China Road/India Express paper

Here is a paper that I turned in last Friday for my history class. I'd like to share all the thoughts that I've had after reading these two books, but I don't really have the time or energy to write it all down, especially after putting so much effort into this paper. There were a lot more things that were on my mind that I couldn't put into the paper because there wasn't space (I could only write six pages). So if you want to talk about it, I guess you'll have to come over for a play date or something!

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In the last few decades, several Asian countries have been experiencing distinct growth in their economies, standard of living, government stability, and foreign influence. China and India, in particular, are rapidly developing. In fact, both countries are said to have the potential to become global superpowers. Daniel Lak argues in India Express: The Future of the New Superpower that India will be the next liberal superpower. Rob Gifford, author of China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power, explains that China has more problems than most people realize, but provides strong evidence that China is also on the path to becoming a new superpower. Both countries have made important achievements, but they also have significant challenges to overcome. In order for India and China to become superpowers, they must sustain high economic growth, raise the standard of living for most of their citizens, maintain stable and effective governments, and be capable of exerting their power and influence internationally. At this point, China is in a better position to achieve most of these, and is more likely to be the first of the two countries to become a superpower.

High economic growth is essential for both China and India if they are to become superpowers. If their economies stall or fall apart, their standard of living, governments, and international influence will also be damaged. According to Gifford, income per capita in China is twice as much as in India (Gifford, 73), and China’s economic growth is faster than India’s (Gifford, 71-72). High economic growth must be complemented by improvements in infrastructure to facilitate that growth, and China’s government is aware of this. In fact, the government is largely building and constructing roads before the economic growth occurs, which is attractive to entrepreneurs. “There is also a lot of aspirational building in China, a sort of ‘build it and they will come’ approach in projects like this and in the attitude toward constructing the nation’s extraordinary system of new roads” (Gifford, 68-70).

Creative freedom will potentially allow the Indian people to bring about significant economic growth. Many Indians are very innovative. One is Mukesh Gupta, who is heading a project that involves breeding earthworms, which naturally make nutrient-rich soil that can be sold throughout the world, as can the food grown in the soil (Lak, 155-157). The problem India faces is that, unlike China, it is not investing in the roads that are necessary for the economy to function. “Put simply, if economic expansion is to be sustained at its current rate, India needs to start by building better roads, ports and airports. Some 40 percent of Indian produce spoils before it reaches the market. This is largely because of the long periods it spends on battered, overcrowded highways” (Lak, 241-242). China, in contrast, is investing in roads. “You can accuse the Chinese government of many things, but neglecting road building is not one of them” (Gifford, 43). India’s problems with transporting products severely limit its economy and prevent it from competing in the manufacturing sector. China, on the other hand, “is still the main center for global manufacturing” (Gifford, 286). This is a major reason why China’s economy continues to grow at a faster rate than India's.

China and India may both be achieving rapid economic growth, but they still need to take steps to improve the standard of living for most of their populations. China’s controlling style may not be popular among fans of democracies, but it is making more progress in helping its peasants than India. Ninety-three percent of Chinese people are literate, whereas only 60 percent of Indians are literate. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese women are literate, whereas only 45 percent of Indian women are literate (Gifford, 73). Illiteracy severely limits a person’s ability to ascend the economic ladder since literacy is needed for higher-paying jobs. One way the Chinese government is lifting people out of poverty is by paying for many of them to get an education in schools in the east, although an unfortunate side effect is that ethnic minorities lose their identity to some extent and become more like the Han Chinese. “The Chinese government says its policy provides a great opportunity for these children to get an even better education, and that is true . . . But the by-product of the policy is that the cream of Uighur youth have their ethnic identity diluted and become, in their formative years, more Chinese” (Gifford, 243). This integration stabilizes the Chinese government because if the minorities become more like the rest of China they won’t need to deal with revolts by angry minorities who want to leave China.

