response to Ch. 1 of Dodson

What was new to you in what you learned about China in this chapter?  How do you react to it?  What do you think of government censorship of pornography on the Internet?  What's your initial reaction to Dodson's method of putting together this chapter?  (250-350 words)

China Ch. 1

The first chapter of China Inside Out gave me an idea about what China actually is like currently.  Honestly, I had no idea what living conditions were like there.  I’d been told since a young age that they were very strict; the only example I was ever told was that everyone was only aloud to have one child due to their swelling population.  So I just had the assumption that China currently was like how it was described before 1980, only a little less strict; I never would have thought the government would control were people shopped and whom they married, I thought a person’s family was the one in charge of that in their culture.   But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my idea of China was outdated about three decades. 

            I think the way the Chinese people are using the Internet is great; to make injustice events, like Deng Yujiao, publicly known so that the correct people are seen punished is one of the best uses of the Internet.  The Human Flesh Search Engines seem like a really good way for the people of China to be able to make a political statement.  It shows that they are taking matters into their own hands because of the corrupt government.  I could see this leading to positive changes in China in the future because the people are rebelling and voicing their opinions.   

            One thing that surprised me was that the Chinese government wants to increase the number of people who have access to the Internet.  It just seems like something that they wouldn’t want because of how it’s being used against them.  It would also mean working harder to keep sites blocked and monitoring what is being put out there. But I guess it shows the rest of the world that they are progressing.         

            It’s not surprising that the government would censor pornography when you look at the other things that they censor, like information on the Dalai Lama.  Personally I think that they are too harsh in what they choose to censor, which would include pornography.  I’m sure that there are ways for the Chinese to have access to pornography through means other than the internet, though probably also illegal.  If a person wants to get their hands on something, they will find a way, no matter what the government says, so it seems pointless for the government to block people’s access to it on the Internet.  

China Inside Out, Response

I learned so much from this first chapter. It truly opened up my mind on how to look at the censorship in China. I knew it was an issue, but in reading this first chapter, I was able to look at how everyone reacts to the government’s control.  Since I did not know much about China in the first place, other than knowing they have become a leading nation in the world, seeing how censorship has affected the way people react has made me want to know more about this issue. It made me wonder how I would react to censoring laws if I were in the same situation. At this point, I do not quite know how I feel about the overall idea of censorship. Before reading this first chapter, I felt I had a very strong viewpoint of being against censorship. I am not for it at this point, but I my strong anti-censorship viewpoint has slightly diminished. Maybe it is the barbaric ways in which China has reacted to these limits or the way that the Chinese government has dealt with these issues. It is so incredible how the government is so fearful of their people gaining any influence from Westerners. Through censorship they hope to obtain the most power they could from the Chinese people. I feel that due to this notion, censorship has been a limit of power for China. It has had the opposite effect the government has wished for. As Dodson stated at the end of the chapter, censorship can cause China to loose international business, research, and innovative technological advancements. In regards to government censorship on the internet, I feel like it's a good idea. It limits the younger generation from getting access to any form of pornography. I feel like this is an issue in the United States that should have some form of censorship when it comes to young people. Dodson's way of putting this chapter together becomes very informational. It isn't quite like Boo's idea of narrative, which causes me to get lost around certain points. Overall, I feel like Dodson's method of putting together this chapter works for this specific topic.

China Inside Out- Chapter 1

I found this first chapter to be informationally overwhelming but nonetheless very interesting. I have always known that China has very strict and invasive censorship laws but I suppose that I never truly understood how much power the Chinese government has, considering I have been privileged enough to grow up in a democracy. It seems that the government is so constantly fearful of losing control and having inconvenient truths about itself leaked that it goes to great measures to block any content that it finds dissatisfactory. Many Chinese bloggers and internet uses seem to think that it is their right to have access to whatever content they wish to view or at least the right to post what they like (and it is there right in the case of freedom of speech because it is in their constitution). However, it seems that one of the main reasons that the Chinese government shuts down internet content surrounding potential uprisings, for example in the case of Liu Xiaobo, is because often what begins on the internet manifests in a literal and very physical uprising. Also, the government blocks information about events such as Tianenmen Square because it reflects negatively on the government and how they handled it. Imagine if in the United States every time the government handled an issue poorly they had the ability to block U.S. Citizens from knowing about it. Every little minuscule affair some government in Arkansas has everyone knows about it within a matter of hours. Not to say that the government doesn't probably succeed in hiding some things from the public, I'm sure that does happen. However, once something hits the media it is entirely fair game. Another thing that I found interesting was that while in Liu Xiabo was sent to jail for his attempts at breaking from the Communist Party, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later for his "unwavering stance". It is funny how in China he was a criminal but the rest of the world regarded him almost as a hero. Having recently been presented with the possible opportunity of traveling to China this book is really making me think about how vastly different things are on the other side of the globe and what it would be like to visit there. While China is growing as a world power and while it is one of America's major business powers, there are still parts of their society and government that are so vastly different from our own.

