Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Freeing the Slaves

My topic will be on Child Labor in China. The children are usually between the age of 5-17. The factory workers just pay them a little.They have to work for long hours in extreme conditions in the factories. They have to work under risky circumstances. But those kids still work because their family needs that source of income. Their families are poor so they have to work to support their family.They leave school to help support their family because  the school fees are too high, they can't afford it.Some of these kids would even use fake ID cards to show they are 16 or older.
Here is an example: a headmaster of a school employed students from his school to work in his private toy factory. When he was caught, he said he was just giving these kids an opportunity to earn money. In China, they have a law that doesn't allow children under the age of 16 to work. But they say under special circumstances, these kids can work Ex:"Educational Labor"~basically schools would have their students do some work like growing and harvesting crops. But most employers end up abusing this law and make their students do a lot of heavy labor. Ex: In Sichuan, 500 children were found working 14 hour shifts in a factory. Their school employed to work during the summer. The living conditions were poor, not enough food etc.The problem is that China doesn't do much to enforce its laws. International Labor Standards- their job is to make sure that there is no child labor in poor countries etc. They try to help by organizing labor unions to do that.

Sources:
http://childlabour.in/child-labour-in-china.htm
http://www.china-labour.org.hk/en/node/15889
http://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/02/china-end-child-labor-state-schools

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Video Blog

Romanticism vs Realism
In romanticism, the characters are larger than life, and it is usually very exaggerated.In realism, it shows what may happen in real life, the ordinary things that happen in our daily lives.Example of romanticism:The Patriots. Example of realism: In the story we read in class, An Episode of War


Stream of consciousness 200 words.....

Wait, what just happened? I just lost my arm?! I can't believe I lost my arm?! It just happened so fast! How will I survive with only one arm? But it's ok, I guess,at least I did not die.......What will my family think? I wonder...... I think the way I lost my arm is so weird?! We soldiers were just playing archery. Because we did not have much to do and we were just goofing off. But I never expected to lose an arm?! So this is what actually happened, one of the soldier were playing archery and I wasn't paying much attention and the bow hit me accidentally. I was so shocked! We all were actually. We were worried about what would happen now. I was thinking if my arm would be saved or if I would lose it forever. My arm was bleeding a lot. We ran to find the nearest doctor. But when we found him, he said, it's too late now. You will have to get it amputated. I was very surprised, angry and shocked but accidents do happen from time to time. So then the doctor amputated my arm and I was only left with one arm.

Group:me, Vivian, Emily, ivy, Annika, Sally