China’s direct role in lifting people out of poverty is causing its standard of living to rise at a more rapid rate than in India, where the government plays a much less direct role. There are many characteristics of Indian society that not only ignore Indians in abject poverty, but actually keep them in poverty with little hope of rising, and overcoming this is a very slow process. One problem is that India has severe issues with sanitation, particularly with the disposal of human waste. Hundreds of thousands of Indians make a living by collecting human waste and disposing of it, even though, according to Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, “Indian society . . . could have afforded another system of waste disposal but chose to continue with sweepers and scavengers, with all its foul effects.” Dr. Pathak explained to Lak, “This is barbaric, the worst work imaginable, and people who do it are beyond untouchability. No one wants to know them. They are doomed and their children are doomed to illiteracy, alienation outcast status” (Lak, 200). Until Indian society makes fundamental changes to their thoughts and attitudes, they will not be able to lift their most impoverished citizens out of poverty, even if their economy continues to grow at stunning rates, and this will limit the country’s credibility and available resources to act as a superpower. “Poverty will remain deeply entrenched because of social exclusion and denial of access to health and education services in the poorest areas . . . The ranks of the fortunate in India must start doing more to help their fellow citizens in poverty” (Lak, 158).

Another challenge facing China and India is establishing stable and effective governments. This is essential if they are to be taken seriously abroad and bring about economic improvements. Chinese government maintains stability by integrating ethnic minorities in the West, such as the Uighurs, into Han Chinese society, starting with the education of their children. Han Chinese are also encouraged to move west to aid in this integration. “Tibetans fear that the number of Han Chinese will slowly climb until there are as many Han as there are Tibetans in the region,” Gifford says (Gifford, 159). As more minorities like the Uighurs and Tibetans become like Han Chinese, and as more Han Chinese move west, successfully revolting and leaving China will become impossible, and the Chinese government’s influence over the western region will be stronger. China also maintains control by prohibiting public questioning of the political system. “Many people’s mind-sets about science and progress have been changed, but the government will still not allow people to think about political change . . . If China is to hold together, questioning like that cannot be tolerated” (Gifford, 167). While, to a Western mind, this may not seem desirable, it is true that the Chinese government does need to maintain control over dissent, or it will fall apart.

Most Indians consider democracy to be the country’s greatest achievement (Lak, 111). Unfortunately, India’s government has not achieved the stability or effectiveness of China’s government, despite the ability of the people to check the government using their right to vote. The Indian people are passionate about their right to vote, and “voter turnout is almost always high” (Lak, 8). At one polling place in Bihar, many people stayed to vote even after being shot at by Maoist guerrillas (Lak, 117). The problem is that illiteracy and lack of education limits many people’s ability to make an informed vote. They can refuse to vote for a leader who hasn’t done a good job, but it is difficult to make an informed decision on a replacement for that leader. As a result, in many cases an election becomes a popularity contest or a matter of a contender’s appearance, rather than being based on merit and ability. One actor campaigned for an office in Andhra Pradesh wearing costumes from movies in which he had been portrayed as the Hindu god Krishna. He served two terms, and his policies caused significant problems for the area before he was removed by the people’s vote (Lak, 119-120). Thus we see that even though Indians are much more capable than Chinese of influencing and making changes in their government, Indian government is still frequently ineffective because the people cannot make informed choices at the ballot. If India can raise its literacy rates and improve its education, the government has the potential to be more stable and effective, but at this point, China’s authoritarian government is in a better position to stay in control of its country.

Finally, China and India must develop international influence and power. China has made several achievements that have allowed the country to wield power around the globe. China’s greatest strength in this respect is that it has a significant amount of influence on the global economy because of its manufacturing industry. The Chinese government has also bought government bonds from the United States, which served to keep United States interest rates down (Gifford, 286). Ownership of these bonds has expanded Chinese influence in recent years as debt in the United States has become a growing problem. China also has a position on the UN Security Council (Lak, 249). Thus, China is already projecting influence around the world and is well-positioned to participate in world issues as a superpower.

