Week Ten

3/19 Reading
I did not know that China had a Opium War and that it almost had ruined their country because of the powerful effects of how it affect their political leaders. Like any other war, there is always a bigger problem underlying the reason why they are at war with someone else, but from what I understood from the reading, China was fighting for trading rights. There was a tarrif on imported opum, out of fear the Chinnese burned the drug fearful that the people of China would become addicted. The war resulted in China being willing to open their trade markets to foreigners. I remeber learning in high school about Tajikistan, a country in the middle east and how the opium plant was their only source of crop that was profitable. They had many drug addicts and unfourtnely, the country is one of poorest countries in the middle east.

3/21 Reading
We had previously had learned about the women right movenment during the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment period, and obviously women all around the world were fed up with being mistreated by men everywhere in the world. Qui Jin was fed up with the injustice against chinese women, she explains how a girl is lucky to have have a tolerable life depending on how her father treats her, if he tolerable of having a daughter her life will be much better than a girl whose fatehr is "ill-tempered and unreasonable" cursing her birth waiting impatiently to marry her off to become someone elses property. Refering to another human being as "property" is never okay as we have learned from reading and learning about slavery from the early motives and thinking of why they thought it was okay to enslave another human being. Sadly, these girls are born intoa culture that does not acknowledge them as humans and are forced to partake in a culture that does not honor them. Favoritism towards men and any form of punishment is "retribution for some sin commitied in her previous existance". Jin wanted all women of China to know that the country was near destructuion and relying on men was not a smart move because they do not know what to do themselves.