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I think last Thursday's discussion was really useful to me. After discussing the essay approach, I felt clearer about how to write this week's essay assignment. I think it is very helpful to discuss writing together in a group. We can improve by learning from each other. I think that we should have more this kind of discussion in the future. For my essay, I plan to write about Chairman Mao. 

The reason why I chose Chairman Mao is because that Chairman Mao is a controversial figure. Westerners who mostly believe in democracy usually depict him as a dictator who have organized many campaigns which caused many deaths and a huge amount of economic losses to China. In contrast, Chinese always regard him as an influential person who laid the foundation of modern China. Westerners usually think that Chinese from mainland China are radical communists. However, from my neutral opinion of our Chairman Mao, you can easily tell that we are actually liberal to ideas and we don't really care which kind of social structure we are in. As long as we can progress both socially and economically, we don't mind of accepting western ideas of capitalism. And in fact that China is working towards building a novel form of socialism with the incorporation of facets of modern capitalism in order to connect to the rest of the world. We are not ambitious of becoming the superpower and taking control of the whole world. The only thing that is on the top of our agenda is to improve our living standards, since nearly fifty percent of Chinese are still living in poverty. Moreover, as we can tell from the statistics, natural disasters occurred more frequently in recent years due to global warming. China is now trying its best to work together with other countries to achieve world peace. Maybe my idea sounds very ideal. However, this what my twenty years' experiences have told me. 

Lastly,  for Logicomix, I would like to say that I like the idea of the book. Science and logic can do wonderful things, but they also have limits. I think that nothing on earth has been proven the cause of everything.  Hence, that's why some people do not believe in science, but religion. It is because that in religion, God is the cause of everything. I think to someone this fact is satisfying and heartwarming. Whenever people come across difficulties, they can always seek comfort from God and, thus, do not feel so discouraged and disappointed.