A favorite past time nowadays is playing video games. We think of the Nintendo Wii, or the X Box 360, or the Play Station 3. Or some others prefer the Hand-Held like the DS or PSP. We have all this free time to waste so we are all able to play them. New games are always coming out for about $50 each. But in China students don’t spend their money on new video games. Most of them don’t own any systems. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any, but they are very rare to see. There are a lot of fake PSP and other hand helds. But they aren’t interested in buying these things. This doesn’t mean that they don’t play games, they do. They play their video games through the computer. They are huge computer games fans. The most popular game is Cross Fire. It’s an online game where you could play with friends or random people. My brother Peter showed me this game. There are many other games. There are other shooting games and adventure games. There are also other types of games, most games are based on war. Another popular game is a studying game. I don’t know the game itself but Peter, Lucy and Iris told me about it. It seems to be another popular fun game. Another good thing about computer games are that they are free and easy to get. But they have to be careful for viruses. But these students don’t play these games all the time. Maybe for a short period of time in the weekend. Maybe that’s something we could learn from them.
The music of China is a very unique part of the culture of China. Cultural music in china usually contains drums, bells, and flutes which come in many different sizes, shapes, and materials. In China i saw drums that were small, big, huge, short, and tall. These drums were also in many shapes such as octagons, circular, and many more shapes. The drums were made of all sorts of materials such as wood, stone, metal, and much more. These weren't as simple as just size, shape, and material they were much more complex in that they were very detailed with many colors and different drawings of animals, flowers, shapes, writings, and they sometimes also had accessories hanging of them. The bells were more simple then the drums were because the bells were just eight bells hanging of wood with spikes, writing, or drawings on them and they weren't as colorful as the drums were. The flutes were more like the bells as well because they were just in different sizes with different pictures and they were all brown. These instruments weren't all about how cool they looked, it was more about what they could with the right person handling them, which was the true beauty behind these instruments.
To most Americans the People’s Republic of China’s Communist government is one that threatens America and jeopardizes Chinese lives for the benefit of their national economy. However, the Chinese people seem to have a different perspective of their own government.
Despite its label as a Communist country, the Chinese government implemented a capitalist economy in 1978. This decision allows for private businesses and a wide range of family incomes to be created, which include those at a poverty level. Currently led by Hu Jintao, China seems to be prosperous and rapidly rising to be one of the world’s largest economies. However, most of its people seem to live in poverty. When riding a train from Xi’an to Nanjing, the Chinese Exchange club students witnessed people who were impoverished. We went to the second class area and found ourselves with people, both children and adults alike, sitting on the floor – this was a twenty-four-hour overnight train. We offered the people fruits that we had available, and while they seemed to take them, they looked around at one another and politely declined. On the other hand, while with our host families, we got to experience another side of China. Our host parents were professionals, with careers as doctors, and editors and police officers. While one may think that they must have an abundance of money, that is not the case. While in a gathering, my host mother asked Monica and I what her social status would be like in the United States, Monica asked, “well, how much do you make a year?” My host mother responded, “twenty-four thousand” and Monica simply said, “You would be poor, like really poor” which brought laughter to the group. (Of course, the cost of living is much lower in China than in the United States, so twenty-four thousand goes a lot further!)
China, known for its many intellectuals, fails to inform its people of political matters that deal with Taiwan and critical opinion of China. Taiwan claims to be a separate country from mainland China and is in the midst of fighting for its independence. Yet, when presented with this fact Peter, one of the Chinese students, was shocked. He asked Ms. McMurdo for a clarification of the situation. Once Ms. McMurdo’s explanation concluded, Mina, the Chinese teacher, turned to Ms. McMurdo and asked her to not speak of the issue because the students are not taught about it in school. Additionally, the Chinese government continues to censor the information that travels through its people. China censors political speech and information, including on the Internet, which is why when attempting to log onto American websites such as YouTube and Facebook one will find an “error” on their screen.
In spite of the fact that most of China’s people live in poverty and are censored, the Chinese people remain loyal to the government. When asked to give her opinion on China’s Communist party Autumn, my host mother, declared her love and appreciation for the government. She stated, “I really like the government. I think Hu Jintao really loves the people, he cares about everybody.” Fearing her response, I decided to challenge her statement and said, “Well, the government seems to be doing certain things such as creating a large amount of pollution that could be deadly to the Chinese people.” She took a pause to collect her thoughts and said “they are trying to fix that.”
