This time around, I found myself to
be prepared and actually excited to read the second chapter of Dodson’s book,
much more than I can say for any other work of nonfiction that I was in the
middle of reading. I don’t normally
stumble across a work of nonfiction, that I’ve been forced to read for a class
or assignment that I actually enjoyed and looked forward to reading the next
time I had to. Dodson is definitely a great exception the rule.
After reading the second chapter
of the book, I was intrigued by the story about the building of a neighborhood
playground. I thought that he made a nice transition from that story into
making his point about how the anxiety of the middle class in China has
increased due to the growing numbers of “The newly affluent”. I felt that this was really interesting to
hear, as I thought that it obviously mirrored and was a direct correlation to
and with what’s going in our mother country of America. In my opinion, I feel that the Chinese have
every reason to have more anxiety and worry than we do, as we are already submerged
into this process and dilemma, and they are only simply on the verge of its
expansion.
As far as home-owning goes in the
Chinese society, it was an interesting realization for me to find out how
inordinately excessive the prices were to buy a home. He claims that the price of
average home ranges from being eight to fourteen times the actual household
income. I wasn’t as surprised to the see
the ratio of the house price in comparison to annual income in China and saw it
as pricey but not too unexpected and atypical, as the average ratio in the
United States is usually three times the amount of the annual income priced on
a home. I was quite disgusted, though, to find out that it had to come to a
string of “massive and violent protests” in 2008 by middle income homeowners. Again,
though, I was not surprised to see that they to result to violent protests, as
they are now a common occurrence in China’s strict and unrelenting society. I’m
not saying that large protests don’t occur
in other nations, just that they have the tendency to happen more frequently
and to end with more violent results in this nation in comparison to others. One
can only hope for some sort of peaceful resolve, yet it’d be foolish to think
it would come so easily and without sacrifice.
The issue of pollution has always
seemed to be a relevant one, not only in Americas’ specific society or Chinas’,
but all around the world. Dodson thought
that it was important for us to realize how severe the pollution situation was
in China, as he said that it would surely and ultimately proceed to be “spilling
across borders into the ecosystems of other countries as well”. A piece of information and writing in this
chapter about pollution in which I thought was really significant and crucial
was the fact that the book states that “sustainability is not in the Chinese psyche”.
I thought that this was really interesting, as it meant that the Chinese officials
were trying to persuade the minds of the public into thinking that the services
from the different factories and businesses that were polluting the area were
natural and essential, and that what they were actually experiencing(their
illnesses) was just a case of “mass hysteria”. This showed me just how manipulative the
Chinese really are when it comes to dealing with and controlling the minds of their people. This excerpt from the
writing stuck out to me, as haunting reminder, and the image of such pain will
never escape from my mind.
Now, I am really excited to read
the rest of the book.
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