Author Archives: CHAO ZHENG

Bill Gates Biography: Sultan Of Software

This video is about Bill Gates’  biography, but today I do not want to  introduce how smart he is, how he built Microsoft, or how he made his business successful. What I want to say is that People always have chance to change his classes like Bill Gates who move from middle class to upper class.

The United States generally divided into people into four classes, Upper class which means a group of people who have income and prestige and who own vast amounts of property and other forms of wealth, such as owners of large corporations, top financiers, rich celebrities and politicians and members of prestigious families. Middle class, which is the social group between the upper and working classes. Working class, which is the social group consisting of people who are employed for wages, for example, in manual or industrial work, and the poor ,which is in society stratified by social class, a group of people who work for minimum wage or are chronically unemployed .However, in American, people are not simply stay in one class, they may move from one class to another through their own efforts which we can call it as social mobility ,or we can simply  call it as the American Dream.

People can be successful through their own hard work, courage, creativity and determination, which can help people from a particular social class upper level social class. The “American Dream” has inspired a lot of peooke create their own value. But in recent years, because of the the continued weakness of the U.S. economy and social issues, the hearts of many people of the “American dream” is being broken.

However, the story like Bill Gates, become a new idol of the “American dream”. By virtue of his own wisdom, he made billions of dollars. His story seems to indicate that as long as people are the wisdom and genius, they also can be successful in the United States.

Functions of the Family

This video is a sociological commentary by prominent American sociologists. There are 7 minutes show which about different family types and the impact that family structure has on the members of each group.

From the video we can see the family is like the cell of society, the family system is also a social system. Family also is  a transmission of human culture because family provides general idea to people how to make behavior norm in a society.

There are two types of family, such as extended family and nuclear family. Extended family is he family unit consisting of the parent-child nuclear family and other relatives, such as grandparents, aunts ,uncles ,and cousins. And the nuclear family is the family unit consisting of at least one parent and one child.

Moreover , family structure, ,tradition, rules, and others will passed to the younger generation, to help them form a centain character.For example,  If a child lives in encouraging surround, he will learn self-confidence, however,  if a child lives with jealousy, he will learn envy.

Olympics 2012 Opening Ceremony

I watched London Olympic Opening Ceremony yesterday. It was very exciting. And at that time, I also see the reveal of British cultures.

Someone said :” The nationalism at the heart of the Olympic “ideal” is part of its nature ,Its DNA.”  and we can not forget how the culture play the important role in the Olympic games.

Recall the previously Olympic Opening Ceremony, such as BeiJing 2008 , Athens 2004 and Sydney 2000.They all have the similar thing including London Olympic  which is they want to show their  Cultures to the world.

What is the culture?  Culture provides members of a society with a common sense to the certain facts which people may see it in the same way.  It includes material culture and non-material culture.

Material culture is the artifacts of a society , which represent adaptations to the social and physical environment. In addition, Non-material culture including knowledge, belief ,customs, values, morals, and symbols that are shared by members of a society and that distinguish the society from others.

Olympic games can be consider the non-material culture and also it can be see as a global cultures. Athlete joins the “sports party”  for their dreams, and also people involved and enjoy the Olympic games. People from different countries with different cultures come together will share and transfer the culture to each other.

Now, it is London, in its Opening Ceremony, it shows its history,culture  and society. For the later game days, we will see, know, and understand the British more and more.

Therefore, we can see not only British show its culture to the world, at the same times, but also the world bring their cultures to the British. Olympic is the way the make exchange global cultures.

Observational Learning

We live in a world with other people. In our surrounding, we connect other people everyday, such as family members, classmates, teachers, coworks, bosses and so on. Therefore, to know what type of people we are, and how our images in public which comes from our contact with others. We look at others and may act or react the things and people in our environments as a result of the meaning we attach to them. For example, someone watch his brother studied and how he did in school because he is a older brother.

This video shows how 10 month old kid learn from his brother by observing.The kid learns how to put a football into a basket when he look at how his brother did. Learning from others or observing others is naturally.  Human when they face the things which is uncertain or unknown, may like to observe others and learn from others to know how to response the things.

Moreover, we also do something which would be difference like others did. For example, when you see some bad example,you may not want to follow that, in this case, we may not have some mistakes like others.

Overall, the impact of other people in our everyday lives is very important.Like this video, the kid didn’t know how to play the ball, the only way for him to know how to put the ball into basket is observing. We can see that when people born they didn’t know a lot of things without social influence and they lack the basic information. Therefore, learn from others is a key experience for people to make a functioning human being.