A Dream for a Better World

There are two major social systems in the world, socialism and capitalism. Both of them have different special features but they share a commonality that is the gap between rich and poor. In capitalist countries, it is not strange to find rich people and poor people because such phenomenon is decided by the social system because the essence of capitalism is exploiter and the exploited. And maybe it is also common to find the gap between rich and poor in socialist countries. After all, productive forces development in different regions is uneven. The final target of socialism is to realize common prosperity, at least in China. However, the current situation is the gap between rich and poor are growing day by day and the phenomenon is even more terrible than that of capitalist countries. Here we can take China as an example because it has become a big influential country in the world on economy, culture, military, and politics and so on and so forth and it is playing an important role on the earth.

After more than three decades’ reforming and opening up to the world, China has achieved rapid development but the gap between rich and poor is also growing fast and obviously. Large numbers of people cannot afford a house in the whole life but some people can boast luxury real estates in many sites at home and abroad. Some people are suffering hunger but some own private jets and first-class cars. Some have no chance to go to primary school but some can afford expensive tuition to go abroad for further education. So what are the main reasons for the growing gap? Firstly, uneven resources are distributed in different regions on education, welfare, medical treatment etc. The condition in east and coastal part are much better than that of west part. There is not even a school in some rural regions in west part and people also have to go far for medical treatment when they are ill. Some people die of untimely cure. Secondly, income gap is large and the government can not set up a perfect tax system. Thirdly, the government can not establish good welfare system so many people disabled or without ability to work suffer hunger. As for welfare system, many capitalist countries do better than China. Fourthly, unequal competition is widespread in economical field and some people can get high profits from monopolies. Fifthly, government corruption is very terrible. Many officials use government funds illegally and they also help some businessmen to conduct illegal economic activities by getting bribe, that means, if you are rich, you can offer bribe to some officials then you can earn more from illegal activities. So the gap becomes larger and larger.

At present, the growing gap between rich and poor is worrying and it seems out of government control. Crime rises too much. Robbery, murder, fraudulence, blackmailing etc. occurs every day and living environment seems not so safe. More and more people from bottom-class of the society hatred rich people and the resentment of the rich gets fiercer and fiercer. Maybe one day they will pour the resentment into action. Then what will happen?

For many foreign investors, China is huge market with prospecting future because of cheap labor, abundant resources, preferential polices and so on. However, since the beginning of 2010, different news about labor shortage are continuously appearing on kinds of media such as newspaper, network, TV, magazine etc, especially in the Pearl River Delta Region. The labor shortage is not skilled labor shortage we often talk about but general labor shortage. As for such phenomenon, various economical experts hold different views but they have common ideas for the labor shortage.

Firstly, the global financial crisis has almost passed and economic recovery is very apparent. So numbers of enterprises located interior areas develop rapidly and they have to recruit a large mount of employees for production. Secondly, companies in coastal cities especially in the Pearl River Delta Region are mainly labor-intensive ones and their profits primarily come from cheap labor cost as the commodity price gets higher and higher, cheap salary can not meet employees’ requirements any more. Thirdly, labors in the 21^st century pay more and more attention on the quality of their life and they prefer better accommodation, food, entertainment, working environment and so on and so forth but many companies in the Delta can not supply what they need. Fourthly, more and more factories are set up and labors have more choices for job. Fifthly, many labors choose to stay at their own hometowns and start their small-scale business. Maybe they can not earn much but working in factories of other cities also can not brings more to them because they have to pay extra such as traffic fee, expense for nanny and so on.

Actually, labor shortage is not a new problem for the world. In the 60s of last century, the phenomenon of labor shortage also appeared in Japan and Japanese government resolved the problem by increasing investment of equipments, improving development of technology and adjusting the industrial structure. So what is the root for such phenomenon? Some professionals consider that it should be attributed to the irrational system and the inconsistence between the social and industrial transformation and transformation of industrial labors. Numbers of labor live in big cities for years but they can not obtain equal rights of welfare and they can just get low pay. What is more, they are discriminated by the local people. Therefore, the government has to remove and improve old systems and set up equitable and sound system instead. In addition, owners of enterprises should also know more about the trend of social development in China and the whole world to change ideas of discrimination to their employees.

Labor shortage is still going on and some people predict that it will be a long-term problem especially in the Pearl River Delta Region. At present, many factories can get orders but they can not guarantee the production time because of lack of labors. That is the price for their relentless squeeze from cheap labor. And what measures will Chinese government take for such problem? Everyone is waiting.

On November 1, 2009, China World Hotel embraced the 2009 International Boarding School Fair in Beijing. Hundreds and thousands of parents attended with their teenage kids. Although Beijing welcomed it’s first snow of 2009 on the day, the hall with the fair going on was extremely hot with too much crowd as well as too much enthusiasm from both parts: the parents eager to consult and find their children the “best” schools while the representatives from North American secondary schools trying their best to convince the parents that they are the very one being sought.

