AREQUIPA IS NOT FOR SALE

It seems as if were last night when in defense of the community, my friends and I joined our neighbors in the streets from 10:00 pm to 10:45 pm in a beating of pots and pans. In a matter of minutes it created a chain effect breaking the silence of the night. The solidarity was fantastic. We were determined to fight to the end. In May 2002 in my city-Arequipa, there was an insurrection of the masses against the privatization of two public utilities. The privatization plans of Alejandro Toledo, who was the president at that time, made the community feel indignant because during his election campaign, he made so many promises. One was to not privatize these two electricity companies in Arequipa. The Revolution of 2002 that started in my city and then spread to a third of the whole country had affected my family and my family in a variety of ways.

As a family, we suffered the effects of the people’s protest and confrontations with the police. Our safety was an everyday concern during the months of the insurrection. This was especially true the last month because of the President’s decision to declare a curfew in my city. That meant that our constitutional freedoms were suspended. Furthermore, Arequipa was under army control. In response to the curfew and the institution of martial law, the people increased the protests. They set up roadblocks across the principal streets of the city and became more emotional. I couldn’t have been more worried about my parents every time they left for work. The radical protesters at the barricades tried to stop my parents and other people who worked in the center of the city from passing through because they didn’t want anyone going to work until the protests ceased. Consequently, it was so dangerous for my parents to go from our house to their work and back every day.

My education was effected as well. I was in my first year of law school, so I continued going to school even though the protests were getting worse. However, the strikes turned more violent when the police charged the crowd. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. As a result, some of my friends from the university joined in the popular protest. In fact, two students died during one confrontation with the police. After that, the classes at the local universities were suspended. I couldn’t attend classes for almost a week. When the classes started up again, we were charged with extra homework as well as spending additional hours at the school, but none of us complained about it.

Even though there was a lot of violence from some protesters in the city center, most of us still acted in a peaceful way. For example, in my community and in all the neighborhoods in Arequipa, we conducted a nonviolent protest that we called “el cacerolazo”. This meant that twice a day, I used to came out of my house and join the other people in the vicinity in the beating of pots and pans, as well as the yelling out slogans at every block “ …Arequipa is not for sale….We need a new president..”. Also, as a show of solidarity for the whole movement, we displayed the Peruvian flag on the rooftop of my house as well as on the houses in Arequipa.

I will never forget the uprising of 2002, not just because of the emotions that originated in me for my own security and as a concerned daughter for the security of my parents, nor because I was a student who was unable to attend the university. I will remember that time because participating in this movement and helping it to achieve victory encouraged me to believe that people who join a just cause can bring down even the biggest obstacles of power in the path towards success. Finally, the Toledo government was forced to withdraw its plans to privatize the two electricity companies. Moreover, the president apologized to the people of Arequipa, the city which had been center of the protest.

Change In My Life

Life can be changed dramatically by an event of history. The reform and open policy, which was carried in 1979 by Xiaoping Deng, led Chinese People from the gate of darkness for a streak of light. Looking back to the past thirty years clearly reveals that great achievements have been made in many areas. With Chinese economic development in everybody’s eyes, and Chinese people’s mind and ideas have been updated as well. The reform and open policy has accompanied me for twenty years, and it is a process that has changed my life.

The effects of the reform and open policy were very obvious in my childhood. My father was born before the reform and opening up. There was not even a toy for those children who were born in the same time as my father. The only fun thing for children was fighting. When the winter came, the ground was filled with snow. They just had wrestling on the ground, because the snow was too thick to get hurt. Fortunately, I was born a few years after that event, so my childhood was much better than theirs. I had toys to play and new clothes to wear, but they were made by my parents’ hands. There were few kinds of food and vegetables. At that time, eating in a restaurant was luxurious. I always hoped the Chinese New Year to come fast so that I could eat dumplings.

