September 20

Field trip

During 13th to 16th September, Grade 9 and Grade10 of our school had a Explore China school trip to Aba ,Wen Chuan and Hei Shui. We went to the Qiang village and Monastery to experience the culture, we went to the top of the glacier mountain to challenge ourselves.

Day1

We departed from school at 8:30. On the way to Wen Chuan, everyone is excited and looking forward to the following trip. As the bus got closer to Wen Chuan, mountains began to appear and the sky became blue gradually.IMG_1520

Our first destination is Yingxiu Earthquake Museum. There was a big earthquake happened in Yingxiu on 12th May 2008. Although I was only 8 years old at that time, I can still remember it clearly. When the earthquake happened , our class was having an English drama rehearsal in the gym, I have never experienced earthquake before, so when it happened, I was thinking maybe there is someone using electric drill under the ground, no one realized what was happening for a few seconds, suddenly, our teacher yelled “Earthquake! Run!” I was excited all of the sudden for no reason. After we ran to the playground, someone in my class began to cry, I began to find it’s serious, it’s not a game. I began to think about maybe I would not see my mom and dad again, I began to cry too, just in a few minutes, most students in my class were crying. But to my surprise, my dad and mom came to pick me up after 30minutes, I hugged them and cried. For the first time in my life, I found how lucky I was to be with family. Sometimes when I still have something, I think everything is common and I deserve it, but when I realize I may lose it, I begin to find how valuable it is. So when I was in the Earthquake Museum, I could still feel the atmosphere of the Earthquake, though the Earthquake destroyed people’s home and family, they were still strong and thankful to all the people who helped them. Earthquake can ruin people’s house , but cannot ruin people’s spirit.

Our second destination is Taoping Qiang Village, that is a community for Qiang people . When I arrived at the guesthouse, the room made me a little bit disappointed, insects are everywhere, on the celling, in the bed, I was thinking I couldn’t sleep tonight. But after meeting the host, everything became acceptable, the host was a nice and kind person, her smile and her words swept all the negative things I was thinking about before. After settling in the guesthouse, we went to a local home to discovered the underground waterways. The house we went to has more than 1000 years’ history, it has six floors, during more than 1000 years, it’s a miracle that it wasn’t destroyed by any natural disaster. The host of this house Yang told us the reason of that, this house was made by wood, wood is flexible, when the earthquake happened, wood just moved its position, it’s hard to destroy wood. But it’s not the most amazing thing of this house, the most fantastic thing of this house is its underground water net. The underground water net just like an underground maze, it goes every house in this village, but it is all from Yang’s house, it can not only provide people with water, it’s also for fire control. Because of the underground water, the temperature there in summer is not hot, in winter is not cold.IMG_1551IMG_1540

Day2

On the second day we went to a Monastery and experienced the special culture of Buddhism. The Monastery is on the top of the mountain, on the way there we passed some villages, the guide told us that before 2008, there was no road down to the town, so the children in these villages need to walk down to school on the little alley everyday. After listening to the story, I think we have such a good condition to study compare with them, all we should to is value it, use it well rather than waste it.

The Monastery we visited is very luxuriant, different colors and textures mix together, every decoration is a way for Buddhists to show their admire and faith to Buddha. There are many different Buddha, the purpose of making Buddha is showing different aspects of human beings, which can explain why some Buddha seem kind but others seem evil, because everyone has kind and evil aspect. The monks in Monastery prey everyday, they hope people can live happy life, the world can be peaceful. But it’s not an easy thing to be the best monk, they need to study and work hard everyday and be away from social life in order to be pure. The way to show respect to Buddha is very interesting, first we put our hands in front of head which means our mind, second we put our hands in front of our mouth which means our speech, at last we put our hands in front of our heart which means our body. It means you give your mind, speech and body to Buddha. After knowing further about Buddhism, when I looked at the Monastery again, it became not just luxuriant, but full of bless and faith behind the magnificent appearance.IMG_1611 IMG_1613 IMG_1617

After visiting Monastery, we had traditional Tibetan food for dinner. It was special and delicious.

