~ Global Citizenship ~

Here in America, there is a relatively new movement called Boomerang Kids, where young adults leave home for work or school and then return to live with their parents. This is a real departure from the cultural norms of even ten years ago, and so I’m fascinated by the change back toward multi-generational households.

A quick google search will reveal many articles on the topic, but here is a link to a Pew report published last month that give a great overview of the trend as well as some really interesting statistics: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2012/03/PewSocialTrends-2012-BoomerangGeneration.pdf

So, I’m curious to know what you all think about:

1. The long term effects of young adults delaying their move out of their parents homes. What does this mean for the adult children and for the parents?
2. The reasons why this is happening? Is it only a function of the current economy or is there something more at play? Will this trend continue?
3. How this is similar or different to other cultures/countries represented in the class
4. How this movement is affecting the economy (ie. fewer households, discretionary income, debt, etc)?

Looking forward to hearing all of your perspectives and insights!

Kristina

I just came back from the IABD conference which was held in Long Beach, CA this year. When people asked me “where are you from?”, I needed to give them a long answer that “I come from China, but now I study in Boston.”

Today, the advancement of information technology, globalization, and the disappearing of ethnic boundaries make personal identity has become a vague topic. The question of “where are you from” is not easy to answer any longer. I am a person strongly keep my identity. I closely keep in touch with Chinese things everyday during the two years I stay in America: news, TV programs and books. I still do not like eating American food too much and cook Chinese food at home or eat in Chinatown. When I travel, I always say I come from China though Boston is where I am living now.

But for others, especially the second generation of immigrants, they usually struggle with unclear identities. Jennifer W. Jay of University of Alberta interviewed some American and Canada Born Chinese (CBC/ABC) students in her paper of “Rapper Jin and ABC: Acquiring Spoken Cantonese and Transnational Identity Through Restaurant Culture and Hong Kong TV”. She found that a number of CBCs and ABCs acquired some proficiency with spoken Cantonese through mimicking their parents and watching Hong Kong TV at home. Their first spoken language was Cantonese and they could sing the theme songs of television series but could not read or write Chinese. As their social circle broadened outside the home, they began losing both fluency in Cantonese and interest in their parents’ background except for Chinese food. Mostly the parents and grandparents accept the loss of fluency and criticize them as hollow bamboo kids (of Chinese ethnicity but empty of Chinese substances) or Banana Kids (of yellow skin but of all white culture inside).

(Refer to http://chinalinks.osu.edu/naccl-20/proceedings/20_jay-j.pdf)

The video I attached below is an interview to Gene Yang, creator of a graphic novel American Born Chinese. He shares his struggle to reconcile his Chinese heritage with his American homeland. On the cover of the novel, he asks himself a question which is “Am I the Monkey King or a Transformer?” Monkey King and Transformer are representatives of Chinese and American culture. Which cultural identity do you belong to? I think this is a question to most of second generations of immigrants to America.

Questions:

1. When you are asked the question “where are you from?”, what will be your answer?

2. Have you ever been through identity struggling?

3. Do you think it is important to keep one’s identity or not? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

P.S.  This is my last assignment at Emerson College. My life experience in the US will be end. I am very very glad to have Dr. CJ and all of you be my friends in the past two years. I hope all you guys good luck in the future!

Nick Cannon’s: ‘NCredible Health Hustle’

            A’ight so say word, Nick Cannon is on his grind once again and it’s about to go down. He’s gettin it on and poppin wit his new web series ‘NCredible Health Hustle’.  The boy just had kidney failure and now he’s eatin right and doin big things trying to get back on point.  Yo, so da question is, can health be cool? Can he make it cool?

Now that I have said this with a little urban flare, I will help you out with the translation.  What I really said was: Nick Cannon has just started a new web series entitled “NCredible Health Hustle’.  The series is about Cannon’s journey as he tries to recover from his hospitalization from kidney failure.  He is now very health conscious and eating right making sure he does not end up back in the hospital. So my question that I want all of you to think about throughout this is: can the conversation about health be done in a way that reaches the urban community? Can it be made cool, or is it already cool?

I said the first paragraph the way that I did because though that was not proper English that is a language spoken by many Americans. It is what some may call Ebonics or slang.  It is a cultural language and if you are trying to reach an audience where their population speaks Ebonics and you don’t then how do you communicate? It is like going to another country and you don’t speak the language, communication cannot happen. That is the complexity that is American culture. How we sidle up to differences in our country.  Though there are blatant differences globally, how can understanding the internal differences help you navigate those global differences?

