Author: huo.110

Text Review

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Yumu Huo

 

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is a movie directed by Frank Darabont in 1994. It is one of my favorite movies. In the film, Shawshank was accused of murdering his wife and her lover and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Others in prison bullied him, but he got to know Redding, his one and an only friend there. His financial talent was discovered by the warden and was forced to help him evading tax. When he finally found someone who could witness his case to prove his innocence, the person was murdered by the warden to keep him in prison. After years of planning, he finally escaped by using a little hammer digging through the wall with a poster covering the hole in case of getting caught.
Injustice scenes can be found anywhere in this film: the bad was not punished. They get right when they do bad. But the good had to suffer. When the warden killed the possible witness to prevent Shawshank from getting out, he used his power in a paltry way to maintain what he had.
I think the term subaltern can be used on Shawshank. No one listened or believed him. Furthermore, he was abused and used by the bad. Although people always feel sorry for putting an innocent man in jail, people are unwilling to spend time helping them overthrow a case. One and Other can also be used in courts. The judges consider themselves as One, and the suspects are the Other. They have hostility against each other, especially when the suspects are innocent but sentenced.
I think what the film was trying to tell us can be summarized in a film line. “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” When you encounter injustice, do fight back.

Week 14 Context Research Presentation

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When watching the Black Panther, I am curious about the country Wakanda. It is a very mysterious country because of its settings. Wakanda is so advance just because they discovered some materials, vibranium, from a meteorite. One gram of vibranium is sold for 10,000 dollars. It is extremely expensive. And the meteorite brought them 10,000,000 tons of vibranium. You can imagine how wealthy they are. In the comic, the setting was that T’Challa traded some vibranium with other countries for money and used the money to study abroad. But in the movie, Wakanda is already wealthy and advanced before T’Challa became the king.

Also, for a country like Wakanda, the weapons they used in the movie seem to be significantly behind. In the research that I have done, it is said that Wakanda is a country that loves pursuing peace and love. Therefore, they did not put much attention into making advanced weapons. However, when fighting with the aliens, there are some high technology planes and flying vehicles. Compared to the cold vehicles, people on the ground have, the lethality is very different. Some people think there are mainly two reasons that made Wakanda an advanced country but stays low in the middle of nowhere. One is that they choose to stick to their own culture. They think the metal was given to them by their god. And they need to follow their rules instead of changing Wakanda into a different country just to match up the wealth and technologies this country owns. Secondly, some political reasons might be involved. Wakanda is divided by tribes. Some of them are more conservative, while others are freer. But the one thing they have in common is that they do not care about how advanced the technologies other countries are. They stay low in order to avoid wars and to develop their own cultures.

 

 

Reference:

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1605960219670474461&wfr=spider&for=pc

https://www.shangc.net/news/2018/0311/05234934.html

https://www.sohu.com/a/257305711_681757

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1602622402175169996&wfr=spider&for=pc

“Yo Is This Racist?” – Yumu Huo, Zhenyang Shao, Junyuan Luo

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Yumu: Hello everyone, on today’s topic about “Yo Is This Racist,” we’ll be talking about racism against Asians during COVID-19. Let’s first have Zhenyang and Junyuan give us a brief introduction about what’s happening.

 

Zhenyang: Since the outbreak of the Covid-19, China and the Chinese people have been pushed to the forefront. The coronavirus first broke out in Wuhan, China, and spread to the world within a few months. The pandemic has been well controlled in some places, but it went out of control in some areas where the number of infected people doubled every few days or less. In these countries that the pandemic went out of control, people’s daily lives have been greatly negatively affected. Under this situation, some influencers lead public opinions by pointing fingers of blame at China and the Chinese people. 

 

Junyuan: In the United States, we saw increasing numbers of reports of Chinese people who are treated unfairly, discriminated against, or even beaten by some aggressive people after the outbreak of Covid-19. People vent the sadness and anger of lost people, the difficulties and dissatisfaction of the inconvenience of life, and the economic downturn caused by the epidemic on Chinese. Also, discrimination against Chinese people has been going for a long time, and the pandemic has aggregated this situation.

 

Yumu: We have seen the word “Chinese Virus” a lot in the media. Hey Zhenyang, can you elaborate a little bit more?

