Chinese Society and Culture

The video highlights the changes globalization has brought to Chinese society and culture by telling the stories of several young people. The video focuses on the dilemmas these people confront as they try to negotiate their changing world. These dilemmas are tied to subsistence, economy, marriage, family, art, and religion; many of the dimensions of culture we have addressed over the past several weeks. The goal of the video and the assignment are to help you understand specifically how China has changed, but also to get you to reflect more generally on globalization and how it is changing society, culture and people all over the world, including in the U.S.

The paper should provide a discussion of and response to the video

Young and Restless in China

http://video.pbs.org/video/991233877/

Questions to answer in this critical thinking essay are as follows:

  Identify specific examples of globalization that you saw in the video; examples of the flows of people, capital, goods, technology, media and/or ideas.

  Discuss key points of similarity (and difference) between the lives of those individuals you meet in the video and yourself.

  Discuss key points of similarity (and difference) between the society and culture of a globalized China and that of the U.S.

  Discuss how the video may have changed your views on globalization in China specifically and of our contemporary globalized world generally. 

  Apply concepts and ideas from the presentation and readings where appropriate.

Your paper should be approximately 3 double-spaced pages or approximately 800 words. Please provide a work cited page if you are citing from the video and other sources.