helped to alleviate the heat of the summer. But when it came to the winter uniform, the student of the city thought did not accept it as it was. There is no style at all if compared to the uniform in other countries, Japan and Great Britain. The entire winter outfit was big and saggy, but most of all, my fellow classmates were outraged by the loose legs of the pants, therefore the students, both middle school and high school, launched a revolution in the style of uniform, against their schools.

In order to solve the problem of oversized pants legs, first they found tailors to slim the legs, making them very thin compare to the hip hop sized barrows. At the same time in terms of the size of uniforms,the they intentionally bought uniforms of smaller sizes; usually a guy who wore XL would got a L, and girls who wore M would got S. This changes were swiftly made and in very large scale, surprisingly. It was astonishingly fast that overnight the fashion in my school changed, most of my schoolmates, if not all, switched to individually tailored uniform pants with slim legs, as well as very short shirts. This became a change within the establishment, since what we changed was not the entire uniform system, but only modified some features of the uniform. Even so, the school would not bear such change.

Although it took a while for the school to respond, eventually later the school “outlawed” the modified types of uniform. But since it wasn’t written in book, students didn’t give a damn and continued to wear what they liked. The school heads saw that they claim didn’t really work as they expected, soon they informed the teachers to educate their students not to wear these slim pants to school, meanwhile they attacked the behavior of students using the public opinion. First the teachers told us that we should focus more on studying, and ridiculously tried to convey that slim legs were not good for our health because they limit the internal circulation, this worked a little bit just because they were the teachers and the authority.

After the school saw no progress in changing our dressing, the teachers who in charges of student discipline decided to enforce the school’s will: when the students on duty see you in those modified clothes, they would take points off from that class( like the schools in Harry Potter,  we did the same thing). Therefore in order to reduce the loss of the points, our teacher demanded us not to wear such uniforms, and overtime the number of students wearing slim pants dropped, also the laws of the school became loose, so the students switched to the tight, short pants again.

This “movement” was a great example of “crime on fashion”, despite the fact the laws of People’s Republic of China did not say that “the students shall not wear modified uniforms”. Look at this event from today’s view; I can’t see anything wrong about the students’ behavior that we have the rights to choose our own style, as long as it doesn’t violate the real rules.

I think what we violated was the will of the school, the establishment. It refers to the teachers, a few group of people who were able to make valid decisions and affect other people according to their own favor. Perhaps they thought the dressing of us weren’t decent enough that slim pants made us looked sexually provocative, and it was indeed changes that we put on our uniform that could be seen, therefore it’s a violation on the norm inside the school, it was a violation on the idea that the students should spend all their energy on academics instead of clothing. No matter what, the struggle on uniform was a precious memory for all the students that had gone though this struggle, whether we succeeded or not, we challenged the authority and projected our fashions.

