Reflective Journal 5

Lim Yan Peng, Gary (3S216)                                            30^th April 2012

Reflective Journal 5                                                          

I feel that the Socio-Economic Studies is generally very enriching and beneficial in allowing me to study in depth about the cultures of Western and Eastern cultures. However, there are several flaws in this curriculum that have hindered my learning journey as well.

Ever since the first day I embarked onto this module, my knowledge of Western and Chinese cultures have indeed increased by a huge margin. Even though I had been completely clueless about SES before beginning on this module, the lectures, the class presentations and the class discussions are truly effective in guiding me step by step in understanding the details of every module. I feel that the class discussions, reflective journals, together with the lectures conducted by Ms Yeo allowed me to view each case study from different perspectives. It exposed me to fresh insights and encouraged me to think more critically about the origins of various cultures as well as their effects on various aspects of the societies.

Honestly, I agreed that there is an information overload as the vast amount of case studies covered in the first two terms are too much for us to digest easily. Not only must we go in depth to study the origins of Confucianism and Western ideologies, we are also expected to observe how these cultures affect the lives of Chinese or Westerners and how their actions, or their political and corporate systems reflect the way these people think. Furthermore, I feel that we have spent insufficient amount of time in class to think critically about some of the more significant case studies. By spending more time on a smaller number of significant and interesting lessons, students will then be able to enjoy the lessons at a more relaxed pace. At the same time, students can also gain more useful insights by analysing each case study more critically and thus, leaving a deeper and memorable impression for them.

Somehow, I find that it impossible to link what I have learnt in class to the real life world. Why are we studying the origins and the roots of the American’s ideology of liberty and Confucianism? If the aim of this module is to educate us on cultural intelligence and how we should act when we are in a Chinese or Western society, I believe all we should know is simply their basic philosophies and cultures and their applications in real life situations. Hence, I feel that some topics are irrelevant and hence should be removed so that we can spend more time studying in depth on topics such as corporate cultures and political systems of the various societies as I believe these are the aspects that matter to us more if we were to travel to such societies in future.

Apart from the information overload, I feel that too much is expected from us students who already have very busy schedules in school. We are often expected to read through many lengthy articles provided online and prepare lesson notes for the subsequent lessons when much of the contents in the articles could be irrelevant. In fact, many of my classmates actually do their self-research instead of spending precious moments poring through the “essential readings”. It was then that I thought perhaps I should learn from my friends as they claimed other online sources and sites provide equally useful information which is much more easily extracted. Furthermore, it entirely defeats the purpose if students were always complaining about the vast amount of research to be done for each module when it was only briefly discussed about. Why do we still study if the whole learning process seems like a chore for students? I feel that by feeding us large amount of information within a short time, it is difficult for me to absorbed and apply the knowledge I learnt as I develop little interest for the topics covered.

Sometimes, I feel that the expectations of the students’ assignments are too high. I admit that I have difficulties conveying my ideas in an organised manner using proper and fluent language. However, it was truly difficult for some students, like me, to present on a certain topic fluently and clearly to the class alone. The presenter has to spend a lot of time rehearsing and preparing for their presentation and there are some students who have limited preparation time due to their busy schedule. As such, some students were unable to grasp the main points of the class discussion which were unclear and confusing. The presenter himself will also score badly for his class presentation due to poor presentation skills or lack of content. I propose that students should work in pairs on a single discussion topic so as to reduce the amount of workload and also ensure that class presentations are made clearer for the class to understand.

Overall, I enjoyed some of the topics covered in this module and I certainly support the idea of having reflective journals and class discussions as they allow us to view things from different perspectives and also learn from our peers. However, I do hope that the flaws highlighted above can be considered and the module can be slightly modified to provide students with a challenging, but enjoyable and fulfilling learning environment.

(806 words)

Reflective Journal 4

Question: Reflect on the societal problems faced by China and America.

China faced many political, economic and social problems which had affected the progress and welfare of its country. Some of such problems include corruption, the rich-poor income gap. In fact, some of these problems are influenced by China’s cultural system.