The project that Nick Cannon has undertaken with his web series is very important.  He is a cultural presence that everyone knows.  He was on the show “All That” on Nickelodeon, has had a television, film and rap career and is Mariah Carey’s husband. He is 31-year-old and was hospitalized for kidney failure in January and later diagnosed with lupus nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys. “According to BlackHealthZone.com, approximately 20 million Americans have some form of kidney disease. An even more sobering statistic: Black men between the ages of 20 to 29 are 10 times more likely to develop kidney failure due to high blood pressure than Caucasian men in the same age group. Furthermore, African American men between the ages of 30 to 39 are about 14 times more likely to develop kidney failure than their White counterparts. While hypertension and diabetes are the leading causes of kidney disease in the United States, when zeroing in on why the progression to kidney failure in the African American community is at a much higher rate, it may simply come down to two things: genetics and a lack of proper healthcare.” For the article on check out http://www.blackenterprise.com/2012/01/24/are-black-men-more-susceptible-to-kidney-disease/

Nick through his web series has found a way to reach the urban population that may not listen to the doctor or some Public Service Announcement.  The reason they may not be listening is because the way the message of health is delivered is not cool. In an article by the Washington Post, Cannon says, about his recovery about the diagnosis that “From there, I just figured that I wanted to document the entire process, ‘he said in a recent phone interview. ‘This process might inspire a lot of people. So getting back into shape and getting back to the way that I always was before the condition was a journey.’ ‘Everybody loves it and kind of respects the fact that I would be so candid,’ Cannon said.’

Nick Cannon has considered the “cool factor” in every element of his series.  The title, “NCredible Health Hustle” the incredible is spelled in an urban way and including the word ‘hustle’ makes the video hotter by default.  Then the way he talks and behaves in the series is very relatable.  He has also chosen a popular medium to deliver his message.  I am sure he could have gotten a reality television show if he wanted but he realized that we are quickly growing into an online culture and so he chose to do a web series.  Watch the trailer and one of the episodes or more and tell me what you think. Deuces!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Tk4EQNbtw

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSTyfZUX2ps&feature=relmfu

Questions:

1. What are some methods to reach an untouched or sub-population with an important message, such as health, in your culture?  What boundaries are there in communicating with them?
2. Can health be made something cool that African Americans especially and others can rally behind?
3. Are there any other topics that may need to be upgraded or made cool in your country?  If, so what are they?

大家好！既然Dr. CJ给了允许，那我也就不客气地写一点中文吧 =) 不过就在不久之前，中文才在语言类的调查研究中当选了世界最难学的语言第一名，所以如果我整篇博客都用中文写的话，估计会被大家杀掉……对中文感兴趣的同学也许已经用翻译工具明白了前面的话，不感兴趣的应该已经直接忽略了这些文字……就这样好了，逗大家玩玩，以上内容和博客本身没有关系 =p

The words above have nothing to do with the blog content. Just relax =)

With the rapid development of globalization, media, the key tool for people from all over the world to better know and understand each other, is playing a more and more important role in globalization process. In our daily life, media is the most convenient and efficient way for us to know what is going on everyday either in our own country or other countries that far away from us, as well as reach other people and countries that we are not familiar with and curious about.

However, media is not always reflecting the fact and truth while large amount of information and messages are widely spreading everywhere through different media channels. I am always interested in the issue of media bias, which has a huge impact on people’s thoughts and attitudes toward almost every aspect in the society, such as economy, politics, culture, history, etc. Sometimes it can strongly influence or even change people’s concepts and values toward life and soul.

Why is media often biased? Who is actually manipulating the media? What is the purpose of the manipulation?  The answers for questions like that are not very clear for common people like us. Here I would like you to take a few minutes to watch a short video clip The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News, which is related to this topic and may give us a brief idea about how media works, especially from the aspect of politics.

The fact is that, we, the audience of media, are passive receivers being targeted by certain “manipulators” of media. For example, from the aspect of politics, politicians take advantage of media for better winning people’s support; party in power uses media to guide public opinions for better consolidating its power and influence. What we see and think mostly depends on what kind of information and messages we get from the media and where such information and messages intend to lead us to. In other words, any kind of media bias can cause huge influence on people’s attitudes and affect people’s ability of independent thinking. Different types of media bias such as the reference of unreliable source, lack of diversity, the utilizing of double standards or stereotypes, etc., can be easily discovered from every media channel nowadays.

