Find something to like about others in doing so they will find something to like about you .......🦅

It's extremely difficult not to like someone when they like you. So, find something to like about others in doing so they will find something to like about you .......🦅
https://www.facebook.com/thomasf.oneill.3

Always with love from Suzhou, China

Thomas F O’Neill

WeChat - Thomas_F_ONeill

U.S. Voice mail: (410) 925-9334

China Mobile: 011 (86) 13405757231

Skype: thomas_f_oneill

Email: introspective7@hotmail.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/thomasf.oneill.3/

Research is advancing rapidly in China ....... 🦅

Many Americans are unaware that China is not only becoming the number one superpower economically but also in the area of science and technology. As China's economy continues to grow, so too are vast sums of money going into the country's technological research.

One key area of research that's drawing vast sums of money from the Chinese government is the area of genetic engineering.

They are now using and developing highly sensitive equipment to scan, read, and sequence human genes. This is nothing new, but the amount of money being poured into this research is giving China an edge over private companies in the U.S. China now has the resources in terms of manpower, and equipment, to carry out research quickly and efficiently.

Genetic engineers have been researching on animals in China for decades, but China has recently made some remarkable breakthroughs.

Researchers have, for instance, produced mice with human neurons to do brain research. They have genetically engineered Chimpanzees with human neurons, human auditory, and optical nerves. Monkeys have been given human eyes and ears, Chimpanzees, human voice boxes, and vocal cords. The things that I was once intrigued by in Sci-Fi movies are now becoming science reality.

Genetic engineers have spliced genes from jellyfish and mice to create mice that glow in the dark. Researchers have genetically engineered pigs that never grow larger than a piglet. Geneticists can now turn off the protein that regulates muscle growth in dogs and cats. For the cost of approximately 35,000 American dollars, you can purchase a genetically engineered German Shepard or a house cat that is much larger than your run of the mill pet dog or cat.

China is also spending vast amounts of money in the area of cloning. Imagine one day in the future, a person discovers they are suffering from heart disease. A private medical doctor extracts some of that person's genes and sends them off to a lab. Then, in a matter of weeks or months, the patient can have a brand-new cloned heart transplanted in them free of all defects.

Failing organs in the future may very well be replaced with cloned organs, and diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, or dementia, might be cured with cloned neurons. Some of China's top genetic engineers believe this can become a reality in the next 20 to 30 years.

Many scientists in China envision a future with cloning factories, providing huge medical benefits, where human organs can be cloned and perhaps genetically altered to benefit the patient's individual needs.

Many government agencies in the U.S. are beginning to question the moral and ethical ramifications of China's research. For most Americans, this sort of research makes for good science fiction - now leaning toward science reality - with unknown consequences.

The Chinese company BGI is now the leading company in the world for animal cloning. BGI also has the most sophisticated gene-splicing machines. They have bought an American company that produced the machines for research and development. The Chinese, however, have found new ways to produce the machines much more cheaply and now they have the largest number of gene-splicing machines in the world.

BGI's ambition is to use the machines to read and sequence genes to improve human health. They are also discovering new ways to improve crop yields and produce stronger and healthier livestock for farming through genetic sequencing. BGI is always discovering new ways to use genetic engineering for industrial use in creating new and healthier foods for human consumption.

How science and technology are evolving in China and the direction it is taking has many questioning whether we are ready for this sort of technology and, now that cloning can be done, should it be done?

When it comes to animal research and the foods we eat, much oversight needs to be put in place. The critics are questioning whether the oversight is sufficient in China, especially, when it comes to animal safety and food consumption.

The Chinese, however, believe their growth in scientific knowledge may lead not only to healthier human beings but possibly the eradication of world hunger.

I like to tell my students that knowledge is only as useful as its proper application and the wise know-how to properly apply their knowledge for the greater good.

Let us hope that China's advancements in science and technology can be used wisely for the greater good by enhancing the lives of those in need, not only in China but globally.

But only time will tell.

Always with love from Suzhou, China

Thomas F O’Neill

WeChat - Thomas_F_ONeill

U.S. Voice mail: (410) 925-9334

China Mobile: 011 (86) 13405757231

Skype: thomas_f_oneill

Email: introspective7@hotmail.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/thomasf.oneill.3/

When it comes to the reality of life ....... 🦅

Thomas F O'Neill judging preschoolers in an English Language competition in Wuxi, China ....... 🦅

Children start learning English as early as preschool here in China and the children compete against one another in English language competitions, from the local levels, all the way up to national competitions.

One of my volunteer jobs is to be a judge for these events. I took a short video of a preschooler competing for the top prize in Wuxi, China. Her next competition will be for the top prize in the Jiangsu Province. If she wins there, she will head off to Beijing for China’s top National Prize.

