Children!

    I went to shopping mall and my host parent's house during the thanksgiving break. In these two different environments, I had observed my host parent's grandson and the children in the mall and I was really surprised on the way how parents and children behave in the United States. They teach and protect their children in a different way compared to parents in Malaysia.
    As what I saw, children in the United States are given more freedom and are trained to be independent. Parents are likely to allow their children to walk by their own and they will observe their children to make sure their safety. However, Malaysian parents are totally different in the way of protecting their children. Most of the Malaysian parents will hold their children's hand or hug them tightly to make sure they are safe from any harm. These children do not have freedom to walk to anywhere as they desire, they will just follow their parents blindly.
    Next, American parents will never slap or scold their children loudly unless they really did something really horrible and irritated their parent. I observed that American parents used to teach their children in a polite manner for example whenever a children did something wrong, the parent will just talk to them and tell them not to make the same mistake again. Surprisingly, their children were obedient and listened to their parents. In Malaysia, children usually will not listen to their parent if their parent treated them the same way as the Americans teach their children. In spite of having a nice conversation and teach them how to behave, they would likely prefer punish and reward method whereby children will only listen to their parent after they were being canned in doing something wrong.
    In my opinion, I personally think that American culture in teaching children is better compared to Malaysian even though children with different behavior should be treated differently.

Malaysia's and United State's Families

Based on my perception I personally think that American families are really different from families in Malaysia. During childhood, most of the children will be sent to childcare center every weekday due to the importance of career for parents in the United States. However what we can see in Malaysia is a mother would likely leave their job and stay at home to take care their children. In another word, we can say that the motherly instinct of Malaysia’s women is stronger compared to women in the United States. Moreover, the children in the United States do not bear the responsibility to take care and stay with their parents after they had grown up. In Malaysia, the retired or senior citizens do not get any allowance, the government will not subsidise them. Thus, the only choice for parents is to follow their children after they do not have the ability to stay on their own.

In spite of just pointing out the differences between American family and Malaysia family, there are still some similarities among them. For instance, children in both countries are provided good education and tuition by their parents unlike other countries where children had to join labor force once they reach a certain age and drop out from school to earn more money to support the family.

I think that the families in the United States are likely as stable as the family in Malaysia even though the divorce rate are higher than Malaysia statistically. The stability of family mostly based on individuals to individuals and the culture and beliefs they hold on. For example Malaysia has a lesser divorce rate due to the culture where divorce is not encouraged.

Election in the United States

    I was proud to have an opportunity to be an observer of election in the United States. This is the first time I have been into a voting center and watch how people vote as it is forbidden in Malaysia where voters only were allow to enter the hall to cast their vote. Thus, I had never watched any voting in real life but I just know about the process theoretically and I found out that the voting processes in United States are quite similar to Malaysia’s. I think that it might because Malaysia and the United States are democratic countries so they have common voting process where people have the power to choose which party to govern their society and provide them better standard of living.

    On 2^nd of November, Davies Center in University of Wisconsin was used to be a voting center for the election on the day.  Before I enter the hall, I saw many people holding a form and queuing at the main entrance. Next, I saw that there are few senior citizens sat on a row and work as a reception to help those first timers who going to vote in registration and answer any questions if needed. I even saw few election observers too, but they were the party members who were sent by each party to observe the whole procedure and make sure there was no fraud and on the spot influence from any party to the voters. After the registrations, voters were brought to different ward whereby there is one ward for lower campus student and two wards for upper campus student. They were given a big piece of yellow card where they party’s name and candidates name was written one the card. Voters then hold the card and move to a row of table and start to vote. These tables were designed with obstacles on the two sides of the table to prevent voters to influence each other as some might just vote by following the person besides them. Next, the completed ballots were put into a machine that used to count the votes. It is a digital machine which shows an accurate figure on how many vote had been made.

    The whole process was so systematic and efficient. However, there is a difference in the rules between the United States and Malaysia is if a person is caught for voting more than once in United States, he will be sent into jail, but I had never heard about this in Malaysia.

Human Trafficking

    Slavery which is a term used to describe the use of non-paid worker who is forced to do certain jobs under pressure and unwillingness. In these modern days, people might think that this issue does not exist anymore since the amendment of human right laws consists of the elimination of slavery. However, things are not as perfect as what we can imagine, slavery did not disappear but they undergo “mutation” and became human trafficking. Human trafficking is known as modern slavery and stated the worsen situation of slavery.  Price of $40,000 dollars per slaves depreciates to $100 dollar per slaves from 1800’s to 2010 is the best evidence to convince you that “slavery” this issue is still exist and even worsen.  Based on the talk by Nicole, she stated that total human trafficking case that happen in present day are approximately 27 million cases and most of the victims are woman and minorities.

    Statistics proven that the United States had the second large population of human trafficking compared to Germany. This issue mostly involved the minorities which had a hard life in surviving and forced find jobs illegally in foreign countries which they believe that it will provide them a better future or being cheated by false contract due to false information and culture differences. Moreover, some minority involved in human trafficking is due to violence whereby the illegal organization threatened the victims or victim’s family to work without paid. These are the ways how illegal organizations expand their business.

   In Uzbekistan, it is the government who amend the law to encourage slavery where children had to work in cotton farm as a slave without paid when they reached certain age. This helped the country to be the 3^rd largest cotton exporter in the world but it causes a drastic drop of education in the country. Thus, as a consumer, the best we can do is to stop consuming goods made by slaves to strike the growth of slavery and human trafficking in the world. Every human has the right to choose their destinations so do the slaves.