Discussion Class

Discussion Class Topics

- Friday the 20th of July -

- Chinanization -

Look at the tags on your clothes, the information on the side of your cooking utensils, the sticker on the bottom of that ornament in your house.

How many things around you say "Made in China"?

How many of those things were made by a Chinese company?

How many of those things do you NEED in your life?

This is the concept of Chinanization, you can find that China slips it's way into everyone's life in a very covert kind of way.

When we use the term Americanization, you can think of it like American culture barging it's way into other countries, maybe even taking over cultural norms in some cases. But this is very obvious and easy to see, think of how many American fast food restaurants there are in Japan.

Chinanization is a new term that is going to be used to describe how China, in a kind of under-the-radar manner, is also overtaking thew way that we used to live our lives by offering cheap, fair-quality products that we come to rely on.

Do you think there's too much "Made in China" in our lives?

Do you think we should be looking towards more local produced goods?

Why do you think we don't care as much about this, as we do about Americanization?

Let's talk about that.

- Sunday the 22nd of July -

- Do people (kids) need to learn everything that we used to learn? -

All of us have to learn the basics: basic math, basic history, basic science, basic language skills, basic everything.

But, like I mentioned in class, one thing my teacher used to tell me in math class was: "You won't have a calculator with you where-ever you go" but now, in the modern day and age, look at us, we all have smartphones, smart tablet PCs and all kinds of devices that offer us a calculator, as well as all kinds of information at the press of a button.

Do we need to teach all this kind of stuff anymore? Why or Why not?

Do you think that we could just teach kids how to use the internet safely and they'd be able to do as much as we can, as long as they can access their smartphones?

When I was a kid, I had to learn how to change a tire on a car, as well as change the oil in a car. Now, you could look up a video on Youtube to learn how to do that, and exactly when you need to know it (when you get a puncture or need to change your oil).

Is it better to learn it when you need it using the technology we have, or learn it long before you need it?

Let's talk about that.

- Tuesday the 17th of July -

- Cults -

So, you probably all know about a really infamous cult from Japan that has recently come up in the news again recently.

Aum Shinrikyo was a cult, and in general, just like Aum, cults are bad.

Some cults masquerade as religions.

Some cults offer help-seminars.

Some cults believe they can talk to aliens or ghosts.

But in the end, most cults have a leader who controls everyone, while all the members of the cult follow the leader.

Some members of cults are very intelligent, people with PhD's, people with high paying very important jobs.

But most of the members of cults tend to either have had some kind of trouble in their lives, some kind of disconnection from society, or some kind of vulnerability that led them to joining the cult. You might be able to think of it as a kind of mind control.

What do you think leads people to follow cults?

Do you think that the leaders of cults realize that they are leading a cult?

What currently active cults do you know of in the modern day and age?

There's a religion known as "Scientology" which is regarded as a cult, check out some information about this religion and tell us what you think about it.

Let's talk about that.