Chinese students discuss American primary politics - read this one

[Adelante]

This American teacher in China, as part of a lesson, polled 100 of his friends back home by email and asked who they would vote for in the primaries. He and his class then contrasted national polling with his improvised straw poll. The discussion of democracy is more interesting than the poll itself, so please read through the link.

Talking American Democracy in China

-snip

I held this incredibly unscientific straw poll to help a group of my most politically interested students understand a little bit more about American democracy. These students—all English majors at Guizhou University, the largest school in China’s poorest province—represent a broad spectrum of Chinese society. Some are from tiny peasant villages with parents earning less than $100 a month. Others are children of China’s growing urban kleptocracy, rich even by American standards. A few of them actively circumvent the Great Firewall of China to access political blogs and newspapers that the Chinese government attempts to block. Many check CNN.com, or BBC online news. One regularly checks davidsirota.com, then comes to me with vocabulary questions (“What does it mean for Bush to be ‘out of his mind’?”).

-snip

Class began with a summary of the results of the straw poll. Obama cruised to victory, with Hillary Clinton in a distant second and Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and John Edwards pulling in handfuls of votes. Five percent of my straw poll voters were undecided at this early point in the primary process. Ninety percent of my straw poll voters voted Democratic (which I made clear was more a comment on whose company I enjoy, rather than a reflection of American demographics).

-snip

As I announced these results, my students were bug-eyed. “We don’t do this in China,” explained Wing, a bubbly girl with red-dyed hair. (I have changed all students’ names to protect their privacy.) “You can’t ask us who we vote for, because we don’t know.” Wing was agog with curiosity. How do Americans decide whom to vote for? What do Americans know about the candidates? Are the voters controlled by the rich? Can poor people become President? Doesn’t voting lead to disagreement and (as a logical consequence), weakness? Who is Steven Colbert?

-snip

Now, Zhong Fu was focused on American racism: “Americans, as we all know, do not give equality to black people. So they will not vote for Obama.” I pointed out that my straw poll indicated differently, since Obama was the run-away winner. Zhong Fu was not impressed: “Your national polls disagree with your friends.” Zhong Fu, like a good number of my other students, is confused by Obama’s popularity. In a way, it even distresses him, because it undermines one of his basic beliefs about American culture: that it is fundamentally racist.

Other students were clearly impressed that a majority of my friends want an Obama White House. “This will change my mind about America,” said John, a gangly aspiring artist. “We learn a lot about how America shot Martin Luther King, but this would impress me.” He added that he would be equally as impressed with a Hillary White House. The women in the class all smiled at this. He blushed.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3432/talking_american_democracy_in_china/

[Bucky]

1. "how America shot Martin Luther King"

We still live in the shadow of 1968. Obama is our Bobby. We've been looking for Bobby to return for 40 years.
At some point it quits being a scar we bear and it turns into what our character is made of.

[flashl]

2. So much for America, the beacon of Democracy. n/t