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Act One, Scene One

It was yet another day of tutoring with my teacher Septimus. We were discussing mathematics until I randomly asked him about the term, Carnal Embrace. According to him, Carnal Embrace referred to throwing one’s arms around a piece of beef. This seemed hard to believe. Thus, I continued to pester him about the topic. He finally revealed its true definition, a male’s genitals entering a womens. I was quite disturbed and wanted to steer away from the term. As the lesson continued, my Butler came to me with a letter in hand. I glanced at it but told him that I would read it later. I needed to be focused on the lesson. Class continued, and I asked Septimus about pudding and what happens to it when it is stirred with jam. As a result of my question, our lesson diverged onto the track of Fermat’s Theorem. Others kept entering the room and seemed to be arguing. They seemed to be talking as if I was too young to understand to understand. What a shame. As they left, I kept trying to get Septimus to explain the theorem  to me, but he was hesitant. It was if he did not want to teach the theorem to me because he was astounded by my level of intelligence and did not want me to reach my full potential. I continued studying it myself, hoping that one day I would fully comprehend the complexity of the concept.

Is It Hong Kong Or China?

When asked where I’m from, I say Hong Kong. The usual immediate response from people is, “Oh! So China!”. That statement is one that will infuriate every citizen born and raised in Hong Kong. Prior to 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony.However, ever since the turnover to China, Hong Kong remains a special administrative region until the year of 2047. Until then, Hong Kong is able to abide by the one country two systems agreement which allows for Hong Kong to act under its own laws and have an autonomous economy. Up until a couple years ago, China has been upholding their part of the deal. However, in the past two years China has been making moves to establish more mainland power in the international city of Hong Kong. I believe that China’s intentions of doing so are wrong, and I believe that Hong Kong should be a special administrative region indefinitely so that it’s culture and well being can be preserved.

Last September, China opened up a train line that starts in Guangzhou and ends in Hong Kong. This sparked controversy in both “countries” as the people in Hong Kong believed that it was unfair to them because it violated their freedoms. The reason for this was that this rail link is a place where Chinese criminal law will be enforced which completely violates the agreement that China had with Britain when the turnover occurred. (Source 1) The turnover ensured that Hong Kong would be able to enforce their own set of laws until the year of 2047. The government in China knows very well about this agreement, and is seriously testing their limits. They want to get as much control back before 2047. By doing so with this railway line, they can subtly start enforcing more China socialist policies.

In many countries, electing a chief executive is something that it is important. In the year of 2014, there was a mass protest in Hong Kong for democracy. People in Hong Kong were upset about how they weren’t really able to choose their own leaders, and the Communist party in China was basically choosing them for us. What resulted was a huge student led protest that was in the main business district that lasted for 73 days. The business district was not able to function and many people had to work from home. The protest raised awareness for the people and electing a chief executive, and it proved helpful as they had more input in the next election where the person the Hong Kong people favoured was elected into office. (Source 2)If Hong Kong were to be apart of China, we would lose the freedom to elect a chief executive, and the privilege of living in a democracy.

Lastly, China has been making it relatively easy for people from mainland China to enter into Hong Kong. (Source 3) This is another topic that frustrates the people of Hong Kong. It isn’t because of the mainland people, but rather how they act in Hong Kong. Although it may seem that I’m generalising mainland Chinese people, there are tons of news stories from all sorts of news sources (not just local Hong Kong ones) of how people from mainland China act obnoxiously and cause disruptions in the city. If 2047 were to come, mainland Chinese people would be everywhere and the city that Hong Kong people have worked so hard to build and upkeep will no longer be as nice as it used to be just based on how mainland Chinese people have acted in the past.

People claim that China should be allowed to own back Hong Kong because it was originally theirs in the first place. However, people fail to realise the cultural changes that have occurred in Hong Kong. People from Hong Kong are not just Chinese, they are “HongKongese”. People in Hong Kong don’t even speak the language of mandarin (the official language of china), rather they speak a dialect that has become the official language of their region, Cantonese. (Source 5) Not only that but, the official text that is used everywhere is traditional chinese characters, and in China, people officially use simplified. If 2047 were to come, and China were to enforce all of these cultural changes through law and an influx of mainland people, it would be killing a rare breed of culture that should be upheld and appreciated. Lastly, if China claims that they’d like to have Hong Kong back because of its’ economy, they would be completely wrong. Sure, in the past like in the 70s, Hong Kong would have been pivotal to China. However, nowadays China has major cities like Shanghai and Beijing which have far greater GDP’s than Hong Kong. (Source 4)Hong Kong is no longer as economically significant as it was which completely contradicts China’s incentive for their own economy.  

Hong Kong is a place that I call home. Now that I’ve been at Bates for the past couple months, it is a place that I miss more than anything. I hope to live in Hong Kong in the way that I have been doing so for the past 18 years. However, if the current agreement with China doesn’t change, I’m leaving at the instant it becomes the year of 2047.

Works Cited

Source 1

Cheung, Eric. “Launch of Hong Kong-China High-speed Rail Link Goes Smoothly, but Fears Remain.” CNN. September 23, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/23/asia/hong-kong-high-speed-rail-china-intl/index.html.