The schools were unexceptionally boasting their colorfulness in terms of how many international students they enrolled, and their specialties in arts, sports and many other fields. The parents looked over each stand present, asking the most concerned questions, such as how much the tuition is, how the children are settled in the boarding schools, how their children can be helped and can receive individual attention. But the kids’ eyes full of curiosity and bewilderment, and some with excitement as well, it seemed that they had no exact idea what they were going to experience in the near future to come.

Though some parents in Beijing are well-being enough to pay more 200,000 RMB each year for their kids to study overseas (which is 20 times more than the regular tuition for high school or even university education), the real question behind the parents should be thinking about is whether this really fits their children. After all, they are just 13 to 17 years old. To attend a secondary school and maybe later a university overseas means that the children have to be kept apart from their families for 4 years or even longer. When they are not mentally and physically matured enough, staying in an exotic culture with no parents around may cause some problems in their growing up. In this day and age when it is difficult sometimes for even adults to cope with cultural shock despite their mature cultural cultivation, children will definitely run into similar situations, not to mention that they are not mature yet. The potential sense of isolation, homesickness and loneliness will likely to outweigh all possible gains.

So it is really recommended for the parents to think over and make sure it is the right decision to make before they send their children to a secondary school thousands of miles away. Although education maybe a different case, it is not always a good idea to seek far and wide for what lies close at hand. My tip: stay cool to the rush!

Five years ago, I interviewed a man.  This guy brought a bottle of water on the train, which costs 1.5 yuan. And then he asked fapiao for the cost from the train attendant. The train attendant laughed and said: “There is no fapiao for the cost on the train ever.”

The guy sent the Ministry of Railway to court afterwards.

He said people always choose to accept when they are facing strong and powerful rules.  But if we give up the right to ask fapiao for 1.5 yuan today, tomorrow we may have to give up the landright, property rights, and even the right to live… If we don’t fight for our rights, these rights will just be a piece of paper.

He won the case at last.  I thought him and the Ministry of Railway will be angry from then on.   However, when next time he ate in the restaurant car on the train, the chief conductor deliver his food in person, and asked him if he wants the fapiao right away or after meal.

I asked him, how you win the respect?

“By the perseverance to fight for my rights.” He said.

His name is Hao Jinsong, a 34 years old lawyer.

I heard the story from a journalist in her speech competition yesterday.  I appreciate Hao Jinsong’s courage to go against the powerful government branch for his legal right.   I also appreciate the journalist’s work to record the small but powerful stories like this and broadcast them.

A nation consist of different idividuals. They create and define the nation.  Only if a nation have the people who has independent thinking, who strives for the truth, who filghts for their constitutioanal right, who knows the world is not perfect but never gives up trying, the nation can have its future, a better one.

Ps: Fapiao is an official receipt. It used for calculating the in-comes, so that the government would know how much that one earns, and then easy for tax.

It astonishes me that people cry “lawsuit” or “Fire him” just because Keith Bardwell told the truth and has his OWN personal beliefs on interracial marriages.  Keith Bardwell said he wouldn’t marry an interracial couple because he was afraid for their children.

Let me ask you something, say you are strictly religious, whether it be Catholic, Baptist or any of the other “respectable” Christian Religion.  Let’s also assume you own a business.  Would you do business with Devil Worshipers or with Jehovah’s Witnesses?  You would be breaking the law if you refused based solely on religion.  The EXACT same law he is breaking dealing with race.

I like Keith Bardwell, for he was honest in his reasons for not marrying them.  He could have lied like many other people who want to get around such laws.

You know, I thought living in America meant we have our right to our OWN opinions whether right or wrong.  As long as someone is available to marry that couple, what harm is being done?

Since America is such a Litigious Society, I am surprised lawyers are not going around and trying to sue or press charges against anyone who did not vote for Obama ONLY because he was black.  Technically if you didn’t vote for him SOLELY because he was black then you were in fact breaking the law.  But, that is the nice thing about America – we have our own rights to do and think as we please as long as no one gets hurt.  Keith was honest, but I don’t see people being honest with their own items that they discriminate against.

Here we are, an advanced society and yet we try to FORCE people to be open minded.  We try to FORCE people to accept same-sex marriages, mixed marriages, even force conscientious objectors to defend this country.  Why?  It would be like allowing Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to FORCE us in believing in their religion.  We educate people then we allow them to have their own beliefs.

Many companies will break discrimination laws but give other reasons.  I have seen it.  I am sure you have too.  Yet, we try to persecute Keith Bardwell because he was honest.  He even gave good reasons!  He said he was worried about the welfare of their kids.  I know 20 some years ago when I was growing up, children of mixed marriages were looked down on and many of the other kids would treat them badly.  So, I UNDERSTAND his thoughts.  I am NOT saying he is right, but I am saying he should have his  right to his own beliefs, because forcing him to marry them would go against the very core of who we are, Americans, with the right to our OWN beliefs.

What if I owned my own store and sold alcohol but because of my personal beliefs, I didn’t sell alcohol to anyone under the age of 25.  Or what if I owned a dangerous factory (a place that people could EASILY get hurt, say a steel factory) and I said you had to be at least 25 to work there because I was afraid of younger ones being careless and hurting themselves.  It sounds like good excuses, but by the same token I would be breaking the law.  We need to make changes.  We need the right to our own beliefs as long as we don’t physically hurt people.  I am sure our black president would agree, that people deserve the right to think however they want, even if they want to be KKK members, as long as they are peaceful KKK members, not like of times past.

