Topic: Problems and impacts that brought to Chinese people's life with China's significant development in last few decades as globalization.
Introduction: China has done a great work to develop both economically and socially in the last half century. However, under the surface of rapid economic growth and frequent international communications, some problems followed by the improvement also bother Chinese people's life.
Body:
Development: GDP ranked 3rd in the world.
GDP amount growth 20 times than 20 years ago.
China ranks 3rd in industrial output
Plays more important role in international affairs
Export， imports and manufacturing main country.
Problems: Economic inequality development between regions
Development patterns are limited.
Sustainable development must be widespread
Market economy mode increased cost of living
National economy face the global finical and economic crisis
Negative influences impacted moral structure and values systems
Bubbles on finance and estate
Conclusion: obvious improvement,conflicts still exit
good momentum of growth in the national scale
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Title of final paper
i want to write about the progress and problems that brought to chinese people's life during the last few decades, since china has done a impressive work on economic development and opening to the world.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Interview 2 Japan
Zhichao Diao
Interviewee: Shuhei (Japan)
Place: Lawrence lounge
10/30/2009
ENG 191 sec 21
Pre-report on Japan
Japan is such a small country that people wouldn’t believe that’s the 2nd largest economic group. And it only took few decades for this islands country to turn into a developed country with advanced technology from a defeated nation after WWII. While Japanese culture and Bushido is getting more and more popular around the world with manga, there’s much more about this culture we should know behind the surface.
Japan is located at east of Asia, consists of several thousands of islands, of which Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku are the four largest. The Sea of Japan separates the Asian continent from the Japanese archipelago. Japan’s area is comparable to that of Germany or California. Japan's northernmost islands are located on a similar geographical latitude as Milan or Portland, while her southernmost islands are on a similar latitude as the Bahamas. More than 50% of the country is mountainous and covered by forests. Due to the risks of earthquakes, there’s an extremely high population density in the habitable zones that are mainly located in coastal areas, Japan is one of the most desenly populated countries in the world.
In Japan’s political system, power is held chiefly by the prime minister of japan and other elected members of the Diet and power of emperor is very limited. The prime minister of japan is the head of the Cabinet and appoints and dismisses the ministers of state, a majority of whom must be Diet members. Historically influenced by Chinese law, Japanese legal system developed independently during the Edo period. And judicial system has been largely based on the civil law of Europe.
The population of Japan stands at 127.7 million as the 11th most populous country of the world which contributes 25 of the total global population. The formal language is Japanese language Sumo is considered Japan’s national sport and it’s a popular spectator sport in Japan. Judo, football, baseball and golf are also very popular in Japan in modern days.
Japan is also known as one of the world’s leaders in the development of new environment-friendly technologies. The most striking feature of Japanese agriculture is the shortage of farmland. However, the land is intensively cultivated, which rice paddies occupy most of the countryside. Fishing industry also has long history in Japan and Tokyo also has one of the world’s largest wholesale markets for seafood.
Japanese cuisine is known for its emphasis on seasonality food, quality of ingredients and presentation. It has developed over centuries as a traditional Japanese food. Examples of traditional informal Japanese clothing are cotton yukata, woven cotton haori and dyed ikat kimono.
References
Wikipedia Oct 27, 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan>
CIA Oct 27, 2009 <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
Japanese geography Oct 27, 2009 < http://www.japan-guide.com/list/e1000.html>
Post interview reactions
My interviewee’s name is Shuhei, an exchange student from Japan, University of Fukuoka. This is his 3rd year in college. He lives next to my dorm in Lawrence and we see each other pretty often. When I asked him if he’s willing to be my interviewee, he answered yes right away.
We agreed to hold this interview at 3:30 pm, Friday in the lounge of Lawrence hall. That’s a really quiet and comfortable place for students to relax. Therefore I choose to interview here to make him not feeling nervous. In order to be well prepared for this interview, I memorized my question and rehearsal a few times in front of mirror and improve my questions to be more brief and to the point. I recorded this conversation so that I could review and write the transcript.
My focuses on this interview are education and cultures. Shuhei has already been studied English for more than 7 years since he was about 13 years old back to Japan. He is currently majoring in English, more like teaching English as a second language. About study experience in American college, one thing he likes the most that student could change major. He said students in Japan have to choose major before enter college and can’t change anymore before graduation. Shuhei chooses Yukichi Fukuzawa who was a famous author, writer and teacher to be symbol of Japanese culture because his ideas about education and social institutions changed Japan a lot. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern Japan.