Keep in mind she is one of many competing and she is only 5 years old. None of my high school students ever won the top national prize in an English language competition, but 25 of my students, over my 11 years of teaching, made it as high as 5th place at Beijing’s National English Language competition which is quite an accomplishment ....... 🦅

Always with love from Suzhou, China

Thomas F O’Neill

WeChat - Thomas_F_ONeill

U.S. Voice mail: (410) 925-9334

China Mobile: 011 (86) 13405757231

Skype: thomas_f_oneill

Email: introspective7@hotmail.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/thomasf.oneill.3/

I like to think of humanity as our significant other ....... 🦅

Is spirituality an answer to China’s prosperous future? ....... 🦅

I have always had an interest in philosophy and spirituality but as I grew older I became more of a realist. That being said, I would still consider myself spiritual, and I like to tell people, there are deeper dimensions to life than meets the eye.

A survey was conducted in 2017 in five major cities in China. It revealed that 69 percent of the people who took the survey consider themselves non-religious. On the other hand, Buddhism has become a fast-growing interest for China’s millennials. Most Buddhist practitioners in China, do not conceder Buddhism as a religion but rather a system of thought or a form of spirituality.

A former student of mine asked, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

I replied to her text question, “I’m not an expert on death but rather I’m an apprentice in life - with each second, minute, and day I’m learning how to live.”

Her reply, “Is that a yes or no?”

I then text her back, “it could be possible, there may be many deeper dimensions to life than meets the eye.”

Her reply, “I think it’s true.”

My reply, “maybe I was around a lot longer than I realize.”

She then said, “you are an old soul in a young body.”

I can show my students where to look for, answers, but I cannot tell them what to see, because, life’s greatest meaning lies within our inner journey.

I have also learned that the Chinese Government does not look at this resurgence in Buddhism as a threat. On the contrary, most of China’s government officials understand the importance spirituality has on their society. It provides Buddhist practitioners with a deeper meaning and purpose in life.

The economic growth in China is providing people with more leisure time and a growing number of Chinese are using that time for self-enrichment. I found this to be intriguing because growing up in America, I was told that China is a godless country. It wasn’t until I moved here that I learned there is freedom of religion here and like America, the Chinese government does not endorse one religion over the other. But there have been many stories in the western media that claim China does not have a benevolent attitude toward many Muslim sects residing in China’s Mainland.

The Chinese people have the freedom to worship as they please as long as they don’t use their religious freedom to organize against the Chinese government. Many evangelical churches in China were shut-down for that very reason.

Before moving here I was told the majority of the Chinese are atheists that statement is far from the truth. The majority here may be non-religious and view Christians as living in a superstitious mindset that does not necessarily make non-Christian believers atheists.

Many University students in China are turning to Buddhism as an intellectual pursuit – a way of exploring their spirituality. Most of today’s Buddhists make a clear distinction between religion and spirituality. In the west if you tell someone you are non-religious you will find yourself being labeled an atheist. Christian Fundamentalists in America have labeled China an atheistic godless country because the majority in China are non-Christian.

There is a growing concern among government officials here about the western influence on China’s youth. They fear that as China’s economy continues to grow people here will become more, materialistic, and greed-driven - with a winner takes all or a survival of the fittest way of thinking. This stands in total contrast to the Chinese Government’s collective mindset.

People here certainly have more disposable income and the youth are getting caught up, for the first time, in the media glitter. We in the west have been exposed to pop culture for many decades now but China is beginning to see the negative effects of the western materialistic mindset.

Many Government officials in China have a naiveté belief that the popularity of Buddhism will somehow restore a balance in their society or place the Chinese genie back in the bottle. They desperately want the Chinese youth to understand the important role that they as individuals have on society. In other words, their individual development is codependent on China’s national development. They are hoping the traditional customs and norms of old will help the current and succeeding generations understand that spirituality is not centric. It should not lead a person to be purely self-centered or looked upon as simply an intellectual pursuit. True spirituality should lead towards civic responsibility making our society in which we live a better place for all.

China, however, has been placed on fast forward for the past two decades and many here are trying desperately to hold on to their ancient traditions and customs. They are seeing some of their cultural beliefs being discarded and swept away by the media-driven youth. There is also a huge gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have not’s.’ There are still millions of people here who have very little in terms of the materialism of the wealthy and their growing middle class.

This dichotomy in China is also a concern among the government officials, they want desperately to spread the wealth, to raise the standard of living for everyone.

The middle class in China is almost twice the size of the US population. A reason for this, the government in China is subsidizing all the service providers, to control the rate of inflation. Compared to the US, everything is much cheaper in China. The government uses some of the taxes they collect, to subsidize companies that provide services. They are continuing to keep costs down while people's incomes continue to rise. This gives the Chinese people more disposable income which is driving their domestic economy. In, 2012, China for the first time had the largest domestic economy in the world.

