Lap 5 Blog 2: Describe/comment on a Jacob Riis photo.

This is one of Jacob Riis photo selections. This pictures title is "Under the dump, Rivington Street, about 1890". In my opinion, this photo shows the life style and living in the 1890s. People didn't have much to give just because of the poor community and life that everyone lived in. Most of the time one person can not afford their own roof to live under so they connect with about 4-5 people to purchase one small room to live in. This led to unsanitary circumstances, where people will get dead sick and have no privacy to recover only because if they get someone else under your roof sick and you recover they'll just get you sick again. Guaranteed i think nothing in this room was comfortable from the beds to being crammed in the room with multiple amounts of people. I thought the picture was just taken at an older time and that's why the color is like that, but i don't think that's the age of the photos fault. I think that's what the room really looked like back then. Dirty!!! If i would have to live in that place i would probably just kill my self with no choice because if i didn't kill myself, i will surely die regardless from the sickness or even starvation.

Lap 5 Blog 1: Compare the conditions workers in China face currently with those of workers in America at the turn of the century.

            At the turn of the century workers in China were people that were really put to work. Really. The Chinese were really put to work. The workers in china worked in places called sweatshops, any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Companies basically make their work place a sweatshop to make more money than they give away easily and faster. Since there are so many workers that work in one sweatshop alone that works for a long period of time and also receives low wages the owner benefits off all the workers.

            The labor in America was not easy neither; working isn’t a easy thing to do at all. Andrew Carnegie was a company owner and he also put all his workers into hard labor just like the workers in China today. You can basically say that Carnegie owned his owned his own sweatshop. When they workers worked for Carnegie when you were cold you would wear layers of clothes even working in front of a close fire all day and also include you are super exhausted. They could be so tired that they can fall asleep while working in front of the fire and fall into the fire. Carnegie will hear about the report, but to him safety is not his concern. Is all this work for both Carnegie’s workers and the Chinese workers today all worth it? It may be a risk to take, but sometimes if people really want to get somewhere in life they really work to death to help themselves and maybe even their family.

Inspiration Blog

 

One Land. One Flag. Just Freedom.

Inspiration #3

            Another person that inspires me is a well-known male in some of Philadelphia named Harry Leong. Harry Leong is the center director at the church and after-school program that I tutor at, but Harry isn’t just a center director. Harry doesn’t seem busy all the time, but if you didn’t know Harry is always working at home, work, and even just on the streets. Harry works for the church a lot, but what inspires me the most is that he is in charge of one of Philadelphia’s Chinese Basketball teams. There is a team around the areas of Chinatown here in Philadelphia that harry is the supervisor/director/coach of and they are called the Philadelphia Suns. It is a basketball team for all different ages and genders such as the young suns ranging from 7-14 years old, Risings suns that are no older than 18 and is attending high school, The lady suns from 13 years old and up, Men suns team A & B, and even Senior Suns ranging from old to older.

Even though Harry only coaches the young suns he still takes care of all the financial problems that these teams cost by having some of his players participate in the Chinese Lion Dance. The Chinese lion dance is a tradition where they perform in lion heads made by different materials to use while they shake it in different ways performing some of their own routines. The Chinese lion dance is also traditionally performed at some Chinese grand openings at a restaurant, weddings, events such as Phillies game, Asian inheritance month, and especially Chinese New Year. The Chinese lion dance is one of Chinese traditions that what the Chinese

believes to give good luck and also scare away the bad spirits and start of new cleansed life once again. Harry organizes a lot of community events such as a Chinatown cleanup not because he lives in Chinatown, but just to keep any community clean and safe. Some other community attractions that he holds is an after-school program and also a summer camp called PUMP. Some of these attractions are available for kids because Harry is very good with kids. Before he became the center director of the Chinese Christian Church & Center he was a teacher at Mc Call elementary. Harry was basically in the Philadelphia community forever.

            For the most part Harry Leong is gradually becoming more renown every day because of the work he does for us.  You might not know him now but eventually after you read this and is very curious to learn a little bit more about this man it is possible you can search up Harry Leong on Google. That’s how popular harry is. He is like the Yao Ming of China, but instead in Chinatown.

2. Select a quote form pp. 170, Do you agree or disagree with it?

The quote I am using is from Lucy Flucker Knox that said, “I hope you do not consider yourself as commander-in-chief of your own house, but be convinced, that there is such a thing as equal command.” From that quote of Lucy Flucker Knox I agree what he stated is an honest and true statement. The reason why I agree to this statement is because I think it means if you do something that against me I have the right to do it right back. For example, if you were to kick me out of your house one day and you decide to come to my house, I have the same authority to kick you out. Another example I believe that explains this quote is if a community group is trying to all agree on something and there is one person leading the whole discussion other people will have the right to disagree instead of following what the leader does. I think the overall meaning to this quote is saying that everyone has equal right no matter what you say and also it has a little piece of freedom of speech.

3. Select the Right from the Bill of Rights (first 10 Amendments on pp 199-200) that you think is most important. Explain why you think so.

             I believe out of the first ten amendments the most important one and reasonable one is the first amendment. The first amendment written was “The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the Freedom of speech, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.”  I believe the most important part of this amendment is that they prohibit making of any law respecting an establishment of a law. I believe this is the most important part of the amendment because if one of the most important people had the authority to control mostly anything believes in a certain religion and says that all other people that don’t believe in the same religion as me shall die. That’s just cruelty towards other peoples religion. Another important peace to this amendment is what I believe to be is the rights of freedom of speech. If people didn’t have the right to say whatever they can and if they didn’t have the rights to do that some of the things we have today might not exist. For a big example if Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t say what he thought of segregation then all races could still possible be still separated. Even though he spoke what he wanted to and possibly died from it, he has done good in our world.

Inspiration Blog #2

            Another person that is a real inspiration to me is a male that went to the same church as me and pushed me to work harder in basketball while staying close to my studies. No matter how many shots I have taken, no matter how many shots I missed, and no matter what I did wrong he would always stay positive and guide me through my mistakes. This person’s name is Daniel Lui and if I needed a person to guide me through my troubles in life it will probably be him. Dan introduced me to the older folks that were always some people that inspired to become a better person. Before meeting all these people I wasn’t the best person that you could meet because I would always cause trouble to get people mad and sometimes just to look cool. Just the way Dan lives his life motivates me because it expresses the way he was raised and how he was as a child. I believe he told me once where he was just like me as a child where he was sort of the bad boy gave me a tendency to change the way I live my life too since he can do it. All the advice that he gives me about basketball just makes me improve because we play alike in many ways, but as a more experienced person he is obviously better. He keeps telling me “Man Jackie, you are definitely better than me when I was 16.” That motivated me to get better so I can above exceed him before I get to his age. Maybe he’ll just keep telling me the same thing, but instead of 16 maybe he’ll say like 21 or 24.

Even though Dan wasn’t thinking about pursuing the basketball dream like Jeremy Lin he is still one of my closest referrals that I can get inspiration from. I can most definitely consider Dan as an older brother I never had. As Christian brothers we have the bond that cannot ever be broken. Thanks Dan.