India’s international influence is growing, but it is largely focused on the regional level. India has strong influence over many of its neighboring countries. “India has been known to throw around its considerable weight in the region” (Lak, 222). Yet even this influence is not very well received by those countries. Like China, India does have nuclear weapons, which are a powerful resource for international influence. However, India mainly wanted nuclear weapons for the purposes of defending itself and exerting influence over its neighbor, Pakistan. When India tested its nuclear weapons, it was well known that Pakistan already had nuclear technology and could build nuclear weapons (Lak, 211). India was mainly interested in nuclear weapons as a regional influence, not a global influence. Applying global influence is a necessary characteristic of a superpower, and while India does have the potential to do so, at this point its influence is mainly in countries close by. Meanwhile, China already has significant influence abroad.

Both China and India have the potential to become world superpowers. They are making noticeable strides in economy, standard of living, government, and international influence. Of these four factors, economy has the largest impact on the rate at which the two countries approach the status of superpower. Without a strong, growing economy, standard of living ceases to improve, government loses approval, and international influence suffers since the country cannot participate in the global economy on a large enough scale. China’s economy is far ahead of India’s, which is a major reason why it is closer to becoming a superpower than India. This economic growth is sustainable because of the government’s purposeful investment in infrastructure. China’s government also is taking action to alleviate poverty through education—a move that, coupled with intolerance of dissent, gives it stability. China also already exercises considerable influence internationally. In contrast, India’s economic growth is stunted by its bad roads, its peasants are held down by fundamental societal problems, its government is ineffective because so many Indians are not literate enough to make informed votes, and its influence abroad is only focused on the regional scale. This does not mean that India will never become a superpower; however, China has a significant head start and is positioned to become a superpower before India.

China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a really interesting and enjoyable read. Gifford traveled all the way along China's Route 312 and tells about the people he meets all along the way, from Shanghai in the east to the border of Kazakhstan in the west. I enjoyed his style, and I think Gifford was overall pretty complimentary of China while still explaining the problems it faces.

One of the things I realized was that the authoritarian approach in China is pretty effective. I tend to think that authoritarian equals bad and democracy equals good, but while I don't necessarily think it's fair to the people that the government still has so much control over the people's lives, I can acknowledge that the government seems to know what they're doing and is effective at facilitating high economic growth and keeping the country together. It's investing everywhere in buildings and roads so that people can start up businesses and transport goods effectively, and that's important. In India the economy's growth is really limited by the bad roads. In India Express I read that 40% of produce spoils before it gets to market because the roads are bumpy and trucks are frequently stalled for days. China recognizes that a lot of people are not content with the government, especially the people in the west, like in Tibet, who feel that they should be independent from China, and so the government is doing things like putting money into the economies in those areas, and also indoctrinating children in the schools, in order to make China more unified. I wouldn't say I like that, but I'm impressed that the government can be organized and plan ahead enough to carry it out. I do think that at some point China will have to become more democratic, though--more and more Chinese people want democracy, and if it becomes a big enough movement it could lead to a revolution. Last time that happened, Mao Zedong came into power and the next several decades were insane. It would be nice if somehow Chinese people could get their voice without chaos ensuing. At this point, most aspects of people's lives are not controlled by the government, but political dissent is still not tolerated.



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India Express: The Future of the New Superpower by Daniel Lak

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was an okay book. It took me a while to get into it. I don't think Lak is making a convincing enough argument that India will be the next superpower. He spends the entire book outlining all sorts of significant problems that India has (sanitation, poverty, illiteracy rates, ineffective and corrupt leaders, bad roads, pollution) but still declares that in a few decades India will not only overcome those problems, but get better than the rest of the world. I don't disagree that India has the potential to become a superpower, but I don't think those problems should be brushed aside in the way he does. I think he should have taken a softer, less biased approach instead of saying India absolutely will be the next superpower. The index at the back of the book was also poorly written, by the way. Pakistan doesn't even show up in the index.



