I completely agree with this student that this is a very important question, why should we move on with our lives when 300,000 people die versus when for example, my relative dies, I can take days off to mourn? So in my opinion, it all comes down to the issue of self-centeredness like Sam mentioned in class. We are by nature, selfish, and when it comes to issues like who do I save if I can only choose myself or someone else, a stranger, or even a close friend or relative, in the end, mostly likely, I would still choose me. It is shocking to hear that the amount of people who died in Haiti, 100 times more than the people who died in 911. The reactions of the two events are obviously different. But I think even though people tend to be self-centered, still through deeper understanding and exposures, we can become more self-less and concern more about others.
For instance, taking soc119 is already one way for us to increase our exposure of social and ethnic issues around the world. Some of us may become more selfish, whereas, many will become more selfless and have more concerns for others who are not living as well as us. Personally, I think taking soc119 has definitely increased my exposure to the problems and happening around the world and also inequalities among different races. During class on Tuesday when Matt (is his name Matt?) came to speak it was really eye-opening of how Haiti really is after the earthquake. I think it was more personal and it felt closer and I cared more. So I think why 300,000 people dying we are not reacting to it as much has to do with the physical distance on one point. Also, I felt that I wanted to care more about the earthquake in Haiti, but I don’t watch TV and I’ve been busy with all the other things in my life, so it sort of just pushed me forward with my life. I think if we were to have a moment of silence everyday for Haiti, then I would think about it more and wanted to get involved with helping more. Also, I think it might have something to do with race as well. When the earthquake happened in China, I was worried to death, and I watched news every hour if not every day. So why am I not doing the same thing for Haiti? This is a question that I ask myself. Do I not care as much if the people don’t look like me?

I laughed when I saw this video. In the past few years, because of the popularity and necessity of Chinese language in the business world-or beyond, there have been numerous different Chinese language teaching programs. So it was no surprise that people would utilize Youtube for Chinese language education use. But what the article was addressing was surprising to me because I didn’t expect the rising of the Chinese language teaching programs in high schools to surpass Germany. When I was in high school, which was only 2 years ago, there was no Chinese language option, and my school was very competitive on the rankings for everything. So the speed of the growth is surprisingly fast. It does prove a point, that Sam has been right all along. With the economic downturn in the U.S. and the hard times in the job market, learning Madarin is really a good option to expand job opportunities in China.
Personally, I feel very lucky to be able to speak Mandarin and English fluently. However, I understand how difficult it is for someone whose native language is English to learn an Asian language. The pronunciation can get really difficult to be accurate pass a certain age. About the point of whether putting money in a Chinese language program in high school, I think it would be a good idea because Chinese takes longer to master. It is better to start learning Chinese early, because there are just so many parts to the language; just vocabulary (characters) alone, number more than 50,000. It takes time to build the vocabulary, just like how I had to memorize so many vocabulary words for the SATs critical reading section. I still couldn’t improve my score for a single point higher.
I feel sad with the schools not being able to fund different language programs. The different languages out there, especially the European languages of French, Germany, Italian, etc are such interesting and beautiful languages, and personally I took French for 4 years, can’t speak much at all, but I loved the entire process of learning about it. It’s sad to see that in reality, the economic outlook drives the funding for the language programs and since China’s economy is booming so the Chinese language program obviously gets funded and is increasing its numbers in high schools throughout the country. Sometimes it is so sad to see that below the good moral of importance of education, there are always issues with money and funding.
I also feel strongly that it is true that this is a good time to learn Mandarin so that there are more opportunities with job placement and the growing economy, but it also depends on the person’s interest. I personally believe we should study something that we have passion and interest for. For example in choosing majors; whether we can guarantee a stable job is a huge factor nowadays, but what about personal interest? I think if the person’s personality is obviously a better fit for a major that not necessarily has the best job placement; it actually may get the person farther than just forcing to stay in a major without interest and passion. So learn Mandarin if you really want to and are interested to