Here is an example of the negative impact that media bias had brought about. In 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, during the process of Olympic Torch Relay, some people in Germany and UK were rioting against the torch relay team, aiming to obstruct the torch relay process and show their opposition to China as well as their support of the independence of Tibet. They burst into the torch relay team, trying to snatch or destroy the torch; they waved the flag of Tibet as well as the banner “free Tibet” in the crowd; they even burned Chinese national flag in front of other Chinese people who were watching the torch relay at the roadside. People in Germany and UK took such actions because that the mainstream media of Germany and UK, like ZDF and BBC, had reported that Chinese government kept using military force to confine and suppress Tibetans, who had been suffering a lot and didn’t have any freedom in Tibet. There were also some other fabricated stories widely spread through these well-known media channels, which made people in those countries feel there was totally no human rights in Tibet that Tibetans should get rid of the “shackles” from Chinese government. I don’t want to talk too much about the political issues between Tibet and China because it is another question that is not related to the topic here. My purpose is trying to show how easily people can be influenced by what media conveys and how strong the influence is that can really make people take some serious actions.  People who made such actions were fully convinced by the media, ignoring the source and reliability of those stories.

If you are interested, here is another 2-minute video clip showing how Chinese people in Germany protesting in silence against biased German media after the torch relay. Still remember “the single story”? Maybe what we need to do is to spare some time to listen to different voices talking about the same issue.

Here are my discussion questions:

1. Are you a person who can be easily influenced by media? Why or why not?
2. How much do you care about the reliability or objectiveness of a piece of news?
3. When you hear about some news from certain media channel, will you believe that it is the whole story or try to look for more information that could help you judge the issue on your own?
4. From your opinion, how can people avoid being influenced by biased media as far as possible?

So much for the topic. Can’t wait to see your insightful thoughts.

 “A Woman is not a pre-existing condition” This is the slogan that can be seen on a shirt worn by a women at a 2009 health care reform campaign. This week’s topic, which I will be discussing, is: Gender and how it relates to a Health Crisis. In the U.S., there is an on-going debate about healthcare inequality between men and women, specifically that men pay less than women do, on average for identical health care plans (basic plans that do not include maternity care).

Insurance agencies claim that women often pay more than men for similar health care plans, because they use their coverage more. As reported in the New York Times article linked below, “Insurers said they charged women more than men because claims showed that women ages 19 to 55 tended to use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription drugs and to have certain chronic illnesses.” Essentially, women are being penalized for taking care of their health. Women who take these measures and receive regular check-ups are often preventing catastrophic, expensive to treat diseases from developing.

The difference in rates between men and women can not be explained by maternity costs, and if a women chooses to add this to her plan, has to pay another additional (expensive) fee. “According to CNN New research by the National Women’s Law Center released Monday shows that, in states that have not banned gender rating, 92% of the top plans charge women more — despite the fact that the vast majority of them do not cover maternity services.”

Women are not just being charged more than men, they are being charged significantly more. The average woman pays 30% more than a man purchasing an almost identical package. Some states have taken action to ban gender rating, but 90% of the best selling health care plans still charge women more than men.

I would like everyone to take a few minutes and read the following articles, as well as share your thoughts to the questions below.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/20/opinion/greenberger-health-premiums-gender-gap/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/health/policy/women-still-pay-more-for-health-insurance-data-shows.html?_r=1

1.)  Is healthcare inequality between men and women an issue in your country?

2.)  Do you think that there is some legitimacy in women paying more for health care plans?

3.)  Women are often charged 30% more than men for basic health care plans. Although women do utilize the services more, does this warrant such a significant increase in cost?

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts and opinions!

When looking for a topic to blog on, I stumbled upon a Ted Talk given by Richard Wilkinson titled the “How Economic Inequality Harms Societies”. Throughout his talk Wilkison discusses the social effects of income inequality and how social forces affect health. He illustrates this with statistical evidence that among developed countries, societies that are more equal (with a smaller income gap between rich and poor) are happier and healthier than societies with greater disparities in the distribution of wealth.

As a point of reference, please watch his talk here:

In his talk, Wilkison states, “the average well-being of our societies is not dependent any longer on national income and economic growth. … But the differences between us and where we are in relation to each other now matter very much.”

