Day 1 & 2 Blog - Leon Hoang

 Day 1 & 2 Blog - Leon Hoang

On Tuesday, we started the J-Term with an identity wheel to get a better understanding of ourselves. This included questions regarding our gender, socio-economic class, and more. The point of this was to dive into the idea of  “Who exactly we are.” After this, we did a short seminar on an article about “American exceptionalism.” Exceptionalism is the perception or belief that a species, country, society, institution, movement, individual, or period is "exceptional" (i.e., unusual or extraordinary). We discussed how some political parties in the United States, such as the republican party, think of America as the best country in the world or as “exceptional,” as the article suggests. We then tried to form connections between China and the U.S.A in this way.  In the afternoon, we watched a documentary called “American Factory.” It is a real-life story of how a Chinese billionaire purchased a factory in Ohio. However, tension started when Chinese and American workers collaborated, but there were problems due to cultural differences. The Chinese believed in extreme work for less recognition and pay and thought the Americans were privileged and lazy, even going as far as to insult them behind their backs. The Americans reacted with a worker’s union, meaning to fix wages and increase health insurance. Things spiraled out of control when the Chinese terminated all American superiors and seized power. It was a fascinating documentary, and it showed the cultural differences between these two countries and the problems that might arise if both sides don’t reconcile. On Wednesday, we had a seminar and reflected on the documentary. Following that, we had a virtual tour of the Asia Society, where we learned about various bronze creations made for both decoration and everyday use by the Ancient Chinese. This was interesting to see the ingenuity of the tactics that were used to make them. After lunch, we had another seminar on China’s definition of exceptionalism or a “singularity.” There were many topics to be discussed, ranging from how China considered itself to be the “center of the universe” at the time and how they never even tried to conquer other civilizations of importance. Empires of Japan, Rome, among others, traded with China only to be converted into tributes for the “greatness” itself. It was a good discussion in general. In the final hour of the day, we got started on our Individual Study projects on one of China’s issues that we would want to research further. An example would be social media bans of apps such as Instagram, Twitter, and others to be replaced with government monitored apps. 

I thought that the first two days of this J-Term were inspiring, and we got a lot of information fast to absorb. Through the few seminars, we talked a lot about issues both in China and the United States and how they are connected in ways that I’ve never thought about before. The film: “American Factory” really displayed the cultural differences between two vastly distinct groups in a modern way. To sum it up, the first days were a good introduction to the topic we are learning about “China, the Chinese people, and culture.” I look forward to learning more in the upcoming days.