The Call of the Wild

In language classes, I am reading a book called The Call of the Wild by Jack London. This is a book about a dog called Buck, and his life which is full of harsh experiences. However, he overcomes all the problems one by one, and he finally knows: Only the strong will survive.

I have not read much yet, and so far, But I have enjoyed it because it is a story about a dog and it has been sale to a saloonkeeper. He has undergone some torture and insult. The way the author describes this character is interesting, since he is using personification to describe a dog, and showing the dog’s emotion and thinking.

So this makes me thinking about the real life, when we meet hardship, insult or desperate situation, shall we give up, or still facing the problems with beliefs. Of course we all know the right response to this is never give up, but things always goes off from what we think when we do encounter them. It is definitely easy to give up when different emotions all attacks our minds.

The importance is to enrich our own minds, and get strong in minds, as the book said: Only the strong will survive…

Reflection on ‘Human Rights’

In this unit, we are learning about Human Rights. Certainly, this was a big topic. As I go through, I made a glance at some of human rights, and I study deeply about certain human rights.

I mainly studied about two human rights, the first one is one of those 30 human rights listed by the united nations: A man is not guilty until proven to be.  This is definitely a controversial topic, and it is also controversial in our class. I had a few debate with Ana, Max and Hadiya, and we still did not persuade each other till now. However, it is more significant about how we went through this topic, how we think, research and try to persuade others. I struggle with this topic because sometimes I cannot fully convey what I mean when these sorts of debate was going on. But fortunately, we all remember to say our idea about the issue rather than the person we are debating with. (Though someone was a bit rude.)

The second human right is The Right to Die. This is a famous issue among the world and we learned this right by doing Wikispaces and creating our own pages (<a href=”http://lemanchengdu.wikispaces.com/Ana%2C+Jack+and+Max+-+The+Right+to+Die”>http://lemanchengdu.wikispaces.com/Ana%2C+Jack+and+Max+-+The+Right+to+Die</a>). We learned how to research and express ourselves effectively. It took us about a whole month to finish the Wikispaces. I am especially proud of our layout. You might think this is not important, but the layout is also how the pages are appealing to the readers. Besides ours(Max, Ana and me), I especially like Sophie’s page (<a href=”http://lemanchengdu.wikispaces.com/Sophie+ +the+right+to+democracy”>http://lemanchengdu.wikispaces.com/Sophie+-+the+right+to+democracy</a>), she uses various texts to illustrate her topic, The Right to Democracy.  Ian, Cleophee and Abdullah’s page(<a href=”http://lemanchengdu.wikispaces.com/Sung+Won%2C+Abdullah+and+Cleophee+-+Freedom+of+Expression”>http://lemanchengdu.wikispaces.com/Sung+Won%2C+Abdullah+and+Cleophee+-+Freedom+of+Expression</a> ) also looks cool. Especially their discussion has some debate going on, though sometimes useless and unnecessary.

It was a huge unit, and I have also learned something useful.

Reflection of assessment

This week, I finished my Assessment about the first unit, Culture. I was doing Prezi, advanced version of PowerPoint. I think it is more effective than PowerPoint, since it is more fancy and it will helps me having a more logic and clear ways of talking. My assessment is about the book I am reading recently, The Serpent’s Children, by Lawrence Yep. When Lawrence Yep is creating this story, he has involved a lot of cultural elements, mainly about the Chinese culture. So my assessment is to explore the Chinese culture. From time background to the daily life.

First, the story took place in 19th century China, where ruled by Manchus during that period. In 19th century, Manchus gradually became incapable, so China was poor and lack of competitiveness in global scale. Also, foreign countries are invading China, and selling Opium in the China. By doing the assessment, I am able to learn more specifically about the history and culture of China, and I found out that learn from the background is not only helpful for me to learn about the book, but also form my own thought with Chinese culture and the past.

Additionally, I have also researched on the daily life of the protagonist in The Serpent’s Children. In 19th century, Chinese people lived in rice straw and stone houses. They lived by planting the vegetable and eat them to survive. They practice Kungfu in order to defend themselves from the attack from others and the foreign countries. Then I can understand the story easily, and learn what Lawrence Yep wants to express behind the story. 