 

Zhenyang: I have found some racist language of Donald Trump in public speaking. On March 19th, 2020, in a public presentation, Donald Trump uses the words” Chinese virus” over and over again while the academic terms for the pandemic are determined by WHO before that presentation, which is Covid-19. When a journalist asked him why you are constantly using the “Chinese virus,” he just simply responded that “because it comes from China. It is not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that is why. I want to be accurate.” Later, on March 24th, Donald Trump was interviewed by Fox News, “You have called this Chinese virus, but you did not use it today, so you do not regret that language?” He again emphasizes that I do not regret that, and everyone knows it comes from China (it is not), and I just want to be accurate. Later, on June 20th, during his campaign rally, Donald Trump again used the words “Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus,” and “Kung flu” to interact with his supporters. Although there might be some dispute for those words that Donald Trump has said, those words are unrespectful and exactly hurt Chinese American citizens and every Chinese person.

 

Yumu: Would there be any differences if COVID-19 is originated in another country? What do you think, Junyuan?

 

Junyuan: Let’s imagine if the Covid-19 was not first discovered in China. What would happen? If it explodes in the United States, will Trump call it the American Virus or the US virus? Or do the US citizens want people all over the world to call it American Virus or the US virus? I think absolutely no. Nobody wants his or her homeland to be used to name a virus. Naming a virus with the name of a place or a group is disrespectful to the area or the group and offensive.

 

Zhenyang: There were other pandemics in history. How did we Chinese react to them?

 

Yumu: Like COVID-19, there are other epidemics that spread from one country to another. The known ones, like smallpox, H1N1, and AIDS, all brought extreme suffering to people around the world. But no one blamed where the disease was originated. I also looked back at the news from 2009 and 2010 in China. Most of the news were just providing data, plans of how we would control the disease, and some suggestion to the public. I didn’t see any news blaming anything. And there wasn’t news about anyone gets beat up on the street because they’re from the country that H1N1 was originated. But when searching for news about COVID-19 here in the US, the word “Chinese Virus” is everywhere. And cases of Chinese or even Asians got beat up or got hurt are countless ever since COVID-19 started.

 

Zhenyang: Did people from the country that originated the pandemic got hurt in China or other countries?

 

Yumu: I believe there weren’t discriminate against them. And I didn’t see any news of them getting hurt by us just because they are from their own country. I’ve never seen this kind of excessive rage against a race just because an epidemic was found on their land. I just feel confused to see this country yells equality, no discrimination, and the Chinese Virus at the same time.

 

Junyuan: Do you think it is inappropriate to name a pandemic after a country’s name? Do you think this is racist?

 

Zhenyang: Yes, absolutely. And I found some information on the official sites of WHO to see how they consider the name of the virus. From that, I found the answer. Actually, the term for the pandemic has been determined since February 11th. On the website, it said, “we now have a name for the disease: COVID-19. I’ll spell it: C-O-V-I-D hyphen one nine – COVID-19.” In addition, WHO also mentioned that they had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease. From that, we can see that having a name is so important that it can prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing. Therefore, according to the WHO guideline, it does not make sense that Donald Trump called the pandemic as “Chinese virus” due to the geographical location.

 

Yumu: What are the reasons behind people’s actions of discrimination and violence to China and Chinese people? Why did these aggressive people attack Chinese people? What do you think, Junyuan?

 

Junyuan: I think we need to understand the reasons behind these actions. People are emotional. With some stimulation and guidance, the rational part of humans may be concealed by emotion. The pandemic has a great negative impact on people’s lives. Some cities are closed, curfewed, and some public activities are restricted. People need to wear masks when going out every day. Some public areas accept a limited number of people, schools and companies have to be closed. All kinds of regulations restrict people’s freedom. The pandemic has also caused the unemployment rate to rise, and some stores closed down. Many people have lost or reduced their income and are financially restricted. The country is also in an economic downturn, with stock markets, exchange rates, and interest rates plummeting. People are also afraid of infection because of fear of death, painful treatment, and huge costs. In such a depressive environment, people are easily affected by emotions. In addition, under the guidance of Trump’s remarks, people pointed their anger to the Chinese. But think about it, no one wants the epidemic, and the Chinese are also the sufferers in the pandemic as every American. Based on what, they should suffer more and tortured by these crazy people? 

 

Zhenyang: Compared to H1N1, what happened back then? Were the situations the same or different from now?

 

Yumu: I remember there was an epidemic happening when I was about ten years old. The word H1N1 just suddenly popped out, and I can see it everywhere. I had no idea how severe it was. I was just told to keep myself sanitized as much as possible. No one was blaming about where and how it started but trying our best to stop the disease from spreading. When I was doing research about this disease, I found a very interesting fact. By comparing the information given by Baidu Baike, the Wikipedia of China, and Wikipedia, the information is very different. From what I read on Baidu Baike, there were no places, cities, or countries that were mentioned. But on Wikipedia, I saw a whole lot of places listed there.

