Chinese Letter on Wife Swap

  In class we watched a few clips that were also shown to you. These were clips that your teacher showed you in hopes that you could capture some american culture. Some of the things that you saw were probably new to you but since I've lived in America my whole life the things you saw were things that I am very used to. To start off with, I'd like to address some of the things you saw in Wife Swap. To give some back story to my connections with that show, I used to watch that show a ton. Like that was my show not too long ago. Even as someone who is familiar with American culture, I still saw a lot of shocking things on that show. I've seen parents who believed in the unschooling revolution which I found absolutely disgusting, and I'm sure someone who has studied so much to get a better education would agree. It's the idea that children don't need public schools and education and that they can just learn from their surroundings. This family had an eleven year old daughter that couldn't even read. I've also seen families that worshiped fairies, I've seen maniac parents that are too controlling on their children, and many more types of families. It's hard for someone like yourself to watch all this and pinpoint what the typical American is like, and that's because in my mind, there is no typical American. We live in a country where we are free to do what we want and be who we want, no restraints. There's no law saying you can't practice some religion, or that you can't dress a certain. Sure there are things that are frowned upon, but most things are allowed. So you can worship fairies, or keep your kids at home. We have the freedom to be compassionate or be a jerk. There are both types of people in America. This is such a diverse country, American culture really isn't one thing or another, it's a lot of different things. Now to move onto the WWYD videos, you saw a lot of different reactions. But, for the most part, for the people that were nearby and could listen to what was going on, they got involved. That's because in America, we're very encouraged to get involved and try to do good if we can. Even though before hand I talked of diversity, I do think the concept of trying to be helpful is something you see often in America. There are a lot of good people in this country. So I am very proud of our ability to adapt to different situations. I think some of the things I'm not proud of are, the close minded things people do. Like the father being kind of a chauvinist, that wasn't cool. But he did come around. There are also a lot of nutsy people in this country that can take things way out of context. And I think one thing I wish we could improve on is just being better people. Being sweet to your own kind just isn't enough. I wish people would open up more and hold onto less anger. But I do wonder, how do the way these families and people work compared to China?  Do you think people from China would get as involved with the things the Americans were involved in?