The Final Blog...

The one thing that surprised me in this class is how open everybody was to expressing their opinion. Many times people are not willing to put themselves out there. Class discussions there just consist of the teacher asking a question and the dead silence answering back. But people in this class were willing to share their opinions which were refreshing. I liked hear what different people thought even if i didn't agree with it. The presentation that really surprised me was the presentation of health care and actually the numbers involved. I knew that are health care system wasn't working but it hits you harder when you actually see the figures.
The different types of negative peace made me think. There are so many. You can find negative peace almost anywhere. It is such a big thing and many times people just think of it as part of the society we live. They don't consider what is actually happening to the people that the negative peace is impacting.
I think that peace is an almost impossible thing to accomplish. In order to get peace we are going to have to eliminate everything that makes us different. If that is every done then there is no point in living. The great thing about being human is that we are so different with different opinions and experiences. It would be like painting with only one color. Sure you could paint a picture but the picture will not have its own personality. You would have a hard time telling one picture from another. I would rather have people be unique than have an ultimate everlasting peace. My hope is that eventually everybody will get along despite their difference.

A Silent Problem

I started thinking about how people within the United States are missing out on an education. Most of the time people think that everybody in the US has access to an education. This is all true. The Appalachian Mountains is one of the poorest places in the US. The people who live are descendents of miners. As the mines are being shut down it is leaving them without any income. The schools then suffer too. Without families bringing money into the house the children are less likely to go to school since they will have to work to support the family. The most abundant jobs available in the mountains are in the mines but when the mines shut down there are no more jobs. It is a cycle that does not end.
Almost every person there does not know who to read or write. This made working in the mines easy. When working in the mine they did not have to know how to read and write. They learned how to mine from their fathers and their fathers pasted it down to them.
Since the people of the Appalachians do not have the tools to get an education it prevents them from getting higher paying jobs. Once they got higher paying jobs it would allow them to get better health care. The health care for people there is minimal. Most of them have to wait for an annual health fair to get basic medical treatment. Even then some of the people do not receive treatment due to the high demand for help.
The Appalachians are the most forgotten area within the US. When you think of the poorest areas in the States Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia do not come to mind. More people need to start becoming aware of the problem in the Appalachians. One way to help this problem is by supplying books and teachers to the little villages in the mountains. The more awareness people have the more help the Appalachian citizens will receive.

Shangri-la

I was reading through National Geographic magazine the other day when I read an article about Shangri-la. The article was about how this religious site is being affected my business and the progression of land development. Over the past decade this route has been transformed from just a humble dirt path to a tourist attraction.
Every year thousands of faithful Buddhist followers make the journey that usually takes around two weeks to climb a pass between Yunnan and Tibet. Along the way the pilgrim’s can place prayer flags which already cover the area. The airport road now has bill boards that promote cars and luxury travel. The increase tourism has helped many of the local people. Now there are more people to buy their products. Normally there would just be pilgrim’s that are going for religious reasons to Shangri-la but tourists are willing to spend money on products the local people are selling.
The lands that are fertile croplands are being threatened by the local government. The government proposed to build 13 dams in 2003 it has been reduced to 4. The dams would flood the fertile croplands which are few and far between. The dams would also flood the thermal pools which are public baths used by people to celebrate the coming of spring. Most of them are now being used by tourist resorts.
On the opposite side it has allowed for the people of Shangri-la to have better villages and more stable income. The people of the villages can now go to school and skills to help them find better jobs. These advances in the area have allowed for the people there to have dreams of a better life. Many of them now can go to the malls and shop where as before they could only shop in their local market.
With all of the new changes in Shangri-la there are both positive and negative ones. As the people around have more access to better homes and medical supplies their own traditions are being absorbed by the new culture entering the area. Only time will tell how much of their culture truly gets lost with the new advancements.
Jenkins, Mark.“Searching for Shangri-la”. National Geographic. May 2008.