Hong Kong: Occupy Central

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Here are three main links about Hong Kong’s Occupy Central.

FinanceAsia

TheAtlantic

RTHK Hong Kong Radio Station

Occupy Central can be recognised as a civil disobedience movement from China’s offer of limited democracy. It started with China’s offer to let them chose three representatives, then Hong Kong could chose from those three as their chief executive. Hong Kong disagreed to that offer, and protests started to rise, demanding democracy. At one point, one organisation threatened to block the main finance roads, such as Central, Admiralty or Causeway Bay. From peer pressure, they started early on September 28, when they meant to start on the first of October. Main roads in places of finance were blocked off by protesters, and the police started to chase them out for those who worked in these places. Protesters refused to budge, so the police used tear gas on the crowd. This caused uprising and stirred anger within the protesters, and ever since, they’ve been constantly causing traffic problems.

Many people, including me, noticed that most of Occupy Central’s protesters are students or people with low economic status. This means that most of the older generation people agreed to China’s offer. I personally think that most protesters are youngsters because the current world has been heavily influenced by America’s viewpoints. Most of the younger generation think that America is like the best country in the world, with nice human rights and democracy. I would say they’re only looking at one side of the story. They’ve never seen through other countries’ perspectives, like China or Russia. When Hong Kong students see that China wants to limit their freedom of democracy, they take on America’s sayings of democracy and start chaos within the city. What most protesters didn’t see is what happened to countries who fought with themselves about democracy. Below is a picture that is drawn about what happened to these countries.America's Democracy

Even though I know fairly well about Occupy Central, I’m still confused about a few things. First of all, if Hong Kong really does fall apart from this protest, and they plunge into war, will China react? I understand that currently China isn’t doing anything about this protest, and I understand why. But if one of their most economically trading cities have self destructed, then will they do anything? Will they stop the fight by taking control over Hong Kong? Or will they leave the city to its own battle? Another question I have is how does Occupy Central affect the economy of Hong Kong? I know that tourism has rapidly dropped ever since the movement started, but does it affect the trading/insurance companies? First, I’m going to try and ask my parents about these questions, see if they know. If they don’t, then maybe researching online would help. A final way is to just read the local newspapers.

Relating to the picture above, here’s a link including illustrations of opinions from a protester’s perspective about the Umbrella Revolution.

South China Morning Post

Unit 1: Reflection

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Unit 1: Maps and Geography

The first unit of social studies was titled “Maps and Geography”, so expected, we learned a lot about maps and geography. Our unit started off with one of the main questions: In ten years time, will people still be using paper maps? Debates were risen about this question, which led us to the next part. We questioned ourselves about what maps include. From that, the KTW (Know, Think, Why) Chart was born. In this chart, we listed what we know about maps, what we think we know, and why. This chart helped us a lot through the unit. As homework, we were assigned to complete two packets from the textbook. Personally, I think these packets really challenged what you learned from class, helping us improve on the test. Then we looked at what makes a good, interesting, informational map. One website that showed us lots of interesting maps was a website called 40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World. The picture below was taken from the website.

Map of Europe Showing Literal Chinese Translations for Country Names

 

That was one of the most enjoyable parts of this unit. I really loved how enjoyable our teacher made this class really interesting, fun and engaging. I really liked how even though the assignments or homework might take some time, the class is unique and enjoyable. I also really like how there’s a lot of systems, like the China Chair, the Current Events Slips, the Elysium Field thing, and the Prize Box. Some may be bad, like the $2 box, where if you lose something you need to pay in order to get it back. The money goes to the charity.

 

Another cool system that our teacher made was the Badge Award, given out after each unit. For this unit, there are four badges: the Neil Armstrong badge, or exceeding above standards. Bartolome De Las Casas Badge is like meeting expectations, with three different tiers like Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Ferdinand Magellan Badge, which is like approaching standards, also separated with Gold, Silver and Bronze. And the Marco Polo Badge, which represents the developing badge. I was given the Bartolome De Las Casas Gold badge. I agree with the badge I was given, because I hadn’t expect such a low badge, but I also think I don’t deserve the Neil Armstrong badge. From the grades from the assessments and the work habits, I think the Bartolome De Las Casas badge was the most fit for me.

 

While studying for a test, I found that taking notes on all the main points of the textbook just didn’t work. It was tedious work, and sometimes I didn’t get what the main point was. So instead, for the summative, I studied by reading the two chapters and doing the reading challenge. I especially like studying with the reading challenge because it questions you like the actual test. Similar to last year, I found that using the reading challenge and reading through the chapters again can be really useful when studying for a test.

 

For Unit 2: Challenges of a Growing Population, I want to set a goal to try to determine if China’s population is decreasing at all. I also want to challenge myself to find the reason why China’s population topped the highest in the entire world.