Day3

The third day was the most exciting day for me. We went to the Glacier Park and stand on the top of the mountain. It’s the first time in my life to be on such a high altitude. The whole Glacier park is just like a painting. When I stand still in front of such a scenery, I felt like I was in the picture of a poem, green water reflect green mountain, the water is so still that it’s just like a mirror, on the foot of the mountain there is a small village, yaks and horses are eating on the grass. People there are happy all the time, they smile all the time, they are satisfied by the little things in their life. Maybe sometimes living in such a little village won’t be worse than living in the city.

After the bus sent us to the height of 3500 meters, we need to take cable car to the top of the mountain. When we were in the cable car, at first I could still see many green mountains, as we went up higher and higher, green plants started to be fewer and fewer. At last, when we were at the top of the mountain, there was no even one plant there, everything were rocks. But it is a wonderful thing to see all the mountains that used to be much higher than you now all below you, it’s like you are stand on the top of the whole world. The same thing happens in life, if you want to be top, you must be prepared to bear loneliness and you need to deal with many problems. But when you overcome these difficulties and success, then when you look backward, nothing is a big deal. Life is the process to climb the mountains one by one, there may be many difficulties on the way up, you may cry, you may want to give up, but when you review all the thing you have done, whether it is sad or happy, you will smile to them finally.

IMG_0010 IMG_0008Another thing needs to be mentioned is how my body reacted when I was being so high up. Since it’s the first time to be so high, I didn’t think my body will feel bad before I went up. But when I was at the top of the mountain, my heart beat so fast and my head was so dizzy when I walked around. For the first time I need oxygen so much and for the first time I feel lucky to live in flatland.

In the evening , we walked to the public square to join traditional dance, it was beautiful but hard to learn. Anyway it is always exciting for me to learn new things. As we danced, there were many kids running and laughing, maybe their condition is worse than the kids in the city, but they are happier, kids in the city have lots of homework to do and have extra classes even in the primary school, it has been a long time since they can run and laugh without pressure. So sometimes it is hard to judge whether it’s a good thing to be in the city or not.

Day4

On the way home…

 

It’s a wonderful trip and I have learned a lot. I am looking forward to the next time…

The End

(All the photos were taken by myself)

 

September 6

Put Power and Leadership Together

Talking about leadership. I’ve read a lot about Winston Churchill this week. He is a very good example of leader. He is not perfect all the time ,he made some big mistakes, but he worth being called a great leader in human history. Churchill is the only person Hitler is afraid of, he is more than a leader.

We saw a TED during language arts class about leadership. Being a leader is just like being a parent. It’s a choice rather than a rank. What will you done for your people is what you will get from your people. It’s a process of trust and cooperation. As a leader, once you make your people feel safe and feel they belong to this unity, the natural reaction of them is trust you and cooperate with you. This is exactly what Churchill did . He always brought hope and confidence of victory to people. In the war, in some way, spirit is more important than weapons. During the war, people were afraid and anxious, Churchill made them feel safe, let them see light from the dark, so people trust him cooperated with him. That brought victory of Britain.

I’ve already talked a lot about power. Now let’s put power and leadership together, I have some questions needed to be explored further. Below are my primary thoughts. Firstly, can power of a group influence the leader of the group? In The Wave, the answer is yes. The history teacher who start The Wave is regarded the leader of The Wave, he is admired and followed. He knows it should be stopped , but he didn’t for a long time. The reason is he enjoyed the feeling of being admired and being regarded as the authority of the group. Through this thing, the power and influence of the group misleads the leader to make a wrong decision even if he has ability to make a right one. In a group like that , it’s hard for anyone to insist his or her own opinion. Secondly, how can power and leadership mix up and produce the best result? It’s hard to say whether power is good or bad. Leadership itself is a form of power, but it’s different from power. A person who has power may not be a leader, but a person without power can be a leader. As that TED said , some people at the top of the organization have authorities, but they are not leaders , people don’t follow them, though someone at the bottom of a organization don’t have authorities, they are leaders , people are willing to follow them. That leads to my third question, if a person has power, will he or she be a leader? Or must a leader has power? During World War 2 In Japan and Germany , many soldiers were sent to fight, they have to follow , not because they want to, they are afraid of the power of their “leader”. After the war ended , many soldiers put away their weapons immediately . Those people who made them to fight can not be called leaders, they only have power.

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August 30

Power of groups

After exploring power and leadership for two weeks, I am still not sure about research question, but things are developing.

