Message from victoriachan

[Anonymous]

This article provided a different perspective in comparison to the history lessons taught in the U.S. Growing up in the U.S. public school system, students are often taught about imperialism from the perspective of Americans, and it is often framed in a positive light. By providing students with this text, students can see how imperialism can be seen negatively because of how the speaker is wary about the U.S. encroaching on China. I am glad the Liang, the speaker in the text, criticizes the U.S. for its willingness to allow the rich to control the government and ignore the needs of poor people.

On the other hand, Liang does show a lot of support for some of the things he saw in the U.S. He marveled at the fact that libraries were open for the public to use and saw that “…n this can be seen the general level of public morality Even a small thing like this is something Orientals could not come close to learning to do in a hundred years.”

Additionally, I did appreciate this quote: “American schools average only 140 days of study a year, and five or six hours every day. But …Westerners’ studies are superior to those of the Chinese.” Liang believe that by limiting work and emphasizing leisure time, then a person can have loftier goals because they have time to think about them. Personally, I wish we could only do 140 days instead of 180. It would allow time for everyone to really dig into content and still have time for fun.