Two decades after that event, it brought a striking effect in the flower of my age. The quality of life had clearly improved. No one made a toy or a cloth for their children anymore. Therefore, they bought new toys and clothes for them. My dad bought a video game player for me. It was an obvious good thing at that period of time. Food was improved a lot. Eating dumplings did not mean that it was a special day like Chinese New Year. It was no longer luxurious to go to restaurant. Life became better and better, but the most exciting thing was that the government offered to pull down our house and to build new one for us. My family was going to have a restroom with toilet, so that we would not need to squat anymore.

Now I am adult, and many things have been improving year by year. Computers and cell phones have become common in China, and they have made our life more convenient. I do not need to go to my friend’s home to knock on the door to check out if he is at home or not. I can communicate through the Internet and my cell phone. Even though now I am in the U.S., I can still communicate with them by the Internet or cell phone. In China, we cannot only eat Chinese food, but also food from different countries. Life has become more wonderful and convenient, and China has become stronger and stronger. The earthquake in 2008 almost ruined half of Sichuan Providence, but China and Chinese people were not beaten by the natural disaster. It united Chinese people's hearts. In 2008, after this natural disaster, China still held the Olympic Games perfectly.
During the thirty years, the reform and open policy has changed China significantly, while my life has changed a lot too. China and the quality of life are improving,and it is all because of the reform and open policy. This event has brought China out of the hell into the heaven. There is no stop sign for life. We need to keep driving no matter how rough the road is. Now China is a vehicle that will run down the long road to development and success.

Communism and Overthrowing Communism in Poland




Communism is a political ideology of free society with no division or alienation. In other words, it is an ideology, where there are no governments, no class divisions and no private ownership. In Poland communism came at end of the 1940’s and lasted until the early 1990. There are a lot of conflicts between people who think that communism was a good part of history, and those who think that it was kind of unnecessary. In Poland, people think that this system was not good enough because every political party who governed forgot about the ideology of communism, and tried to make benefits only for themselves. Communism has had a big impact on a lot of people in my country. The lack of freedom made some invariable and unavoidable changes for my family; however, December 29 1989 took communism from Poland for good and offered some new opportunities for my family.

Communism restricted almost everything, especially small business and education for citizens. Instead, they had to work for the country, and help build a new political free land. A lot of people who tried to have something for themselves couldn’t make progress because the political rules didn’t give permission to own anything. The populace didn’t have a chance to make their dreams come true; sometimes they didn’t even have enough money to live freely and without worrying about the following day. My father could learn at his profession, but when he finished four years of his school, the administration of the country didn’t give him papers so he could continue his education. Who knows what have happened if he had gotten a chance to broaden his knowledge?


The next effect of living in a communist country was the lack of immigration freedom that slowed down my parents’ plans of coming to The United States. Our governing party brought to administration the regulation of giving passports only for politicians and VIPs. When I asked my father why they did that, the answer wasn’t shocking. They did it to control every single person in the country, and to be sure that people were working for the nation. Moreover, they brought in the Martial Law as a state of emergency, where the police could put you in jail if you were outdoors after 10 p. m.; they did it because they wanted to control everyone, just in case if someone wanted to run away from Poland. My parents had a chance to come to the United States a long time ago as they got an invitation from my uncle. However, they didn’t get passports and couldn’t run away from their homeland full of restrictions and unfair rules.

The last effect is more optimistic because it does connect with the overthrowing of communism, which gave more opportunities for my family and me. In 1989, one year after I was born, the new ideology of democracy came and changed everything for good. There were no more Martial Law, no more language restrictions and no more restrictions of freedom. Finally, my dad started his school again; my mom changed her profession and opened a small business, and they could get everything in malls again, not only vinegar and spirits. There were two people that helped to bring down this ideology Pope John Paul 2nd and Lech Walesa. Both of them tried to make speeches to show how politicians changed the ideology of communism and made benefits only for themselves. Hopefully, the enthusiasm of new and fresh air won this battle; they gave freedom for average people who existed in Poland.