Source 2

Connors, Adam. “Key Moments in Hong Kong’s Pro-democracy Fight.” ABC News. February 23, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2018. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-28/timeline-hong-kong-umbrella-movement-one-year-on/6802388.

Source 3

“An Influx of Mainland Chinese Is Riling Hong Kong.” The Economist. October 18, 2018. Accessed October 26, 2018. https://www.economist.com/china/2018/10/20/an-influx-of-mainland-chinese-is-riling-hong-kong.

Source 4

Wang, Yue. “Twenty Years After The Handover, Is Hong Kong Losing Its Shine in China?” Forbes. June 30, 2017. Accessed October 26, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2017/06/29/twenty-years-after-the-handover-is-hong-kong-losing-its-shine-in-china/#2849708457c7.

Source 5

“What Is the Official Language of Hong Kong?” TripSavvy. Accessed October 26, 2018. https://www.tripsavvy.com/what-is-the-official-language-and-lingua-franca-of-hong-kong-1535894.

 

The article that I am going to use was found off of math feed. The article is titled “Did Sexism Play a Role in Serena Williams’ Loss?” and was published on October 11, 2018 by Allison Goldstein. The article was focused on Serena Williams and her recent match at the US open this September.

Serena was losing in the match, and what further contributed to her loss was a point penalty, and a game penalty. She was given a warning for coaching, got a point taken away for racket abuse, and then a game taken away for verbal abuse with the umpire. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this recent issue. Serena pulled many cards whilst arguing with the umpire, and one of them was that she was penalised because she was a woman. Although a fan of Serena Williams, I felt that her argument was flawed and that she really did deserve to get penalised those points because she genuinely did violate rules of the game. Goldstein does a good job of anaylisting Serena’s case, and incorporates valid points which clears things up.

Prior to reading this article, I had already read a couple articles regarding this topic in class. One of them was written by the New York Times and the other was an article refuting the NYtimes through a compilation of tweets from Serena’s husband. What was interesting was that a couple of the points mentioned in the refuting article was mentioned in this one, only this time, formally written.

The article with Serena’s husband had many valid points, but lacked a genuine tone because it was in the form of tweets, and even included “memes” or jokes. This article did a much better job of establishing a serious tone, and had fair analysis throughout it.

Goldstein explained that although statistics show that men get fined more often, this does not mean that women get fined less as the total number of times that men act out is not known. Goldberg then goes into other factors of the issue, such as the impacts of emotions in women and men, and supports her theories with her own research.

The way that Goldstein concludes her article is also quite admirable. After laying out all of her evidence and providing a really strong argument, she still goes back to a neutral stance on the situation and only says that the situation “deserves a second look”.

I really enjoyed this article because unlike some other texts we have read in the past like “The Mathematician Reads the Newspaper”, the math concept is more simple and can be applied more easily than other concepts. Now when I see a statistics in the news that involves a rate, I will know that it is important to also know the full number that the rate is being compared to so that I can understand the statistic more accurately rather than blindly taking in information that may be framed intentionally to make people misinterpret a situation.

The main mathematical concept covered in the section “Guns Will Soon Kill More Than Cars” is comparability. Comparability refers to making sure to compare things that are similar or are on the same terms. This concept reminded me of the common saying “you can’t compare apples and oranges”. In this chapter of the book, Paulos explains this concept through the example of comparing statistics. He mentions how often times gun statistics are compared to the statistics of car accidents. According to the Center For Disease Controls, the rate for deaths in motor vehicle accidents is 43,500, and the rate for deaths by firearms is 43,500. When compared like this, people can be confused and not see the extremity of the issue. People must realise that these kinds of statistics are not parallel. The contrast between the two is that deaths by motor vehicles are accidents, whereas the statistics referring to guns are murders.

It is important for readers to be aware of these concepts so that they are not fooled when an article tries to misguide them with the unfair comparing of statistics. On the other hand, it is important for journalists to be aware of comparability because it could really influence the argument and credibility of the article. If they don’t understand what they’re writing about or choose statistics that aren’t exactly related, they’re argument or point in the article could be not supported and their claim could all go to fluff. Thus, it essential that journalists double check the statistics that they incorporate into their pieces of writing to ensure a strong article.

Overall, I feel that Paulos does a pretty good job with addressing these topics. From reading his book, Paulos has given me a new method of reading the newspaper. Instead of blindly reading news articles online, I now have some (or a little) knowledge on how to analysis news. In his conclusion, Paulos wrote “Always be smart;seldom be certain.”. This quote kind of represents how I intend on reading the paper now. Whilst reading the paper I hope to actively read. By actively read, I mean by taking a moment to just evaluate what I read and to try and think about some of Paulos math concepts to help establish if what I read was credible.

In addition to interesting topics, I felt that Paulo’s structure of the book was very fitting of his topic. His book format allows for a reader like myself to understand a greater variety of concepts because if he were to write it like a novel, where each chapter built on each other, I wouldn’t have understood it as well. Lastly, I think that Paulos could do a better job of elaborating on the math concepts of the book. In my opinion, he addresses it with an example in the beginning of the chapter, and goes straight into math, but doesn’t tie it together at the end well which can make it confusing.