But, I did find many of the stories interesting. He talked about a man who started breeding farms for worms in order to make good soil without copious amounts of chemicals. The problems with disposal of human waste are heart-wrenching. Much of India just doesn't get the concept of sewage systems, and they're still using a system of sweepers--people who make a living collecting and disposing of the waste. It's a horrible job and those people have no hope of rising out of poverty because they are so susceptible to disease and nobody wants to come anywhere near them. I also didn't realize how bad the pollution is. Indians are going to have to develop an understanding of how their actions affect their environment--i.e. they can't just throw whatever they want to into the river, they can't use prolific amounts of chemicals to fertilize the soil, and they can't just "do their business" in a field somewhere.



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Marbles, take two

During spring break two weeks ago, we decided to make another trip to the Marbles kids museum. We went last fall while my parents were here, and I felt like we had barely scratched the surface. So we went on Wednesday. While I was looking for the directions, I noticed that we could get a discount by showing our Food Lion MVP card. Great!

When we first got there I was slightly concerned because the place was crawling with elementary school kids who were there on a field trip. A worker reassured me that they would be leaving in an hour, though, so we decided to stay. Kevin's favorite part of the museum is the bus, but we dragged him away because there were about ten kids trying to play in there at the same time.

We went to look at the fishes, which Kevin thought were very interesting this time (last time he couldn't hold still long enough to be interested). Then we played on a pirate ship. It's three stories tall, and we discovered something rather interesting about Kevin: he's afraid of heights. Being on the ship made him nervous. That was sort of surprising since he figured out how to climb onto the top bunk before we had even installed the ladder. Next we played in the water like we did last time, and he remembered to go put the plastic aprons on to keep his clothes dry.

Last time we didn't even go upstairs, so we decided to check it out. They have a little area with several basketball hoops of different heights, and Kevin was in Heaven. He loves basketballs. He didn't seem to care that there were a lot of other kids bouncing around him and being rowdy. He held his own just fine. We spent a lot of time watching him shoot hoops.

After a while we dragged him away (under protest) to try something else, and decided to check out the "Money Palooza" section. I was expecting paper money (which Kevin would rip) and small coins (which Kevin would swallow or throw), but I should have known better. It was awesome! It was more like a playground with an elaborate system where you put balls into vacuum tubes and shoot balls towards nets and do other activities, and ultimately the balls end up inside this giant pig that drops all the balls into a circled area when it gets full enough. We had such a fun time!

We finished off with a second visit to the bus, and then went home. What a fun day! We love Marbles!

I can't bring my pantry to the playground every day.

I am one of those annoying moms who feeds her children at home before coming outside to play instead of bringing out snacks. Not only that, but my children are those annoying ones that always want your kids' snacks.

I'm never sure how to approach this situation. People are always so courteous about it and either encourage their kids to share or kindly say that they didn't bring enough to share. And that's fine. But it doesn't get rid of the awkward feeling of knowing that my child is the one who's asking for everyone else's treats without having any to exchange. I just have a hard enough time getting out the door with kids wearing shoes and jackets that I can't handle bringing along fruit snacks, granola bars, and crackers too.

I have no objection to other people bringing out food. It's fun to have picnics. It's nice to have the convenience of getting both lunch and playtime taken care of. It just doesn't work for me. Whenever I try to bring lunch outside, Kevin just isn't interested because he wants to play. So we eat inside.

All I ask is that you try not to think less of me because I can't handle bringing my pantry to the playground every day. All I ask is that you nicely tell me if you can't share. I know fruit snacks are expensive, and I know that sometimes you just brought enough for your kids. It's no problem, I just want to eliminate the awkwardness.

The end.

a nice birthday

On Thursday I had a nice birthday. I am twenty-four. I never thought I would be so old. I'm not sure I really am this old. Then again, I'm definitely not sixteen or even twenty anymore--nor would I want to be.

The day got off to a rough start when Kevin woke us up earlier than we are accustomed to, and then at breakfast time he threw soggy bran flakes across the room. It was an awful mess. Ryan was feeling really dizzy, so I put Kevin and his dirty chair into the shower and told Kevin he had to clean up his chair. Then I had to scrub the carpet. Next place we live will have hardwood floors.