I think taking this class this semester has been a great decision. Soc119 is my favorite class so far in my college career. In turns of whether it changed my opinion or stand on issues and beliefs, I think it did affect me on many levels but overall, I didn’t fundamentally change my views or beliefs. Sam talked about so many social issues that I just didn’t pay attention to too much before and now I increased my attention level for these issues such as modern-day slavery, gay rights, race dialogues, social injustice, etc. Sam did challenge me to open up more racial dialogues because I naturally never talk about race, and I guess the class made me more open toward other races. I think many things did make a difference to me. One issue in particular is political correctness; I think being in the United States for the past 8 years has challenged my view on racism, but it has also made me into someone who is carefully with racial conversations so I don’t offend anyone. I have heard that some people after taking Sam’s class have become more racist and I think it is not entirely a bad thing; at least they admit it now. I think self realization is the first step to any kind of progress. For me, it hasn’t made a dramatic difference in turns of not being politically correct and just says what is on my mind, but still I am aware of the issue and I am making effort to improve that. The other thing that has made me think a lot is my faith, my religious belief. Sam is really good at being neutral that he doesn’t believe in any particular religion but he is also open to learn and talk about any religion, but for me as a Christian, sometimes I feel offended in a way that just because Sam talks about Christianity in a way that I am not used to hearing. However, it does challenge me to think about my belief and how I can relate it to the social issues we are facing right now. For example, if God is all good and all powerful, why are there modern-day slaves who are just in such a horrific situation? It’s not like they chose their lifestyle and fate; they fell into slavery and they were forced to work for the rest of their lives without fair pay or treatment. In the beginning of the semester, Sam did mention that his goal for us is just so we can start thinking, which I think is something I got out of the class. Thinking provokes me to bring more awareness to the issue and then in turn I will take action to help out the case. For example, the facts with modern slavery really shocked me that made me share the information with other people and I am now interested in reading more about modern-day slavery.

I think this girl brought up a really good point; what is the point of this class? Can you win? It reminds me of the other day, during class; a guy asked Sam, what is the point of all of this stages? And Sam jokingly (or not) said death, but later he said, “To open conversations.” Is it just as simple as that? It looks like that the goal is much simpler than the actual process. I think open conversations is just the start, because once we open up conversations, pains, hurts, misunderstandings, tears, anger come out all at once, and it sometimes leads to the end of another conversation. I don’t think there is one correct answer to the purpose or point of this class or just learning about race and ethics, but it is a good exposure to the issues relating to them.
So what is the point of moving through all of these stages? The stages of Pre-awakening, awakening, immersion, disintegration, pseudo-communitarian, and humanitarian, is the end goal to reach humanitarian? Personally, I feel like that I am in the Pseudo communitarian stage. I notice race but like the girl in this video felt, I didn’t feel it was funny or the false, faking depiction of whiteness by the brown or black people. I do feel a pull towards my own roots many times because I have lived in China most of my life. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I choose to follow any path that is calling me. I would choose a path that is the best match for me and one that can best express my strengths and skills. For example, if I was called to choose to either go to Europe or Asia to live long-term, I would choose Asia because I am more familiar with the culture, language, and people there. So I don’t think it means that I am not in a good stage compare to the Humanitarian stage. I think Sam showed the pictures of L.L. Bean models in different races to point out what people would see or feel or say if they were in the Immersion stage. When I put myself in a person in immersion stage’s shoe, I can relate to why they would feel certain way to the fakeness and incongruity of Black and Brown people dressing in “white” people clothes or styles. Basically, like the later videos that Sam showed, the likely cause of that kind of thinking is because the person stayed with his/her own race circle for way too long. When someone hangs out with only one race group for a long time, one’s world view and perspectives can get really biased and skewed.
I think the point of this class is to explore our own sociological stage and to open up more racial dialogues and deepen conversations. I think it is not about winning per say, it is about the overall progression of our understanding of race and the reduction of racism, discrimination and stereotypes

