Ariel Ringlein’s March 13 column, “A firsthand look at communist China,” discussed her experience in a rural area of China. She mentioned that the Chinese people wouldn’t pay attention to traffic rules. This could be true, but just very few people do that, and usually they are fined for doing so.

She wrote that Chinese citizens need permission from the government to move to other places. This is incorrect. The correct thing is that all people in China are free to travel or move anywhere they want without permission from the government. However, if you have a contract with a company, you are still free to move, but you will be fined according to what you did not fulfill of your contract.

Also, it is the same thing for anyone to belong to any religion. Ringlein said that there is no freedom in doing such a thing, but in actual life in China you are free to belong to any religion you want to. Finally, Ringlein hasn’t had enough experience to give a general idea about a big community like the Chinese community. Anybody needs sufficient experience to generalize such issues.

Yi Zhang

Graduate student

Molecular, cellular and developmental biology

Abdulilah Dawoud

Graduate student

Chemistry

Hsiao-Yun Yang

Graduate student

Community and regional planning

Marjan Mokhtarian

Graduate student

Genetics

Keuntak Chung

Graduate student

Economics

Yuping Shen

Graduate student

Materials science and engineering