Food poisoning buhao.

Well...It happened. I got food poisoning. I had really bad stomach cramps that were different from any other cramps I'd ever had. I went to the hospital and they told me I had food poisoning. Thankfully, it hasnt been too terrible. My cramps are still pretty bad and I threw up once, but that's about it. It was from a pork dish I got at a cafe in my dorm. I'm feeling better now though.

We started our culture class today. Our prof is getting his P.H.D. at Yale and writing his thesis on the Chinese and Burmese border clash. We watched this video on the Mao years in my class. It's really interesting since the beginning of the founding of the PRC, the Chinese government has always put the economic interest of the state before the well-being of it's citizens. From the Great Leap Forward's creation of the largest man-made starvation to the current disregard for environmental and labor standards, the Chinese government has consistently cut corners in order to boost profits or bail themselves out of economic crises. Mao Zedong is such a cult figure in China and it's really difficult to paint him as one person or another. Don't get me wrong. He did a lot of really horrific, terrible, and monstrous things to say the least , but he also unified China. He took a country that had been beaten down for years by foreign occupation and humiliation and gave it back it's pride. Now China's the second largest economy in the world. I was thinking about this today : Is the juice worth the squeeze in regards to China's economic prosperity? China's economic growth has lifted millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class...but it has costed countless lives, exploited millions of migrant workers and Chinese people, and tremendously polluted the environment to the extent that people are inhaling loads of smog with each breath they take. Most Chinese people agree that Mao did what he had to do at the time to unify the country. Would China even be the economic powerhouse they are today if they played fair in the global economy? Doubtful. All these question bounce around in my head. China really is amazing though. It's so crazy to think that they have came so far from a agriculturally based and politically weak society to the second largest economy in the world in a little over 60 years. It's fantastic... It took the US almost two centuries to become the global hegemony...post WWII. Well I'm getting dinner now with the Brits of course.

TATA for now loves...

and btw make a skype date with me soon.