Journal Entry 2

The third topic of the module was The Evolution of the Role of Women in the East and in the West – Stature of the Chinese Woman. This topic, as its name describes, revolves around how the role played by women in the East and West has progressed over the years. In general, the issue of gender inequality in both the East and the West has become less evident, and women are now climbing up the social and economic ladders as compared to the past. Most women in China these days are able to pursue their own career, and are no longer expected to stay at home and be responsible for taking care of the whole household. Furthermore, women are now much more valued, since there is a much higher percentage of males in China compared to the females, and this is largely because of the favouritism showed towards males in the past. Because of the one-child policy, most families only hope to have a male child, and in the case that a female child is born, most of the times the family would choose to abort the child and get a male child instead. Therefore, China now experiences a serious problem whereby there is a 'shortage' of women. Although women no longer face such serious gender stereotypes as compared to the 20th century, there are still some discrimination showed towards women in China. Employers in China are unwilling to hire married women with children, as they fear that these women are unable to focus completely during working hours, thus reducing efficiency and productivity. In the education scene, females have to score higher than their male counterparts in order to enter the same university courses too. Thus, it can be seen that although there are progressive signs of gender equality in China, there is still much room for improvement.

In the West, there is hardly any or no gender discrimination. Women in the West are viewed as equal as males, and they receive equal job opportunities and education rights. In fact, the percentage of female graduates in the West is even higher than the percentage of male graduates in universities. There are also  quite a few cases whereby the father is in charge of taking care of the household, and staying at home to take care of the children, whereas the mother is the sole breadwinner and responsible for earning money and providing for the family. This emphasises that women are seen to be no less capable than males in the West, as they also have the freedom to pursue their careers while their husbands stay at home to take care of the household.

In Singapore, I feel that gender discrimination can rarely be seen. I feel that both men and women have equal opportunities to achieve what they want, as long as they are willing to work hard. We can see that there are almost equal number of working women and men. In schools, both females and males are also given equal opportunities  to excel, and the criteria required to enter local universities does not vary for females and males. However, in certain public sectors, there are bound to be more women than men. One such example would be the teaching profession, whereby there is a larger percentage of female teachers than male teachers. I think that this is because most of the public view females to be more gentle with children, and as such are able to teach them better.

In conclusion, I feel that although we are taking big strides towards the ultimate goal of gender equality, we can never achieve gender equality as a whole. 

Journal Entry 1

This semester, we are taking Cultural Differentiation as the elective for IHE. I really enjoyed the course last year as I learnt a lot of the differences in cultures between the Chinese and Western societies. I even learnt about how top companies in the U.S such as Apple and Google functioned, in comparison to the top PC company in China, Lenovo. As such, I really anticipated the course this year. The main focus of the course this semester was  more on the roles which youths play in America and China, as compared to last year where the main focus seemed to be a broader comparison between the similarities and differences in the cultures of China and America.

The first topic for this module which we analysed was China's Me Generation & the American Presidential Election of 2008. The set of articles allowed us to learn more about China's "Me Generation" and America's "Millennial Generation", and the potential impacts which the youths may cause towards the future developments and progress of their respective countries.

This lesson showcased the youths in both China as self-centred, indifferent and ignorant towards political issues in their countries. However, their American counterparts during the American Presidential Election of 2008 tend to be more involved and concerned in politics, and they are not hesitant to voice out their opinions and views towards important economic and foreign affairs. This certainly has somewhat to do with their respective cultural up-bringing in their countries. In China, the China Communist Party (CCP) has always been in charge of the country, and as such no matter what the youth's might feel towards their country's politics, they are not given a say in the politics, thus leading them to become uninvolved and oblivious to the political situations in their country. However, unlike China, the US promotes the youths to play an active role and be more aware about politics. The youths are encouraged to voice out their views and concerns, and the government would consult public opinions before implementing policies in the country.

Compared to the youths in China and America, I feel that they youths in Singapore skew more towards the youths in China. Most youths do not show any interest in politics and do not bother to be involved in politics. This can be seen from General Elections held in 2006 and 2011. Comparing both years, the void votes increased by a significant amount from  26,727 in 2006 to 44,737 in 2011. The fact that the number of void votes has almost doubled implies that youths are politically uninvolved, and they cannot be bothered to even make a decision which would directly impact the country and their well-being. Thus, I feel that it is important for the government to get youths in Singapore to become more politically educated, or this situation might only worsen in our future generations.

Reflective Journal Entry 1

At the end of Sec 3 term 2, the students in the BSP programme were given a choice to choose between Cultural Differentiation Elective (CDE) and AACS. Although I had a hard time making a decision, I finally settled on CDE and I never regretted my choice.

On the first lesson, we did a case study on "The Google Way". The lesson was mainly about how Google functions and how they treat their workers. The lesson focused on the Google's unique way of giving workers lots of freedom so as to allow them to be as creative as possible, and how this unique way has benefited the company in helping to recruit talents and encourage the talents to remain faithful and loyal to Google and remain at the company for a long period. I have learnt that how employers treat their workers actually makes a very big difference, and by showing employees that the company trusts and believes them, and give employess more time to interact with one another, employers will be able to think more creatively and be more innovative, and also more productive. Mr. Karplus also showed us a video about the Google Life, and I felt that the video was really meaningful and helpful. From the video, I further understood how things work at Google from not only the perspective of the company, but also from the opinions of the workers there.

Comparing Google's Way with Apple's, I personally feel that if I were a worker, I would be much more attracted to Google than Apple. Google allows freedom and interaction between workers of all sections, thus allowing workers to share their ideas with one another. As the saying goes ' two brains are better than one' . Discussion between workers will result in more and better ideas coming up, thus resulting in greater inventions. However at Apple, workers are very 'secretive'. People from different sections do not brainstorm and share their ideas or the product they are developing with people from the other sections. Life at Google would certainly be more interesting and less stressful than life at Apple. After the first lesson, we were all given an assignment to complete a worksheet on the Google Way.

On the second lesson, we spent the time discussing our answers on the worksheet given to complete, and I feel that this is a fun and meaningful exercise as we were able to get many positive and negative views on how others felt about the Google Way. At the end of the lesson, I felt that while we might see things from one perspective, others might not have the same perspective. However, this does not mean that we are always right and others are wrong. There are actually many things which others say that are also true and we have yet to consider. Only if we can accept others' views on the issue, will we then be able to gain knowledge.

The third lesson was held at the computer lab. We did a survey on cultural intelligence, and I felt that it was quite challenging for me as I have not really questioned my cultural intelligence before. We also chose the topic of our presentation which would be graded for the term.

I missed the rest of the lessons until today, because I was in China for competition. However, I really enjoyed the previous lessons and I look forward to the upcoming lessons.