 Hi everyone, this is Salvatore Bobonis your lecturer for Sociology 2000 global social problems I'd really like to thank you for registering for this year's offering of the class. I'm really excited about it I really enjoy teaching this class. This isn't just a you know class that we shoved online To save money or to cut costs. This is a class that I've developed specifically to be online, so I'm thrilled to have you in the class and Obviously, I wanted to welcome you online. So hello. Thanks for registering. We have 115 students in the class So far we can take more if you have friends you want to join the class We'll just keep opening tutorials for as many students as want to join So please do tell your friends It's going to be a fun class and I'd love to have as many as possible in the class We're opening tutorials on Fridays So if you've wanted a Friday tutorial now's your chance You don't have to come to campus for it. The tutorials will be all online So if you have Friday morning or afternoon free and you'd like to switch to a Friday tutorial There should be one or two more Friday tutorials opening up this week This week we are starting class on Monday. The lectures are already online So anyone who actually wants to watch them can just go ahead and watch them now But this week's topic officially starting Monday afternoon is left behind children in China Now many of you may already know about this problem of migrant workers in China who have to leave their children behind in villages While they then go work in the big cities Sometimes leaving their kids behind for a year at a time sometimes longer Where they only visit during the Chinese New Year holiday, which has just ended the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday When virtually everyone in China tries to go home back to their home villages And if they're migrant workers to see their kids who've been left behind in those villages But interestingly these lectures that I have online about left behind children are already starting to get a little bit out of date That's how fast things are moving in China So for example right now people are talking about People having to move back to the countryside look back to the countryside movement or I should say China's Second back to the countryside movement. There was one 40 or 45 years ago This back to the countryside movement is of people who can no longer find jobs in those big eastern cities A lot of them are people who've been working in the big eastern cities for 20 years, but now they're in their 40s Factories don't want to employ them. They want to employ younger people And factories are closing in China to move to cheaper places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Laos And when that happens people are actually moving back to their villages Sometimes reuniting with their children and their families who they you know maybe haven't seen much Haven't seen more than for you know a few days a year for the last 10 years So that's creating of course a whole new set of social problems that no doubt in future editions of global social problems We'll try to tackle so for now I just want you to think when you watch the material about left behind children that even this is Starting to become last year's problem, and I'll try to provide some Non-examinable just some extra material if you want to read it on this very new trend of People returning to rural villages so that their children are no longer left behind, but instead their children are simply Poor you know because there are no jobs in those villages But I hope you enjoy this first week's material. We'll start tutorials in week two That is with the week of March 12th. Now when I say start tutorials, I mean start tutorial Activities we won't actually start tutorials themselves until the week of March 19th But we will have a tutorial activity the week of March 12th that you'll do Individually rather than it as a tutorial and that's because it takes some time to get all the tutorial technology set up for you to have your own Adobe connect chat rooms in which to meet for your tutorials, but I'm getting ahead of myself because I'm really excited about the class That's all for worry about next week for this week week of March 5th No tutorials just do the readings watch the lectures enjoy them if you have any questions Feel free to contact me on Facebook via the Sociology 2000 Facebook group or on Facebook or via email or on WeChat or on Twitter anywhere You can find me I always love to hear from students and I'll try in the not too distant future to actually arrange a meetup Where you know you can meet other people in the class so we can actually get together Socially not for an ever-quired in-person class, but just if you'd like to meet some people in the class It'll be your chance to get together. So look for that in a in another week or two I'll try to get that set up. So thanks for enrolling. I look forward to having you in the class And I do hope you enjoy it