Reflective Journal 5

Reflective Journal 5: Reflect on SES. You may want to consider the curriculum, the learning process, the assessment, difficulties you faced, how you overcame them, and how might SES be applicable in time to come.

SES is a study about the social and economic makeup of the east and the west, a world beyond the boundaries of Singapore. Mastering the art of SES is just like installing the latest Intel core i7 processer onto your computer; it gives you a competitive edge in today's knowledge based world.

The study of SES affects my lifestyle, my perceptions and my personality. As a neighbour, it was interesting to find out the reasons that account for the different behaviours of American nationals in my estate.  As an ethnic Chinese, it was definitely interesting to learn how my ancestor's motherland faired against others socially and economically. As a Singapore citizen, it was even more interesting how and why we adopted some of China's and America's beliefs. Somehow, the topics taught here have a soul, and are not as abstract as other topics like factorisation in mathematics, or kinematics in Physics. Therefore, SES has been one of the most enjoyable and enriching subject that I experienced as I really felt connected and engaged to it.

Next, SES exposed me to different sides of a coin, and this gave me the knowledge for me to discriminate. By this, I mean discriminate right from wrong, not segregate or divide something into black or white. For example, just because SES revealed what 'Apple' company was doing to thrive, I no longer thought that Apple was a perfect company which should be modelled after at first. In this case, SES showed the flaw in this system and exposed my fallacious logic. In general, it kept me well informed and helped me develop a clearer and more holistic understanding of the world.

However, I would be fooling myself if I were to say that this process of learning SES was easy, especially since it had such a gruelling and intimidating mode of pedagogy. Firstly, I had to participate actively in class discussions to be awarded marks. I was not in the habit of speaking up, as I felt uneasy over the inferiority I would get with a wrong statement made in such a competent class. The result was that I avoided speaking as much as I could, and let active participants like Daniel and Nathan run the show. Besides that, I had to run a discussion for 15 minutes, which was daunting when I had never made a presentation more than 10 minutes, let alone an individual presentation more than 8 minutes. I knew I would be very self conscious while I was in the limelight, but yet, I did not know how to do well with my presentation skills no match to some of my other classmates. On the day of my presentation, while I was narrating out my points, my head was still whirling with fear. What would my classmates ask? Will I be able to stand firm on my point?

Just one term ago, I remembered mentioning in my reflective journal: "As I am strongly influenced by the principle of maintaining "harmony", I prefer shielding my innermost thoughts from others, and following the dominance." To a certain extent, this still applies to me, but I know I am changing gradually.

Evaluating this now, I fancy this change was in part because of the "no right or wrong answers" mentality of SES classes. Generally, I felt that this mentality helped me build confidence in selecting a few relevant points and expounding on them based on my own reasoning. I was willing to do this solely because I knew that I would not be wrong as long as I made logical sense. That said, I must also extend my acknowledgement to my friends and teacher for giving me moral support throughout the classes. Today, I periodically force myself to speak up, to be more confident, and to only focus on the task at hand.

Turning back our attention to the big picture, we need to understand that every modern society is interconnected; their cultures spread and evolve. It is imperative to note that Singapore's future depends on its citizens interacting and communicating with culturally diverse groups of people from other countries. I must understand that finding a bride in China wearing a Western Wedding Dress is not unusual anymore. I must be wary about giving pork to a Muslim. I must recognise that the knowledge of other cultures is a pre-requisite to effective communication in whatever field I choose to be in. In the future, I am sure that the knowledge of this study will aide me in the workplace, when I interact with other people.

Just like a ram in a computer, SES is the key to future endeavours. It is a subject that can never be diminished in importance.

(Words: 800)

Reflective journal 4

Reflective Journal 4: Reflect on the societal problems faced by China and America. (Hint: you must definitely explain your responses to these societal problems. How can they be resolved? Who should be responsible for resolving these issues?)

Last year, I travelled to the city of Xi'an, China, for a holiday. During my visit there, I remembered a group of businessmen at a famous seafood restaurant ordering some of the most expensive items, amongst which was a large platter of pan-fried abalone. Later, after alighting from a coach ride to the countryside, I also recalled being repeatedly chased by groups of beggars trying to sell me something I have not even heard of,  for "just 1 Yuan!". In that short span of time, it was as if the societal problem of growing income disparity in China became visible. In my opinion, this is a problem because inequality fosters political instability, stemming from the resentment by people who are in the lower percentile.

However,  I do empathise with this group of discontented people.

