Group 1

2. +
What is this section about?
 Tom Friedman (one of the author’s of “That Used to Be Us”) is
in Beijing, China.
 He is there attending the World Economic Forum Conference
which is located in Tianjin, China
 While there he is observing the advanced culture and
comparing it to that of Washington D.C.

3. +
The Travel Between From Beijing to
Tianjin Past vs. Future
 About five years ago the travel from Beijing to Tianjin used to
be long and took usually three and a half hours by car.
 In present times it requires traveling by a high speed bullet train
to which you buy the tickets for at an electronic kiosk at the
Beijing South Railway Station.
 The train, when it first began to run covered 115 km in about 29
minutes…THAT’S REALLY FAST!

4. The Beijing South Railway Station
and Its Bullet Trains…Cool huh?
This entire structure took
only eight months (32 weeks)
to build and covers a total
floor area of 2.5 million
square feet.

5. +
Tom Returns to Washington D.C.
 After his trip to China was over Tom returned to Washington
and excitedly told his friend Michael Mandelbaum (the other
author of “That Used to Be Us”) and his wife Anne how quickly
the Beijing South Railway Station was built.
 He went to the subway station in Bethesda which was one of
the stops of the Washington Metrorail Subway and immediately
noticed huge differences from the construction of the railway
station in Beijing.

6. +
America Has Fallen Behind Tom
Suggests
 When Tom went to the subway station where he lived he was
astonished to see how slow the construction was going.
 The Bethesda Station in Washington D.C. had been under
construction for up to six months as the construction crew were
repairing two escalators in the station and improving their
quality.
 While the entire Beijing South Railway Station was constructed
in eight months from the ground up the Washington Metro Crew
took about six months to repair a couple of escalators.
 Tom is basically suggesting that even though America has
started the Industrial Revolution that resulted in cities and large
structures, America has now fallen behind on its rate of building
structures with countries like China innovating and building

8. +
Main Point
 “America’s best days are behind it and China’s best days are
ahead of it”
 This section talks about how China is outdoing us in almost
every aspect of life and that the citizens of America have
become lazy and decreasing in intelligence.

9. +
Tom and the Junior High School Girl
 Tom interviewed a finalist of the competitors for designing an
ideal green school
 Tom asked them what they thought about China
 Girl responded: “it seems like they have more ambition and will than
we do”
 She didn't’t have an explanation other than that’s just how she felt.

10. +
Pensylvania Governor on National
Football League
 Major football game was cancelled due to snowstorm
 Governor Rendell saw it as an indication that “Americans had
gone soft”
 “it goes against everything football is about”
 “We’ve become a nation of wusses, the Chinese are kicking our butt
in everything. If this was China, do you think the Chinese would
have called off the game? People would have been marching down
to the stadium, they would have walked, and they would have been
doing calculus on the way there”

11. +
Tom and the New York Times
 Tom wrote in the New York Times about America
 Main quote:
 In this mode we rallied to span the continent with railroads,
construct a national highway system, defeated monstrous dictators,
cured polio and landed men on the moon. Now we text and put on
makeup as we drive, spend more on video games than books,
forswear exercise, demonize hunting and are rapidly succumbing to
obesity and diabetes.

12. +
The White House and all its “Glory”
 Tom visited White house and door handle to enter fell off as he
was opening it.
 German visitors always make two remarks when visiting white
house:
 How many squirrels there are in Washington.
 how rutted the streets are.
 They cant believe how Americas capital would have such
potholed streets.

13. +
Conclusion
 Americas best days are behind it
 We have become lazy and like some described us, turned into
“wusses”

16. +
No we are not!

20. “What we lack in the U.S. today is the confidence that
is generated by solving one big, hard problem –
together.”

22. We are driving now without
a bumper, without a spare
tire, and with the gas gauge
nearing empty.

25. +
China, Again
 China making extraordinary strides
 China’s focus on economic development
 China problems that they face
 China getting 90% of their political system and America getting
50%
 U.S doesn’t have confidence
 Orville Schell- head of Asia Society’s Center on U.S-China
Relations in New York City.