This week, I am thinking about power of groups. It sounds so far from our daily life , but actually It happens everyday for everyone. It’s not that big , some tiny things like obey the traffic rule, wearing fashion clothes etc. are related to power of groups. We are influenced by it everyday, but we have never thought about it. Why we follow? There are two kinds of reasons to explain this question, we conform because of our lack of knowledge , also because we want to be liked by the group or we want to be the same as others , we don’t want to be so different. It is not always a bad thing, it also can be good. The laws of society need people to follow.

There are many historical event about power of groups and following. There is a political revolution called  the Cultural Revolution took place in China from 1966 to 1976 . It lasted for 10 years and it made China a total mess. The original purpose of it was making communist party pure and prevent capitalism taking over China again . But as time went by, it became much more complicated. People began to use power to do things for their own benefit, they used this chance to revenge their enemies. In that revolution, people must follow, people must say a saying of chairman Mao before talking to prove you are for for Mao. If you are against communist party and Mao, you will be followed and you don’t even know what will happen to you and your family. Many people didn’t want to take part in that revolution at first, but they joined it at last because of the pressure of group, they didn’t want people say they are not faithful to the communist party. In that situation, people lose their ability to think and to judge. All they think is how to make themselves safe and followed what others are doing. The world will become terrible if people don’t have ability to judge whether what they are doing is right or not. The difference between animals and human beings is humans have ability to judge , if we lose that ability ,we become animals. There is a evil living in everyone’s mind. Let’s imagine if we can not control them any more, what will happen? The same things happened in Lord of the Flies, when the evil in those kids’ mind were released, they can not be called kids anymore, they became beast.

In World War 2, people who were using their guns to kill people kill lives might not even think about what are they doing and why . They may just want to be praised by their leaders and make their career better .So they just did it. Many soldiers who took part in the war are sorry about what they have done before when they look back. It proves how strong the power of group is. When they were in the group, they don’t have ability to realize the truth or even though they know it, they just let it go because of the pressure of the group. But when they get out of the group, when they calm down to think about all the things, they regret.

All these thing tell us that before we do anything, think twice carefully. Make sure what you are going to do is right rather than just follow without thinking.Don’t think history will not repeat, there are many possibilities for it to repeat.What we need to do is try our best to prevent those mistakes by looking through and learning lessons from history.

August 23

Is the strength through discipline good or not?

Last week when I finished reading The wave. A question came to my mind. I believe everyone who have ever read this book will have the same type of thinking . Is the strength through discipline good or not? Or what will happen if one person has power? What if a group of people have power without a good leader ?

It also tells me how easily can people lose their mind under the pressure of a group. It makes me kind of understand how did Nazi form and why they did so many horrible things but no one in Germany want to stop them or dare to stop them, and everyone pretended not to see or hear. The process of forming of both The wave and Nazi are kind of the same.

Let’s talk about The wave first, it all begins from a history class experiment. At first it seems to be a good thing, everyone is well-behaved. Not only in history class, but also in other classes in school. The students in that class become crazy about The wave . They persuade other students to join The wave. In a short time , a class of students become a grade of students then become almost a school of students in just a few days. Then some unexpected thing happened. The member of The wave don’t allow the non-member of it to see the football game. Some of them revenge the non-member if they refuse to join The wave. The symbol of The wave is everywhere in school. They hold assembly for the member of The wave. Everything loses control. No one dare to say bad things about The wave.

The same thing happened in Nazi Germany. No one dare to say no in that situation. It seems that everyone is equal in an organization. But in some way, it means you don’t have your own mind, you lose your ability to think, think whether everything is right or wrong. You just follow, do the same thing as others. The world will become horrible when no one has their own mind, when people don’t even know who are they following and why.

And it’s also about power, if one person has power, there may be someone who dare to question or say no. But if a group people have power, it becomes much more stronger. No one dare to say no then, because now you are under the pressure of a whole group. When people have power at first, they will value it and use it well. When they get used to having power , they begin to use it for personal benefit. Almost everyone will do it. Greedy is a part of humanity. Now imagine if a group of people all have the same power, because they are equal in an organization. They all use power to get their own benefit. What will happen? It might be the reason why Nazi did so many bad things but no one stand out to stop them.

It’s the strength through discipline.