Advertisement
Published: November 30th 2007
Edit Blog Post
My Wonderful Abode
Just giving you guys a better perspective on my homely confines. Well it seems to me that many of my friends and family are trying to live
vicariously through me i.e., my experiences that are represented through my narratives and pictures, and I personally don't mind. The only thing I can offer my audience is my opinion, which is conveyed through my personal perspectives and observations. In many ways, I can't help but feel that this experience is about shedding our former roles, the roles we have been accustomed to play in our former cultures, and outfitting ourselves with new identities. That is not to say that our previous roles are entirely diminished through an experience like this, rather, it’s our former roles that give way to our new identities. The composition of our new identities are highly rooted in our previous roles, however, it's the interaction of the former roles with the new environment that gives birth to our new identities.
So there has been quite a good deal of events that have transpired over the past few weeks. Again, I acknowledge that I haven’t been as studious with my blog, but I’m trying to improve on that aspect (I’m trying to turn over a new leaf, so give me
A Window into My Life
Okay, not really, but if you compare and contrast this photo with a photo of my bedroom in an earlier blog, you would've notice that I moved somethings around. How astute you guys are! a break). On another note, I gave another lecture last Wednesday to about 100 or so students. I was actually surprised at the amount of students from my Oral English and Western Culture sections that showed up; they were primarily the ones who contributed to the interesting discourse by asking thoughtful questions. The topic I chose for my lecture was entitled “Intellectual Property Rights and Plagiarism: The Problem of Plagiarism in Academic Institutions. To preface this narrative, I must say that given the time constraints, I wasn’t able to talk a good deal about intellectual property rights, i.e., the current issues surrounding copyright infringements. In particular, this has been a prevalent problem for Chinese businesses, and to some extent, the Chinese government, because of their lack of adherence to intellectual property rights. Upon been ascended into the WTO back in December of 2001, China formerly agreed to follow the same global rules, governing rules, exports, and foreign investments as the other international countries who comprise this outfit. Essentially, this meant that China was agreeing, in principle, to make its own competitive playing field as level as the rest of the world, and the controversies surrounding China’s lack of respect of
Oral English 3-3
A group of students from the left side of the room. intellectual property rights is an ongoing battle that has many economic and political implications. To better to illustrate this issue, here are two interesting articles I have found that talk about the current problem (on a side night, this might make for a good lecture topic next semester):
http://www.reuters.com/article/mediaNews/idUSL2574565820070925
http://www.bizasia.com/intellectual_property_/drasw/eu_asks_china_curb_copyright.htm
Okay, I know that was quite a long preface, but it was quite necessary to give you all that information. With that being said, I’m not going to bore you with the details of the lecture, rather talk about the pertinent issues that arose when researching and delivering this speech. As I said earlier, the nature of the lecture was about plagiarism in academic institutions and how it is becoming a pervasive problem in the U.S. and in China. Basically, I talked about some interesting statistics that were taken from U.S. surveys, which demonstrate how much plagiarism/cheating is still a common problem in academic institutions. For example, 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once (The Center of Academic Integrity). Another example, 90% of students believe that students that cheat are never caught or have not been appropriately disciplined (US News and World Report). These statistics
Oral English 3-3
A group of students from the right side of the room (take note of the lack of guys in the class). are quite alarming because of certain social factors; students still cheat and/or plagiarize even though it has been reinforced to not cheat at an early age. Moreover, these statistics are exceptionally telling; even though I hail from a country that has a culture that emphasizes individualism, cheating/plagiarism is still problematic in academic institutions. The underlying point of the lecture was to drive home the ethical implications there are with plagiarism. One of the most significant points I made to my audience was the importance of intellectual property and the importance of giving credit when credit is due. Additionally I posed the question this question to the audience: If the cultural attitude deems it as common practice (cheating/plagiarism). then is it ok/justified? If everyone else is doing, then why can’t I? This is the biggest problem I have observed between China and the U.S.; there are different cultural attitudes and norms about the issue of cheating and plagiarism. One culture is deeply rooted in collectivism, and another in individualism, however, plagiarism still remains a prevalent problem in academia in each country.
Okay, that’s all for now folks. Oh yeah, I have plenty of pictures for you to ogle at,
so enjoy!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.1s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0487s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sage
non-member comment
Looks like you're having a blast man!
Keep up the updates! The more frequent the better! Good stuff.