When I saw this video I was really excited because first this is a friend of mine, but also because this is been a question that I’ve wanted to ask and hear more about Asian American topics. Personally I can distinctly tell apart Asians and Asian Americans; being Asian myself is a large part of the reason I guessed. However, there is a big difference between the two. When I interact with Asian Americans sometimes I just feel like they are pretty much American; I mean, their ethnicity is Asian, race is Asian, but culture might just be White.
Moving to the United States when I was 13 years old from China was the most eye-opening and thought-provoking experience on the topic of racial experience or exposure. Basically I moved from a place where everyone looked the same to here where most people look different from each other. I was challenged to many issues I previously had no chance to ever face. When I came to the United States, I couldn’t speak English, so from that day on, people just assumed that I couldn’t speak English, and that assumption stayed with me all of the way to my senior year of High School, because some of the people who met me in middle school stayed my classmates for high school. All those years I tried to prove a point that I can speak English and that I can fit in quite well into the main-stream culture. Now, I know that I am Asian because I can trace my ancestry to China, but also I have adapted the American culture so I really don’t know how to call myself exactly, I guess something in between the two.
In class today, we talked more about the different sociological stages and we came across some shocking videos. The one I remembered clearly is “Girl like me,” and then some classmates had strong reactions to the video saying they felt when they were kids, they would pick the same white doll over the black doll as well and some of their struggles with their identity, trying to feel beautiful when all the media and social images are rejecting them. When I heard that, I was touched because it is a start-point when someone opens up about their personal feelings and pains in an audience of 700. I think, being an Asian, or a minority, I had felt strongly the same way with trying to fit in and at the same time, finding my identity. The thought of, “I wish I am White,” crossed my mind probably a million times when I was in high school. It was a feeling of frustration after trying so hard to be part of the main-stream culture and just trying to be someone who can stand out in a group of mostly Caucasian friends. Then after the attempts ultimately just came to realization to wish that I was built differently and look different. I think media has a huge influence on all of us; all the main characters in movies weren’t Asian, all the roles in a popular TV shows aren’t Asian, etc. The environment where we grow in also has a huge influence. The social pressure, the ideal image of blonde hair, blue eye, just keeps on coming back to hit me. But I was really glad that we can talk about it openly, it’s a start.

So when I watched this video I immediately thought of Sam’s texting post question of what do you think of white people and what you think of colored people, and one answer popped into my mind it was answered by colored people was, “rich and snobby.” I remember when I saw that response, I agreed with it. When I was in high school, I really had this view of most white people being rich, affluent, people driving hummers, BMW and brand new cars. As for snobby, it was almost like a signature image of my high school classmates and the region I lived in. Now I think about it I still would say that white people generally are better-off. I came to this thinking because of the environment that I lived in the past 6 years. However, this generalization is slowly changing the more people that I meet here in college.
So with the issue of does rudeness go both ways, I would think it does, but clearly it doesn’t as we seen the real-life example in class. I think it happened because whether it was African Americans, or Asians, or Latinos, it was the minority versus the majority, so it was obvious that the minority group stirred uproar when the comment came across on the screen. If I were targeted towards Asians, I think there would still be a reaction. So what about the other way around, when there were offensive comments said about Whites, not much reaction was really apparent. I still ponder about why that is. At discussion group, a student made a really good comment about how if we see a lion and a lamb, no matter what the lion did, we would protect the lamb, and no matter what the lamb did, we would still protect the lamb because it is smaller and weaker. So the same goes for majority and minority? Rudeness does go both ways, but we focus more attention to the minority most of the time. It seems it is a natural way of reaction. It all comes to a point that we are all of different ethnicities but we can eliminate discrimination and stereotypes by stepping in each other’s shoes and try to understand each other on a deeper level.
When we were discussing about how White is always going to be a majority wherever we go in the U.S. but if I were to go to China, then it is a totally different picture. I think by then, White people can understand how it feels like to be the minority of the minority; it is not necessarily an inferior feeling, but it is just a different experience and we won’t know unless we experience it ourselves. I never thought about racial relations until I moved from China to the U.S. and it is definitely an eye-opening experience. I never knew my family was actually has a lot of discrimination towards some other races, and I would never knew if we didn’t move here