Communism as an ideology should guarantee the same standards of life for everyone unfortunately politicians that governed in Poland made it beneficial only for the elite, so a lot of people lost their possessions and freedom as did my family. History changed everything and everyone. Sometimes I try to think who would I be if history could change in the past? Would I have another life or never been born? However, I don’t have any machine that could move me back to the past as in the science fiction movies. It is confusing; in fact, I think that people from my generation should be grateful for what they have. I am also glad that my upbringing didn’t have communism as a main ideology of the country because I like to be free and express myself in my own way.

My Family’s History

We all know a leader’s decision is related with the fate of each country. Besides, a wrong revolution initiated by a problem-minded leader could make common people suffer. This is the real picture of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution might sound unfamiliar for many people. However, what can be said for sure is that it made a big impact on almost every person in China. Many elderly people and intellectuals were not only attacked but were physically abused, and my grandfather who was a teacher as one of the intellectuals in the old days, unfortunately, became one of the victims. The Cultural Revolution turned out to be a nightmare in the history of China’s development. In addition, this historical event has changed the chapter of my family’s history through three generations.

My grandmother had changed her character to be more independent due to the Cultural Revolution. In the old days, women only played the roles of wife and mother, and they didn’t know how to deal with things outside of their family. Therefore, my grandfather was the only backbone of our family, and my grandmother was responsible for taking care of the children. However, when my grandfather was arrested, my grandmother had to work harder in order to support her family. It was difficult to imagine how a woman from a wealthy family could endure all the disasters by herself. In addition, there was negative criticism behind her back. My grandmother had to face this big change in her life, and she had to be under the pressure of reality. Owing to her disaster, she learned to fight everything by herself to support her family, and she became a brave and independent woman.

In addition, my father was doomed to face his hardship because he was forced to miss his golden time for studying. Individuals who experienced the Cultural Revolution while in their teens and early twenties were denied an education. My father has never forgotten the day he was compelled to come back home, and he never had a chance to go back to school. I remembered how he was proud but struggled to tell me he was the best one when he was in high school. However, he had to face his fate and never knew about the life that might have waited him. When he grew up, he had to exert more effort than others on his job because he had no diploma of his studying. In addition, he had to work overtime in order to get a high salary. However, my father still faces his life optimistically. He lost the chance study, but he told me that he owned more than he lost.

Moreover, the effects of the Cultural Revolution on our family also changed my life and my philosophy for good. Everyone can get valuable things from his/her own experiences, and sometimes we also can enrich our life from another’s experience. Before I knew my grandfather’s history, I was a headstrong girl and never paid much attention to my education. I didn’t think about what were my goals for my life. One day, my father got injured at his job, and he told me the kind of job you have in your future is related how much efforts you paid in your studies. The chance is equal in front of everyone, but if you don’t catch it in time, you will lose it forever. The history in my family is like my instructor in my life, and it guides me to cherish my life.

Although the time of the Cultural Revolution has passed, its influence has changed our family’s route into the new world. The history will never change no matter what it brought us negatively or positively. In fact, it gives an intelligent course for our family to cherish our possessions. As we know more about our family history, we will know how to set up our gold and keep progressing. We all know that we have to face the past and think about what is needed for the future so as not to cause any regret. My grandfather’s history does not only belong to my grandfather, it will be along side our family for good.

The Economic Change

People have their own reasons to move to another place, but they mainly move because they have a tough time in their home country or something bad happened to them that caused them to leave their country For example, economic change affects many people if they did not know how to deal or with the problem. These things happened to my parents when we were in Hong Kong. The economic change happened one year after Hong Kong returned to China from the British control. In 1998, the stock market crashed, and after that day many people lost everything such as money, houses and their businesses. This all just happened in one day. Nobody saw this coming, and from that day on people’s lives become tougher than before.

The first effect of economic change was unemployment. Unemployment was a problem even before the economic change because a job is an individual financial support. The job my parents used to have was working at the restaurant, and both of them worked there for many years. After the stock market crashed, the restaurant started losing money, so the boss of the restaurant started to lay off the workers, and it included my parents. Once they lost their job at the restaurant, it meant they would not get the financial support to pay off what they owe the bank. Therefore, my parents are one of those individuals that lost their job and it becomes a problem because they couldn’t pay off their debt.

