Children in America and Malaysia

It is interesting to know that adults are the spectators watching the children in American society. I do agree that children usually imitate and learn from watching adults interact in Malaysia and not so often the one who being observed like American adults do. From observing children in American family at home, I found that they are more independent and mature than Malaysian children. They have clearer thoughts and better understanding that allows their parents to persuade them from doing unwanted action with reasons; while Malaysian parents always use threatening or corporal punishment when educating children. On a playground, American children can play freely with other children and their parents will be either playing with them or sitting at the side. Malaysian children spend less time playing in a playground and the parents restrict their playing time. Parents are often chatting with other parents in the playground and choose not to play with their kids. However, they pay careful attention to their children and sometimes being overprotective.

American family and Malaysian family

A typical family in both the United States and Malaysia has similar family structure, with parents especially a father as the breadwinner and mother as a housewife. However, women are also seen to participate more in the labor force nowadays in both countries, and results in a family with both parents holding jobs. Another similarity is the parents are less likely to live with their grandparents or siblings.

American families differ from Malaysian families in a few ways. For example, I do not see that children in Malaysia have too much freedom compare with the American children. In other words, Malaysian parents are stricter to their children. Most of them plan their children’s schedule to take tuition or extracurricular classes such as music and dance lessons. Americans are free to choose what they want to do during their leisure time and their parents will mostly be supportive to their choices. As a result, we are more submissive and dependent to our parents. I am also impressed by how the interactions between American families differ from ours. Most of us do not have close relationship with grandparents like Americans do. We are more respectful and fearful of our grandparents, while Americans treat their grandparents as friends that they can talk to and share their thoughts.

In terms of intimate relationships within the family, I would say that both countries have stable families but different in some aspects. For instance divorce is uncommon in my country, while I do think that it is common in America, this implies that Malaysian families are more stable. On the other hand, a divorced couple in Malaysia is unlikely to be nice to each other. They will compete for children’s custody and wealth of the family that always ends badly. However in America, they occasionally bring their children to the other divorced partner’s home to stay over for the weekend. This shows the stability of the parents-children relationship in American families after they divorce.

Voting in US

                This is only my third month in US and I am glad that I have already witnessed the voting process in US. The election that held last Tuesday, 2 November is to vote for new senates and House of Representatives.

                The voting process in US is similar to the voting process in my country, Malaysia. I have not voted before but I heard about the voting process from my parents. Any Malaysian citizens above 21 years old must register before he or she could vote in elections. After identity verification at a voting centre that assigned according to area, each voter receives two paper ballots, one for the parliamentary seat of the constituency and another for the state assembly seat. However in US, the voters only receive one large piece of paper to vote. When the voters are done, they drop the ballots in the separate ballot boxes that count the votes, while in US there is only one ballot box.  Basically, both voting process are similar and simple.  

                I am glad to be an election observer that makes me feel like I have participated in this huge event of Americans. I am also looking forward to witness the presidential election in 2012.

Human Trafficking

We have speakers that gave us few interesting speeches in the last few classes, and the topic that grabbed my attention most is human trafficking and African American.

            To all our surprise, there are 27 million human trafficking in our world now. This is a really unbelievable fact which also shows that slavery still exists today. I have always thought that slavery was abolished long time ago in American history after the civil war. They gained their equal rights gradually through the addition of amendments and civil rights; therefore they are seen as equal people in America now. Obviously I am wrong to believe that slavery was totally obliterated from this free country. It is so sad to hear that human trafficking is such a serious problem in our world now while I am unaware about this issue until then. The fact that the victims are mostly children and women makes me feel even worse.

 There is not much I can do to change their situation, most of them are poor and have no other choices to survive. Perhaps not buying chocolates made by slaves will prevent the growth of slavery, but what else can we do? I hope more people will know about the slavery today and appreciate that we own ourselves and our lifes now.

Ropes Course

1.      What was the experience like for you?

This was an extremely new and amazing experience that exceeds my expectation. The ropes course is not only a physical but a more intellectual activity, and this makes it a really interesting game.