When I watched this video, it was not surprising at all because I have felt the same way as this girl for so long that it just became a normal occurrence for me. I feel like everywhere we are all trying to increase diversity and become more multicultural, but on some level it seems like just superficial. I remember one of our race relation discussion topic revolved around something like this, so for some companies and some universities, if they want to strengthen their stand on diversity, they would have certain percentage requirements for their future students and employees, so they would recruit accordingly to the percentage, if that is the case, then what is the ultimate point of really breaking through the racial barriers when the motive behind it is just for show?
The topic of portrayal of diversity on Primetime Media was commonly conversed among my group of friends when we noticed that Asian American is rarely the main character in any movie or any show. Let’s talk about the Bachelor, it is predominantly white and we definitely don’t see accurate demographic representation on this show, but since it doesn’t say, “The Bachelor; Caucasians,” then it just doesn’t seem right not to include different ethnicities. Many other popular TV shows like Gossip Girl also has no main character of a minority ethnicity, does that mean the Upper East Side only has Caucasians? The media is one of the key places that still need to take action in breaking through the stereotypes because it, on some level, created many stereotypes in the first place. Growing up, the media has placed a tremendous amount of influence in my life and I am sure for many others as well. From children shows to Disney channel and TV drama series, what we watch in many ways determine our world views, which include stereotypes in real life.
Although this issue of predominantly Caucasians on major TV shows still stays true and unchanged, but the media trend has shifted towards the Internet, and here I am very excited to see many minority faces, especially with the popularity with Youtube, the stage is fair and equal for the self-made stars base on the number of views from all over the world. For once, there is no restriction on who gets the main role in a movie or who gets most views or popularity. I think the change of the medium of the media with the internet has really showed that people would rather see more of the right ratio breakdown in the popular movies or TV shows. Here I want to mention Youtube beauty guru/Lacome video makeup artist Michelle Phan, she is basically a self-made star from doing makeup tutorials on Youtube and from the support of all her viewers, and she is now famous and appeared in Vogue. So she is able to become a main role in the media because of her own efforts not because of the producers’ picks and choices.
I think with shows like The Bachelor, what we notice with the all-Caucasian appearance is going to continue to occur but things are progressing, and hopefully, for the better.

For me, actually I never had any personal experiences with the LGBT community, but this past year has given me more exposure and understanding to the community. This video was really hard to watch just of how emotional the kids are reacting to the government’s act of deporting their parent. The divorce rate in the United State is as high as 38%, but in this case, the government is breaking the 2-parent family apart because of the same-sex marriage/union. It is just so saddening to see that discrimination is so clearly played out when two people are happy together and doing society a huge favor raising 2 kids.
As an immigrant myself, I experienced discrimination an unfair treatment, but still, not as obvious and heart-breaking like this family. I think when more than one factor plays into the situation of discrimination, it is even more so clear that it is innately wrong. In this case, the family is being discriminated against for being lesbians and as well as immigrants. For me, I have lived in the State of Pennsylvania for the past 8 years and my dad paying full taxes every year for the past 8 years, but I still had to pay for out-of-state tuition just because I am not a permanent resident or a citizen. It is not up to the level of discrimination; however it is extremely unfair to an immigrant family like us. My dad is the only one working in our household and my grandparents are also living with us right now, my tuition has always been the big burden on our family.
As for the topic of gay marriage, whether we should call it “marriage,” or “union,” personally I feel that using a legalized term such as “union” should be the fairest way to establish the relationship. Marriage has its definition and fighting over the definition shouldn’t be the main concern, what matters is the meaning behind and the legality issues. Same-sex couples should have the same rights as married couples. This video really shows the other side of our government. Our government should be there to protect us and give us fairness, but what we see here is immoral and wrong when the young child cries about the forced separation from his mom; who knows when is the next time they can see each other? That is just entirely wrong, and immoral. Wasn’t our government built on freedom of rights and equality? We have come somewhat far as trying to achieve equality among different races, but we cannot forget that there is the LGBT community as well, they are people too and they deserve fair and equal treatment just like everyone else.