The second effect was home foreclosures. It happened to almost everyone during that time because before the stock market crashed, the housing prices was high than original prices. However, after the stock market crash, the housing prices dropped very fast and some of them dropped even lower than from the original price. This happened to my parents because the house price dropped since that day and my parents couldn’t pay the mortgage after they lost their job. The bank gave my parents a warning letter for the payment and told us the house may end up taken away if we don’t pay them. Therefore, my father went to his parents to borrow money to pay the bank, so we would not end up with foreclosure. My grandparents helped us a lot when we were in these kinds of situations and saved us just in time before the bank took back the house. Therefore, my parents couldn’t pay the mortgage anymore, so we went back to live at my grandparent’s house and sold the house.

The third effect of the economic change was people having a tough time managing daily necessities. After that day, people had lost almost everything. Sometimes, it could take a month, a year, or even in just a week to lose what they have. During this time, my parents used up all their saving just for survival. For my parents, their saving was used mostly to pay off their debit before they ran into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, my parents wanted to try to avoid bankruptcy, so they cut out the daily expense like going out to having dinner, buying clothes and food and setting the limit for the daily expense. On the other hand, to cut out these expenses helped my parents save money to pay off the debit. Therefore, this put my parents into deep trouble, and it was for us hard to get out of this kind of situation.

Alought everybody think Hong Kong will be better than under British control, and also the economic will much better than the past. However, nobody expected after one year, the stock market crash, and the economic change would affect many people who brought houses at a very high price. After the crash, some people choose to moved away from Hong Kong and some choose to stayed in Hong Kong. Therefore, for now the economic in Hong Kong it seems better than after the crashed, but it took many year to recover the economic. Therefore, for my parents, they moved away because of the economic change and they had thought about this problem before they moved to the United States. The economic change is one of the reasons people move away to the other countries and also they maybe afraid of is it going to help them or not if they move to another country.

Lighting Up

Many kinds of lights just like the stars shining around the whole city when I looked from the airplane at night. I still remember when I took the flight back to China, I saw tons of light from the airplane before landing. Later on, I realized that nowadays cities have become more and more crowded as the human population has been rising at the same time. In order to develop the cities, the city government has to make some suburbs become part of the city. Since this policy was implemented, it has had a huge effect on the lives of people, including me.

Traffic problems can be solved when we live with the expanding area of a city. In many cities, people cannot imagine how many traffic problems and accidents occur during rush hour every day. When I rode my bike to school during my high school years in China, I could not go through many streets. People would get anxious because they suffered from the traffic jams every day. I was always stuck in traffic jams on my way to school for at least half an hour every day. However, when some suburbs became parts of our city, many streets could be used; my life had become more relaxed every day. After these changes, I had never thought about how long I would spend on the way to school; I had never worried about how long I would be late to school. I could do everything in order and had a delicious breakfast in the morning. It made me feel the sunshine became brighter in the morning and sunset could be so beautiful at nightfall.

Since some suburbs have become parts of the city, there are more and more job opportunities available to people because the traffic problems have been resolved. Along with the financial crisis, a huge amount of people lost their jobs unpredictably. People would live a difficult life without any income after they lost the jobs. After the suburbs become part of our city, a lot of enterprises focused on these extra areas. They set up their business and built many commercial companies in the original suburbs. Therefore, they had to hire many employees to work for them. One of my uncles had been laid off under the economic recession, and he found a job as a salesman in a new shopping center in the original suburb. He always deeply appreciated this new government policy. Different parts of the new areas still need many people to manage, such as in security and street cleaning. In addition, the projects set up by mercantile agencies will act as a stimulant to further economic growth.