In any modern society, rural workers earn less than their urban counterparts. Although this is normal as there is a need to differentiate the pay of these two groups of people, this difference should be minimised, since they are all part of the human race and should be treated similarly. Hence, it is saddening to learn that China is treating them so differently, to the point that urban workers get up to four times the pay of rural workers. Being humans, these rural workers have feelings. Instinctively, they want to enjoy the same privileges as everybody else, and as such, when they realise their incomes are so different from the rest, it only provokes their emotions, and it is understandable that this leads to social unrests. Nonetheless, this is a pressing societal challenge that requires immediate attention.

To solve this societal problem, I feel that China should make their tax gradient steeper, so that the rich face heavier taxes while the poor face reduced taxes. Based on my reasoning, this is because a large part of government expenditures are used to protect the people, such as law enforcement and the military. Therefore, those with the most to protect should pay their fair share for the protection.

However, the real problem which stifles its implementation actually arises from the poor reception of this policy by the elite who have the most power and say in corrupt China. If only the elite would stop thinking about personal benefits and spare a thought about the welfare of others, I believe this policy can be readily implemented to alleviate this problem. Therefore, I feel that resolving this problem is the responsibility of the elite as a whole.

Now,  let us shift our focus onto the societal problems faced by the country on the other side of the world. Last November, I entered the keywords "American violence" into the Google search engine out of curiosity. Exactly what would I find? It was not surprising really, as it was yet another article on how a victim, Ann-Marie McKittrick, suffered from an assault by her husband.

America is getting notorious for violence.

Studies prove my personal belief right; there is a strong correlation between a country’s reputation and people’s willingness to visit, invest, study, live, or work there. Violence in America is a societal problem because it strikes fear into the hearts and minds of the people, and more importantly, because it challenges the reputation of American society as the pinnacle of human achievement.

In my opinion, I feel that the prevalence of violence in America originates from the development of a materialistic mindset, and the philosophical abandonment by the intellectual elite of the late 20th Century. As American society becomes increasingly material centred, they spend less time on what researches indicates truly makes people happy, like family, friendship, and religion, which leads to a higher risk of depression and anxiety.  I feel that this state of mind is the main reason why crimes are committed.

However, unlike the previous solution to income disparity, societal violence cannot be eliminated by cosmetic societal changes or by quixotic political campaigns. This is because we are dealing with human emotions, motifs, and feelings that cannot be quantified or reasoned in its true essence. Try as one might, I feel it is impossible to create a reliable and effective method to instil values and morals into people. In fact, I feel that only the natural responsibility of the soul to listen to the voice of god can resolve these challenges. Therefore the only hope is in a radical change of heart by the individuals who make up their nation.

In both the American and Chinese societies, their societal problems are controversial issues which relates to the life and interaction of their people.

It affects a staggering 300 million people in America. It affects a whopping 1.3 billion people in China. Can anyone still afford to ignore it now?

(791 words)

Reflective Journal Entry 3

Task:

We have discussed and debated on the Chinese and American perceptions of self. Reflect on the impact of these beliefs in your life.

Personally, the Chinese perception of self was demonstrated most vividly to me during a math lesson in primary two when I introduced a new method to a problem. Instead of applauding my creativity in solving the problem, the teacher frowned, then told me I was wrong. When I asked why, she was not interested and even warned me that she was the teacher, and that I had to follow the pace of the class and not create disturbance by introducing something foreign to them.

Summarising, the Chinese especially stress the avoidance of  airing one's opinion to "maintain harmony", and knowing one's place in a hierarchical relationship. This had a profound impact on me.

Firstly, this shaped the way I expressed myself in discussions. For example, I rarely bring up new points into discussion as I fear that the other parties will not have mutual understanding with what I am trying to say. Therefore, I would just expound and elaborate, or provide evidences or examples of that point, since I have a higher chance of reaching mutual understanding with the other parties, and not cause disturbance to the understanding of a topic to other people.

Next, this affected my interaction with my elders, or people of higher status. For example, I will use formal language when I am interacting with my grandparents at the dinner table, and I will not rush into a meal while my parents are still in the midst of preparing or doing something else, a contrast to what I may do with friends. This is because I feel that using slang and behaving informally is a disrespect to my superiors, who are giving me the direction and tasks to accomplish in life.

Finally, this impacted me pertaining to my view of leadership. In my opinion, leaders have to enunciate their opinions and bring up new ideas which might lead to disagreement, or even conflicts. For example, I shivered at the thought of becoming one of the Singapore ministers. Whatever the  ministers does, there was sure to be disagreement or outrage, like the current topic of the ministerial salaries paycut. As I am strongly influenced by the principle of maintaining "harmony", I prefer shielding my innermost thoughts from others, and  following the dominance, as leaders often have to violate "harmony" when creating new or changing old policies.

