Blog 13
Well okay. To begin with, I think if I was in such a situation, I would have said something to support the Islamic women because clearly that she should have the same right as anyone else. I feel bad for her and I think it should not be the time to keep silent. Yep even I clearly knew that those people in the video are actors, my heart was still somehow so sad for the woman. And later when I saw those two young girls and the middle age man stood out to support the Muslim woman, I was indeed moved. It is just the thing that truly makes you think. Trying to stand out of my shoes and fit into the shoes of somebody else. What if I were the Muslim women and till the end nobody stand out to help me, what would I feel? Definitely bad and extremely sad, and I just could not find a word to describe it. What if I were the shopkeeper who insulted the women and “won” in the end, would my heart be any better? Or would I just feel pathetic about myself? I just do not know and I do not even want to think about it. I think some people stayed silent because they were somehow agreed with the shopkeeper, for instance, the man who pointed a finger to the reporter and said, ”You are not American”. And most people who stayed quiet because they were somehow indifferent about some issue, which is the saddest thing. Do people just get used to such things or do they just do want to get into trouble. I do not know. But what I know is that it is just not right and I believe most people in the video knew that too but they just…. I do not know, it is just sad. And for those who became angry and somehow supported the woman but later leave, I believe that in their heart they support the justice in our society anyway. They might have left for various reasons. I think the majority of them would just have thought that it was not their store, and they might be caring the Muslim woman less to some degree. Or they thought that they had their lives and lives really shape people. They might be just tired. In the end, for those who stood out and insisted, in my mind I truly admire them. Although I believe it was the right thing to do, it was also a hard thing to do practically. It is just hard for most majority people to stand out and say, “Hey, I want to see your manager”. Anyway, this video really knocks my heart heavily.

Blog 12

Over the choices among my mother, wife and my kid, I picked my lover, though all three of them would be my very beloved person. It would be a very cruel and hard decision to rule out my mum since I love her, respect her and care about her so much. I have never told my mum that I love her although I think she knows that and I have felt guilty for not doing enough for her for a long long time. If it is possible, I would scarify myself in exchange of saving her, seriously. It is just hard, hard and very hard. But if I have to be rational, she is apparently the oldest among them three. If it was her to make the choice, I believe she would have chosen to scarify herself too. And apparently she would not let me save her if she knew my wife and my kid were about to die. Anyway it is just hard. I believe I would feel terribly guilty for at least a very long period, but I have no choice. When it comes to my child, it would also be terribly difficult for me. I want to have a kid for a long time though I am still at my early 20’s, I want to be a father and take good care of my kid so much. Thus I think I can understand the mental state I would be under at that hard time. But as the girl said in the class, I would be able to have another child with my wife if I chose to save my wife. This might first sounds silly but it is seriously. I understand that the next kid we have can not totally replace the kid I lost and it would never been possible, but it is the hard choice that I have to make, under the assumption that my wife is the truth love of my life. I would be loving her so much and I do not think there is anything any emotion in the world that could have replaced this very special emotion. If I lose a kid, the emotion I put into my next kid would be somehow similar. But if I lose my wife, I do think the emotion I put into another women would ever be able to be comparable, under the assumption that I would have married or be in a relation with another women later. It would just be totally different and irreplaceable. Overall it is really difficult choice for me that I even do not want to dig into it. But if I have to make a choice as a man under such an emergency, I believe saving my wife would be my response.

Blog 11

I think it is just human nature to choose someone who looks like you or sounds like you. Yes, the election result is pretty clear that white people are more likely to win than black people, but I do not think objectively there are too much to blame, and if there is something to blame, it would be our system. Since most people just subconsciously pick someone they are “supposed” to pick, and Penn State is just predominately white, so it is just what it is. After all, for it is a good college, Penn State would be relatively less racist than the average level in United States as far as I am concerned.
I think many of the similar scenes are happening all around United States, the opportunity to get a job, the chance to win an election, the odds to be more “successful” are inclined to embrace White instead of the minorities. In my opinion, this is of course unfair but rational since American is predominately white. And if United States is predominately black, black people are just going to win more votes and elections naturally. Current situation is absolutely not correct or righteous or whatever somebody names it, but it is not that incorrect as many people may have thought, and I see many positively things are just happening and will happen in this country. Compared to even a decade before, what minorities have earned are obvious and significant. Although minorities are still more naturally disadvantaged, things have been improved a lot than before. Most importantly, minorities should be more confident and more active, that is the most important way to win the position in a white society. Also, as the date shows, there are less white and more minorities in United States now than ever before and this ratio will just keep going while nobody can stop it. So presumably, things will just be increasingly more fair or just than what they are right now, and I personally would be very positively on this issue. Furthermore, there are a lot of evidences showing that activeness of minorities are changing the framework of our society. The most obvious one that I would say is that the president of United States is non-white, and it is the first time during America’s history. Obama is surely an active person and a good speaker, and he does achieve something. The society is just going to be more just and fair and people would just become more tolerate to each other since we can see these things are going on everyday and everywhere throughout the country. So let’s just admit the unfairness, try to improve the system, and see what will be going on in the future.

