Today was my first day of my Thursday schedule classes. My first class was Watch Television, Learn Chinese. During that class, we watched an old Hong Kong gang related movie, and the teacher would stop the movie every 30 or so seconds and explain the dialogue that was going on in the movie. One of the most important things I learned in the class today is the varying styles of Chinese movies especially between Mainland China and Hong Kong. Hong Kong is famous for their gang- related movies which are extremely rare in Mainland China because the content of most gang movies are considered too violent and vulgar by the Chinese government.
My second class of the day was the foreign policies of the People's Republic of China. In this class, the teacher talked about the foreign policies of China in regards to Taiwan, and how the Korean War caused such a huge friction in politics between China and the United States. During this class, the teacher talked a lot about the history of China during this time period such as the first time that the People's Republic of China was invited to the Geneva Conventions after helping the North Koreans win the Korean War, as well as theories such as the Domino Effect.
After class, we had a visit from a guest speaker, Ms. Zhu Mei, who is the head of the Tai Lake Pollution Rescue and Prevention Office, Jiangsu Provincial Government. Even though she was really busy that day, she still gave us a wonderful presentation, and stayed for a while to answer our questions. In her speech, she informed us about how detrimental Tai Lake was polluted by the mills, manufacturing companies, and agricultural development. The Lake was so polluted that at one point in 2007, the people living in the area had no drinkable tap water for three days, and when you smelled the water, you would be reminded of the stench one would find at a seafood market.
Ms. Zhu's speech was very important because it showed how harmful companies can be to the natural environment if they carelessly spill their waste into the waters without thinking about the consequences of the people and communities living downstream. Also, it informs us that the perceptions of the media in the United States is not completely reflective of the government in China, where the western media is quick to jump in the stories about pollution and terrible air quality. Yes there is a lot of pollution in China, but it was be false to say that the government does not care about these issues as we are informed that the government is putting tens of billions of yuan per year in cleaning up Tai Lake making it the most heavily invested environmental cleanup project in China, and they have placed very strict regulations and standards about the treatment of the lake right now.
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