Chapter 10 Response

It has been so surprising to me the way in which the Chinese regard themselves in relation to the rest of the world. They seem to minimize the power of other nations and mainly focus on how high they are as a society. One of the things that reinforce the way they perceive themselves is the way in which the Chinese media portrays foreigners. The majority of soap operas and Chinese films glorify the heroism if Communist Party personalities and show the negativity of foreign powers. They always claim the foreigners as the “bad guys”, a form of propaganda used to despise outside influences. Dodson labels the part of the chapter in which most of these things are portrayed as “Plastic Mythologies”. Dodson later goes on to explain the different situations in which such an idea of national sovereignty is found in China. Nonetheless, America has also gone through this type of mentality in its history. Manifest Destiny was something that very well relate to this idea of national sovereignty. I can partly agree with Dodson’s assessment. Though many of his arguments are supported by statistics, I feel that many of the things he has mentioned can come merely his own opinions.