The government officials also feel it’s the government’s responsibility to prepare their youth for a better tomorrow through education, moral, and ethical character building. They believe it’s also their civic responsibility to see to it that their nation as a whole is on the right path to enhance the lives of the many rather than the few.

I mentioned in one of my classes that it's also the parents' responsibility to be their children's role models rather than relying on schools and government to mold and produce future leaders.

The Chinese also understand implicitly their economy is co-depended on the rest of the world. Most people in China are fully aware of China’s influence on the global market. They can also see the road China is on toward global economic dominance.

China is far from being a perfect country, though, but no nation is because nations are made up of human beings. In all societies, there are people with severe character flaws. We as American’s witnessed those character flaws in many of our corporate heads. It wasn’t that long ago when CEOs savored huge bonuses while their companies were being driven into the ground by sheer greed.

China will continue to grow as an economic superpower and more people will economically prosper. The divide between those who have ‘much’ and those who have ‘less’ will continue to grow in America and the rest of the world because greed is part of the human fabric.

The middle class in China is growing exponentially due to educational opportunities and a steady rise in salaries, over the past 10 years salaries have quadrupled in China.

Most of the struggles throughout the world are due to greed and while the middle class in America is shrinking due to economic hard times. The middle class in China is growing mostly due to profit-sharing. Most companies in China are doing well and everyone in the companies in China profits from corporate wealth. Profit-sharing is intricately woven into China’s economy. China understands the profit-sharing system all too well because it’s part of their social model.

One of the fears among China’s Government officials is that as wealth continues to grow people in China will continue to want more. This will drive people to become more egocentric. The concern is as people begin to prosper more, they will have less concern for society's greater good. That is why China’s government is encouraging schools to teach the students about China’s cultural norms and traditions so that they won’t be lost within the western influence. They want the youth to grow in the knowledge of China’s cultural past whereby they put the needs of society before their wants.

The growing economy along with educational opportunities in China has become the government’s means to enrich society. The fear however is that in the future prosperity may become a means to enrich the few on the backs of the many. Many Chinese companies have moved their operations to Vietnam for a higher profit margin. American companies have for decades used China as the factory for making the world’s goods. Now that role is being placed on Vietnamese workers. The outsourcing of jobs is what we in America have witnessed time and time again. Americans are now paying a heavy price on the backs of the underpaid due mostly from corporate greed.

The Chinese government feels they can learn from their own and America’s past mistakes. The question, though, that some Chinese economists are asking, will greed become an intricate part of China’s developing future?

I say only time will tell ….

Always with love from Suzhou, China

Thomas F O’Neill

WeChat - Thomas_F_ONeill

U.S. Voice mail: (410) 925-9334

China Mobile: 011 (86) 13405757231

Skype: thomas_f_oneill

Email: introspective7@hotmail.com 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/thomasf.oneill.3/

No one can say I didn’t try I’m probably going to get hatemail now from Paul McCartney ........ 🦅

Language Dilemma ........ 🦅

Well, the summer is not quite over, but I’m back to teaching in Wuxi, China. This semester started quite early due to the coronavirus. The Chinese government is worried that a second wave of the virus might hit China this fall. That being said, the semesters go by very quickly here and all my classes take on a personality of their own due to the students in my classes, every class becomes uniquely different.

The new students seem quite curious and somewhat reserved when they first appear in my classroom but within a few weeks, they open-up and are full of questions. They each hold various opinions about everything under the sun. I enjoy the lively discussions about culture in general and the role language plays in our cultural development.

When foreigners like me enter a foreign land where English is not the native vernacular a part of ourself seems somewhat cut off and I mean that literally. This is especially true in China because the Chinese do not use a written alphabet, they use symbols that go back thousands of years. Long before us, Schuylkill County coal cracker folk in Northeastern Pennsylvania walked the earth.

We take our native language for granted each time we turn on the radio or the TV. When we go out to see a movie or watch a live performance in a theater part of the enjoyment comes from our language.

I tell my students at the beginning of each semester, “When I first arrived in your country. I was an illiterate immigrant because I could not speak or read your language. I still have difficulties, but I have learned enough Chinese to overcome some of the language barriers.”

When I first arrived in China my students would ask me, "how do you get around the City not being able to speak Chinese fluently." I would explain to them, some technological tricks I would use to communicate with the Suzhou locals.

“I use the Google translator on my Blackberry Cell phone,” I would tell them, “but sometimes I still stumble because Suzhou people have their native dialect and simplified Chinese doesn’t always cut it.”

Ten years ago, I told my students a story about a frustrating experience I had at a China Mobile office. “No one at that office could speak a word of English,” I told them. “I got so frustrated that I called a China Unicom customer service number that has an English support line. I politely asked the woman on the phone if she could please translate for me. The woman I was speaking with was 2,900 kilometers away in Beijing, China.”