Firstly, corruption in China is not only immoral, but it also affects the country’s economic progress indirectly. Corrupted leaders in China accept bribes as they are able to enjoy rewards while serving only small amount of people who offered bribes to them. Such actions can lead to political instability which results could harm China’s economic progress. I feel that the high corruption rates is caused by the belief in the importance of guanxi (relationship) in China, in which people who are wealthy or of higher status forge relationship with officials of higher authority in order to advise or urge to authorities to support them. However, if China adopts the American’s belief of equality for all, things would have turn out differently as the leaders would have to treat all people in the society equally regardless of status or wealth. With this mentality, people in China would dare not accept bribes to benefit only a selected group of people in society. Although this may be ironical to the case, I feel that Bao Zheng (包青天) is a perfect example of one who treats everyone equally and does not accept bribes at all

I feel that China’s rich-poor income gap is an economic as well as social problem in China. The rich-poor income gap caused the restrained in consumption capacity of medium and low income groups which reduced the domestic consumption in China. While its domestic demand decreases, the wealthy continues to prosper as the government now greatly relies on exports and investments to improve its economic progress. This may lead to social tension which would eventually lead to political instability and economic problems. Personally, I felt that Chinese should be more bonded and should work towards a common goal to pull the lower-income group out of poverty. In other words, I feel that the practise of harmony in China can urge Chinese to be more united in tackling the problem of widening rich-poor divide. Ironically, harmony (大同) is an aspect of the Confucian ideology which China is trying to promote. However, I felt that Chinese is not practicing enough harmony and they do not have the sense of responsibility to work for the greater good of society.

In America, I feel that its bipartite government is a restrain to the implementations of many policies in America. As we all know, it often takes a lot of time to implement a policy as the Republican Party and the Democratic Party often have different viewpoints about certain matters and this often leads to unhappiness in many Americans as they could be affected by these delays. Examples of problems caused by the slow implementation of policies include the lack of investments in healthcare service, as well as the long time taken to pull out troops from the Middle East. I feel that the America can adopt and integrate the one-party system of China as it is very efficient and the policies proposed do not have to be discussed over several parties. However, I feel that America can also adopt Singapore’s government system as it has one dominant party which receives feedback and criticism from the population and other opposition parties. Although there may be criticisms and differing opinions from the population, the dominant party has a final say over the implementation of policies. With the emphasis on freedom of rights in America, I doubt that they can fully adopt the ruling system of other countries as the opposition parties play an important role in determining government policies as well.

I think that the high teenage crime rate in America is also a serious problem in its society. These crimes include murders as well as drug abuse and they can harm the lives of many youths in America. These youths are future leaders of America and it is indeed distressing to see the rise in teenage crime in America. I guess the particularly high crime rate in America is due to the strong emphasis of freedom in American culture. Furthermore, the increasing amount of violence and ‘gangs’ in the American media may also has an influence on teenagers’ perception today. To tackle this problem, I feel that American should put a stronger emphasis on moral significance which is one of the values in the Confucian ideology. The high crime rate had definitely reflected the lack of moral values in many American teenagers and hence I feel that by placing a stronger emphasis on moral significance, Americans would be able to adhere to moral ethics. However, this is only a suggestion for a skeletal guideline that American youths should follow in order to prevent crime rates. With the strong belief in liberty and freedom of rights, I doubt that Americans would really uphold moral values if they are given a chance to.

All in all, I felt that the societal problems in America and China cannot be fully addressed as there may be other restrictions such as the clash of cultures, or the inability of the governments to uphold certain practices which may benefit the country due to unspecified reasons.

(891 words)

Term 1: Reflective Journal 3

We have discussed and debated on the Chinese and America perceptions of self. Reflect on the impact of these beliefs in your life.

I feel that our lives are greatly influenced by both the Chinese and America culture and some of the factors leading to such phenomena are media, education and the type of government and leaders we have in Singapore.

Firstly, I would like to discuss how the strict hierarchical system in the Confucian ideology has been adopted in my family. Ever since I am young, my brother and I had always respected the decisions and words of our parents and our elders as we trusted them and believed that they are more knowledgeable than we are. I believed such practices and traditions are probably passed down from our ancestors, who originated from China. However, my family also practices much individual freedom where all of us can pursue our own interests or do anything as and when we enjoy without having restricted. Hence, I would prefer to say that my family actually integrate the American and Chinese cultures together in our daily lives.

