Reflect on the societal problems faced by China and America. (Hint: you must definitely explain your responses to these societal problems. How can they be resolved? Who should be responsible for resolving these issues?)
I feel that the pressing societal problem China currently faces is the self-centred mentality which most of their citizens possess. This is because this mentality would lead to other societal problems such as people not having compassion for one another. For example, not long ago, a Chinese toddler, Wang Yue, was run down by two vehicles, with nobody lending a helping hand to her, revealing the self-centred mentality of the Chinese who refused to help as they are afraid of getting implicated.
Upon reflecting, I feel that this problem may have been caused primarily by the competitive environment in China. China has the world’s largest population of 1.3 billion. With such a huge population, there is definitely limited schools and work for the people. This may have led to the highly competitive environment in China, where students compete with one another to get into top schools while adults fight for jobs. In such a competitive environment, everyone is everyone’s competitor and there is definitely no reason for a person to help their competitor who may overtake them and eliminate them from the “competition” any time. Being exposed to such an environment for a long period of time, the citizens are bound to turn self-centred.
Having understood this societal problem China faces, I am actually deterred to live in China as it would be extremely scary to see people only looking out for their own benefits and totally not care about the others. This is definitely not the life I would like to lead as I prefer an environment where people look out for each other’s benefits and aims to help each other so that everyone improves together, instead of having the mentality that if you help others, you may get overtaken.
I feel that everyone should play a part in resolving this problem; with the government thinking of ways to resolve the issue (possibly making amendments to the education system), while the citizens consciously reminding themselves of the importance of social harmony and also cooperating with the measures taken by the government.
America, which is on the other side of the world, also faces its own set of societal problems, with the one which I feel is most interesting being teenage violence in the aspect of school shootings in America. The reason why I find it interesting is because this problem seems to be caused by the Constitution which allows freedom for every individual. The fact that the teenagers in America are allowed to carry a gun, threatens the safety of the people around these teenagers who have yet to mature.
Though the true purpose of the firearms was to allow the citizens to protect themselves in times of danger, it seems that these firearms are being misused in the hands of some teenagers. In my opinion, the American government should not allow teenagers to carry them as the teenagers may not be mature enough to use them in the correct manner. Although this may be seen as infringing the rights of the teenagers in America, I feel that the American government should still go ahead with this suggestion as it would ensure more social order in the country.
Having understood this societal problem in America, I am also deterred to live in America because I would feel very insecure in the country as there is a possibility that I will be shot without even knowing why I was shot.
I feel that the parents and the school should be responsible for resolving this societal problem. The unacceptable behaviour of the teenagers in the society may have happened when they do not even know that they are wrong or are just acting on impulse. Therefore, it was important for the parents and the school to teach them the correct way of handling things and also teach them a set of correct moral values so as to reduce the happening of such incidents.
In my opinion, it is very unlikely that the American government will take away this aspect of
rights which the teenagers are entitled to, as this is said to be their country’s pride.
Therefore, to conclude, I feel that both America’s and China’s societal problems can possibly be tackled by implementing Confucius studies into the curriculum of the students which emphasises on social harmony and helping those in need. Social harmony promotes peaceful interaction among human dynamics and hopefully, this can lessen the happenings of teenage violence (school shooting) in America as the teenagers would be more concerned about the welfare of the people around them after the Confucius teachings are stressed in the country. Learning to care for those in need can encourage the Chinese to look beyond their own needs and recognise there are others who require help, thus alleviating the problem of self-centredness in China.
Word Count: 800
