So I was watching this dumb show called "Survival of the Richest," (I couldn't help but watch...) for the first time the other day and it just made me angry. The premise of the show is there are a group of "rich kids" (all born into money) and a group of "poor kids" (all in debt) and they are paired up (one rich and one poor person) to compete in tasks to win a pot of money at the end of the show. There was this one scene where one of the "poor kids" decided to have a cleaning day to clean up the house and I was shocked to see that some of the "rich kids" didn't know the difference between a broom and a mop, didn't know how to use a vaccuum cleaner, and never cleaned a bathroom in their lives. I guess they always had someone to clean up after them. I kept watching, and there was another scene where two of the rich guys decided to treat everyone to a sushi dinner. It was the first time trying sushi for some of the poor kids, and the rich kids were surprised that some of the poor kids didn't like it. The two rich guys flaunted their cash when they had to pay, showing how expensive the meal was, and one of the guys commented along the lines of how sushi was what people with money ate and was a sign of status. I was already a little irritated at this point but I kept watching for some reason. They had a task where they had to volunteer and serve food at a homeless shelter. One of the rich guys said, "I'm sorry I was born lucky...mission accomplished." Another rich guy said something along the lines of "I don't think I've learned anything from coming here except that I shouldn't be the one helping them serve food." The rich kids were all shocked to see all those homeless people, commenting that they've seen it in third world countries but didn't know it existed in the United States. What??? Where the hell have they been?! Apparently they've all been living under a rock...or I guess in their own little bubble in their huge mansions...
On a more serious note, I saw this documentary on PBS about the Tiananmen Square event that occurred in June of 1989. It's called The Tank Man and it's a really good documentary that I reccommend to everyone. It's an hour and a half long, but it's worth watching. I wanted to buy it to maybe show to my future kids one day, but it's $30! I've never paid $30 for a single DVD! Here's the link where you can actually watch it online if you haven't already seen it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/
The documentary covers the entire event from start to finish and includes interviews with people who experienced it first hand. It talks about the aftermath and the choice China made between moving towards a political or economical progression for the country. It's pretty obvious which direction they chose and it's sad to see the extreme censorship that stills exists in the country today. A lot of the university students currently studying in China don't even know about the Tiananmen Square tragedy and a few big well-known companies in America that do business with China don't help the censorship issue at all. It made me kind of angry that companies in America (the country that symbolizes freedom) are helping to support the censorship in China. But I guess business is business right?
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