Blog 10

This question is actually quite interesting and important. What one has been taught at early age is actually very critical for one’s future reaction to racial stuff as well as the general development during his/her life course. However I think it is too often neglected by many people, including general publics and many experts. So if we can promote positive teaching during people’s early life stage, in my opinion the result can be pretty significant and change the current dynamics in the society.

As far as I am concerned, the last thing people should have done is to evade and intentionally ignore the racial issue, although many people may have different ideas about it, I think the evasion will only result in a negative aspect. It is just like taking an exam. If you got a bad grade in your first test during the semester and you choose to intentionally ignore it. “Whatever, it is a stupid class” you may say. I think it will be pretty naturally that you are not going to do well in your 2nd and later exams because you do not even darer to face it, and you would be just not interested in studying for this subject and so on. However if you try to face it bravely and recognize your “disadvantages”, the result may turn out to be positive than you usually would have thought. You would word harder to improve your grade and enrich your knowledge. In many case, you would be satisfied at the end of the semester. So back to the racial stuff, if you are one of the minorities and taught to feel repulsive of talking about races, you might actually develop a natural mental state of lowing yourself and being sensitive when you grow up because you can not even face the issue. However on the other hand, if you are taught to be active and brave regarding to these and those stuff, I bet you would be more likely to discuss and work hard in the field of your disadvantages and improve you situation, at least to a certain degree. Overall, my point is that evasion would just have made things worse and it should not be promoted although it very often is.

So the positive way of dealing with racial stuff would naturally be face it bravely and fight for the fairness and justice, it would be particularly effective if one would begin doing it at the early stage of his/her life. There are actually a lot of things that one can do and if you really want it, you can easily come up with your own critical and creative ideas so I would not bother talking about it here. Anyway, just try to be positive and active and I believe one would get what he/she deserves.

Blog 9

I will say that bilingualism and/or multilingualism is a trend that nobody could stop and it would be a pretty positive trend as far as I am concerned. From the national data we can see that there are one fifth Americans today speak at least one other language than English and it is expected to increase with an increasing rate. Besides, one important point that I want to mention is that I think the same or similar things are happening not just in United States but globally. And compared to take a confrontation attitude, I think it would be smarter to accommodate this very trend.

Talking about bilingualism, the first word that jump into my mind is “diversity”. There is no doubt that each language stands for certain values that lie in certain cultures. When one is speaking in a language, it is interesting to see the underlying values that he expresses through his tone. When tens of millions people are speaking different languages, then we are more exposed in a world with great diversity and complexity. Though this may lead to misunderstandings, prejudice and arguments many of the time, it is also the source of creativity, enrichment and a lot. Without the history of diversity, it is hard to imagine that United States would have become such a creative country today. Through the interaction with other cultures, I would also say it will be a great opportunity to may ourselves see the world more compressively other than living in out tiny little world. There are so much things outside that we do not know, and it is just always interesting to do something that seems out of your league.

At the same time, it would also be interesting to observe how we digest the diversity since most of us are currently living in a narrow word that are built for us by ourselves and the people around us. When we go to youtube or facebook or twitter or whatever, it is always not hard to observe some ignorant words and actions. We can see all kinds of words that consist of prejudice and discriminations, which is not good in a common sense. It is actually kind of sad for me everytime I come across something sharp. It is just not supposed to be so, according to my perspective.

So I think it would be time for us to do something. It is time for us to embrace and help fix and enrich our diverse world instead of attacking or trying to destroy it. And certain concrete actions should be promoted. When we see that many of the time the source of “concrete actions” is actually diversity itself, it should be fairly interesting.

