sweetcandies

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Culture Clash

Culture Clashes
Many foreign born Asian American, experience acculturation in American society. Similarly, I grew up in a traditional Vietnamese family and interacted with American cultures at school. Therefore, at home I have to be an obedient daughter and respect elders, but at school I create an identity for myself so I can interact with my classmates and friends. I try to balance my family life with my social life. When I entered high school, I began to have my own perspective of the world and values that was against my parents’ values. I started to have some small agruments with my parents. The biggest fight I had with them was about senior prom.
Like many American girls, I had been eager to go to senior prom since my freshmen year in high school. A month before senior prom, my family was having dinner. Like every dinner, my parent would ask how our day at school was. My little brother told a funny event that happened in his class and my father had a good laugh. Since my father was in a good mood, I decided to ask his permission about senior prom.
I finished chewing my food and straightened myself up, then asked, “Dad, can I go to senior prom? It will be take place at a hotel in San Francisco and it starts at 9 o’clock at night.”
With a neutral face, he responded, “NO, you cannot go.”
I demanded, “Why I cannot go? All my friends are going. Anyway, it is a once in a life time event!”
He put the chopstick down with force and roared, “No means no,” after saying that he left the dining table. I turned to my mother for help.
She gave me the sad eye and said, “Listen to your father. He knows what is best for you.” After that she also left to find my father.
At that moment, my big sister said, “Why do ask when you know answer already? Didn’t I have a big fight about this subject two years ago? You have caused a happy dinner to become an unfinished dinner. Don’t you feel ashamed? Don’t use that tone in front your parents!” I started to cry as she was lecturing me because I felt it was unfair and I realized I just disrespected my father. After her lecture, I went to my room and cried more.
The culture clash event that I have described above usually happens between Asian parents and Asian American children. This happens because of conflict in cultural values. In Vietnam, the family structure plays a very important part in society and means a lot to each individual. Both parents and children know how to maintain their own roles and responsibilities in the family. As George DeVol, a professor at Berkley, said about role in his studies,
“The role of the Japanese father is to be the head of the household. This role is irreproachably legitimate and dominant, demanding unquestioned respect from the child. The mother is expected to be deferent to and supportive of her husband. In playing her role as mother, she sees to it that her children develop a proper attitude toward their father. She demonstrates self control and avoids direct confrontation” (lecture 5, slide 3).
In my big argument with my father, my mother had played her role as supportive wife with her husband. Even though she understood and wanted me to go to prom, she avoided direct confrontation with my father.
Parents in Vietnam, especially the father, have the ultimate authority or power over the children. They act as supporters to assist their children to fit into the social structure. There is always the hierarchy in the family and in the relationship between parents and children. Parents seem somewhat more serious than friendly and are always strict to the children, but are always prepared to give encouragement and advice. When they have to use disciplinary means, they do not hesitate to apply harsh punishment, like striking. In turn, the obligation of children is to obey and respect their parents and elders. I had disrupted this hierarchy when I talked back to my father. I also disrespected him as the authority of the house. As Professor Sue said in lecture 6, Asian parents usually demand children to not do things but never provide a reason because they are afraid of loss of face when the children do not listen or argue back. Thus, my father is afraid loss of face so he left the dining table and did not provide a reason why I cannot goto prom. Furthermore, Asian men are taught to suppress their emotion or else it shows that they are weak or lose their authority. Therefore, my father left the dining table because he did not want to show his emotion. Also, the oldest child has the role of looking after their sibling when parents are not around. Thus, my big sister is obligated to lecture me when Iam being disrespectful to my father.
The so-called freedom in the Western culture and customs has destroyed the Vietnamese family structure very quickly. As soon as families come to the U.S., both parents have to go out looking for jobs to support their family. At the same time, the children spend most of their time at school or with friends. The family has very little time to be together after work and school, in order to discuss family problems or schoolwork. Since the children spend more time outside of the family than with their family, it is natural that they become Americanized quickly, although Vietnamese parents always try their best to prevent children from becoming Americanized and to maintain their culture as much as possible. By the time the children grow up, they are affected by the new lifestyle in this modern society and are influenced by the values of equality, freedom, and independence. These influences of both America culture and Asian culture have caused Asian Americans to become confused about their ethnicity.

Friday, September 12, 2008

reflection

I chose this English class as a requirement of UC Davis and hoped to improve my writing. I always have problems with expressing my thought in writing. I do not expect much from this class, but when we discussed about how we going to write our essay I got really excited. Blog is new to me and I hope that this new media can help me improve my writing. With the experience on Blog this few weeks, I notice that my writing has not improve that much at all. However, I notice that I have been improving in my writing on Blog only. The problems I face writing on blog is that I keep writing anything that come to my mind so the paragraphs are unorganized which can be confusing to the audience.

As for the class, I really like the discussion and the analyzing we did together. Even though I did not participate on the discussion that much, but I learn a lot from listen. Before this class, I never pay attention to the things or signs around me, but now I seem to notice the signs and start analyzing it. Just yesterday, I was watching a movie with my friends called, “Untraceable” I start to analyzing it and see how it relate to the technology topic we discussed in class. From this class, I learn to appreciate thing around me more and see how technology has improve and influence my life and others.

The hardest part of this class was the class project. My group topic is to analyze online dating services since none of us have never experience or have any knowledge of it before so we do not know what we suppose to do. We just talk to people online and come up with ideals base on the key terms we discussed in class. Overall, we did a great presentation as a group and have a lot of fun through the process.

