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Michael Fu
Section 28111
Dr. Morse
1 June 2015
Spring Blog Final Submission
Blog # 1 A War in My Own Understanding
Growing up in Orange County, many words often cross my mind at the
first mention of Vietnamese. Some of these thoughts include craving
delicious foods such as Pho, sophisticated desert drinks, and Bao Minh
sandwiches, delicacies whose very mention makes my mouth water. Yet, not
all of my initial impressions when I hear Vietnamese prove to be as
positive; in all honesty many, including myself, often associate Vietnamese
culture with words such as frugal, sly, and cutthroat. As I continued to study,
research, and even experience Vietnamese culture however, I often found
myself wondering if my initial perceptions and understandings accurately
and fairly reflect the truth behind Vietnamese culture.
Upon researching the history of Vietnam further, the shortcomings in
my views of Vietnamese people became more and more glaringly obvious. I
often tried to judge Vietnamese culture based off my own background yet my
opinions and views had failed to include without the larger picture, the whole
story. And indeed, as my lectures and readings illustrated, the stories of
many Vietnamese immigrants prove to be nothing short of thrilling stories of
daring escapes, impossible struggles, and the great lengths to which the

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human will extends to in the name of survival. What I missed was the fact
that many Vietnamese risked or even lost their lives in search of a better life,
and it was their ability to do whatever the situation demanded that allowed
these people to reach a new land.
My initial understandings of Vietnamese then did not prove to be
completely unfounded yet without a doubt, my first impressions of
Vietnamese also failed to capture the full beauty of the culture. Even as I
ate and drank the Vietnamese foods to which I find myself addicted to, I
never stopped to consider the origins of such food. And in judging
Vietnamese people as sly, frugal, and cutthroat, I did not account for the
extent to which these very characteristics contributed to the existence and
success of the Vietnamese people today, not only in Orange County but all
across the United States and the world. Indeed, what I considered lowly and
petty to me actually found its roots from examples of courage and necessity
beyond my own understanding.
Perhaps then the take away from my research then calls for me to
dismount my high horse of superiority and to humbly respect legacies of the
Vietnamese people, legacies of endurance, perseverance, and determination.
To this day, I continue to fight this internal war of realizing, of recognizing,
and of understanding other cultures.

Blog # 2: The Story Untold

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Many times, we take the events presented in history classes as nothing
more than an occurrence in the past and we look and examine these events
in the scope of the larger picture, asking questions like How have these
events affected us? and What can we learn from these events? In only
looking at the larger picture however, sometimes we miss the finer details of
the actual historical events, creating untold stories, and reducing a multifaceted historical event into a simple piece that we try to fit into our puzzle.
Perhaps the Rape of Nanking serves as an example of one such event that is
often taught but never fully examined in great detail. Through the movies
Nanking and City of Life and Death however, a deeper and more personal
portrayal of the Rape of Nanking shines through, helping to bridge the gap of
what perhaps many who study history are missing.
As a documentary film, Nanking lives up to its genre in terms of its
purpose as it tries to preserve and document what happened at Nanking.
Unlike many documentaries that only focus upon cutting and putting
together stats and interviews, Nanking also utilizes actors to portray real
characters and to read aloud written letters and diaries, supplementing the
norm of live interviews with survivors. Such a different approach helps to
more effectively mediate the experience from the perspective of those
running the safety zone, people who have long passed and can no longer tell
the stories themselves. By going out of the way and struggling to present the
Rape of Nanking from the perspective of the foreigners, Nanking presents
another dimension to the story, and tells a story that not many know about

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from a perspective that often remains forgotten. Nanking then, through its
mediation of the Rape of Nanking, attempts to preserve and draw attention
to the small stories within the larger event, moving audiences with graphic
and personal details.
A more fictional account set within the framework of the very real
Rape of Nanking, City of Life and Death embarks on the same mission as
Nanking does, namely to bring forth the stories usually left out. Rather than
finding basis in interviews, diaries, and letters however, City of Life and
Death instead chooses to portray fictional characters to bring about the
points of views of soldiers on both the Japanese and Chinese side. In doing
so, the audience is offered new perspectives through which to see the Rape
of Nanking, through the eyes of the aggressors and the defenders of the city.
The audience, with these new perspectives, can come to sympathize and
empathize with both the supposed victims and enemies, drawing a better
understanding of what Japanese and Chinese soldiers felt, perhaps reestablishing the humanity of wars participants, a humanity which the
simplistic accounts history books offer seem to strip away. Though the
characters may not be real within City of Life and Death, they represent real
emotions and inner struggles of people during that time. Through the use of
fiction then, City of Life and Death reminds audiences that not all soldiers
were mindlessly ruthless, and that each had their own personal struggles.
When we consider historical events such as the Rape of Nanking, we
need to move beyond just memorizing facts and statistics and look further

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than causes and effects. When we examine the past, we need to take a
closer look at the finer details, the details that are often labeled as
insignificant or unimportant. Because these details, these memories, these
untold stories, will ultimately enhance our understanding of ourselves and of
our society as we continue our studies of war in the Humanities.