But it got better. Kevin and I spent the morning reading books, and then my friend Melissa babysat the kids so that Ryan and I could go out for lunch. It was so nice to get to go out on a date! We don't do that very often. We rode the bus to Franklin Street and went to Spanky's. It was good food. I had a chicken burger and a fruit smoothie, Ryan had a cheeseburger, and we also both had fries. Our straws were made from plants, by the way. When we finished, we were thinking about getting some ice cream or a doughnut, but I wasn't sure. Then our bus home pulled out just before we reached it, so it was decided. We had fifteen minutes to kill, so we went to Coldstone. I tried their new raspberry frozen yogurt, and it was awesome!

In the afternoon everybody got a nap (which doesn't happen very often), and then we had Hawaiian haystacks for dinner. Ryan made an apple pie.

My mom gave me a hot glue gun, which is something I've been wanting for a while so I can try out some of the things I've pinned on Pinterest. I think I'm going to get the piano tuned for my birthday too. It is very much in need of it.

pictures and videos

Kevin still needs an afternoon nap, but sometimes he has a hard time settling down to take one. One day, when this had been the case, he dropped off and just fell asleep on the couch around 6:00. He has never just fallen asleep on the couch like that.

Here are the kids helping Dad put together the ladder for the bunk bed. Heidi's expression was so cute I had to share it.

Kevin got a hold of this LED light key chain and took it apart. I didn't realize he was doing it until he came out with it asking me to help him fix it. I was so surprised, because it wouldn't have even occurred to me to take the light apart. I also found the other battery on the floor of his room later. (Gah!)

Heidi woke up crying, and we found her with one arm out of her sleepers.

I figured it out.

Several months ago I read Toilet Training in Less than a Day, by Nathan Azrin. Several of Ryan's sisters have used it and thought it was good, so I thought I'd see what it was all about.

The book does have a lot of interesting ideas. I read it and thought that it made a lot of sense. The idea is that you give the child lots to drink so that they can have a lot of opportunities to practice using the toilet, and you spend the entire day focusing on them learning to use the toilet. It's all very positive and focused on helping the child learn to do it all independently. I would say that his definition of toilet trained is probably a little different from most people's, though.

What really surprised me was his success rate. He developed his method while teaching mentally disabled people to independently use the toilet. These were people that were disabled enough that they had never been able to learn to use the toilet. Then he took what he learned and tried it on toddlers. With the toddlers, his success rate was nearly 100%. Almost all of them were potty trained in one morning, and all of them were potty trained after a couple of days. I couldn't figure out how he had such a great success rate, because I'm positive that it will never work for Kevin. He's bossy and doesn't like to be told what to do. Making Mom and Dad pleased with him isn't much of a motivation for him. He likes to do things himself, and figure things out himself. There are just a lot of aspects of his personality that won't work well with this method. Some of those characteristics will change as he develops, but a lot of them won't. I know there are a lot of kids who have personalities that would make this method difficult. Azrin's solution? You'll need to spend a couple of weeks teaching them not to be so stubborn. A couple of weeks? Ha!

So here is my theory for why he had such a high success rate. He screened all of the children to see if they were developmentally ready to be potty trained. The kids that were stubborn or resistant to following directions were not ready to be potty trained, and their parents were told to come back later. The kids never stopped being like that because that was their personality, and finally they just potty trained themselves or the parents figured something out, so they never ended up in Azrin's statistics. So Azrin got a biased sample. 100% of the children that were a good match for his method got potty trained using the Toilet Training in Less than a Day method.

Don't get me wrong. I do think there are some good ideas in the book. It makes sense to me to use underwear, not pull-ups, to potty train, because pull-ups feel just like diapers. It makes sense to put a lot of focus on it for a few days rather than just hounding the child with "Do you have to go potty? NOW do you have to go potty?" without teaching them about it. I like the idea of doing the practice runs after they have an accident. I think it makes sense to have the child help clean up after an accident (if it's just the wet kind) so that they learn to take responsibility for their own hygiene. And a lot of his ideas have actually been helpful in areas of parenting besides potty training. But I have a feeling that this probably won't be a one-day process for Kevin. The method might work well for Heidi, though.

