MEDIUM POST #2: Write and publish a post reflecting on the forms of mutual aid that you have read about/thought about thus far and discuss how one of these examples might be effectively adopted to alleviate the precarity that some communities are living through today. Include one source that you have found outside of the course content that you would like to share with the class. Share a link to your post on the slack channel. Search #HIEA114 on Medium. Read a handful of posts by a few other folks in the class and add comments or annotations. Respond to comments. Complete and publish by Sunday, May 10 at 11:59pm PST. (use the slack channel to help each other out if folks have problems publishing their post)
For the last few weeks, we have read several articles about Zainichi Koreans’ plights in post war Japan. The Japanese government did not admit their citizenship while get a lot of tax from them. Japanese people discriminated them and excluded Zainichi Koreans from Japanese community. Under these circumstances, Zainichi Koreans had to come together and became an example of mutual aid. As written by Caprio, Zainichi Koreans developed the “black market” to help them get through that tough time. Famous Zainichi scholar Kang Sangjun also recorded the mutual aid he experienced in his childhood.
In this current apocalypse that swept the world, I would like to talk about a vulnerable and special community — Chinese international students. At the beginning of covid-19, China suffered most. Countless Chinese international students and oversea Chinese raised funds and snapped up medical supplies to aid domestic epidemic. We spared no effort to support our beloved country. This is also an example of mutual aid. However, when domestic epidemic was under control but the outbreak abroad began to occur on a large scale, “many Chinese students who have made the journey back to China have found themselves on the receiving end of intense criticism on social media, with some extreme comments accusing them of harming the country’s efforts to curb the epidemic and exploiting local medical resources without contributing anything. ” https://supchina.com/2020/03/20/chinese-students-overseas-flock-home-get-slammed-online-for-risking-chinas-success-in-containing-covid-19/
These extreme comments pierced the heart of Chinese international students like swords. It is true that some international students look down on their motherland and have many bad qualities, but the most of Chinese international students love their country and are willing to serve their country after they finish studying abroad. There is same blood running in our vein. Why accusing innocent people while you do not understand the full page. Some negative news about international students is true, but the problem is that that news is incomplete. If we can understand more comprehensively and consider each other, there will not be so many confrontations and abuses online. After all, Chinese international students and other Chinese people lived in China are in a same big community. If we do not help each other, who will help us?