Informal assignment #2

the future world of harmony
In the near future technology is greatly advanced, which human will no longer worry about hunger, harsh environment, and pollution created by human themselves. But this, only limited to the East Globe and the Island of Australia. The rest of the world is controlled by the West, also known as the United Domain. The East population is consisted mainly by Chinese, Japanese and German, and the Island of Australia mainly occupied by Norwegian.
The government of EG is also different from the United Domain, its sole purpose is to provide civil service, and there are only two governmental departments, one is InterContinental Defense, the other one is Academy of Science and Art. People work because it’s a biological need, and as Marx mentioned, the poverty of every men and women is owned by every man and women. The society is in harmony.
The West Globe, under the United Domain, is differently structured. It was similar to the Old Earth Era (1900-2200). The people in United Domain are exploited heavily and the resources are controlled by the elite. Over two hundred years the bankers and tycoons are casting their greedy eye on the land and wealth. Fifty years ago the East Globe tried to negotiate collaboration with the U.D, but the bakers wanted to keep their rule of the slaves, thus they refused.
The story happens today (year 2250), where the bankers desperately try to expand. There is no place to go, but the East Globe. The EG has little military reserve therefore they now face a threat they have never faced before. The WG, the United Domain, planed an invasion to the East long time ago. The East has little army therefore the people collapsed soon after the invasion. Most people become refugees and workers for the domain. Karl, the young scientist became the leader of the rebel force, step by step dives the occupying force of the Domain out.
There are 5 main characters in this story: Karl, the scientist from the ASA (Academy of Science and Art). Rothschild, the head of the Western Expansion Corp. Lanlie the daughter of the fisherman from Ural. The Domain leader, Sean. And the EG militia leader.
Karl is a young scientist at the ASA, located in Southern China subcontinent. He is a firm Marxist, and a creative inventor. He helps the EG to build up an army after the UD invaded the land of the Harmony. He constructed secret sectors away from the enemy force, by the river of Ural. Later he leads a small squad into the house of the Rothschild to capture him in order to end the war.
Rothschild the Banker, the antagonist of this story, is evil and greedy, but extremely intelligent. He lives in the Dome in the forest of Munich.
Lanlie the daughter of a fisherman, a Russian Chinese, lives among the forest of Ural, former Russia. After the invasion he joined rebel under the command of Karl. While working with him in the factory they fall in love.
The Domain leader, Sean, is a wimp man with no power. He’s the nominal leader of the United Domain, but the power is in Rothschild’s hand. He launched the assault to the East Globe, and soon regretted because he isn’t the one who made the decision, but he’s the one who takes all the blame. At the end he revolted and leads his troops against the rest of WG’s army.
The story is about the future world, how each social structure is practiced. The East is heavily influenced by Communism and Taoism; people live in a very friendly land where the people in the United Domain are working for the big corporations. The East got invaded not because they have inferior technology; in fact the East is much more advanced in technology and science. They lost at first because they have literarily no armed force to defend against the West.
The story explores the themes of the West against the East, also “when you are facing a threat you need to pick up the weapon and fight back”. Although the story happens on the earth, it’s in the future. We are able to see how communism is practiced, and how the societies are separated.

A response to Peter Singer in the film Examined Life

Tianzong Jiang
HUMI 1
April Berney

First not to mention the content of this film, I do not like the way this documentary is filmed. I’d rather have ten talking heads appearing throughout the movie. Well, the director can include cut-away and other inserts to make it interesting, have these philosophers walking on the streets is just distracting. Although I can’t agree with the cinematography, the producer was able to invite enough high caliber philosophers to talk in this documentary, including the great Slovenian continental philosopher Slavo zizak and peter singer. These ten people did make some good points. I especially like the third scholar, Peter Singer.
In this film singer raised some questions about ethic, I’m going to respond to two of them. For the first one he talked about how people should use their money. He said that the price of a pair of shoes can save more than one children in a poor country. It makes sense if we simply think that people have the obligation to help each other, we are wrong. I think it is a problem of power. Sure when have excessive amount of money, we should, and many people are, help out poor people, but the reality is, people are still poor, in the United States and in the world. Therefore it is not a simple ethic problem, but whether the power of a nation is big enough, so it is capable to exploit other countries or prevent itself from plundering by other countries. Does the United States have the obligation to help other countries? It definitely does, although it is doing some charity but it is merely enough. The western world has the privilege of high tech and military power that allows the United States and its allies to dominate the world that these countries to accumulate much more resources and wealth, and leave the rest of the world in poverty. It is not a right thing to do, but the western world has been doing this, for centuries, because they have the power to.
Same as the shoe story, human can treat livestock in this way is because human has the power. Back in the time when we were hunting and gathering, we killed animals to taste their flesh just like today we eat domestic animals. Sometimes we do think about if we are ethical about this issue, but we do not care. Nobody is going to be a vegetarian just because we think mass produce meat is unethical, no country will be willing to give up power just because the people think exploiting other countries is unjustified. People need high quality life, and that requires other people to suffer for them. Normally we say “do not build your happiness over other people’s pain”, but in real word it’s the opposite.
Although peter singer was careful enough to notice the existence of the problem, he did not observe the core of the question. It’s doesn’t matter whether it is ethical or not, the determine factor is power. People do things based on their favor. The West depredate the East is because it can bring countries wealth. The leaders know the world suffering and the people of industrialized nations are enjoying their lives, but they will never change the way they behave, they will never give up their advantage. The question Peter Singer raised was not about ethics, but about material.

SCAVENGER HUNT !!