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.