Ideology also gives rise to an important factor in the development of human mentality- faith and commitment. It plays a big part as those who are serious about their ideologies would naturally stick to it, persuade others to follow it and even sacrifice themselves to prove their point. This is more clearly demonstrated in the political and religious history of the human society- sometimes it is a fusion of the two. In the middle east, for example, years of unrest have been brought about by those who are serious in keeping their faith on the horizon and those who would like to see certain political voices rise to power. The Palestinians and the Israelis are the best example around to demonstrate this point.
Ideology- media
This part of ideology may be visible in the media. News coverage varies with the nature of the reporting agency and this already demonstrates how powerful ideology can be. Different media groups are home to different ideologies and in the end- their audience would be those who share the way of the paper. Newspapers are perfect example- broadsheets and tabloids have a radically different view of the world and the issues in society today (drug abuse, prostitution, national economy). Once more we can see how ideologies are projected to the masses and how it differs with the agencies.
With reference to the general concept of ideology, it is something intangible. Ideology affects people’s way of life and people’s mind. With the above discussion, I conclude that same event do give distinct media representations by various nations through the prisms of their dominant ideologies as defined by power structures, cultural repertoires and politico-economic interests.
Question 3:
Brief Background of Lu Xun
Lu Xun is called the father of modern Chinese literature. He wrote the first story in Modern Chinese called “Madmans Diary”. Lu Xun writes the way that people talk. Lu Xun went to Japan to study in the medical school; however, he dropped out of the school to devote himself entirely to writing. In his stories, he used the Chinese language imaginatively and had a large vocabulary as he was well educated. His real name was Zhou Shuren and he focuses on writing stories, short stories, poetry, essays, literary criticism and literary history. His stories were published in literary journals of the time and were then collected and published as books. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he never writes novels.
Representative writer and major works
Lu Xun may be considered as one of the most representative writer in modern Chinese literature during the 20 th-century Chinese literature. In 1918 he published his famous story “Diary of a Madman”. Besides being a Chinese literate, Lu Xun was also a founding member of several leftist organizations which includes League of Left-Wing Writers, China Freedom League, and League for the Defense of Civil Rights. Furthermore, he was a leading figure in the May Fourth Movement. His famous role in the May Fourth Movement was a demonstration protesting the continuation of international sponsored imperialism in China and pro-Japanese provisions at the Paris Peace Conference. As a result the protests led to the rise of modernist, socially critical movement which flourished and later came to symbolize intellectual and artistic freedom. Lu Xun may be a representative writer which he criticize the way that people think, and the culture and governing system of China and later came to symbolize intellectual and artistic freedom.
Moreover, in one of his story, Diary of a Madman, the narrator thinks that the oppressive nature of tradition as a man-eating society. This reflects to the people in China at that time and how people think. This story has also been called China’s first western style story. Lu Xun deliberately avoided traditional omniscient narration and replaced it with a single narrator to enhance the effectiveness of the message across to the readers.
Another famous story by Lu Xun is called “The True Story of Ah Q”. This story depicts an ignorant farm laborer who experiences with an utter lack of self-awareness. Also, in this story, it consist a series of humiliation and is executed during the chaos of the Republican revolution of 1911. Ah Q reflects as a personification of the negative traits of the Chinese national character. In this story, Lu Xun sees the China unprepared to deal with the impact of Western culture and technology.
Some other works that Lu Xun has wrote contrasted the hypocrisy of upper-class intellectuals with the suffering of the lower-class people in China (ie. Kong YiJi, Panghuang, Nahan). In the early 1920s, Lu Xun began to embrace Marxism and refused to join the Communist which then he received negative attention from the government because of his support for the Beijing students’ patriotic movement.
Nowadays, Lu Xun’s work is still widely read in China and perhaps all over the world. I still remember myself studying his work during my degree of asian studies in the University of British Columbia. During Lu Xun’s life time, he managed to maintain his status as an independent but leftist artist. During the Cultural Revolution his reputation remained untouched. However, after the death of Mao, intellectuals and writers started to reread his work and seeing him as an anti-authoritarian individualist and a voice of moral conscience. More people begin to recognize his work and may be considered as the most representative writer in modern Chinese literature.
Question 4:
From sources of Hong Kong history, it is shown that Chinese inhabitants were not granted any political power (here mainly the power of voting their representative in the Legislative Council). From the passage, it shown that they were discriminated by the minority of British subjects in Hong Kong society at that time, both in public places and “grand and high-class” places, like City Hall Museum, designated for only the British. Ng Choy, as Chinese elite in the Legislative Council at that time, he sought to achieve equality of nationality between Chinese and the British, at least in public places where admission should be free as long as one is a “Hong Kong citizen” regardless of their nationality or parentage. They seemed to suggest that, if places like Public Gardens did not practice such policy and the City Hall Committee members (most of which were British subjects, no doubt) insist to apply the effect of the notice in front of the City Hall Museum which aims at distinguishing Chinese and British subjects, they were not really “open for all alike”, “public”. Actually, what the Chinese elites were worried about is, if such kind of nationality discrimination policy can be adopted to a public place, its effect will then be even extended to public roads any other public places. At that time, the freedom and dignity of Chinese inhabitants will be totally violated. They persuade the British to think as if they were Chinese inhabitants in Hong Kong: “… he would venture to ask the honorable member on his right and the members of the City Hall, if they would like to see such a notice put up, supposing themselves were Chinese? If they did not, then why did they put such restrictions on Chinese?” They are selling this point, because the concept of citizenship, to a certain extent is a token of the civilization of the Britain. They hope the British will listen to their suggestion for this reason.
On the other hand, the Chinese elites hoped that the British would understand the importance of Chinese inhabitants in potential commercial ability to “maintain the commercial supremacy of Great Britain”, so that they just deserved to be granted more freedom and opportunities to trade. Their actual suggestion is, as in the speech given by Ho Kai and Wei Yuk, that they should be “sent to the inferior to occupy every source of trade and to act as commercial scouts or living channels of communication to the different Chambers of Commerce. The reason is, also as suggested, is that because the status of Chinese nationality would be a great convenient when competing with Europeans because Chinese would not be suspected (while Europeans would), both in conducting transactions and extracting information.
Under these two strategies, the two interests of freedom of trade and nationality equality (although only in public places) of Hong Kong Chinese, which had long been deprived of, were enhanced.
