Babies

This post is courtesy of a belated Mother's Day celebration with my mom. For a little over a year I have been aware of a documentary entitled Babies. The trailer, linked here, is a fantastic representation of the movie.

This documentary follows four babies through their first year of life. The families are in Namibia, Japan, Mongolia, and the United States. This unnarrated film not only shows the day-to-day life of the new babies, but it also gives a taste of the culture in each country. It doesn't proselytize about a particular way of life or argue any type of cultural relativism. It simply documents an interesting idea, and then lets the viewer decide how they feel.

I went to watch the film with my mom as a belated mother's day celebration. We both came away knowing more about the importance of birth and motherhood in these cultures and learning a lot about each country specifically.

I would highly recommend this film for anyone interested in other cultures, and especially for those specifically interested in child-rearing. This unadulterated take allows each person to learn and digest the information on their own, which is a welcome change in this often controversial field.

The Graduation Speech That Never Was

Finally done with my Undergraduate Degree.

Thought I'd share this with our followers.

They said this speech was too controversial for a Commencement...so I decided to put it on YouTube instead.

Here is the feedback I received:

When you begin your speech with "Fear!", it can create a sense of uneasiness for listeners. While it is appropriate to address fear in the speech (it's the reality of how people often feel when confronting something new), you could still begin your speech with the importance of confronting fear, but perhaps choose a less stark way to begin or a less dramatic way to phrase it.

The speech is for a solemn and important occasion but it is a happy occasion. It should be uplifting overall.

Don't Fear Google, The Chinese Media Can Only Censor For So Long...

There are various hypotheses as to why China as the fastest developing country in the world continues to censor its media, the most common being that the Chinese Communist Party is afraid that freedom of the press will cause them to lose national political power, but there is no definitive answer. Regardless of why China continues to regulate its media, countless studies have shown that there is an implicit ideological contradiction between striving for a market economy and maintaining a regulated press because the former is about increased communication between countries, while the latter is about limiting the people’s understanding of what is occurring internationally.

So as China’s economic climate changes the way its media functions will have to transform as well. With the government wanting to maintain their national political power as much as they want international economic power and with the Chinese people as deeply committed to preserving their rich history and traditions as they are mesmerized by western technology and trends, increased internationalization will be a bittersweet process for the Chinese.

So far, the Chinese government has tried to report in a way that does not contradict their political views or those of the international community, simultaneously. When reporting hard news, they use words that prevent definitiveness such as: “probably,” “seems” and “appears.” For example, a recent broadcast by China Radio International, the only overseas radio station in China which is owned by the government, discussing Google said, “It seems that Google wants to be the so-called 'human rights defender' to score political points while being a profit-hungry entrepreneur at the same time.” In a broadcast covering the death of 153 Chinese miners working in a coal shaft that was flooded, China Radio International gave a brief explanation saying the miners had been warned when the NYtimes expressed that the working conditions were unsafe. Occasionally, when forced to choose, the Chinese media sides with the Chinese government. For example, they always speak under the assumption that Taiwan is a part of the People’s Republic of China. Chinese communist party officials told CCTV-9, the only tv station in China which is also owned by the government, to broadcast “according to international norms, and foreign policy and domestic news in line with official policy.” Because China does disagree with the international community on certain political issues such as ownership of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Nepal, the Chinese government is in a catch-22. They are forced to either not discuss controversial topics and lose credibility as a reliable news source, or pick a side which contradicts their intention to broadcast “according to international norms” and “in line with official policy,” simultaneously.

The more influential China wants to becomes as an economic power, the more they will have to collaborate with the international community through honest communication and equality, neither of which are possible with a regulated press.

China was recently faced with this reality in 2009 when the World Trade Organization ruled that China “cannot limit distribution of movies, music, books, and other media to government-controlled companies,” with the exception of “objectionable content” (which is vague). They also ruled that iTunes could not be banned. China has until December 2010 to align its practices with international trade laws. If it does not, the US can ask WTO to implement commercial sanctions against China.

Soon China will be forced to make a radical decision; they will either decide if they are going to allow something they’ve been resisting for 60 years, freedom of press, for something they’ve been working for, economic growth or if they will shoot down into economic decline and maintain censorship.