Next, I feel that Singapore’s educational system has reflected some of China’s education system. Both education practices meritocracy where those who more hardworking or perhaps more talented gains better opportunities in entering higher level education such as university education. As meritocracy is part of the Confucian ideology, I feel that China’s exam-oriented educational system do have an indirect impact on Singapore’s as our educational policies are implemented by the government which could be influenced by China’s educational system. Honestly, I dislike studying in an educational system that practices meritocracy as I am always worried of losing out to my friends and constantly face lots of stress and peer pressure, which I believe is not ideal for someone like me who prefers to work things out at my own paced instead of being forced. Even when American cultures such as creativity is being included into our curriculum under project work, I feel that such assignments are still being forced upon us and poses more stress problems for me. I would think that a less exam-oriented curriculum would benefit more as it allows more time and opportunities for me to explore my own interests. However, such policies may not work today as many students in Singapore are still unable to take their own initiatives and responsibility in pursuing their areas of interest. Hence, an exam-oriented educational system is needed to provide students with the essential skills and knowledge for scoring well in an examination so that they can further studies in tertiary education – and this is exactly the main goal of many local students.

I feel that the American’s democratic society has also influenced the Singapore government to adopt the same practice in our society. Our government believes that citizens deserve their own rights and their freedom to comment on the policies made by the government and to vote for the political party the citizens prefer most. From the 2011 General Elections, we can actually observe that an increasing number of citizens, especially youths have developed interests in political activities and have also voiced out their comments through online platform such as Facebook or Twitter. I feel that a democratic society is very beneficial for the country as it allows the citizens to feedback on the government’s actions and the government can also listen and adapt to the alternative voices from the public. Although I have not reached the minimum voting age yet, I am glad that Singapore has used the American style of governing the country as democracy usually welcomes changes, which allows the country to adapt to crisis within or outside the country. On the other hand, I feel that Singapore’s government is more of an authoritarian rule in the past 40 over years since its independence. Even though there were policies that caused unhappiness among the citizens, most of the citizens willingly followed the government’s decisions and voted for PAP for all these years. Honestly, PAP had indeed done exceedingly well in developing Singapore. However, the fact that the citizens respected PAP and voted for them all the time reflected the ‘harmony’ mentioned in the Confucianism ideology where the people accept whatever the leaders do, and the leaders treat the people with care.

All in all, I felt that the Chinese and American perceptions of self have different roles and purposes to play in society today. It is important that we adapt or integrate these values and beliefs system in our society because they can be beneficial in one way or another, depending on their effectiveness on the various areas they are applied in.

(756 words)

Term 1 - Reflective Jorunal 2 (Working Culture and Management Style in Google and Levono)

Reflect on the working culture and management style in Google and Lenovo

The cultures and management styles of Google and Lenovo both have their benefits and risks. Google style of management emphasises on the freedom and comfort of employees while Lenovo management style emphasises on consensus-style where the CEO of the company becomes a dominant figure who manages and control every policies made by the company.

I feel that each way of management is actually affected by the suitability for the employees. Google originated from the America and has thus adopted western ideologies and their own American cultures in its work place. I believed this is probably the most suitable choice for a company founded in America as the employees indeed enjoy the freedom and comfort provided to them. Its 20% rule is an example of a policy that has benefitted the company. Employees develop a sense of loyalty and the sense to serve the company well when they received such comfortable treatment in the workplace. This had helped to enhance efficiency of work in the company as employees are happy working in there and have decided to create ideas that can benefit the company.

However, if we were to adopt such a working culture for Lenovo, it would certainly prove useless as it is unsuitable for the type of employees working in Lenovo. First of all, the education systems vary between the Western and Eastern countries. This could possibly have a impactful effect on the kind of working attitude or the working environment the employees are suited to. In America, students are expected to be creative and to voice out any opinions or questions whenever there is a need to. Liberty and individual rights are also values which are practiced in America. On the other hand, China students usually do not question and think critically when it comes to work. They study diligently and are very exam-orientated like Singapore. There are usually fewer opportunities for them to innovate our practice their creativity. Thus, the American style of management observed in Google is to provide space to encourage creativity and innovations among a large group of employees who dare to question or suggest ideas to their higher-ranking employers. The Google Company believes that providing freedom and a convenient work place for the employees help to facilitate sharing of ideas among employees of different department and facilitate innovation of new ideas as well. On the other hand, the Chinese style of management observed in Lenovo involved only the CEO who becomes the mastermind and controls everything in the company while the employees simply follow his ideas and do not question.

