处女作 issue 2 求大侠神拍 解救人于水火中

豆豆猫UID: 3167002

2. To understand the most importantcharacteristics of a society , one must study its major cities.
instruction：最常见的那款 未作特殊要求


It is necessary to study different aspects of major cities, if one really wants to grasp predominant characteristics of the society. There are more or less three main aspects supporting a society, which are culture, economy and politics. Traits of the three pillars can be witnessed simultaneously in major cities.

Major cities are always served as regional economic or financial hearts of a country. For instance, among all the Fortune 500 corporations of the world, 270 expecting to enlarge their regional influence have settled offices or branches in Shanghai, a booming economic and financial center in East Asia, despite its high prices of real estates and roaring costs of working and living, which are nevertheless seen as potent growth of wealth in investors’ minds. Tremendous amount of capital concerned with lives of thousands of hundreds of people flushes in and out every moment. There are also some other familiar names people keep mentioning like the New York City, HongKong, Tokyo, Paris, London, Seoul, Singapore, etc. Quite often, you can witness big moments of modern economy in those major cities.

Major cities at the same time often take roles as political centers as well. Just take a look at the cities mentioned above; most of them are capital cities of their nations. Politicians always try to exert their powers on major cities where their influence can radiate to other parts of the country, including suburban areas and small towns and cities. Take the example of Taiwan; the presidential election takes place only in five cities, the most important cities, where most citizens’ urges and ideas are concentrated. Candidates take a huge pace towards the presidential position if they manage to attain the most votes than others within a certain city. Win the cities, win the position.

Interacting with politics and economy, cultures are often flourishing in major cities other than other places. Influential intellectuals who from time to time invert courses of modern times mostly cluster in or near major cities where the atmosphere is beneficial to their creation and thanks to advanced mass media the public can immediately feel their impacts. Considering the so-called “the lost generation” in the US after World WarⅠ, it was first launched by a group of artists and writers traveled in Paris. They absorbed literary and artistic nutrition for their work in Paris, the center of European culture at that time. After they came back successively to their motherland years later, the core members of the campaign gathered in a small town named Greenwich Village in the New York City where they quickly spread their thoughts and attitudes all over the country.

Despite all the merits of major cities, they should not become the only target if you are expecting to hold a comprehensive view of a society, because sometimes the disparity between cities and countryside cannot be ignored especially in developing countries. If only focus on major cities, on one hand, you may misrepresent the reality of the society. Let’s focus on Shanghai again. In the trend of globalization, Shanghai is more and more identical to NYC and Tokyo. Modern, delicate, even exuberant, the buildings are even taller than theirs. However, if you take a train in Shanghai westward, in a single day, you will get a much different view in rural areas. The living conditions in some desolate villages still remain what they were 30 years ago. Thus, if you regard information gaining from major cities as a whole database, you may come to a partial conclusion.

Major cities are suitable information sources for researching main characteristics of a certain society, particularly when researchers lack requisites for study like money or time. They are motley pictures of cultures and hodge-podge of economy and politics. But to achieve an all-around view of a society, researchers should take the other regions into consideration as well. Rural areas in developing countries may show surprising features.

第一天写了2个小时，第二天又修改了1个小时，虽然字数达到650，但是觉得逻辑方面挺弱的，现在还处于对AW的迷茫中，小女子期待有大侠拨云见日、指点迷津~