Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

A brief survey of the leading magazines and newspapers on the Indian subcontinent often leads to an outsider confused by the excess obsession with China. The foreign affairs section sees sensationalized reports of Chinese military or economic superiority splashed across the headlines, filling pages with gloomy analysis of Indian doom in case of open competition with China. And brief chats with scholars from the subcontinent here in London illustrates that China does indeed loom large in the subconscious of the Indians and the Pakistanis, who often mentions China in the framework of subcontinental affairs. The growing influence of China in global affairs, after years of economic and military expansion, is no longer a surprise to anyone. American, European, and East Asian media cannot live without giving their readers daily reports of China's growing threats and problems . But there is still a key difference to them and the South Asians. Compared to the floods of Americans, Jap

The view outside the large, cleanly wiped windows was absolutely spectacular: across the River Thames on the Westminster Bridge is a full panorama of the House of Parliament, with Big Ben proudly standing on one side as if an attentive soldier on guard. As the afternoon sun began its descent, a bright red hue lit up the sculptured details of the historical building, giving us, right on the spot, an artistic feast of representing the glorious heydays of the British Empire . And as bright red hue disappears into the darkness of a typical autumn night, subtle yellow and green lights around the building project the fullness of the imperial beauty into the River. And all this, from a well-maintained bed on the 8th floor of one of the most reputed comprehensive hospitals on the British Isles. Dinner is served as we messed around with the fully functioning bedside Internet system. You may ask just how much were we, the poor students of LSE, were willing to pay for this experience (not to

Amid the ongoing economic downturn, it is easy for people to start believing that a certain degree of globalization has to be temporarily rolled back. Ever since moving to the UK, we the foreign students have been living the fear of not being able to remain on the island after graduation due to the recent government decision to stop automatically issuing 2-year Post-graduate Work Visa. Every time one sees "do you have full authorization to work in UK?" on a job application, an overwhelming sense of anger often boils over, leading to practically meaningless self-blame of living in a wrong country in the wrong age. It is, however, a bit premature to conclude that a country's ruthless reduction in acceptance of foreign labor, even highly educated (and hopefully, skilled), is equivalent to a country becoming more "selfish" and focus on concerns for her own citizens at the expense of others living within her boundaries. After all, the tide of human migration, in a

Often, it is quite refreshing to simply be out of that never-ending emphasis on egalitarianism that American society and people often insist as a present reality. The Brits laugh out the "myth" of America, where supposedly a whopping 98% of people identify themselves as some sort of "middle class." The Brits, despite living on a continent so often associated with welfare policies to create egalitarianism, often seem to have absolutely no fantasies about how or why everyone in the country should be labelled "equal" in some fashion. Walking around East London a few days ago, it is not hard to see that their realist line of mentality is, in fact, highly appropriate. This little slice of South Asia seems like a whole world away from the central neighborhoods that is home to LSE and much of foreign tourist-student traffic. The same lineup of short stone buildings along the street somehow managed to become a view completely different only a one-hour bus rid