One thing that impressed a lot in this conversation is that Shuhei noticed there are some misunderstandings about Japanese and Japanese cultures. For example, in JP net work, the Japanese cultural club on campus, lot Americans get excited about Otaku and Yakuza to be topics of “Japan night” because they think that’s cool and funny. However, Shuhei said in japan, Otaku is a relatively small group of people that barely communicate with others. They stayed at home, spending most of time playing games and watching mangas instead of going out and attend social activities. Japan society thinks of this group to be a little strange because some of them also might have some psychological problems. In addition, Yakuza is a generic term for Japan mafia group and gangs which obvious inappropriate to represent Japanese culture. Shuhei and his friends talked to JP network to and then changed the topic.
The other thing that I was interested during the conversation is spirits of Japan culture. Shuhei emphasized that hard working is extremely highlighted in Japan culture and that’s one of the major reasons that Japan could develop rapidly after WWII. Friendship and group work are also critical parts of Japanese spirits.
This interview is successful and I’ve learned a lot about Japanese from this conversation. It helped me a lot to have a better understanding about another culture from a person who is from that particular country. However, there is still something I should improve and keep in mind for next interview. During this conversation, our talk has been off the topic for a few times because both of us were too much into the topic and didn’t move along. I was also kind of emotional and being too active instead of being neutral and listens to interviewees quietly. Those could potentially make interviewee feel pressure and nervous. And the questions could be more broad instead of going too deep on a particular one. That also requires more research before the interview. I’ll work on those problems and make it better next time.
Interview 2 Japan transcript
Zhichao Diao
Interviewee: Shuhei (Japan)
Place: Lawrence lounge
10/30/2009
Me: Hi Shuhei. I’m really glad that you’d be here for this interview for my eng 191 class. I’d rather be appreciated.
Shuhei: no problem.
Me: how long have you been here?
Shuhei: Here? U.S? Like two and half months. I’m an exchange student, so I just arrived at Minneapolis on Aug 14th.
Me: you speak English pretty well, you know, no offense, some Japanese people speak English with strong accent. Kind of a hard time to understand what they mean, you speak English pretty well, how long have you been studied this?
Shuhei: You mean English? Hum ….I don’t know……I started to learn English since in Junior high school, it’s like 7th grade in U.S, so when I was like 13 or 14.
Me: Did you go to college in Japan?
Shuhei: yes, I entered university in my hometown Fukuoka, I just attended for 2 years, and then I came here for exchange. And I’ll stay for one year and then go back Japan.
Me: How is the college life in Japan? Is it same as in America?
Shuhei: I don’t know, it’s kind of the same. But here, you know, if you want to change your major, you can do it. But in Japan, we decided our major before came into college and can’t change it.
Me: Like choose the major after college entrance test but before college starts?
Shuhei: yes.
Me: How long have you been studied? How is your study life before college?
Shuhei: Like high school?
Me: Yes, like from elementary to high school, how long does it take?
Shuhei: we spend 6 years in elementary, 3 in junior high and 3 in high school. So it 12 years totally
Me: Is it good? I mean is it interesting, or teachers put lot of pressure on students?
Shuhei: It depends on teachers. Some teachers are really good, and give students well instructed lectures, and some are horrible.
Me: What’s your major?
Shuhei: In japan?
Me: yes.
Shuhei: hum…….english.
Me: English teaching, or trying to be a translator?
Shuhei: We go through lot of thing in English, like movies and reading, kind of like ESL thing. Speaking ,reading and writing. Not just English, but things related to English.
Me: about Japanese culture, what’s the first thing comes into your mind when you think about your culture?
Shuhei: it’s kind of hard (to come up with one), you know. I was born and raised in Japan for 20 years, and didn’t even think about what Japanese culture is because that’s where I live. And then I came here, people ask me like: you must know a lot about Japanese cars, and I didn’t know what I’m supposed to say…….hum….Japanese culture …May be Japanese food, cuisine, fish, and lot of rice. And modern Japanese culture, is like………do you know “otaku” ? it’s not a big word in Japan.
Me: Otaku? Oh, ok, it’s like a group in Japan, always stay at home, watch mangas and don’t talk a lot with others. they don’t fit into the community and don’t communicate with others very often, right?
Shuhei: yes
Me: Americans think it’s really cool, how you Japanese people think of this group?
Shuhei: we think they are kind of strange, lock themselves in basement and watch lot of animations. They are usually not outgoing.
Me: So they don’t really fit in the community and some of them might have psychological problems?
Shuhei: That also depends….i don’t know. That’s one kind of modern Japanese culture, just a group of people, not all Japanese .
Me: and about the manga, were you surprised when you first came to the U.S, and everyone seems to love to read manga? Japanese manga is pretty popular around the world, not only in Asia, and that’s a window that people from the world learn about Japanese culture. How would think of that?
