Beijing Bicycle and a Degree of Futility

I remember the first summer I worked at Starbucks. I had taken time off school to get the job, and by May I had completed my training to become a certified barista. A bonus to having completed training was being able to collect tips for working non-training, real shifts. Suddenly, I had thirty dollars in my hand, cash. I bought a pair of shoes. They were lovely, with a silver-grey strap and a rhinestone ring ornament. And they were 100% mine, my first luxury item purchased as a working citizen. When the shoes disappeared one afternoon, I was heartbroken and angry. I found out later that my cousin had borrowed them to complete her own outfits. Bitch.

There is something about the emotional satisfaction that material items will give a person. To me, those shoes marked that I had accomplished something; their value was far beyond the twelve dollars I used to purchase them. Those shoes were the mental breakdown I had when I chose to take a semester off school, the ten job applications I filled out in December, the half-dozen interviews that were never followed up, and the three months of training I endured after finally being hired at Starbucks.

For protagonist Guei in Beijing Bicycle, this bicycle is one hundred times more valuable than my pair of silver shoes.

The opening scene of Beijing Bicycle sets the tone for the whole story perfectly. Several country boys introduce themselves by name and origin, smiling and laughing, adorably nervous. They are unique individuals trying to find a place in the world with new opportunities. Immediately following this introduction, their manager strips them of their identities and humanity by giving them hair cuts and uniforms. Now, the boys represent the company, not their own interests.

Guei does not give up the bicycle to the bullies.

Four of the initially named boys fade into the background, further emphasizing the harsh class divide as the story focuses in on the protagonist, Guei. The theme of class divide runs through the whole plot as many of the Guei begins the cutthroat dance of furthering their circumstances and is cheated out of opportunities by those above him in economic and social hierarchies.

During the manager's identity-stripping rant, the shrewd business man informs the new employees that, in order to pay for the company-issued bicycles, the company will claim an additional 20% on top of the 50% already taken from each young man's earnings per delivery. Each messenger boy earns only on commission when the pick-up and delivery of packages is complete. The steep cut in earnings breathes gross injustice on its own right, and the commission-based earnings makes a miniature shark tank within the messenger company. Not only is there capitalistic competition between this delivery company and the many in Beijing City, the Manager pits each man against each other within the company.

In his article, "Where Did The Future Go?", Randy Martin categorizes the messenger company's behavior as securitization, debt in the guise of security. Martin refers specifically to the practice of home and car mortgages; for Guei, the bicycle puts him in debt, but it's a debt that secures his job with the company. The bicycle equals work equals money equals the potential for a better life than what he might experienced in the Chinese countryside as a farmer. The messenger company's capitalism more resembles the broken feudalism seen as recent as the sharecroppers in the American South. The wealthy land owner lends land to former black slaves for a percentage of the produce; sometimes that land went right back to the plantation owner after the farmers were cut or cheated out of the land.

This enslavement of the less fortunate is not isolated to a hundred years' past or across the Pacific Ocean. Securitization is what the American economy thrives on, especially in public education. A recent poll by NPR, college graduates were asked simply the subject of their bachelor's degrees. Overwhelmingly, college graduates pursue business or medical degrees on the fundamental of securitization: will this debt or investment get me a job after I've finished? It's the butt of liberal arts majors' jokes, the potential for work post-graduation, but the issue is as real as an empty pantry. Time and money and physical prime are given to the education corporation, but what is the student going to get out of it? Worse, whether or not the student gets a job after graduation, they must continue paying for the bicycle for the rest of their lives.

"A Degree of Futility" by Austin Smith

Works Cited

Beijing Bicycle. Dir. Xiaoshuai Wang. Taiwan Arc Light Films, 2001. DVD.

Bui, Quoctrung. "What's Your Major? 4 Decades Of College Degrees, In 1 Graph." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.

Martin, Randy. "Where Did The Future Go?" Class Handout.  

Thoughts on Capitalism, A Love Story

In Michael Moore's Capitalism, a Love Story, Moore is constantly highlighting the fact that big money corporations are focused on devaluing people in order to accrue profits from consumers. With labor being the largest "obstacle" between the businesses and their profits, I'm wondering when the documentary will stop objectifying people like the banks and business have done.

I'm curious to see if Moore will acknowledge the problem in the education system. How are we going about preparing kids for this apparent future where their work will be devalued?

We're sending them to college.

In order to offshore their profits, corporations need to ensure that there is no one left in the US (where the rights supposedly are) to demand places in the labor force and the livable wages they deserve. They're lucky; they have the base of the "American Dream" to build this culture on. They tell each child, "Hey, you with the face! You know what you need? College! Stay in school! For, like, ever. Get in debt. But that's okay. The more school you get means you're this much more likely to get a better job afterwards, and then you can spend the first few decades of that career paying us back, not spending the money one yourself for your hard-earned efforts. It's gonna be good."