Blog #3 Ethics in Business

Whether its in the areas of accounting, manufacturing, marketing, or
any other fields of business, acting ethically comes up often throughout
the modern entrepreneurial world. In response, business schools recently
have further emphasized ethical decisions in professional practices through
specific curriculum adjustments and even mandatory classes. Yet for many,
the question remains: What exactly does business ethics entail?
A common misperception of many people is that the laws of our
governments, or man-made law, define the code of ethics. Such people then
conclude that companies or individuals will have behaved ethically as their
actions are in accordance to federal, state, and local laws. With this
rationality then, ethics becomes built upon man-made law and the two
become synonymous; anything that is legal is then also ethical.
The problem with this approach to defining ethics however can be seen
through specific and certain actions in the business world, specifically in the
service industry. Is it ethical if a real estate agent pushes a client to buy a
house, knowing full well the property may be overpriced? It certainly isnt

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illegal to point out the perks of the house and after all the value of the home
is relative to the buyers perception. Is it ethical if a lawyer encourages his
client to file a suit in court to increase his billable hours, knowing full well the
suit has little merit? Whats illegal about filing a lawsuit and even if it is, the
lawyer didnt ultimately decide to sue, the client did. The two examples
given above are just two small representations of countless possible
scenarios where actions are legal and not necessarily ethical.
Indeed, as illustrated by the scenarios above, ethics should not be
founded on man-made law but instead should be the foundations of such
laws. Yet even as we established this premise, we still havent answered the
central question of what defines business ethics. In the complicated field of
ethics and amidst many messy and divisive arguments, perhaps the best
answer to how to remain ethical remains strikingly simple: just treat others
the way you want to be treated. The Golden Rule may seem too elementary
for such a complex issue but upon serious consideration, its merits are all too
relevant: dont give advice you wouldnt want yourself, dont sell something
you wouldnt buy, and dont act in a way you wouldnt want others to act.
A great example of good ethics in business can be seen through
Chipotle, a chain of fast casual restaurants that have emerged in recent
years. Chipotle derives its fan base and popularity on serving food made
from organic and responsible sources while using minimal processing. By
remaining transparent in its food preparation techniques and by paying
above average wages to its employees and suppliers, in turn demanding the

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highest quality standards from both, Chipotle strives to offer the best
possible product to consumers and fair and respectable conditions to those
within its company network. Chipotle also furthers its own ethical standing
by using responsibly sourced plastic and paper for its utensils and bags in an
effort to help with impending environmental issues. Ultimately, although
Chipotle's commitment to its products, to its suppliers and employees, and to
its environment may cause the restaurant chain to incur higher expenses,
such practices in turn have also allowed Chipotle to capture the respect,
attention, and most importantly the business of consumers, leading to an
ever expanding profit margin and new restaurants opening exponentially.
Doing business is a two-way street and ethics plays a key component
in the success of the business world, creating strong networks and
relationships built upon mutual trust and confidence.

Blog # 4: Reflections on Growth

War is a term that I often hear or read about when I turn up the
evening news or pick up the newspaper. And prior to my yearlong
exploration in Humanities Core Course, I thought I had war figured out to a t.
Nine months ago, war to me was a physical extension of a political conflict, a
conflict fought with guns and tanks and nuclear threats. Back before my time
in Humanities Core, war remained a distant spectacle, one disconnected
from my actions, decisions, and life (at the time I hadnt even voted before!).

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After now completing Humanities Core, I would argue that the most
significant change stemming from the yearlong humanistic exploration is my
shift in how I define war. For me now, the battlefields of war are not just the
physical grounds on which soldiers sacrifice their lives and I see now that
battles of war are fought through many facets of society connected directly
to me, including but not limited to human agency, historical contingency,
and personal justification. As I have come to realize through my humanistic
experience, studying war cannot be done without first studying how we as
individuals and as a collective cause, interpret, and move on from war. With
this in mind then, I find it necessary when thinking and writing about war to
embrace war as a personal part of me rather than to approach war as a
distant factor in my life.
Never before Humanities Core Course did I ever perceive war to
actively involve me; after all, I had no intention of joining the military and
surely what was going on in Iraq or Afghanistan wasn't going to affect my
grades in school or my basketball team's season. However, through studying
about the business of war in Mother Courage, through examining the extent
of will and power I as an individual and our society as a whole has in The
Manchurian Candidate, and through analyzing and judging governments
through The Prince and even World War Z, I have come to understand that
many facets of my everyday life either affect an ongoing war, such as how I
vote and communicate my intellectual ideas, or are a war in itself, such as

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when I struggle to personally justify the use of torture. Indeed, war is
personalized and an inherent part of me, willfully or not.
Though I read no shortage of texts throughout my year in Humanities
Core, no text impacted me as much as Just and Unjust War did, as Walzers
book really helped connect the idea of war to me individually. Indeed,
Walzers text helped me realize my opinions of what defines a justified war
and what defines an unnecessary or aggressive war, personalizing a once
distant concept. By doing such, Walzer also made external wars into internal
wars for me, as I now had to wrestle with what I could live with and what I
couldnt. In many ways, Walzers book was thought provocative,
controversial, and engaging, exactly what captured my interest and my
attention (I always love a good debate).
In the midst of an admittedly challenging, complicated, and stimulating
course, my personal take away from Humanities Core remains surprisingly
simple: war affects me in countless ways and remains a large factor in my
life, whether I want it be to or not. Ultimately then, to understand war is to
understand myself. With the remainder of my time here at the University of
California, Irvine, and throughout the rest of my life, I hope to continue
growing from the wars surrounding me so that I can carry on my neverending journey of self-improvement. Cheers to a great year!