This class is the best English class I ever take and I would recommend this class to everyone.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Propaganda

Base on OED, propaganda is derived from the Latin word propagare which means to propagate. In a neutral sense propaganda means spreading messages, conveying information, and getting word out through some means of communication. The means may or may not be devious, deceptive and underhanded. Any goals sought in spreading the message may be good or bad, but no moral evaluation is conveyed. In a negative connotation, the Wikipedia states that propaganda is the relatively conscious manipulation of other people's thoughts or actions with the respect to beliefs, values, and behaviors which these people regard as controversial by means of symbols such as words, gestures, flags, images, music and more (3). The elements of consciousness and manipulativeness distinguish propaganda from merely causal communication or the free exchange of ideas.

Here, it is important to bear in the two components in the proper assessment of propaganda. One relates to the ends promoted by the messages which can be good or bad. The second relates to the means chosen which can be good or bad independently of the ends sought. The difference between propaganda and education is the propagandist presents a manipulative argument or a single set of symbols while the educator aims to present all side of an issue and leaves mainly to the audience the decision concerning the truth of the claims presented and the values at stake. Propaganda of the deed means the performance of a non-symbolic act that primarily for the symbolic effect it actually will have some audience (2). Political campaign, commercial bargaining and advertising obviously are likely to include both propaganda and propaganda of deed in their business.

The logical design of propaganda and of counterpropaganda appears to have begun in Greek city-states about 500B.C. known as rhetoric (1). Rhetoric is the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion. Teachers such as Plato and Aristotle complied the rules of rhetoric with two aims; to make their own argument more persuasive but also to immunize citizen against the use of logical fallacies and emotional terms by greedy politic, and to point out the possible dangers of following irrational leaders.

The terms propaganda in most of its modern usages is apparently derived from the shortened name of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propaganda of the Faith), a standing committee of cardinals Catholic Church since 1622. Similarly, in communist circle the term propaganda is taken form the book, “Agitation and Propaganda” written by Lenin in 1929. In the book, Lenin distinguished between propaganda and agitation. He defines propaganda as the reason use of arguments from philosophy, history, and science to influence the educated and agitation as the use of emotional slogans, parable and half-truth to influence the uneducated and the unreasonable.

Only small advance in either the highly organized practice or the logical theory of propaganda took place until the industrial revolution made mass production possible. As part of the modern trend toward high profit distribution, studies began to collect data on what the consumers wants, habits and their susceptibility to alternative kinds of salesmanship, advertising, package and publicity. In 1930s, commercial sample survey began to develop rapidly in almost every conceivable aspect to opinion, attitude, belief and behavior involved in consumer motivation has been investigated with respect to sample of the population of most major countries. Such information is stored in computer and they are used as basic for increasing commercials and other propaganda. Nationwide and international advertisement companies spend billions of dollars annually, advertising on radio, television, newspaper, magazine and billboard in countries where it is acceptable.

Military invention and the spread of nationalism and attempts of democracy have caused recent wars and social revolution mobilized the entire national population (1). In World War I and more in World War II, each major contending government made massive outlays of propaganda. This attributed to various propaganda techniques like name calling, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, card stacking, and bandwagon.

In name calling, the propagandists create fear and arouse prejudice by using negative words or bad names to create an unfavorable opinion or hatred against a group, beliefs, ideas or institutions they would have us denounce (5). This method calls for a conclusion without examining the evidence. In glittering generalities, the propagandists employ vague, sweeping statements using language associated with values and beliefs deeply held by the audience without providing supporting information or reason. They appeal to such notions as honor, glory, love of country, desire for peace, freedom, and family values. The words and phrases are vague and suggest different things to different people but the implication is always favorable. It cannot be proved true or false because it really says little or nothing at all.

Transfer is a technique used to carry over the authority and approval of something we respect and revere to something the propagandist would have us accept. Propagandists often employ symbols to stir our emotions and win our approval. In testimonial, propagandists associate a respected person or someone with experience to endorse a product or cause by giving it their stamp of approval hoping that the intended audience will follow their example (6). With plain folks, propagandists convince the audience that the spokesperson is from humble origins, someone they can trust and who has their interests at heart.

With card stacking, the propagandist uses this technique to make the best case possible for his side and the worst for the opposing viewpoint by carefully using only those facts that support his or her side of the argument while attempting to lead the audience into accepting the facts as a conclusion. Propagandists use bandwagon to persuade the audience to follow the crowd. This device creates the impression of widespread support. It reinforces the human desire to be on the winning side. It also plays on feelings of loneliness and isolation.

The poster below is a propaganda in World War II. Since the men all went to the war, women had to do the men jobs like building weapons, airplanes and other types of military equipment. The picture shows a woman with muscular and wearing a blue shirt represents a working class which is portray the opposite of feminine. The color of the poster contains red, white and blue representing our flag color which gives rise to national pride, citizenship and commitment. The words “we can do it!” give women courage and encourage women to take action. This also target women who desire for equal right. From history we saw that women accomplished their right to vote and treated equal as men after World War II. This poster shows the propaganda technique of glittering generalities.

By pointing out these techniques, I hope to create awareness and encourage serious consideration of the influence of contemporary propaganda directed at us through the various media. Since the improvement of technology and globalization, we are bombard with advertisement from different media like the internet, television and magazines. All advertisements used the techniques of propaganda to sell us products. As consumers, we should be aware of these techniques. For example, in this Mac commercial, New Mac Ad: Viruses, Apple company uses the card stacking technique. It puts PC down by saying that PC easily catches virus while Mac does not. When you see an advertisement or commercial take a moment and try to figure out what it is trying to present, who is it targeting, and who benefits.

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