I feel these factors are fundamental social determinants of health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the social determinants of health are “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels, which are themselves influenced by policy choices. The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities – the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.”

Poverty data explains what is going on at the bottom of the income ladder. But it is also important to understand the distribution of income, particularly as it relates to its effect on health and well-being. Wilkinson demonstrated that societal well-being bears no relation to per capita income.  He found that the symptoms of inequality trouble all levels of society. Across the board, mental health, levels of violence and addiction, even life expectancy are affected by the psycho-social stress caused by income gaps and status anxiety.

Among developed nations such as Canada, highly significant differences in health status indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, incidence of disease, and death from injuries exist. An excellent example is comparison of the social determinants of health differences among Canada, the United States, and Sweden.

Scholarship has noted that the USA takes an especially laissez-faire approach to providing various forms of security (employment, food, income, and housing) and health and social services while Sweden’s welfare state makes extraordinary efforts to provide security and services (Raphael & Bryant, 2006). The sources of these differences in public policy appear to be in differing commitments to citizen support informed by the political ideologies of governing parties within each nation.

What are your thoughts on his presentation? What are social determinants of health that affect your country?

I actually had another blogging topic in mind but was inspired to blog about this after reading “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”.

All parents love their children but because of our cultural backgrounds and upbringing, we tend to express this love a little differently. In 2011, Amy Chua (an Asian American Law Professor from Yale) wrote a book titled “Battle Hymm of the Tiger Mother” about her experience bringing up her 2 daughters and how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. The Wall Street Journal published an article under the headline “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” on January 8, 2011, with excerpts from her book. This sparked off a whole debate all over the world about how the “Demanding Eastern” parenting model is better than the “Permissive Western” model of bringing up kids. Read the full article here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

She talked about how she never allowed her 2 daughters to: attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin and not play the piano or violin. She also called her daughter “Garbage” (apparently her dad called her that when she was young and she was somehow inspired by it to do better). Amy Chua received death threats and many people accused her of child abuse.

Her older daughter, Sophia (18 this year) is a piano prodigy and made her Carnegie Hall debut at 14. She is now attending Harvard. She also started a Blog in defense of her “Tiger Mom” and said how thankful she was to have such a mother.

Earlier this year, Norway & India got into a diplomatic spat after Norwegian social workers took two young Indian children into care because they slept with their parents and their mother fed them with her fingers – both widespread and normal in India but considered unacceptable in Norway. The parents were told the children will remain in foster care in Norway until they are 18 and that they will only have occasional contact with them. The full article can be found here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9035776/India-and-Norway-in-diplomatic-spat-over-children-taken-into-care.html

Some questions which came to my mind after reading “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” and the 2 incidents above:

1. To what extent should the government “interfere” with how parents bring up their children?
2. Do you agree that parents should use the rod to “discipline” their children?
3. Do you think that parents should enforce a strict routine for their kids (because kids won’t know what is best for them, are inherently lazy and will need a push from their parents) or allow them to explore their individuality and develop at their own pace?
4. Would you praise your kid if he/she got a B+ in school or would you push him/her to strive for an A the next time?

Would love to hear all your different views on the above!!

As many of you know from my globalization pictorial, the fashion industry is one that assimilates and embodies the current globalization process our society is undergoing.  So, for this week’s post I decided to focus on the concept of  “Fashion Week” and how it is translated to different cultures all around the world.  The sometimes controversial Vice Magazine is no stranger in tackling different world issues with a journalistic edge. They recently ran a short series entitled Fashion Week Internationale. Hosted by former model Charlet Duboc, the series takes a look at the different fashion weeks that take place all over the world. The show tries to ignore the four main Fashion weeks (NY, London, Milan, Paris) and instead looks at fashion events in countries like Nigeria and Colombia. While in the process of  looking at these different events, Charlet also takes a look at the social/economical/health issues that the country faces and contrasts them with the events of fashion week.  One of the things that strike me the most about this show, is how different cultures are able to assimilate their unique characteristics and blend them in the “western” concept of Fashion week. Also, this show is able to uncover some serious global issues,  ranging from factory conditions in Cambodia to plastic surgery obsession in Colombia, thus opening my mind to global issues and the impact the fashion industry has on them.

For the purpose of this blog, I am going to ask each of you to take a look at one of the selected episodes of this eye-opening show. After you watched the show in its entirety (each 20-30 min) please respond with your own personal opinion on the episode(s) you just watched or answer the following questions:

-How is each culture able to show their distinct identity in their Fashion Week?