These two different types of management is beneficial to the respective companies in certain ways. For example, the Google style of management which provides freedom actually attracts more employees to provide high-quality suggestions and ideas by offering incentives and facilities. Its 20 percent rule encourage many talented programmers to innovate and share their ideas. The result of gaining recognition through chosen projects urged many of these programmers to become 'discipline' in a way and spent their 20% time fruitfully by creating new ideas. With these common mindset in most of the Google employees, it is enough to create a peer pressure in the work which encourage others to innovate ideas as well. Through these ideas, Google can then extract the best ideas to be implemented and this benefits the company to a large extent as there will be ‘more minds working at once’ to generate these essential ideas that help Google to grow and progress. Some of the new ideas suggested by the Employers are G-mail, Adsense and Google News. These new suggestions benefited Google by bringing in more profits and also attract more users, which in turn bring allow Google to earn more revenue as well.

However, the risks of such management styles may be that the company cannot earn back what they invested on. In other words, the facilities provided for the employees have gone down the drain either because the employees lose discipline or loyalty to the company, or because the ideas produced by the employees are not attractive or good enough to consumers. However, I feel that it is rather unlikely that employees would run out of attractive and creative ideas. Google implemented the 20% rule to almost all its employees. With so many employees in each particular departments, there must be at least someone whose ideas are attractive and worth further developing. The innovation industry has endless boundaries, especially in the IT world. Furthermore, Google has a high entry barrier. Which means before employees are hired, they have to go through a lot of tests or interviews to ensure they are up to standard. Workers who are not presenting well could also be asked to leave the company. I feel that Google is indeed effective in spawning creativity through peer pressure and providing comfort and convenience for its employees. Hence, I believed that the style of management Google adopts to sustain the company is by applying a suitable policy which appeals to the workers who possess Western ideologies and values. I feel that it is also very effective in spawning creativity through peer pressure and providing comfort and convenience for its employees.

On the other hand, the Lenovo way of management and policies is also dependent on the type of employees present in the Lenovo and also the idea of Confucianism where the employees respect the employer’s decision. One main disadvantage of such a working culture is that it only involves one’s suggestions and opinions – those of the CEO. Unlike the Google style of management, this stifled creativity. I believed the key to its success was its capable and well-respected CEO and founder – Liu Chuanzhi who helped to shape Lenovo before and after its goal of becoming a Multinational Corporation. In the past, Lenovo’s working system is through a consensus-style where the employees hardly gave an opinion of their company’s progress. They all listened to their employers, or the CEO, who is believed to be purposeful in all his plans and that he should not be questioned. This is relatively similar to the Confucianism ideology of respecting the authority because what the authority does is usually correct. The problems emerge when the company decided to steer towards the direction of becoming a MNC. Liu made William Amelio, an American executive from Dell, the CEO of Lenovo, hoping that its Western influence can help Lenovo thrive in foreign countries and that he can also encourage creativity among the employees. However, the Chinese employees and the executives were totally not used to creating and suggesting their own ideas and this caused a major cultural friction between the head of company and his employees. It was because Amelio lack understanding of his own Chinese employees and executives, hence resulting in misunderstanding and cultural friction. As mentioned above about Google, Western ideologies emphasise in creativity and voicing out of opinions from lower-ranking employees to their employers. However, it was undoubted that such phenomena cannot be see in Lenovo at that point in time. In just a matter of few months, executives were asked to leave the company and Lenovo suffered heavy loses. This is probably due to the fact that the Chinese employees are not educated in the environment which emphasises on creativity and this caused difficulties for the top computer company to go abroad and invest in other countries. However, I feel that the Lenovo way of management is beneficial in a sense that it does not require time for meetings and sharing of ideas and all plans can be implemented straight away when the CEO orders so. The whole process runs smoothly and quickly just that it stifles creativity reduces the chance for employees to present their opinions. BUT STILL, without the integration of Western ideologies on creativity and the initial Lenovo way of management, it could never have flourished all over the world today.

All in all, I felt that the different ways of managements depended mainly on the culture and attitudes of employees and the employers. Only companies which adopt suitable principles for its employees can gain success much easier due to cooperation of the employees. But I feel that essentially, the Google way of management or the Western ideology is more crucial and popular in global enterprises as it emphasizes on innovation, which means welcoming of new ideas. After all, changing and integrating is an essential step for settling and creating business in other countries.

(1408 words)

Gary Lim (16)

Term 1 - Reflective Journal 1 (My first Reflective journal!)

