Week 1

Before we had contact with real people, we all met and learned about people from far away through stories. These stories may appear in books, maybe in movies, maybe in advertisements. Stories with a single narrative can label us with a specific tag before we come into contact with others. Geographically different, culturally different, we certainly have different characteristics. But at the same time we are also similar. Sometimes power manipulates the mass media so that people only have access to a single narrative, rather than a comprehensive one.

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When I was in college in China, the professor of one of my courses was from England and she recommended to us a best-selling book from England at that time, written by a Chinese called "buy me the sky". This book is about how arrogant and spoiled the children born under the single-child policy are. The professor asked us to share our feelings after reading the book and asked us if the stories written in the book made us relate to them. We were very puzzled and even a little angry. The book is basically just about a few spoiled rich kids, which doesn't mean that all of China's children are like that. In many Hollywood movies, Asian seems to mean that they know kung fu too. They appear more as a supporting character in the story, and their only role is to fight. They are silent, they have small eyes, they are excellent in kung fu, that's it. But the truth is that every country has a diversity of people. We may be different, but in many places we are the same. 

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Telling diverse stories is the channel through which we break down bias.

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Although when many people see the story of diversity, they find it strange that these people in faraway places are so similar to them. But by telling more stories like this and breaking down prejudices, people will become used to it. When we tell the story, we should be more aware of the fact that this is a person with multiple sides, rather than single-mindedly defining and labeling. When a character is just a symbol, the story will lose its meaning. 

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As the speech says：

“That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise. ”

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