Author: wang.12535

Text Review, Yichen Wang

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Hey guys, for this text review assignment I would like to introduce a movie to you. The movie is called A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick. This movie includes violence and pornographic, and delinquency. To put in briefly, this movie shows how a villain loses his rights and is abandoned by the society, eventually being controlled by authority.

 

The main character Alex is a terrible villain at the beginning part of this movie, with three fellow villains. They commit commit crimes like beating up innocent people, fighting, breaking into people’s houses, and rape. Alex is outrageous and despotic, which lets his fellows dislike him. Later in a crime, which is Alex last crime before his tragedy, his fellows set him up, resulting in Alex being caught by police. Because of the crimes he committed, he then receives psychiatry, to be specific, electroshock therapy. The treatment is overwhelmingly successful, after the treatment, he feels sick when he has evil thoughts. This is when his tragedy begins, he goes back to his home after the treatment, and he finds out that his family cast aside him, having no place for him in home. His fellows who committed crimes with him are police officers after he finished treatment. His fellows hate him, and beat heat up violently. Alex has nowhere to go, he goes to a house that he broke into before, and the victim accepts him because the crime causes mental problem to the victim. However, the victim starts to torture him. Alex cannot take this, and he jumps out of the place, hurting his brain. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this brain injury causes his treatment invalid, so he returns to what he was like at the beginning. The government always uses Alex as a propaganda after his treatment. After Alex’s brain injury, the government decides to control Alex, so Alex becomes a clockwork doll.

 

Alex’s delinquency at first makes him hubris. However, he receives what he deserves. Sadly, his family and society abandon him. People treat him so bad that he cannot find a place for himself. After his treatment, he is the worst guy in society. The guy who Alex bullied before bullies him. I can see the difference in their identities before and after Alex treatment. The most shocking part for me is that his fellows become police officers. Obviously, at this point, his fellows have absolute power over him. They almost beat Alex up to death. I believe that Alex’s inner world collapses at this point, and I am sure that Alex realizes everyone abandoned him.

 

Though as a super villain, Alex gets the punishment that he deserves, people treat him so bad which is definitely beyond what he deserves. This story is a tragedy for sure, especially that Alex is completely controlled and becomes a doll, which is a parallel to the name of the movie, A Clockwork Orange.

 

Images are from:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/A-Clockwork-Orange-novel

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/stanley-kubrick-films-screened-a-clockwork-orange-site-a3980511.html

Context Research Presentation week 11, Yichen Wang

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Hello everyone,

We will read Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist this week. This novel tells a story of a Pakistani man whose name is Changez. The story takes place in a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan. Changez is with an American visitor and he tells the visitor about his earlier experience. Changez was an excellent person who graduated from Princeton, and he impressed his peers in his professional life.

 

From my perspective, the character’s, Changez’s, experience matches with the author Mohsin Hamid. Similar to Changez, Mohsin attended Princeton, and he later worked as a management consultant. In Changez’s professional life, he is excellent performance prompted the firm to send him to Chile, where he visited preserved home of poet Pablo Neruda and he realized that he was a servant of the American empire that has constantly interfered with and manipulated his homeland, so he return to New York without finishing his work in Chile. Then, there was the September 11th attacks, 9/11. The attacks happened in New York was a tragedy, in which there were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda, translated as “The Base”, was founded in Peshawar, Pakistan, which is Changez’s home country, in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdullah Azzam, and other Arab volunteers. The series of terrorist attacks caused over 25,000 injuries, and substantial long-term health consequences, in addition to at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Destruction of the World Trade Center and nearby infrastructure seriously harmed the economy of New York City and had a significant effect on global markets. Changez tells the visitor that he felt pleased for this attacks in his first reaction, and he felt the suspicion towards Pakistanis after the September 11th attacks. The suspicion Changez felt was true, discrimination of Muslim Americans appeared fiercely as a result of the attacks.

 

Changez became a professor in Lahore after his America visa expired and returned to Lahore. He criticized the militarism of U.S. foreign policy in a widely televised interview. As they are in the care, Changez starts to realize that the visitor is very vigilant of the surroundings and he is frequently sending messages on his sophisticated satellite phone, the visitor might be an agent from the U.S.A, and there might be a gun in a bulge under his clothes. The novel ends without telling readers whether the visitor kills Changez.

 

Sources:

“September 11th attacks” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Oct. 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

 

“Mohsin Hamid” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Jul. 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohsin_Hamid

 

Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase, Yichen Wang

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Not long ago, an incident happened in Japan due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this incident, a Chinese woman was forced to leave a restaurant in Japan, the sever of the restaurant repeatedly shouted “Chinese out”. The restaurant responded that it was refusing customers from China and Southeast Asia because the owner was worried about the COVID-19. Then, in Sri Lanka, a Twitter user posted a picture he said was of door of a restaurant in the country with a sign saying: “Temporary we have stopped providing services to Chinese citizens.”

 

Many non-Chinese people blamed Chinese people and China. On social medias, you may saw pictures of cooked bat soup, with the caption: “If we could all agree not to eat this, things like the Coronavirus in China wouldn’t happen.” You may also saw a cartoon depicting a Chinese flag with the yellow stars normally found in the upper left corner replaced with drawings of the new coronavirus, which was posted by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

from https://mothership.sg/2020/01/danish-newspaper-china-flag/

 

Above, is just the tip of iceberg. Many terrible opinions came out on social medias worldwide, blaming China. Many of them were disrespectful and rude. People have died and are terrified for their loved ones during the biggest festival of the Chinese calendar, and these things made the situation even worse.

 

Five months ago, when I was still in Columbus, I was really frightened by this, and even heard that in the States, some Asians were beaten because of the pandemic. I was afraid of going out of the house that I lived in. Though I did not experienced violence for the discrimination, but it left a mark on my memory.

 

Though the discrimination was obvious and widespread, Chinese people responded to it positively and peacefully. Some Posted responding posts on social medias using “I’m not a virus” hashtag. There was also a warm scene happened in Italy, where a Italian-Chinese man stood blindfolded in the middle of Florence next to a sign reading “I am not a virus, I am a human being, free me from prejudice.” When he stood blindfolded, people took selfies with hime, and some hugged him.

You can see the video of this process from: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050499/i-am-not-virus-i-am-human-being-italian-chinese-mans-video

 

Using what we learnt, when the discrimination appeared, Chinese people had become the subaltern, and Chinese people were being “othered”. What I wrote above is a good example of how the subaltern can speak. Chinese people spoke out without any aggressive approach. As a result, we saw positive outcomes for this response, showing that we still have people of this world being kind and sane.

 

We humans should be united together, when crisis comes, facing it together. Discrimination will not help with fighting against the virus, and it only makes the situation much worse.

 

resources:

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2020/01/30/Chinese-people-respond-to-coronavirus-discrimination-We-are-not-a-virus-

https://mothership.sg/2020/01/danish-newspaper-china-flag/

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050499/i-am-not-virus-i-am-human-being-italian-chinese-mans-video