Crackdown in 1989

My first thoughts after watching the video about the Tiananmen Square crackdown was that the government seemed to be power-hungry and autocratic. I thought that no good government would ever carry out a "massacre" so large and so publicly of their own people. After i read Lee Kuan Yew's response to the Tiananmen Square incident, i still believe that the massacres were unwarranted. But my view has changed slightly; although arguably inhumane, the Tiananmen square crackdown may have been a necessary move by the government to maintain long standing order and peace. So i believe that the Tiananmen Square crackdown was necessary for the continuation of China, but it was carried out in such a way where unnecessary lives may have been lost.

I can't comment on the Financial Times article because the dumb news websites like that and the New York Times(i used to read the occasional article) created pay-walls... so basically i'd have to pay to read articles -_-

To Live... Pt. 2

This section of the movie started nearing the end period of the great leap forward. The entire village is shown to be making steel as a community and when they reach their quota they parade the steel through their commune. The steel is of very bad quality but the peasants don't know any better, they then celebrate by eating lots and lots of food. The irony is that they did not actually have that much food to spare, but they thought they did because of inflated records of food. They were basically eating their reserves for the next year. This caused the great famine that happened after the Great Leap Forward failed. At this point in the movie the son also dies because his father sends him to smelt steel even though he has been worked to exhaustion. His father did not want their family to be punished for being "politically backward," which was a real fear at the time.

The movie then goes into the Cultural Revolution and you see everyone putting up posters of Mao everywhere. There is also much propaganda speech going around. The girl(forgot her name)'s suitor in the movie is also said to be the leader of the Red Guards in the area and you can see that he has a lot of power and influence. They end up painting propaganda images of Mao all over the main characters family home. This exemplified the support of Mao that was present during then 1960's. The movie so far has covered from the original Civil War between communists and capitalists, all the way up to the Cultural Revolution of the 60's.

To Live...

The movie "To Live" showed the life of an average Chinese man during the early/mid 1900's. The movie showed many examples of what it was like to live under Mao in the 50's for an average man. In  the movie you see a lot of pressure to be an average man, as in the communes they would root out landlords and take their land and execute them. This is shown in the movie when the protagonist quickly runs home to his wife to confirm their social status as average workers after he hears a landowner being shot. Another thing that we saw in the movie that showed history is the backyard steel campaign. This was when Mao wanted everyone to basically make steel in their backyards and everyone had to contribute. In the movie the main character is shown giving his spare metal to the commune so that they can make it into steel bullets. One more thing that the movie portrayed quite well is the communal canteens that they had in the time period. During this time the Communist Party wanted to free up as much labor as possible so they had communal canteens to reduce the amount of people that needed to cook. Everyone ate in one place at one time. This movie is not only entertaining, but also gives quite a good history lesson in itself. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for some entertainment while learning something new.

The Difference in China With and Without Westerners (Ming and Qing Project)

The Red Turban Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion

Stopping ZhengHe's Voyages and stopping Opium Trade