Summer Reading Contest Winner, Week 4 | On ‘Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident Who Won Nobel While Jailed, Dies at 61’ | | | | | | | | | | | Summer Reading Contest Winner, Week 4 | On ‘Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident W... By The Learning Network Thank you to the 776 teenagers who participated this week, and congratulations to Ivy Xun, our winner, as well a... | | | | ContestsBy THE LEARNING NETWORK JULY 25, 2017 Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate who died of cancer under guard in a hospital, was mourned in Hong Kong on Thursday. CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times Thank you to the 776 teenagers who participated in the fourth week of our 10-week Summer Reading Contest, and congratulations to Ivy Xun, our winner, as well as to our many runners-up and honorable mentions.Scroll down to take a look at the variety of topics that caught the eyes of our participants. This week we were struck by how many different parts of the world were represented in the pieces students chose — from features on French baking to Op-Eds on Israel to front-page news about Brazil. As always, the Times journalists who judge this contest loved reading what you had to say.Remember, you can choose anything published on NYTimes.com in 2017, including any of the pieces linked below, to participate anytime until Aug. 24. Just check the top of our contest announcement to find the right place to post. Winner Ivy Xun, from Maryland, chose this obituary, and wrote: Before I stumbled on Chris Buckley’s article, “Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident Who Won Nobel While Jailed, Dies at 61,” I had no idea who Liu Xiaobo was. After reading, I was left in complete awe.A tireless rights advocate, Mr. Liu was dedicated to peaceful political change; he petitioned for democracy and stood in solidarity with demonstrating Beijing students in 1989. His efforts to combat the Communist Party’s repressive culture of censorship and corruption ultimately lead to arrest, and on the day he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Liu sat in a prison cell.What struck me was Mr. Liu’s rejection of “intellectual conformity, even in the name of reform,” as described by Buckley. He wasn’t afraid to criticize the state and most importantly, himself. Mr. Liu reminds us that as long as we continue to collectively ignore acts of injustice, as we turn a blind eye to the economic ties that perpetuate slave and child labor, as we forget to be aware of and question our own actions, we take another step backwards.When I asked my dad, a college student protestor in China during that time, he remembers how Liu Xiaobo inspired him to demand change.“He energized a revolution,” he says. It’s easy to get caught up in categories: in ideology, in whether you‘re a Democrat or Republican, in a “you versus them” mentality. In the wake of growing political hostility, Mr. Liu taught us to question and challenge ourselves. Liu Xiaobo’s ideas aren’t dead, and his revolution isn’t over. Runners-Up Emily Axelsen on “How We Are Ruining America”Danielle Getz on “Mayors, Sidestepping Trump, Vow to Fill Void on Climate Change”Imani Johnson on “A Sicilian Photographer of the Mafia and Her ‘Archive of Blood’”Lisa Mishra on “Saudi Arabia to Offer Physical Education Classes for Girls”Jay Poland on “A Transgender Learning Gap in the Emergency Room"Maya Siebenlist on “What Biracial People Know”Anna Torpey on “On London’s Streets, Black Cabs and Uber Fight for a Future”Michelle Yuan on “Crematory Is Booked? Japan Offers Corpse Hotels” Honorable Mentions Nathan Bryant on “How to Make Congress Bipartisan,”Kristin Cheng on “How a ‘Hamilton’ Super Fan Got Cast in the Broadway Show”Lauren Coppins on “Dispute Over British Baby’s Fate Draws In Pope and U.S. President”Anna Hogarth on “Social Interaction Is Critical for Mental and Physical Health”JuliaR on “Israel to American Jews: You Just Don’t Matter”Eun-Sol Kim on “Trump’s Obama Obsession”Nicholas Kruegler on ”A Twisty Path to Gay Marriage in Germany”Younghoon Lee on “A Baker’s Crusade: Rescuing the Famed French Boulangerie”Jessie Lowe on “Save Free Speech From Trolls”Anton Ludwig On “How the Death of a Muslim Recruit Revealed a Culture of Brutality in the Marines”Leonardo Maduro - Salvarrey on “Emmett Till’s Coffin, a Hangman’s Scaffold and a Debate Over Cultural Appropriation”neenadmv2022 on “Since Trump, Quiet Upstate Road Becomes a Busy Exit From U.S.”Shiri Perechodnik on “When Just Vanilla Won’t Do, How About a Blueberry Pie Oreo? ”Sireesh Ramesh on ”Ex-President of Brazil Sentenced to Nearly 10 Years in Prison for Corruption”Koji Sakano on “The Faces of Intermarriage, 50 Years After Loving v. Virginia”Danielle Seguin on “How to See What the Internet Knows About You (And How to Stop It)”John Stueck on “At the Home Run Derby, Aaron Judge Makes Baseballs His Victims”Emma Weber on ’This Is How You Get Stuff Done’
[GELORA45] Summer Reading Contest Winner, Week 4 | On ‘Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident Who Won Nobel While Jailed, Dies at 61’
Jonathan Goeij [email protected] [GELORA45] Thu, 27 Jul 2017 14:54:24 -0700