After the traffic problems and occupation had been solved, it showed us an obvious advantage of the city which is that we get more and more space to live. Since our city had grown enormously, we don’t need to live too closely anymore.  Now, there is more space for homebuilders to build houses and people can live further apart and can still be near the city. My family did not like living with noise, so we bought a townhouse when some new houses had been built. After we moved into the townhouse, we felt more comfortable. I could enjoy my own spacious room and did my private things. Actually, some original suburbs that already became parts of city started to promote another kind of small city in the new area.  

     Looking from the sky, we can’t count how many lights light up at night. This only appeared after some parts become part of the city. These expanding areas brought more benefits to our life. Most Chinese people have more convenience since moving to these “new” cities. However, each coin has two sides; we still have to prevent the new city from some bad trends such as increasing pollution. We should always think about how can we make full use of the city that exists in our life? It depends on how we treat the "extra size" of the city.  It is my wish that our city will be illuminated by more and more lights if we treat the additional areas in the right way.

Only One China

“Where are you from?” People are asked frequently in the U.S. “I am from China.” I answered with a smile, “How about you? Are you from China?” “No, I am from Taiwan.” Hearing this answer, I get angry. I don’t like this answer. Actually, Taiwan is an integral part of China. There is only a Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and Fujian province where I lived for nineteen years. Taiwan has been severed from the Chinese mainland since 1949 because Jiang, a old leader of Kuomintang, failed in the civil war and escaped to Taiwan. In recent years, some of Taiwan’s leaders have attempted to declare the “independence of Taiwan”. They implemented an educational reform to teach children that Taiwan is an independent country. The issue of Taiwan’s secession has had many negative effects on my life.

First of all, Taiwan’s secession affected my education. As Taiwan’s secession became a problem for the Chinese government, the main topic of my social science class became all about Taiwan’s secession. I had some homework and exam which were about Shui Bian Chen, the leader of the Taiwan’s government who attempted to declare the independence of Taiwan. In addition, my history class also focused on some revolution in Taiwan’s history. As Taiwan’s secession has become more and more serious, some students publicized and participated in some demonstrations to against Taiwan’s secession. What was worse, Taiwan’s secession has lasted for many years, so it has been affecting my education in my middle school, high school and university studies.

Taiwan’s secession not only affected my education, but it also affected my relatives who live in Taiwan. Actually, the hometown of many people who live in Taiwan is the Chinese mainland. They often want to come back to the Chinese mainland on some festivals to visit their relatives. However, the government of Taiwan does not allow the direct route between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. My grandmother’s sister who lives in Taiwan is limited to go visiting the Chinese mainland because of the above reason. Every time she comes back to the Chinese mainland, she needs to go to Hong Kong first, and then arrives at Fuzhou by air. It’s a waste of money and time. Therefore, she just visits us about once every three years. My grandmother often says she misses her sister, and it makes me feel sad to know that a government has created all these inconveniences for my family.

Moreover, Taiwan’s secession has affected my hometown to a certain extent. As Taiwan’s secession has become more and more serious, it has made the people who live in my hometown became nervous and worried that a civil war may occur. Taiwan’s government has bought many arms from other countries, and these have been some military exercises around my hometown. Some people who used to live in my hometown were afraid of war and moved to other places. Our old Chairman, Xiao Ping Deng, said that “We want to solve the problem of Taiwan’s secession by peaceful means through contacts and negotiations. However, we’ll never promise to give up resorting to force.” What a powerful policy! There is no doubt that people like peace, and all of us want to solve it in peaceful way.

In conclusion, Taiwan’s secession has affected my education, my relatives and the province where I used to live. However, Taiwan is an integral part of China, and China cannot lose it. Last year, Ying Jiu Ma became the Taiwan’s leader instead of Shui Bian Chen. I hope that Taiwan’s new leader will revise its policy about secession. Most Chinese and Taiwanese citizens don’t want to see a war between Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Looking back at history, China has had civil war during 1945 to 1949, many people died and the economic were decline and terrible. The victims are always the residents. The sooner these two sides solve the issue of Taiwan’s secession, the better everyone will be. The most important goal that we must maintain is “Only One China”.