No one wants to be a laborer. No one wants to garden. Let's even take away the rights of those who do clean and care for us by trying to deport them because those are our jobs we don't want to do.

Colin Stokes

Here is an ugly truth about society. Colin Stokes reveals a disturbing fact that federal research has discovered: one in five women have been sexually assaulted in some measure. What does that mean? That means at least one in five men is guilty of violating a woman's sexual security.

Stokes is a father of two and a big fan of the movies. He has found plenty of examples of leading women in film who "teach women to fight the patriarchy", but there are not enough that do the reverse - there are no where near enough movies that teach young boys to respect women.

The message here is that you can tell girls all the preventative measures possible: "No means No" and cover up, but if you do not teach young boys - who grow into men - to respect the women in their lives, they'll still end up feeling entitled to "rewards" promised by women.

Through humor and the medium of children's movies, Stokes convicts parents to be aware of what sons are being taught. For a moment, he even provokes a fear for fathers: if there are no sons who can respect the partnership of a woman, "I wanna be on their team," who will their daughters partner with - marry - in the future?

Since I have a platform...

It was just another day in class, destroying brain cells by endlessly scrolling through the friend-stalker known as Facebook. I went my merry way, liking, commenting and complimenting... and then there it was... the dreaded soap box post. And I couldn't scroll past it. It ate at my mind. I needed to put my two cents in. My valuable two cents that I hoard to myself because it's mine to have. And I put it in the pot. I ended up putting in more than I bargained for, but I think I won something in the end.

In the original post, a Facebook status, the poster was very much angered by a hypocrisy seen in the church. As she sees it, the debate over whether the American dollar should continue to bear the motto "In God We Trust" takes precedence over caring for the poor and helpless in the community. And, as a believer, I agree with her on that count. I care less about what is printed on my countries currency and more about what I choose to do with the money I earn. It's fair point, even in the words of Jesus -- what is Caesar's belongs to Caesar's, and what is God's belongs to God.

While I would be highly disappointed that "In God We Trust" is removed from my money -- the symbolic meaning of its removal being that the country no longer honors God -- the money isn't me. The money does not define my faith. The slogan removed is neither detrimental nor beneficial to American society - her nations leaders will glorify or damn the name of God in whichever ways they humanly choose. And they can do that with the currency because that is theirs to do so. They, however, cannot shake my personal faith or dictate my personal choices (yet). I give myself to God, and the best way to show that is to give to other people, for in giving to them we are giving it all to Him.

At this point, the conversation deviated from simple separation of church and state into whether evolution, science, religion and intelligent design should be taught in public classrooms. Party One (the original poster) insisted that religion should be shoved into an all-encompassing, while the second party (a Christian angered by those who are stubbornly ignorant and brusque to her about her beliefs) desired that both theories be taught in a classroom, especially from the Christian point of view. The posts were laced with personal attacks, and the debate was turning into an ugly rant at this point, instead of an intelligent and enlightening discussion with the original poster scoffing at assumed resistance to evolution being taught in a church.

I interjected at this point that I, personally, would allow evolution to be taught in my church. I'd rather give people a choice, an informed choice, before choosing to follow. It makes the choice more genuine, more faithful. And here I laughed because the original poster felt it appropriate to tell me that there are those who unite the idea of creation and evolution.

I am one of those people. I have seen that there's enough proof to make an argument for creation in what we already know and have seen in this universe. Whether it's a good argument is up to the hearer. I've seen legitimate arguments with reasonable proof go both ways. Belief is faith and choice, even when it comes to observable science.  Religion might less be science, but it's viable human history and completely human right. Keeping either from connecting to the other produces crass, biased and unrounded elitists with closed minds and hardened hearts.

I walked away from this conversation having been told that I will go unblessed by God because I choose to let the gay agenda persecute the church with their removal of "In God We Trust" from the dollar bill. That, I can assure you, is the least of my worries. The other hand holds me in a place where someone's mind has opened up to the fact that there are faithful and educated Christians who are logical and not blinded by this petty war of words that keeps us from ministering to those in need to God's love.

Concerning Education

As one who is aspiring to be a high school English teacher, the one piece of politics that perks my pointed ear is education. Sir Ken Robinson has a few words worth pondering along these lines.

There are two general schools of thought I hear on education: standardize all classes so that all kids study the same level and therefore are all equal, or figure out how to tailor education to each student.

You decide. I decide. We'll decide.