Blog 8

We are living in a world where countless news and information come to us from everywhere every day. And it may be clear that most of these perceivable info for us are transported through the media, in other words, most of our perceptions rely on the media of “our world”. And it is claimed principle for most media to stand objectively and we somehow believe that in our subconscious because it is from the world that we live in. Yet ironically it often turns out to be not true, and the news that we received are somehow distorted during most of the time. So what can we do to solve this problem, at least to some degree?

It was said in the class that “sociology is entirely empathy” and if it is true, then we should step out of our shoes and step into others’ shoes to see what is going on in “our world” and beyond our world. To do so we may firstly maintain an attitude of “objectively suspicious”, that is, we should not simply believe in the words that we hear because they are from someone we know or someone we trust or even because these words are coming from our world, a so-called democratic and free world, which in fact it is not. Then we should start considering other probabilities. Are there many other truths that beyond the truth we believe in? Presumably most of time the answer will be “yes”. And what are the underlying sources and forces of these answers? The guesses may scramble your brain and they are doing so for my brain now. Just leave that alone now……..

To find some practical solutions for the problem it might be wise to try comparing the news from our world and the news from other worlds that we generally ignore. For instance, what are the differences for a report of the presidential election of Taiwan, or the Republic of China, among the CNNS, European media, Taiwanese media and the media from the People’s Republic of China? It is presumably that most of them will share some similarities but in the same time also have various types of differences, slightly and significantly. So which one is the ultimate truth? The answer may be none. I mean, some of them may be relatively more correct but they will not be absolutely correct at all, because they are all in their shoes most of the time for whatever reasons and of course it will be the typical case. I do not think it is necessarily to judge this is good or bad, right or wrong, but it might be good for us to think about all of these anyway, and we shall learn a lot from ourselves and the vast amount of truth these lie in and out of our little world.

We are living in a world where countless news and information come to us from everywhere every day. And it may be clear that most of these perceivable info for us are transported through the media, in other words, most of our perceptions rely on the media of “our world”. And it is claimed principle for most media to stand objectively and we somehow believe that in our subconscious because it is from the world that we live in. Yet ironically it often turns out to be not true, and the news that we received are somehow distorted during most of the time. So what can we do to solve this problem, at least to some degree?

It was said in the class that “sociology is entirely empathy” and if it is true, then we should step out of our shoes and step into others’ shoes to see what is going on in “our world” and beyond our world. To do so we may firstly maintain an attitude of “objectively suspicious”, that is, we should not simply believe in the words that we hear because they are from someone we know or someone we trust or even because these words are coming from our world, a so-called democratic and free world, which in fact it is not. Then we should start considering other probabilities. Are there many other truths that beyond the truth we believe in? Presumably most of time the answer will be “yes”. And what are the underlying sources and forces of these answers? The guesses may scramble your brain and they are doing so for my brain now. Just leave that alone now…….

To find some practical solutions for the problem it might be wise to try comparing the news from our world and the news from other worlds that we generally ignore. For instance, what are the differences for a report of the presidential election of Taiwan, or the Republic of China, among the CNNS, European media, Taiwanese media and the media from the People’s Republic of China? It is presumably that most of them will share some similarities but in the same time also have various types of differences, slightly and significantly. So which one is the ultimate truth? The answer may be none. I mean, some of them may be relatively more correct but they will not be absolutely correct at all, because they are all in their shoes most of the time for whatever reasons and of course it will be the typical case. I do not think it is necessarily to judge this is good or bad, right or wrong, but it might be good for us to think about all of these anyway, and we shall learn a lot from ourselves and the vast amount of truth these lie in and out of our little world.

Blog 7

I think there is no denying that the racial situation has already been improved a lot compared to like 50 years or maybe like 30 ago. But there is also no denying that racial discrimination is still a serious and significant obstacle in current society that we have to overcome. Or maybe we do not have to and we become racist like we always are. However, if we choose to do it, we should do it right and there are actually a lot of things that we can do.
To begin I will say that the first thing we can do and we should do is to acknowledge the fact that discrimination is still everywhere. Just do not say that we are now a fair and equal society because we are not. There are many people who like to try to cover the issues. Like, “Well I do like you because you are black but I am not racist.” How ridiculous is that. Like what do you mean? Just acknowledge it just do not hid it.
I will say that he media plays a powerful role in conveying messages to the public. Racial prejudice exists in the media if, for instance, the reporters always reveal the cultural or ethnic background of a group of loitering youth when they are persons of color, but not otherwise. So if we can do something to increase their staff’s awareness about the implications of the prejudiced way in which they cover the news, it would be absolutely a good news.
Then there are still a lot of options. For instance, in school we can sponsor panel discussions, awareness activities, and cultural events to help prevent racism. We can also award small seed grants to teachers or instructors to help them carry out projects that will promote cultural understanding and inclusiveness. Plus, it is also good to lobby the school board to make changes or additions to the curriculum. Many tools are available to educators and schools who wish to include this kind of material.
We should teach our children that we should learn mutual respect to each other because racism usually starts in childhood. We do not have a “discrimination” idea when we are very little but children can have stereotypical views about minorities by the time they're 12/13/14 years old or so. Also, with concerns rising over school violence, teaching tolerance in schools has taken on a new urgency. We should encouraging local school district to include diversity education in its curriculum can help nip racism in the bud, alleviating future problems in your community.
In a word, just let’s face the issue and do something about it. And I think there will be greater and greater improvement in the future, although it may take a long time.