Before the class on LGBT, I really wasn’t thinking too much into the issues and the pressures the LGBT group faces. Sam’s lecture made me feel extremely uncomfortable at times but it also provoked me to dig out some of my personal beliefs and thoughts. When Sam put up the slide on Bible Quiz and how the Bible clearly states that Homosexuals don’t enter the door of heaven and it is a sin, I was shocked to just realize that is what I believe in as a Christian. With regards to gay marriage, it is another heat issue if it should be legalized or even just the name, “Marriage.” I mean, does the difference of the name really matter? “Union” and “Marriage” are the same with its content. Personally, I agree with being homosexual is not a choice; people have physical differences in feelings and attractions and behaviors, so why are they automatically pre-destined to not go to heaven? Am I suppose to hold that belief since it is written in the Bible and I am a Christian? I honestly don’t know the answer but it is a good time to think about it.
An experience came into my mind as I was thinking over this issue. It was this past summer and I went on a summer mission’s trip to San Francisco Bay Area and we paid a visit to the Castro District which is a district populated with many LGBT groups. We basically took a walk all around the district and prayer-walked; so basically it was just walking as we pray for the people there. It was a place that I saw many Gays and Lesbians being comfortably open and public with their partners and really flaunting if they wanted to and not be looked at as a spotlight. I also saw a gay couple with a young child who addressed one of the men as dad. At that moment I really just threw all my prejudice out of the door. There are many rules in the Bible that Christians should obey, but there are also many different interpretations to the Bible and its wordings and teachings. I personally think if two people are happy together by nature then they should have the right to be together. Just as a human-being seeing an orphan getting a home and parents (not single parent), I really can’t help but have a sense of connection to the gay couples; they are good people too. I think God does want his followers to obey his rules but he also emphasizes majorly on His love, because his creations also have love too. I think God loves all of his creations, so Homosexuals really shouldn’t be enemies in God’s kingdom

Maybe it’s just me, but after reading this article I feel very sentimental towards just the general idea of extinction. I know that compare to disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, or the economic crisis, the extinction of the Bo Tribal language seems to be not a big deal, but still, the general public would probably care more about gossip of a popular celebrity than the extinction of some ancient, archaic tribal language. I am an art enthusiast and I guess I would call myself artsy, and art of languages always intrigued and fascinated me, and it’s very sad to see a beautiful tribal language that once was probably the only form of communication for the Bo tribe go extinct. Unlike artworks or paintings that can be stored and copied to remain in our society, a language is gone when the last speaker passes away and sadly, it’s gone forever unless it is written or somebody else is willing to take the effort to learn the whole new language.
Is language’s purpose only to communicate? So the languages that people don’t use often, the ones that aren’t popular would just face the fate of extinction? It makes me worried that this is happening, on a bigger picture, it’s almost like the culture of diversity in our languages is going on a trend of narrowing down and diminishing one by one. I think as a society we need to put more attention to the 7000 languages that are still used today before they just slowly diminish behind our awareness. Language is a form of art as well and a major part of a culture, so it is important to take notice. When I was watching the video of the Indian Tao tribal woman that spoke the language, it sounded strange but very interesting nonetheless. Even though I couldn’t understand or differentiate between the vowels she was saying but it was a complete language for her and she is fluent in that language just like I am in English. Just as many companies and institutions try to promote diversity, on the other end of the spectrum is a scary thought of one day, people will be all mixed and all look the same!
I think that the main-stream culture is important to be part of, but I respect people who seek out subcultures or unique and less-known languages. I remember I went to Carnegie Mellon University to visit and heard that they offer a major called bagpipe under their music department and one person majored in it. It may seem funny, but I found it interesting. But what happens eventually when not many people choose bagpipe major is that the school will cancel the program, so what happens to choices and valuing art? It is just so disappointing that monetary issues have such a big impact on decisions and where our society is going