China's handling of their Covid-19 crisis really impressed Singaporeans and even received a lot of praises from the WHO as well. I thinkit has to do with the political system. In Singapore we are centralized and we've always had a single ruling party for the last 54 years. So the government can utilize at a very early stage to facilitate contact tracing and it is mandatory to quarantine after you come back from an overseas country or you could be fined even just leaving half an hour before the quarantine. This kind of strict rules does make a difference. But I think there was some mismanagement in the dormitory cases. The rest dormitories were too crowded. That was one of the mishandling case in Singapore. 

Canada is sort of like a European country and because we have a fully public healthcare systemand the responsibility for all health concerns including Covid 19 falls on the provincial premiers. So the provincial premiers canlocalize their policies considering political opinions and also the economic situations of their provinces. For example, if you're implementing a policy of tracing Covid cases, the Alberta government might not implement something as intimate as the BC government because the Albertas value their privacy more. But like there's a problem to this because the statistics are measured differently in different provinces. For example in Calgary or in Alberta or in BC you have a Covid case on the records as soon as it's detected. But in BC after 14 days the patient does not show up for another appointment, they're determined to be clear. In Alberta they are only cleared when they come to the hospital for re-examination and they pass all the tests. So I want a more centralized approach like the top down approach by the federal government to solve the situation. 

For one thing I think China's response is very good. It locked down Wuhan really quickly, enforced the really strict stay-at-home order and was able to curb the spread of the virus really quickly. Now I'm really jealous of my friends in China who are able to go out to restaurants to eat and to go shopping and have a normal life. Right now in Canada we all still have to stay at home more. I think the political system and cultural difference both attribute to the different situations in China and the US. The US is highly bipartisan and a lot of citizens have a mistrust towards the government. Also the government's response has been kind of back and forth. The other thing is the idea of Americans valuing the individual freedom more than collective safety. Canada is similar to the US approach but the difference is that the citizens Canadians care more about what the government saying and they trust the government more. In that sense they are willing to follow the orders issued by the government. So I think we are able to reopen in a safer environment right now.

From a university levelperspective and observation, UCLA offers a lot of supports to students as well as TAs during the pandemic. I'm a teaching assistant and I teach my own course in the spring.I have been encouraged to adjust my online teaching like adjusting the time and the grading. During the black live matters protest, the university is encouraging students, especially those black students who have concerns, maybe they have to take care of their family, maybe they want to attend those protests in university, to take a positive standpoint to support the students. As a TA, I support that by making the seminary and the participation score optional. Generally I can see how UCLA is supporting their students and also TAs. And we have a psychological and mental health website. They are also encouraging students to wearing masks. I think people are recognizing this as a measure to protect themselves. The protests are just what social media is portraying. I'm not sure about the social media and people are attending the protest just because they don't want to wear masks. Maybe, I don't know. 

As for the state of culture communication in the time of this pandemic, all the conferences are forced to move online, for example IMUSE had to replace its in person summer conference with an online program, which includes this podcast. But I think there are pros and cons to this new online format. Before the pandemic, you have to go to a place, you had to manage your time, you had to travel and so on. It is a lot of work to attend an in-person conference, but now it's easier. Recently I co-founded a US-China student organization called the US-China Better Relations Coalition. It is completely online, and I even met my co-founder online (we haven't met in person yet). But our programs, for example, exhibitions, interviews podcasts, research journals, newsletters and discussions are all online and I think that enables more students to take part in our programs. And another thing is, we're at the low points in US-China relations on a micro level. So the original aim of this organization is to improve this relationship starting with students. 

First of all, I think each country's media serves on interests. In the US, it's a highly bipartisan situation, where news outlets are either more Democrat or more Publican. These bipartisan views and how these news outlets present the news highly affect how the American public views the affairs. On the Chinese side, I'm not an expert on Chinese media. But just speaking from what I've witnessed on WeChat, I found that once a certain post goes viral, it easily sways the public opinion to one side or the other. There's a problem in both countries that people are getting snippets of things instead of getting the whole picture of a of an issue. I think the main problem is that people in China and people in the US, they don't get the news of each other's countries. What they get from media is a heavily mediated information. People are for profit, people have biases. I think it will be good if people in China can read more American news and people in the States can read more news reported from China.

Ideally you would look at government speakers and you would see how the pandemic is. But  truly it does not tell you enough about the pandemic in certain region. The international organization could send people or their own representatives to investigate the pandemic, but that could interfere with government operations. So really  there is no true solution for this problem and that really brings me into the limitations of international organizations. But generally for organizations like the World Health Organization, we have many different countries at the same table, working just on the common issue. But one problem is that many of the countries are of different sizes. For example, the big country like the US and China and Russia, they have a greater voice and  some of the smaller countries could be bullied by the big countries to do something that is not in their interest.Donald Trump pulling out of the World Health Organization feels more like a political move than anything else. The World Health Organization was really highlighting how poor the US’s controlling of its own epidemic situation. And Trump really did not want the World Health Organization to do that because it might interfere in the election results. So he pulled out in an effort to undermine the World Health Organization and also decreased the funding available to them.

I think America's leadership is not as strong as that before Trump’s term. America took leadership a lot of areas. But after Trump got elected I think the US is driving back from a lot of these initiatives had taken before. Smaller countries are the ones who need those international organizations more than big powers like the US and China. And these powers have those obligation or responsibility to support these networks to fund or give a direction  so that we can live in a world where countries co-existing in peace. So I think that we would definitely need to see more international organizations. And I think for the US, its policy depends on the upcoming election results. During Trump's term America turning inward. But we don't know if a different party comes to power, they will again turn their gaze to the outward or not. 

Now the word“networking” is maybe the most important thing when you want to find a job, and the pandemic is making social networking very hard. For example, I want to be a scholar and previously I need to take classes with the professor, make more intimate relationship with a professor and also my classmates. But now I don't have a chance to meet with them face to face and have the opportunity to build a more intimate relationship with them. And also in terms of conferences, on the positive parts, I can just stay at home and attend a lot of conferences virtually now. However, practically speaking, it is hard for me to network with those conference attendees. Previously I physically went there and I coincidentally meet a stranger and we can talk, and we find we share the same research interest, and we can then networking, like follow up and stuff. While now we just attend a seminar while I have no chance of those “stranger talk”, so that's a barrier.