Moving on, the American's perspective of self is centred around reason. They especially stress the importance to stand up for what one thinks is against reason, and that everyone should have freedom of speech and rights. This impacted my life somewhat.

Mainly, this impacted me in the way I make of decisions. In my opinion, I feel that important decisions should not be influenced by herd mentality, or pressure by others, and that it should be base on my own reasoning and freedom of will. For example, at the age of eight, although I was advised by my family and friends not to drop piano, I dropped it anyway. I did this because I felt that practices which I had on my own were usually void of passion or interest, and there was no point in continuing. The same went for the way I made my choice during PSLE or the programmes I applied for in my school days. Reasons and logic should guide your life. Although I will not say that I do not listen to advice, I will still base my ultimate decision on the reasoning of my own opinion, and I will not allow anyone to intrude the right for me to make my own decisions.

To a smaller extent, the American perception of self has also impacted me in the way on how I view the world. It has taught me how to question, about the hidden meanings in advertisements, about the agenda of political leaders, and about the purpose of authors of books writing in certain ways. For example, was there a hidden agenda in the decision to give out money for the "growth and share" package just before the 2011 general elections? Obviously the world is not what we are encouraged to see it as. It is not round. Therefore the American perception of self made me realise that I could view the world objectively through reason no matter what other people said or did, and this made me look deeper into global issues in the world.

In all, although both perceptions of self from two contrasting societies did impact me in one way or another, I feel that the Chinese beliefs have a larger impact on my life, as that is just more suited to my attitude towards life and because of the closer connection between China and Singapore. However, no matter how we are influenced, we are ultimately responsible for who we become.
                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                (Word count: 800)

Reflective Journal Entry 2

TASK:

Reflect on the working culture and management style in Google and Lenovo. You may choose to explore how far their working cultures and management styles reflect their respective societies, share your personal experiences and opinions on your preference of working culture and management style, etc

Google and Lenovo share common goals, but employs different techniques to achieve them. If we look deeper into the root of the difference, this actually reflects the disparity between the American and the Chinese societies in some aspect.

Firstly, Google's working culture emphasises greatly on autonomy and self-discernment for employees, together with human relations and interactions, as well as a bottom up approach, where employees can suggest ideas for the company.

No doubt, this working culture and management style is reflected by the American's staunch belief of human rights. Extracted from the Universal declaration of human rights, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Dissent is widely encouraged in America. It is accepted as they believe it is just a mere statement of one's right to expressing one's opinion. It was even accepted by Barack Obama, president of the United States of America. In my opinion, this shaped the way Google runs its administration, catering to the needs of employees like they were its "brothers".
Lenovo, on the other hand, follows a strict hierarchy whereby orders and ideas come from the top and employees are expected to follow without question or reluctance.

In my opinion, this working culture and management style stemmed from Confucius' teachings, which had a strong emphasis of respect. For Confucius, this concept of respect is expressed by the character jen, which meant that the social framework defines the accepted range of respectful conduct toward others when two people came together. Besides that, respect is due to persons in accordance with dynamic social roles, as encompassed in the Five Relationships that he came up with. Although Confucius might have passed away a long time ago, his teachings still remain up to today, greatly influencing the Chinese society in everyday life, such as the disapproval of students to question their teachers and the act of disagreeing with one's parents over something they had already decided upon being frowned upon. Ultimately, this society that Lenovo was built upon focussed on the social positioning of one's rank that determines their right to question or discern without offending another the other party.

In many societies, the latter's way of thinking is preferred.

Take a look at Singapore, is there a company which resembles the least like Google? Even in America, the heartland for freedom of speech and opinion, companies like Apple or Microsoft have slanted heavily towards Lenovo's style of operations.

Right now as a student in a Singapore school, I am definitely moving more towards the Lenovo style of management. Like Lenovo's way of life, I have a fixed time which I am supposed to report to school, a fixed time to hand in homework determined by a teacher and a pre-determined pen and paper test that would determine my future. Furthermore, resources like the basketball courts, the street soccer fields, or the swimming pool are not available for use when we want to use them. As students, we have no right to say "I am tired and I need a break now, let's go to the basketball court and have a game," during lesson time. However, I can see that the school is trying to incorporate the Google's approach at the same time. There is the project's day competition, which is free for us to choose which topic we would like to research on, and when we want to research it over a span of 6 months.

This synthesis of different approaches is the school's aim to expose us to different approaches that companies take in the near future, or so I feel. Although it achieves to bring out the management style like Lenovo, I still do not feel the true essence Google's approach.  

As we turn our attentions to our modernising world, I am finding ourselves getting too obsessed with results that we forget to learn how to relax while at work, too obsessed in following our superiors to think innovatively and reflect the problem ourselves.  

