12/6 Hard and hidden truths

Hello there! This is Sophie, here to take you though an academically packed day! We started off with Professor Ripley's class where three of our fellow Globies gave research presentations. I love presentation days because I get to see all of the creative ways our peers present information, and sometimes it is nice to have an complex theological article explained to you instead of reading through it yourself! After class we assisted a professor at Capital Normal University with her research project on native English speakers which involved a fun word matching game. We went our separate ways for lunch and reconvened at 1 pm for our lecture which actually turned out to be at 6! Luckily, we are very experienced with shifting schedules and flexibility. We rolled with the punches and used the extra time to study and relax.

Our class with Professor Moser was well worth the wait. The lecture focused on the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989. Professor Moser quietly closed the door before starting to show a documentary. The massacre is not spoken of in China. Chinese students learn very little about it, and although there are millions of people around when the massacre happened it is not discussed openly.  Professor Moser tied this incident to the even tighter controls over speech in China nowadays. Coming from America where the right to freedom of speech and assembly are so important to our history and identity, we all couldn't imagine being forbidden to speak about a historical episode. This lecture opened my eyes to some of the dynamics in China between the Communist Party and the people and the tight grip on power and control  the party maintains. Although we have only been in China briefly, we've seen the cameras dotting the city, the plainsclothes policemen breaking up groups of people in Tiananmen Square, and the propaganda signs dotting the city. We all look forward to learning more from both Professor Moser and our daily experiences.