Linsanity is undoubtedly a hot topic in these days. Some people say that it is just because he is an Asian that we pay so much attention to him, while so many black people are doing the same thing many of the time but just no one care and that is unfair. As far as I am concerned, that is not true overall. There is no denying that Linsanity does has some elements about race, however that is not the whole story, and Jeremy Lin succeeds mostly due to his personal character with some other factors such as race and mass media.

First of all, Jeremy Lin is not the only Asian player in the league now (with Haddadi in grizzlies and Yi in Mavericks), but he is the only one that receives so much attention. Why? I think it is simply because he is really playing well. Just look at him, he scored the most during 1st seven starts in the whole history of the league, which is self-explanatory. Yes there are so many talented black and white players in the league, but do they play so well as Lin recently, probably not. And those playing really well lastingly also receive praises and attention, for example, King James and Black mamba, etc. Yes Lin did stand out for Asian in basketball, which is not a traditional Asian sport. And consequently Linsanity, Linmania, whatever it is, appears. But why was he able to stand out? We can see Lin practices really hard and he seizes the chance when it occurs. Plus, we can see he always keeps a low profile even though he is now the hump of the wave. All of these are very important elements towards his success. And we can see there are the characters that we traditionally embrace. It is just like American dream. Isn't it? How is that doing with race? It is mostly related to a person’s good characters.

Also, we can see the role that the mass media play recently. Lin is on the paper, Lin is on the TV, Lin is on the internet, Lin is everywhere. Imagine the same thing happen 50 years ago, how come Lin will gain so much attention? Of course he will not. Is that related to race? You can argue that it might be because media can write more stories to “reflect” the importance of his race. But even that is the case, this effect would be limited, and the biggest part of his success is because he kept fighting when he is an underdog, when he is nobody. And Lin is of course somebody now, that is why the media portray him so heavily. Overall, Lin is good because he is good, not because he is an Asian.

According to the scientific data that we have gathered, our universe is presumably stated with the big bang. And to understand how this works we have to understand how our planets and stars die, because the best guess we can make so far is that the life of our universe is actually kind of “circular”.

When a small star dies, it will first expand and then shrink. Let’s take our sun as the example (yes sun is actually pretty small). After several billion years later, our sun will sort of burn up and its size will increase dramatically in a short time, although its mass would basically stay the same (its density goes down). At this stage, the sun is called a “RED GIANT”, which is essentially hundreds of times huger than it is right now. Later, many elements of our sun would spread out into our universe and left out a very dense small star called the “WHITE DWARF”. Remember, many elements have already spread out into anywhere of our universe.

Things will be different when a huge star dies. First it will experience the similar process as those small stars and planets. It will also expand itself dramatically and kind of explode. But afterwards, since it is a huge star and it has great mass, the elements of it will spread into a shorter distance than sun does. Consequently, this forms the thing called “NEBULAE”. In such a nebulae, all kinds of elements will float in some certain spaces, and after a very long period of complicated process that we do not quite understand now, these elements would amazingly come to each other again and form new stars and planets. This is how our solar system was born. And after billions of years later, our stars die again, which will give birth to new stars again and again…

My question is, what is the thing beyond the universe? Because according to the data that we have collected, the shape of our known universe is basically an ellipse. So I am just wondering what is beyond this ellipse. Is our universe “endless” or it is surrounded by something that we cannot understand now due to the limitation of our current technology and our IQ? I am just curious.

However, what I said above is based on the assumption that our theory is true. If it actually turns out to be wrong, then what I said is just a bunch of fancy bullshit…

Learn all of these in Luhman’s ASTRO 5 class by the way. Take that class and you will learn a lot, he is the man….