 

Junyuan: What did you experience when H1N1 was spreading?

 

Yumu: I was in fourth grade when H1N1 attacked. We were told that the disease spreads mainly through droplets in the air. And if we wear masks in public areas, there is a big chance to not get infected. I can’t remember how long I wore those masks, but I remembered that the vaccines were out pretty quick. Being in China when H1N1 was out and being here in the United States while COVID-19 is spreading, I have totally different feelings. I see my friends got told not to get close to the crowd because their parents worried that they might get beat up. And every time I see cases about how people of our race got hurt because we are from our race, I get hurt a lot. I really feel that those people who use violence against people from certain race needs to be educated.

 

Junyuan: So, what do you think, Zhenyang? Do you have any other thoughts on that?

 

Zhenyang: I think another reason for that phenomenon is that some Americans discriminated against Chinese people originally. I think that is a trigger to cause the increasing phenomenon that Chinese people are bullied during the pandemic period. They bully Chinese people in order to show their anger. They have a stereotype that everything from China is bad, considering that they are more elegant than Chinese people. They are brainwashed by misleading media information and rumors so that they do not realize the fact. Although there are some cultural differences and conflicts between China and the United States, they just think straightforwardly that they are bad rather than try to accept that. That leads them to become racist.

Junyuan: Yeah, so, finally, thank you for your guys to share so much information about the racist issue during the Covid-19 period. I hope that the situation in the United States can get better as soon as possible.

 

Reference:

  1. https://www.douban.com/group/topic/164473550/
  2. https://asamnews.com/2020/04/07/ny-mayor-vows-to-throw-the-full-force-of-the-law-to-stop-anti-asian-hate-crimes-asian-woman-suffers-second-degree-burns-in-acid-attack/
  3. https://thetab.com/uk/sheffield/2020/01/31/coronavirus-latest-advice-sheffield-chinese-student-41906
  4. https://www.sohu.com/a/370898549_175580
  5. https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/128561097
  6. https://news.qq.com/a/20100203/002027.htm
  7. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%94%B2%E5%9E%8BH1N1%E6%B5%81%E6%84%9F/4801087?fr=aladdin
  8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H1N1#:~:text=In%20virology%2C%20influenza%20A%20virus,the%20glycoproteins%20haemagglutinin%20and%20neuraminidase.
  9. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/politics/trump-china-coronavirus/index.html
  10. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus-trump-chinese-virus/
  11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pjsx94m8qA
  12. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1o7411y7Lr
  13. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1D5411W7BN
  14. https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline

 

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase

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I saw a picture of a textbook called “Psychological health of college students” in China. There was a page talking about how women should love ourselves, and we should not wear clothes that overexpose their bodies in case of seduction. And this is not listed in just this one book. Most official sites all listed similar rules in Chinese colleges. A headline also caught my eyes this morning, saying, “A girl was called to the office because she wore short skirts in class (in college).” Both the picture and this news indicate a stereotype of restrictions on how women should wear clothes.

One interesting thing is that this situation only happens in school or when accidents happen. Most people don’t care what girls/women wear on the street. However, people will make judgments and say awful words to you if you wear too little in school or are victims of a rape case. The perpetrator would indeed be sanctioned, but people seem to neglect the importance of teaching men not to hut women. Someone asked what you would do if there were no men on earth for 24 hours. Many comments mentioned that they would like to wear anything they want in confidence.

 

People have been constraint by almost everything about women. Clothing, body shape, hairstyle, etc. are all being discussed. They would say a woman is a slut if we wear too little. They would also say a woman is too stubborn and not sexy if we wear too much. If someone has a very short haircut, they would say she’s a man. Every time a case shows up, victims will be judged and blamed, especially in rape cases. “If you wear a bit more, you won’t get raped.”  I know that feminists have been fighting for rights for hundreds of years. But things have changed little. I didn’t mean that women and men now have the same rights is not a significant improvement. Deep down, everyone’s heart, however, still exists prejudice about women. Not only do men do, but women do also, too. We all like to be in good body shape. We all like to be beautiful, sexy, and attractive. We love dressing up ourselves. There is no shame to be who we want to be. Textbooks should give students the correct information and attitude on how we should love ourselves. Do not wear too little is not the way how we should have self-esteem and self-love. Be proud of what we do is. And I hope one-day people can change their stereotypes about women.