I would like to start my reflection using the Know, What and Learnt table. It is always an interesting step which motivates me to discover more about a certain topic and to understand the areas I should improve on.

Before I attended the first lesson, I was anxious and worried. I had the faintest idea of what comes ahead in this brand new module. None of my seniors had studied Socio-Economic Studies before. All I learnt from Mr Justin Lo’s brief introduction on Socio-Economic Studies was that this module is something related to Western and Eastern cultures. My first reaction was still alright. I thought this is a very common topic among youths. After all, our main aim is to learn more about Western and Eastern cultures right? I was proud and glad that I knew a little bit of these cultures. Needless to say, the two main Economic powers in the world, namely China and America, are very influential. Their values and ideologies have definitely influenced many countries worldwide, including Singapore. I have to admit that I am under the influence of Chinese cultures and values as I am being brought up in a Chinese-speaking family. Furthermore, many of my friends have also been influenced by Western ideology as well. And that is why I have quite some knowledge about the values of Chinese (e.g. 饮水思源, Confucianism) and Western people.

However, the more I thought about this module, the more anxious I become. And when the first lesson started, terror struck me. Firstly, like all other subjects, this module requires us to speak and participate actively in class and to share our viewpoints about lessons covered. Honestly, I am not confident at all with my basic knowledge of Western and Chinese cultures and speaking in class would be a challenge that I would have to overcome with much effort. Secondly, my SES teacher is a strict teacher. That’s pretty worrying, because I will have an even harder time scoring for my Oral Participation points. In the first lesson, I thought I would faint. But I remained curious and open to what come ahead for me. To me, my goal is to gain as much insights as possible from this module as I believe it is one that not many schools in Singapore offer. Somehow, I have the sense of cherishing this module and to familiarise myself with any cultures or values which I have yet to heard of. After browsing through the contents for this year, it dawned on me that this module is not merely about discussing about the usual cultures and ideologies of Western and Eastern countries. (‘Usual’ refers to all those philosophy and values I learnt from textbooks in the past) Somehow, a sense of excitement sparked in me. All the names listed in the contents were unfamiliar to me. But I have a feeling that understanding the definitions of the terms and the important lessons behind them are essential for my future when I interact with people from a different cultural background or of different beliefs and ideologies. I believe that’s my main aim in this module. It may sound cliché. But on a second thought, these opportunities are not available anywhere and I strongly believe the best time to spark off my interest towards the ability of understanding people from all walks of life would be during this module. I hope that I can put the values and ideologies I learnt in good use and apply them to my everyday life in one way or another.

I shall skip the ‘Learnt’ part because I have yet to begin on a formal lesson yet. My first lesson is called Cultural Intelligence (CQ for short). Needless to say, I have yet to hear such a term yet. I have heard of various kinds of ‘intelligences’ but never have come across a ‘cultural intelligence’. Cultures are unique practices in various social groups. Different types of people have different cultures. So what exactly is cultural intelligence? Is it to learn and acquire more cultures? I feel this is rather pointless because each social group only believe in their own particular culture. I guess it is to learn more about other cultures and perhaps understanding them. No matter what it is, I guess it must be something beneficial and essential for us to understand. It is probably an important topic to begin on before we move on to study about other cultures, values and ideologies. Culture is a very powerful tool in interactions among individuals. Accepting and knowing others’ cultures is a sign of respect for other individuals. It allows the two particular individuals to converse and interact comfortable with one another without awkwardness. Understanding one’s culture is also equivalent understanding the needs and interests of one, and thus, it would be much more convenient when you are to assign any task for him or her.

One of my principles in life is to always empathise with others and perceive situations while standing in others’ shoes. I hope that by the end of this one year module, I can fully grasp the ability to understand and to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds and whose beliefs and values differ from mine. Although this may be very common in our everyday life because we live in a multi-cultural society, I feel that there are still many who do not know how to interact or act in a suitable manner in front of a stranger who has a cultural and belief system which differs from theirs. Hence, I earnestly hope that I can gain more knowledge about unfamiliar cultures and values and also how to behave and react when we meet someone of a different cultural background by the end of the module. Perhaps when I have already acquired such knowledge, I can imagine how a Chinese and an American will react with one another if they live together in solitary. This would be rather interesting and cool. But most importantly, I would like to gain the appropriate knowledge and abilities to face such situations (which I believe would be quite frequent) in future.

Lim Yan Peng, Gary (16)
3S2