Yes, we did make an attempt at potty training Kevin this week. I used some of Azrin's method, but not much. I hadn't realized how deep we are in the NO! phase. All of a sudden we're having to use a lot of reverse psychology. He's also been having a hard time getting to sleep for his naps, which has meant sleep deprivation and grumpiness. So I decided not to push it. We'll try again this summer. He'll probably be better at communicating anyway. And I also have a feeling that Kevin needs this to be his accomplishment. Occasionally he still asks to sit on the potty, and I think for now we'll leave it at that. I've been dreading this since Kevin was a few months old because I could already tell we were in for a rough ride with this kid.

 . . . But maybe he'll decide to surprise me for my birthday today and suddenly be completely potty trained with no effort on my part. : )

pool water

It's that time of year again--the month when the county puts copious amounts of chlorine into the water to clean up the pipes, which means that our drinking water tastes and even sometimes smells like a swimming pool. Ugh. It's not so bad if you put a lot of ice into your water, though.

I have been struggling to get over being sick. Today was the first time in three weeks that I've been to church. Two weeks ago Heidi and I had colds. Heidi recovered pretty quickly. I had a very runny nose for a week and then a little over a week ago I started having a lot of pain throughout the right side of my head--it was a constant throbbing. I generally prefer to wait to see a doctor and let my immune system do its job, but I really should have gone to the doctor sooner this time. I tried Ibuprofin and Acetaminophen and neither stopped the pain. So last Monday I asked my friend Annie to babysit Kevin and went to an urgent care. It was about a two hour wait, and after sitting up for so long I was in a lot of pain. The only thing that got me through was knowing that I had to get some antibiotics. So between the antibiotics and a lot of prayer to be healed, I feel like I'm pretty much back to normal.

We bought a bunk bed and two mattresses and set them up in Kevin's room. He is very excited about his new bed and has been having a hard time settling down to take naps because of his fun new bed. He's been sleeping in his crib with the side taken off, and it was definitely time to get him a twin bed because he's too long to fit on a crib mattress. Plus, his crib mattress needs to be put in the trash because it is quite old. We figured that eventually we are going to need a bunk bed for the kids, so we might as well get it now. It's a very pretty pine wood bunk bed and can be taken apart to be two separate beds.

Heidi has her first tooth. It poked through on Valentine's Day. She is saying Mama and Dada and means them both. She can stand up by herself for a few seconds, but usually she doesn't even try. She is quite mobile now and has all sorts of bruises from falling as she looks for adventures. I don't remember Kevin falling so much. She can also put tiny things like crumbs and stickers and individual oats into her mouth--everything goes straight into her mouth.

Kevin is up to all sorts of tricks. He uses just about anything he can think of to pick locks. This week he picked a lock with the end of a shoelace. (The conversation went something like this: Ryan: Um, Kevin just picked the lock with a shoelace. Me: He picked a lock with a SHOELACE? Kevin [while repeating the feat]: Yeah! Uh-wock door! Hahahahahaha!)

Some phrases he has picked up lately: "What the?" "Oh, dear." He's taken to telling us, "Don't scream! Go to your room! Okay, time out (pie-owp is how he pronounces it)." (followed by trying to drag us to the time out chair) Hmmm, where did he hear that from?

I have been thinking about starting to potty train him tomorrow. I still haven't decided. I do feel like he is ready to be potty trained, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to deal with it. We keep the bathroom locked all the time because he likes to get up to mischief in there (understatement of the year), so if we start potty training I think we would have to take everything out of the bathroom so he would have access to it without us having to worry about him squeezing out all the toothpaste and burning himself on my straightener. Besides that, of course, there are all the accidents on the carpet and figuring out how to go in public and so on. So on the one hand, I don't know if I'm ready to handle the stress of it all, but on the other hand, I feel like we might as well get it over with. Maybe we'll try it out and see how it goes.