Please read one of these articles and post your responses. Please remember to be civil in your comments to one another. The aim here is to move the conversation forward rather than score points or to shout down the other side.

Each of these articles is a personal peice. The first is by an American sociology student who lived in China for 2.5 years based in Fujian. The second is a peice by a Chinese reporter on conditions for young people in Xinjiang. The third is a translation of an opinion peice by a Chinese journalist who visited Tibet which was published int the New York Times.

http://benross.net/wordpress/xijiang-an-ethnic-miao-tourism-village/2013/05/18/

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/06/what-its-like-to-be-young-and-muslim-in-chinas-tense-far-west-uighur-xinjiang/

(Try to access this page by googling "foreign policy" "xinjiang" and scrolling down to the middle of the first page of hits. If you try to access the FP site directly, it will pop-up a banner that you can't get past without registering).

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/opinion/tibet-is-burning.html?_r=2>&

Please write about only ONE peice or at most, two. DO NOT summarize the peices in their entireity. If you wish, you may and should cite directly from the peices, but ALWAYS cite the source when you either summarize or quote directly.

Kim this is my professor's reply to my blog that you previously did.

(You raise some important points Samuel. I'll come back and engage with some of them a little later on.

My first response to your blog is that it would be easier to follow your points if you tried to keep each point in a separate paragraph. This would make your argument visually clearer as well.

As a final point of fact, I don't think you can seriously argue that the CCP placed peasants in positions of quasi-slavery. The objective data show that working and living conditions for peasants under the Imperial system and the Republic were much more similar to slavery than they were under the socialist system or the economic boom period.)

Kim here are a few examples that my friends did for their blog.

Personally, I do not know much about Tibet. I know that Tibet is a land in China and that was all that I know about the place. I have heard of riots that occurred in Tibet but I do not know a lot about those since the Chinese government typically forbid discussions or coverage on the negative events that are happening in Tibet. When I'm in US, I had full access to articles that are mostly censored in China and I was able to delve into the events that transpired in Tibet including the anti-government protests. Furthermore, I was taken by surprise when I read the details surrounding the political climates because I had always thought that Tibet was kind of like inner Mongolia in terms of autonomy (clearly I was wrong). I was not expecting bloodshed in that western part of China and I certainly did not anticipate the violence that happening there. Also, I had noticed that the self-immolations that the protesters had done to express their contempt of the Chinese government were some sort of daily recurrance. I can understand that the Tibetans were largely unsatisfied with the CCP, but I never knew the extent that they were willing to go to show how much they would like Tibet to have its own sovereignty or something; the news were shocking to say the least. Lastly, the author of the opinion piece had stated that there were a lot of regulations that were imposed on the inhabitants of Tibet--one of them is how Buddhists cannot go to Lhasa without permit. In the end, I can only say that I never thought Tibet was worse than it looks. I do not know what Tibet's future would be, but I would think that the region is better if there is a sort of dialogue between the CCP and the Tibetans. Maybe not all of the people in Tibet would agree to that motion, but anything to stop Tibet from burning is possible and can be applicable.

Tibet is Burning by Xu Zhiyong, New York Times.

I read the article, "Young and Muslim in China's Tense Far West." This article was written by Helen Gao, a journalist from Beijing. It is about the young people in the city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang province of China, who are being persecuted for their religious beliefs. These people are Uighurs, an ethnic minority group of people in the west of China and also, they are mostly Muslim. China's government believes that without religious unification, its people cannot be unified, politically or otherwise

Though, Gao grew up admiring the diversity of China with its various landscapes and cultures, over the last few years, she has seen a more oppressive version of China between the Han people and the Uighurs. In lectures, I know it was mentioned how labeling things or people as opposites is not always accurate or simple. That we have to look at context and other criteria for judgement. Well, I think the Uighurs and the Han see each other as opposites, where they could not in any way be able to coexist without destroying one's or the others way of life. China's government in 2014 has banned clothing that is religious, has restricted prayer, and closed schools that are Islamic making it clear that they see Muslims as the cause to this violence, 100 dead in the last year. There is more likely going to be Islamic extremism in Kashgar, if young people's rights to passports, privacy, freedoms of faith, are taken away. However, the fear of terrorism is very real, and increased security in schools, and bilingual programs may be useful as well. This is hard to look at a nation where sometimes, the Government cannot always take into account the minorities' needs while trying to combat larger issues of national security.

Gao, Helen. (July 2015). Tea Leaf Nation. Retrieved from: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/06/what-its-like-to-be-young-and-muslim-in-chinas-tense-far-west-uighur-xinjiang/

I chose the article "Xinjiang: An Ethnic Miao Tourism Village" written by Ben Ross since it contains a lot of pictures in his article for the readers to know more about the actual view in Xinjiang. The article is talking based on the author's observation in the village about the minority Miao. Ross had a lot of conflicting ideas when he visited the village since he sort of smell a sense of "not natural". The local government put tons of money for the village to build this "resort" to attract people from different places to see the culture of Miao. However, the tourists are just "seeing" the Miao's instead of truly understand what is the authenticMiao culture. From the article Ross said "Ethnic tourism is a big deal in China, with two if the primary attractions being the minority dances and minority traditional clothing. Interestingly, at the center of town,Miao women, in costume, put on a never-ending show of their traditional song and dance." From my understanding, clothing and dancing for a lot of minority groups both represent either their spirit or their ceremony of celebrating. Nevertheless, women are making their traditional clothes and performing their dances to tourists just because of their money and to make profit. So are the government or the tourists really care about the existence of the Miao's? Or they just preserve it for making profit? It's great that the government invest money to the minority group. On the other hand, is the coming of the all the tourists another threat of diminishing Miao's culture and their residence is still a question. Gladly, Ross still explored so how the real Miao's attraction from the walking path surrouding by the rice patty fields. The tradition a belief of minority ethnics might be different than the Han people but it doesn't mean that majority should wipe out and not respect to the minorities. Listen and respect is the key.