In chapter 11, the author said Baba loved the idea of America. Baba considered American, Britain and Israel as the only three true men in the world and others "like gossiping old women". Baba liked people who are strong and take actions instead of wringing the hand. He was excited with the strong policy against Soviet Union due to the Soviet's invasion and massacre of Afghanistan such as the rejection to enter the Olympic Games held in Moscow. Moreover, Baba had a worship of Reagan and became the only Republican in his building because of the Reagan's claiming the Soviet as "the Evil Empire."
However, there were many things Baba did not like in America: the smog, the traffic noise, the pollen, the fruit and the water. Seen from pp127-128, a quarrel happened between Baba and a fruit grocer because the latter wanted to check the license of Baba, who had bought fruit for two years from him. This made Baba angry and thought he was doubted as a thief. This ordinary procedure of seeing the license make Baba unsatisfactory with the country where he thought everyone does not trust others.
As an international the idea of America was not quite similar to the reality, the education style, for example. As I've learnt in Hong Kong for one year and know that the Hong Kong has learnt and used a lot from the western college education style, so I thought the style here should be similar, but the reality was quite different. One is the lecture notes, in Hong Kong, all lecture notes which are clear and detail will be published on the website and one did not came to the class can know what the professor haven talked about but here you can find no lecture notes on the website but have to take notes for yourself in class. The other is general education courses, in Hong Kong, one just to meet the credit needs for graduation of this kind of course, If you are interested in some subject, you can take all classes of the same subject. However, here you have to take all kinds of LER courses. For me, arts do not make much sense, but I've to choose a course from this kind though I think the course is really uninteresting.
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I pretty agree with you, some subjects are so difficult for Chinese to study, maybe after some period, we could study well when we have a good command of English.
ReplyDeleteI just can't agree with you. If you want to do something in your life I think you need to know a little about everything. So about LER courses I think that works.
ReplyDeleteInteresting differences in the education system. Yes, in the U.S. you will find that you need to have at least some knowledge of each subject. It might not be to your liking, but if you try to make the best of it, you might find some good in it!
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