-What sort of global issues are you able to discover from the videos? Could you provide your opinion?

-Do you think that the Fashion Industry is reflective of globalization process?

-Do you think the Fashion industry has a negative impact in our respective cultures?

Click at the link below to watch the episodes and if you feel like watching more follow the site to discover more about this amazing and riveting online show.

Cambodia Fashion Week

and

Pakistan Fashion Week

I hope you guys enjoy the show and this week’s post. Cant wait to read your opinions and thoughts on this subject.

Economic globalization has so many different effects on different nations, cities, companies and people… … When talk about economy and gender. I always think about cheap labors in rural areas in Asian countries where men go to cities to look for more opportunities and leave women in rural areas taking care of children and old parents, and working in factories to produce expensive products like NIKE or iPads… But, this time I don’t want to show you something on women who get stuck in the rural areas talking about how miserable they are, instead, I want to talk about women who strive for change under the impact of globalization.

Well, what we can see from economic globalization’s impact now is many women going to colleges, or entering business as what men do. But what we cannot see from the impact of economic globalization is that there are lots of women in rural areas striving to make a change. I found this video clip on YouTube about China’s rural women try to make a difference (don’t worry it’s in English…).

In China, there is a phenomenon that less and less people in rural areas. And what have left in rural areas are non-educated women, children, and old people.  This old lady in the clip is well educated, globalized in a sense that she speaks perfect English. Unlike many people who left the rural area to cities to seek money and fame, the lady went to the rural area to bring hope to women who were left behind… She lets those rural young girls know that there is hope for them and for other women who get stuck in rural areas as long as those young girls realize that they are equal to men, and they are willing to make a change even they are in rural China.

Economic globalization has direct impact on cities. However, I believe the rural areas are somehow the key to a striving and powerful nation… We cannot abandon rural areas only because the cities are more globalized. It’s good that the lady in the video clip is trying to help rural women. But as I said before, in Asia, many countries as Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, of which the rural areas are less developed than China, many women are still suffering and sacrificing in the economic globalization. I do not really know about rural problems in the U.S, Ecuador, or Saudi Arabia. So I’m really curious about:

1. What are the rural problems in your culture (I would also love to hear about other opinions from my culture too)?
2. What is your opinion as a global citizen about the phenomenon that women are left in rural area in China or other Asian countries?
3. How important do you think people in rural areas are in the process of globalization?
4. Is there any way that we could use globalization as a tool to help those women instead of a negative influence on them?

I look forward to your discussions. Happy spring break!

 What is nation branding? Traditionally countries formally market themselves when they host major world events such as the Olympics or the World Cup. Likewise countries that are popular tourist destinations regularly use targeted marketing campaigns to promote tourism. However, more recently countries are using technology and social media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to run permanent branding campaigns. According to nation branding and promotion specialist, David Lightle, nation-branding is a strategic messaging campaign through which a country promotes itself to enhance its economy. David Lightle’s nation branding website proposes that in nation branding campaigns “the promotion should always be about economics. For developing countries, the key is to facilitate the development of the three pillars of prosperity: exports, investment attraction and tourism…For every country has a brand, sitting on the shelf of the global marketplace, needing to answer two crucial questions for the world: Who am I? And why me?” (Lightle, My Practice)

Specifically, Lightle proposes that developing countries must develop an umbrella brand; “In some cases, a nation needs an ‘umbrella brand’ to help differentiate itself and promote itself to open the doors wider to exports, investment and tourism.” (Lightle, My Practice)

In this example Lightle is referring to Colombia’s, “Colombia is Passion,” nation branding campaign.

 The key message of “Colombia is Passion,” is to promote the notion that Colombians distinguish themselves in the marketplace of nation brands as a people who live with an exceptional passion for life. Moreover, this campaign implies that the passion that Colombians have for life transcends into Colombia’s economy, its manufacturing sector, and its workplace, which in effect make Colombia an exceptional nation to buy exports from and an exceptional nation in which to make investments. Likewise, this campaign claims that the passion of Colombian’s also extends into Colombia’s tourism sector. In essence, premise of Colombia’s nation-branding campaign is that the passion that Colombian’s have for life is infectious and will give tourists a pleasant travel experience.

Do you think that nation-branding campaigns will have an important or marginal role in shaping world affairs?

Do you use social media to learn about other countries?

Which mass communication mediums do you use to learn about the world?