When the students stopped laughing, I continued the story.

“What made the situation even more amusing, China Unicom, as you all know is China Mobile’s major competitor. I politely told the woman on the phone what I needed from China Mobile. What I needed was China Mobile’s office address in Chinese. So that the next time I needed to put money on my phone I could just show the taxi driver the Chinese address. That would be the most simplified way of getting there. I talked slowly to the China Unicom English customer service woman. Then I handed my phone to the woman sitting in front of me at the China Mobile office. The woman doing the translating was quite helpful but somewhat confused as to why I was asking her to translate for me, I was after all in Suzhou China, in a China Mobile office of all places.” The students laughed at that story and various other stories about my inability to communicate in Chinese.

A hand shot up, “Teacher” a female student asked, “why don’t you take the time to learn Chinese?”

“I realize now,” I said to her, “I need a tutor to help me with my language impediment.”

“I don’t see why you don’t learn Chinese” Donna my prized student said to me.

“The number one cause of failure in life is procrastination,” I said to the class, “I need to stop procrastinating and take the time to study Chinese, especially, when I consider the fact that I want to remain living here.”

On my last day of teaching for that school year back in 2010, Donna came up to me after class, “Mr. Tom,” she said, “you are the fattest teacher I ever had and the funniest person I’ve ever known. I’m going to miss you very much.”

I said to her, “you have such a bright future because your personality shines.”

She was truly my prized student for that year. Her term paper was written on the cultural differences between the Pennsylvania Coal Region and the Jiangsu Province in China. Every evening she read various Newspapers, the Standard-Speaker, the Republican Herald, and the News Item online - Newspapers that cover the Pennsylvania Coal Region.

One day she came up to me before class all frustrated with printed pages of online Blog Comments, “I don’t understand,” she said to me on the verge of tears.

“What don’t you understand,” I asked.

“The comments,” she said in a flustered voice.

“I hope this didn’t keep you up all night,” I said with some amusement in my voice.

I then read over some of the highlighted comments. I could not help but laugh not at her but the comments.

“See,” she said in an upset voice, “you understand them.”

“Those comments don’t make any sense to you because they are not proper English,” I said to her.

I pointed out to her the atrocious spelling, the bad grammar, the run-on sentences, and not to mention the lack of cohesive thought in most of the comments.

“Ignore the comments you don’t understand,” I said to her, “and use the comments you do understand.”

Most of my students have mastered formal English and they try extremely hard to learn English slang and American Idioms. They enjoy watching American and British movies and television programs, they love our western culture.

Donna said to me, in the first week of class, “Mr. Tom, you don’t have a typical American accent.”

“I know,” I said, “I have a typical coal cracker accent.” I then went on to explain to the class about the Pennsylvania Coal Region. Donna later told me that was the reason she chose to do her term paper on that area of the world. She said my manner of speech got her interested in the area.

Her term paper was extremely well-written. She was blunt about the coal region’s attitude toward illegal immigration. She compared the negative online comments about illegal immigration to the China government’s attitude toward North Korean defectors.

China before the Beijing Olympics (2008) gave North Koreans asylum in China. North Korea, however, made an issue of it and China did not want the issue raised during the 2008 Olympics. All the North Korean defectors that were caught were deported along with their family members. They were sent back to their home country to face years of hard labor.

Some North Koreans are lucky enough to make it across the China border undetected. They then cross over into Laos’ they pay people to transport them into Vietnam in riverboats. They then cross the ocean in barges to seek asylum in South Korea. This is a long and treacherous journey for many North Koreans seeking a better existence. They choose to make the journey with an undeterred determination so that their children can have better lives and better opportunities in South Korea ….. “Many Latin American immigrants cross over into America with similar dreams for their children,” Donna wrote in her paper.

I received a text message 5 years ago from Donna via the internet. She had been awarded a scholarship to Princeton University for graduate studies in International affairs. She said jokingly my class prepared her for Princeton University’s way of talking.

No words could ever express the feeling that came over me when I heard an audio message from her that said, “Thank you, Mr. Tom, for being our teacher.”

My Chinese has improved a great deal from 10 years ago and the advancements in technology have also made my life a little easier. Especially, with the advancements of WeChat, Google, and the internet in general.

I will from time to time post some other reflections about my experiences here in China ……..

Always with love from Suzhou, China

Thomas F O’Neill

WeChat - Thomas_F_ONeill

U.S. Voice mail: (410) 925-9334

China Mobile: 011 (86) 13405757231

Skype: thomas_f_oneill

Email: introspective7@hotmail.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/thomasf.oneill.3/

Life for me is an ongoing quest ......... 🦅

Fools strive ......... 🦅

In any country, language, or culture ......... 🦅