I am sure each of us have our own hidden discrimination.  Whether it be against homosexuals/lesbians, those with Aids, blacks, maybe against a certain race like Germans because of your hatred over Hitler, or towards people with disfiguring diseases.

Come on people, there was no harm done.  They could EASILY get married by someone else, so leave Keith Bardell alone and allow him his right to his own beliefs, whether right or wrong!

We Need Changes.  We need to find a way to not discriminate as big companies or governments but allow individual employees in the government and in the big companies the right to their own beliefs.  As long as there are employees who will get the job done, why is there a problem?  Unless you want to force everyone to think like you and that is NOT the American way.

Please people join with me and help me fight this and other atrocities in America.

I choose “teachers” to start with, because a classmate of mine is a teacher. She was in the CCTV news this week as a “spicy teacher” because her great personality and the way she gets along with her student.

One of my classmates from the university becomes very famous recently. Her name is Deng Rui. A 24 years old lovely girl who works in a primary school in Chengdu at the moment. She becomes really hot because her great sense of humor in teaching.

Chinese people values teacher a lot. In tradition point of view, study is a very serious issue. Teachers should be erudites and strict, and students should never challenge the teacher.

Well, it has been changing as China has been absorbing western culture since the “Reforming and Open-up policy” has been carried on in 1978. The easy and facetious western culture has rocked the old stiff Chinese world. My generation, the people who were born in 1980’s, was growing up in the new colorful world.

We got to know that teachers are not always right. We’d love to challenge the authority in studying times. We were famous for beyond the control, and we even have been considered as the lost generation by the educationist..

Apparently, we bring the “new world” to the class when we grew up and become a teacher ourselves.

Deng Rui represents the typical characteristic of this generation.

She would sing to the student that “you’re still in my eyes”, when he was afraid to look at her in the eye because he has been found that he was stealthily doing something in the class.

When the student makes a lot of mistakes in the homework, she will tell him that he is not match with his “NIKE” shirt—NIKE’s logo is a “√”. “I will buy you a “Xecp” shirt, whose logo is a “×”, if most your answers are wrong..

When there are students talking in class, she will make a miserable face and tell them:” How can you be so cold-hearted to left me teach the lesson alone? You made my heart broken into pieces.”

……

Children love her because they feel like she is a real person in their life, but not just some kind of saint who never makes mistakes, or tell jokes.. And she will never give students any kind of corporal punishment for their improper behavior.

I am proud of her. Not because the fame she has got, but what she has been doing is something. The girl who were challange the teacher in school now is teacher who is challenge the traditional education method.

Wish her good luck in the future.

Have you ever noticed how a famous movie start or athlete gets in trouble with the law and they get probation or a very light sentence?  The “supposed” reasons are that they are a low flight risk and they have done good for the community or something else.  What makes a movie star better than a construction worker or programmer or waitress?  What if the construction worker hasn’t missed any work, has a family and makes a good living, why isn’t he considered not a flight risk?  A rich person has more ability to do good for the community yes, but that does not make him any better than a programmer, waitress or construction worker who has to work 40 hours or more every week.  Just that their jobs are “appreciated” more than others and they get high salary for it.

The point is that it is not fair to treat famous people better.  We need a fair equal system to decide who gets to stay out of jail or who goes into jail.

Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a gross breach of medical ethics, a long-secret report by the Red Cross concluded. Based on statements by 14 prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda and were moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in late 2006, Red Cross investigators concluded that medical professionals working for the C.I.A. monitored prisoners undergoing waterboarding, apparently to make sure they did not drown. Medical workers were also present when guards confined prisoners in small boxes, shackled their arms to the ceiling, kept them in frigid cells and slammed them repeatedly into walls, the report said.  Facilitating such practices, which the Red Cross described as torture, was a violation of medical ethics even if the medical workers’ intentions had been to prevent death or permanent injury, the report said.

The Internal Revenue Service is not living up to its pledge to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, an IRS watchdog group says, citing a drop in audits of millionaires last year. Those with incomes of $1 million and above had a 5.6 percent chance of getting audited in fiscal year 2008, which ended last September, down from 6.8 percent the previous year, according to IRS figures. The actual number of millionaires audited fell from 23,200 to 21,874; the number of millionaires filing tax returns grew from 339,138 to 392,776.  The significant drop in audits of richer Americans contrasted with IRS statements last year that it was making strong progress in enforcement, especially of those with incomes of more than $1 million.

The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis.  Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year. In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and liquid capital became an important factor. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities. 

Executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and hundreds of financial institutions receiving federal aid aren’t likely to be affected by pay restrictions announced February 15th by President Barack Obama.  The rules, created in response to growing public anger about the record bonuses the financial industry doled out last year, will apply only to top executives at companies that need exceptional assistance in the future.  The limits aren’t retroactive, meaning firms that have already taken government money won’t be subject to the restrictions unless they have to come back for more. Pay caps may provide the political cover the administration needs to deliver additional infusions of capital into the financial sector.