Personally, I prefer the Google's working culture and management style. Simply put it, I feel that life is boring and dull for those who work under Lenovo's influence. In essence, I prefer an inclusive society, where everyone is allowed to run the show. I mean, what is the point of life to be another person's shadow, working for him, carrying out his orders with no right to propose one's own? Moreover, I strongly approve the Google's working culture and management style as it brings out the true essence of humans being a societal animal, who listens to each other without the barrier of rank, social status, of wellbeing.

However, that was only a mere ideal. As a matter of fact, nothing ever works out the way it should be in society, such as how the utopian communist ideal was abused and ruined. In this case, the drawback of the Google style of management and working culture is that people are by nature, evil, greedy, and corrupted. The Google's style of management is indeed preyed upon by the black sheep of our  human society, such as the founders of Twitter who made use of Google's free time and paycheque to build up its empire before deserting Google. This comes as a drawback from the trust invested in employees and the little management used to supervise them.

Furthermore, one needs people of high calibre to think out of the box, to innovate, and to explore, which makes this style of management only limited to the most pristine companies capable of recruiting such talent. The most biting point of the truth is that Chief Executive Officers usually care for nothing than efficiency and productivity, together with their hold on power. They do not want to have a messy way of dealing with decisions. So, they take the easy way out and follow the Lenovo style of "just do and follow".

Until human society change for the better and prove that humans can achieve more with the given autonomy and relaxed management, companies will naturally adopt "The Lenovo Way" and we will just have to be submissive while letting the super alpha set the direction.

Reflective Journal Entry 1

You have attended the first tutorial of Socio-Economic Studies. Reflect on the elective and your expectations. You might want to consider the syllabus, the mode of assessment, lessons, (possible apprehension), etc.

Social-Economic Studies is a field of study that examines social and economic factors that makes up a country.

Syllabus

The syllabus for this subject mainly focuses on the social and economic aspects of the republic of China in relation to the United States, although other states, like Britain is involved. I feel that this mixture of the east and the west is a perfect combination to study. I believe this so as I personally feel that the east and west should interact more as they hold many answers to each other's problem.

Furthermore, my takeaway from this curriculum is that I would be able to interact with people from the east to west more naturally, fruitfully and in a less awkward and offensive manner.

Mode of assessment

The structure of this subject disturbs me, especially the thought of leading a class discussion, consisting a full 20% of my marks. On the bright side, I would say that the 5 minutes presentation is nothing new. However, I must admit that I am, to a certain extent, worried about engaging the class for a whole ten minutes, doing nothing but rebutting questions, clarifying doubts, and staying firm to my points. Yet, I cannot deny that this must be done so as to break down the reluctance to share in the real world in the future. The only way out in the end, is to face such obstacles with sufficient preparation and practice.

The other 80%, comes from reflective journals, term papers and research papers. As I have yet to understand the format of these papers, I am a little afraid and worried about this as well.

Luckily for me, however, I feel that the watching of programmes from national geographic or history channels have given me a boost to reflect and write such essays. For example, there was a show about Deng XiaoPing, who first normalised the relations between the United States of America with the Republic of China.

SES, a friend or foe?

In a word, I would classify SES as unparalleled. This is because in all my years of schooling, it is the only subject that would visibly interplay the crude world of dollars and cents with the humane world of culture and practices.

At times, I would really be thankful I had this subject befallen on me. This is because I can expect myself to be better prepared for the future to interact with people from major superpowers like the Republic of China and the United States of America, as I am sure the theory behind this subject will greatly aid me when I am doing the hands-on.

Besides that, I actually have an interest in the cultural diversity in this world. Proof of this, I obtained a relatively high score in the CQ test for the sub group of "CQ drive". At my own leisurely pace, I actually enjoy learning about new cultures, that broaden my scope and horizon about the world that I know of. Therefore, this subject has actually a huge potential to be yet gruelling but interesting at the same time.

Yet, at times, I would really wish that this subject had never existed. Along with the unfamiliarity of the topic, terminology only exacerbates my fear for the subject. Take for instance, "western philosophical construct". Indeed, I understand the meaning of this phrase, but it is actually the difficulty of getting used to hearing these words, using this words in a presentation, or reading articles plagued with such terminology that makes learning this subject such a chore.

Ultimately, I tell myself, I do not have a choice in the matter. Friend or foe, it is like a responsibility being thrust at me, no matter whether I like it or not. Therefore, I guess only hard work, in the face of overwhelming hatred, and at the same time, love for the subject that can bring me to the end of this chapter in my life.

In all, I hope that I can push my worries aside and experience the true essence of what this subject has to offer, having fun and at the same time, coping well.