2/28 Response

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo is certainly a horse of a different color in relation to different books of the ethnographic and research variety. Boo writes her story as one would write a fictitious novel, making it all the more interesting and enriching. Even now, though I feel slightly embarrassed by this fact, I find myself referring to persons real and actual as characters before giving myself a mental slap on the hand for doing so. In regards to style, I hope to carry some of this over in my essay- but some of what? Simply, I would to carry over some of the interest Boo can spark, as well as her creativity in language.  My favorite passage that exemplifies this is when Boo talks about the prosecution of Robert the Zebra Man on pages 235-237. As per the importance of the content, I find it is great in spreading awareness. Awareness of what? Many things. The potential lives and struggles of those less fortunate than ourselves. What, sometimes, freedoms we enjoy every single day can cost-- and can cost, sometimes, people we know nothing of. It makes you greatly consider what can truly be going on in the world. In this case, we were simply shown it by learning the lives of the Annawadians.

Criticisms I have on Behind the Beautiful Forevers would be as follows. On a note of possible improvement, that there should be some way and time in which Boo reminds us that these are real people and situations. Though the way she wrote made everything very fresh and readable, as I mentioned before- I often forgot that the people we spoke of were real and actual! Even the very beginning of the book is written in this fashion. It was not so much dehumanizing of the situation, but it seemed to be put it in a whole different world. The police came in the night for Abdul and his family, and he would hide among the garbage in the moonlight. A daring escape by one of our protagonists! -But wait, we forget, he is not simply a 'protagonist', he was, in fact a real person. From the beginning, I struggled to remind myself of this with Boo's alluring novelistic style.

On note of things that are executed quite excellently is the same thing I have heralded all through this post, as well as criticized briefly, which is Boo's use of creative language and style. She is able to paint scenes in your head and make you care about the people of Annawadi. She can project feelings to you in a way that is genuine. For example, I cite again the pages 235-237. Boo references the irony that makes the children of Annwadi laugh, in that justice had finally come into an almost lawless place in the name of horses that were still treated better than anyone else; and I find that I too laughed and felt this twinge of irony in my chest as opposed to just recognizing it. I will applaud any author that can bring such emotion forth in me in something that is of a seemingly more academic subject. Hats off to the missus Katherine Boo!

All in all, it is a read I quite enjoyed and hope to draw inspiration from in my own ethnographic work.

Boo response

Something that really impresses me about the way Boo writes is how she tells the story without any indication of all the research that went behind it. She refrains completely from telling us how she found the information or the conversations she had with the characters, and instead, masterfully puts the facts together to create an interesting storyline. She doesn’t explain how she experienced the circumstances or how she knows how the characters react to them, which I could imagine would be extremely challenging. She indulges in the characters personality and thoughts in such a deep way, describing them precisely and intricately, showing in a discrete manner just how much effort she put into really understanding how they thought about the situation and what was going on in India. For example, when describing Manju, I admire the way she describes her thoughts and feelings as if she is inside her head. On page 62, she dives into Manju’s character, saying, “Manju wasn’t too interested in money. She hungered for virtue, a desire that was partly a fear. When studying, she sometimes fingered the sea on her neck from a night, years ago when she’d stolen money from her moth to buy chocolates.” It really shows me how carefully Boo paid attention to even the littlest of character traits from all involved in the book.

On the other hand, I think I would like to know a little bit more of what Boo was thinking when she was writing all of this. To be able to see inside her head would add a lot to the story, for me. I am curious of how she connected to these people and just what she did to get on such a personal level with them. 

For 2/28

I would say that the most important thing I learned style wise from Katherine Boo would be how to write in an unbiased way.  It’s very difficult to write about something without accidently getting a thought of your own mixed in.  This can saw the reader’s opinion on the topic to however you presented it, so it is important to try to keep things neutral so that the reader can make their own decisions on the topic.  I think one of the most difficult times to keep a neutral outlook when writing is during a fight: but Boo is able to on pages 88-89 during the fight between Fatima and Zehrunisa.  Then again one page 93 when Kehkashan and Fatima fight the reader is not told anything that would make them choose one side of the fight over the other, they get to choose who they think is right on their own.  Behind the Beautiful Forevers overall has made me more aware on how some people have to live in order to survive, which makes me more thankful that I am as fortunate as I am not to have to live as they do.  My only criticism is that from the way I was reading the book I kept forgetting that this actually happened, to me it felt more like Boo created everything she wrote about.  Usually I don’t have this problem when reading nonfiction books.  I’m not sure if it was just the way I was reading it or if it was because of the style Boo used.