Shuhei: hum…..when you meet someone from a different country, you need a common topic to talk about. Manga is really a good way, because through manga, we can learn a lot of things. For example, friendship in Japanese culture………like in manga
Me: ok…what about families in japan, what’s the role of family in Japanese culture?
Shuhei: family?
Me: how you were raised when you were a kid?
Shuhei: In my case, my parents are both teacher. When I was a kid, my parents told me to be responsible.
Me: Do you think your parents put too much pressure on you?
Shuhei: well, some parents have pressure on their kids….
Me: because they have high expectation on kid?
Shuhei: yes, and they tell the kids to study harder…
Me: you’ve been in America for 2 months, what do you think is the most obvious difference between Japanese and American life, especially on life style?
Shuhei: the first thing I’ve noticed is the drive direction. We drive on the left side in Japan. And Americans wears shoes all the time, and we take off the shoes inside of houses. And Americans usually hold the door for person behind them when they go through the door. That’s cool and nice. We don’t do that in our lives. it’s not like we are not kind or nice, but that’s just not the way we show out kindness.
Me: Something about the economics………you know after WWII, Japan was in a serious situation. But it developed rapidly in just a few decades and that’s the period your parents lived. You probably learned history of this period, what do you think is the most important factor that let Japan change so much and so fast?
Shuhei: Hum……hard working. I’ve heard that Japanese people are creative, but they are very good at imitating. So like, American created car in the first place, and then Japanese can make the best car of the world accurately. That one way we develop our economy.
Me: do you think that’s also something you are proud about your culture?
Shuhei: yes,
Me: do you also have something else that find different ?
Shuhei: well, sometimes, you know even lot Japanese live here, but they don’t speak up a lot, they don’t show their talent actively. Some of them do so because they are shy, but some people just don’t show it actively even they have the ideas because nobody asks them.
Me: Americans want everyone else to hear their voice and they speak up all the time. But Japanese people are not?
Shuhei: right. Because my culture, like sometimes Americans cut off your speaking and interrupt to say what they think, we don’t do that.
Me: kind of being aggressive
Shuhei: yes, kind of.
Me: how do you think of Japanese language?
Shuhei: we have 3 different characters in Japanese, one is some of Chinese words, and others are Hiragana and Katakana. When we learn English, we kind of translate English to Katakana, which sounds odd to Americans. For example, English word ”nervous”, we pronounce it as “na – va - s” (va has a strong “b” sound) in Katakana which is much different. It’s not real English after translation. Because of Katakana, Japanese English speakers sound strange to Americans.
Me: but there’s no problem for Japanese to communication with Katakana, even Americans don’t understand it, right?
Shuhei: right. Also , word order is different. For example, subject, verb and object in English, but we say in Japanese as subject, object and verb goes at the end.
Me: if you want have a person to stand for Japanese history, which one would you choose?
Shuhei: well, actually, we learned Japanese history in elementary and junior high, but after get into high school, we could choose which part of history you want to learn. I chose world history, so I don’t remember much of Japanese history. If you want me to choose, then I’ll pick Yukichi Fukuzawa. He created the Japanese education system, and I think that’s the basis of Japanese education. His photography is printed on the Japanese currency.
Me: do you think there’s misunderstanding of your culture, from people in another country.
Shuhei: yes. Do you know JP network, the Japanese culture club on campus? I attended one weekly meeting, and all Americans are talking otaku thing and they think that’s how Japanese like. I mean, that just one part of Japanese, not every Japanese people is like that. And also, when they talk about Japan night’s topic, first thing they come up with is Yakuza, and I was like, oh my god, Yakuza are really bad guys, they are Japanese mafia, how can we talk about that in front of people. And they thought that’s funny, and we all think that inappropriate to let this represent Japanese culture. They are kind of making fun of Japanese culture.
Me: did you try to correct them?
Shuhei: yes. After the meeting, we talked about it and says it’s not funny and inappropriate to present it. Then we chose another topic, like festivals.
Me: is there any festivals going on right now in japan?
Shuhei: well, there are lot of different festivals depend on different regions, we don’t really have a national festival.
Me: so Japanese people wear traditional clothing kimino and play traditional games in these festivals?
Shuhei: yes.
Me: ok, last question, if I go to Japan, where would you suggest to visit? Like landmarks, it could neither natural or cultural.
Shuhei: maybe I’ll suggest Kyoto.
Me: oh, that the capital of Japan hundreds years ago.
Shuhei: yes, that’s a big city and there’s lot of traditional buildings. You can see women wear kimino walking on the street, it’s really traditional.
Me: cool. In lot of countries, young people think traditional clothing is old and ugly, but in japan, you could see both traditional and modern clothing and they are all popular.
Shuhei: yes. That’s a great place to go.
Me: alright, that’s pretty much of it. Thanks very much for you time !
Shuhei: no problem
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