2.      Were there any benefits to you as an individual? 

I learnt that team work is especially important in the course and how it is done by the cooperation of many individuals. It also helps me to get close to my classmates and learn more about them.

3.      What were the benefits to us as a class? 

As a class, we learn how to share our thoughts and make use of it in real life problem. We learn from mistakes and improve our strategy by combining different opinions.

4.      Compare and contrast how this activity relates to the themes in Ch 4? 

This activity shares same values of the ‘’can-do’’ spirit in American trait. In the ropes course, we are willing to experiment ways to solve problem, which also agree with the proverbs ‘’ every problem has a solution’’. On the other hand, we are working with as a team and neglect the self-reliance value in the text.

5.      Is this activity uniquely “American” or is this something your culture has or could have as well?    

I will not say this is a unique ‘’American’’ activity because we have similar activity in Malaysia. However, this ropes course is more interesting than those I tried before.

American Football

On the homecoming week of UWEC, I have the opportunity to watch a football match in Carson Park a battle between UW-Stevens Point and Eau Claire. This is my very first time of watching such a huge live sport game in person. It was an awesome experience that I really want to write about and brag about it to my friends in Malaysia.

First of all, I am so grateful that our class was asked to watch the match as part of the class activity or else I do not think I will go for the match. I have read a Japanese manga about American football years ago and I am a big fan of this manga, Eyeshield 21. The story was about a high school boy with remarkable running speed that made him the top scorer of the story. Since then I have been looking forward to witness a real American football game when I came to the United States.

American football is well known in America but it is not commonly heard in Malaysia probably due to the overwhelming soccer fever. Basically, it is a game with 11 members from each team, scoring points by bringing the ball by running, passing, or kicking to the other end of the field. It started with a coin toss to determine which team will do the attack or defense first. The offensive team will have four chances to bring the ball forward at least 10 yards to gain the first down; if it continues to advance to the end zone it can score 6 points for the touchdown. This will enable them to have another chance to score 1 point by kicking it through the goalposts at the 3^rd yard line or 2 points by doing another touchdown. However, if the offensive team does not get the first touchdown, the opponent team will take over the possession of the ball and perform the same procedures to score. Each football game consists of 4 quarters which is 15 minutes each. There is usually a 12 minutes halftime after the 2^nd quarter, and this is the time we were able to watch the amazing performance of band and cheerleaders.

American football is a very intensive game that not only requires strength, speed but also strategy. It is so interesting how they organize the team to different positions and plot their plan deliberately to deceive the opponents and passing the ball to another teammate. I think this is why Americans love this game and I believe others will love it too if they learn more about American football. I would also like to share the link below if you are interested in reading the manga about American football, http://www.ourmanga.com/Eyeshield_21/.  Hope you will enjoy it as I did.

William's Immigrant Story

  I was mesmerized by an immigrant story tonight. The storyteller is William, who is also my roommate. It started around 1850s, when William's great grandparents were living in Norway. Stories about how wonderful America is spread through the Scandinavian countries. Norway was indeed a nice place to live but it was overpopulated. They were attracted by the individual freedom and abundant resources in the vast land of America. Therefore they decided to immigrate to America, and settled in a place that has the same climate and environment they used to have back home, Minneapolis. Their children were then married to other ethnic groups from Ireland, Poland, Sweden, Germany that also immigrated to the twin cities. Some of them moved to Wisconsin and this is where William was born. I am surprised that he said he is less than one-eight Norwegian, which is considered his country of origin heritage. Neither him nor his family can speak Norwegian, because their great grandparents want to adapt to the American cultures and were apt to speak English. They even altered their last name to a more English-friendly name to fit themselves into the Americans. However, they still keep some of their customs, like traditional food. Every Christmas, they will have the family gather for dinner with traditional food like lutefisk (made from fish), Swedish meatball(ground beef) ,lefse(a Norwegian flat bread) and rice pudding. These dishes are made uniquely and served only on special occasions. Unfortunately, they do not maintain contacts with any relatives in Norway. Some of the family members did genealogy research but nothing was found. William has never visited his home country but he said, ''I will definitely go to Norway before I die.'' I believe he will and I would want to hear from him when that day comes.