What I have conclude from this story, besides the culture. But also, I think Lawrence Yep is trying to tell us that we cannot choose where we were born and under what condition. And sometime, we will be treated as outsiders, but what we can do is struggling with life and face it directly with courage.

Reflection of the trip to Hei Shui

This week we had a fantastic trip to Hei Shui, and I have enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the cultural elements of Tibet. We have traveled along Wenchuan, Heishui and experienced the local geology and humanity of certain areas and they makes me think about the culture related to the unit we are studying now in Language Arts.

It is really a pity that I missed the Sichuan earthquake museum since I was coming to Wenchuan later by car. When I arrived there, we had a talk on the top of the mountain, we observed the rock and those quartz and Mr. Brian told us it is even possible for us to find a sea shell on the top of the mountain, since they are all hidden under water thousands years ago, and finally form such mountain by continental drift and the tectonic plate converge and the subduction happened followed earthquake or tsunami occur.

Under the mountain, there was a tribe belongs to one of the fifty-five minority in China called Qiang, they have their own language and their own belief. They also share different cultural customs and habits. They prey with the white stone and goat and they are considered luck and a representation of god. They wear their own dress and live in the house of cool styles. Especially we have visited the house of a local man, he is so excited about his house, his culture and his ancestors. He introduce us with intense tone and we can feel his passion, too much.

After Wenchuan, we took 5 hours to achieve Heishui, we soon finished the lunch and went to a monastery on a top of a mountain. Interestingly, on the cliff, they have ten stars bathroom, which we can feel the nature closely. The monastery is a Buddha one, and the monks in the monastery are preying to some of the Buddha, includes the Buddha who bring Buddhism to China and Tibet called Sakiyamuni. The master and our boss Syria explain the Buddhism to us specifically, the monks put water and money besides the statue of the Buddhas, and they prey to the Buddhas and wish them can purify the dirty and bad things of human nature and evil occurrences in the world. They read and prey every morning and they have a huge library which contains all the books they need as monks. It is interesting that the monks will conduct the debate in order to increase their knowledge and try to become a master in the monastery. We played frisbee in the front of the monastery and the monks are too bad with this game.

The third day, we went to the Dagu glacier. In the mountain range, there are many wild animals and the scenery is beautiful. We played flipping stones in the lakes and try to achieve as many times as we can. We drive along the street and we climbed on the top of the mountain by gondolas. We feel hard to breath on the top since the altitude is 4600 meters. On the way back, I have seen some colorful prey flags and Syria told me that different colors represent certain elements. Like blue means sky, white means air and so on.

Finally, we went back to school in the last day and finish this meaningful trip.

PS. Thanks to Abu who take care of the hotel and daily routines and Syria who introduce the culture of Buddhism to us.

How does the Chinese culture related to the Etiquette and protocol?

In language class, We are researching about culture and some of the elements related to it. And I consider etiquette and protocol is definitely one of the Chinese cultural elements. Confucius, China’s greatest sage established a system of ethics, morals, hierarchy and behavior, setting the rules for people dealing with other people, and establishing each person’s proper place in society. The main Etiquette in China emphasize on 5 main relationships, Ruler to Subject, Husband to Wife, Father to son, brother to brother and friend to friend. How does these people deal with and keep the harmonious relationships and be respectful to each other.

To be more specific, there are numerous rules or etiquette to do in Chinese culture and I’m going to introduce one rule in each situation.
*In greeting, when being introduced to Chinese, the accepted form of greeting is the handshake, even among Chinese. Chinese may also nod or slightly bow.
*In compliment, Unlike the Western custom, compliments are not graciously accepted with a “thank you,” but rather with “not at all or it was nothing.” Accepting and giving direct praise is considered poor etiquette.
*Silence is used effectively. Not talking while others do signifies politeness
*The Chinese have many ways of indicating refusal without actually saying “no”. Commonly you will hear “that would be inconvenient,” or “it will be taken under consideration,” or “it is being discussed”
*In farewell, The host will accompany a high-ranking guest all the way to the car, and wait until the car has departed before leaving. Don’t turn your back to the car until it is out of sight.

The above mentioned are some of the basic etiquette in China. It sounds complicated and useless, but to some extent, these cultural elements helps Chinese to suit their environment and helps them to deal with others.

The Serpent’s Children

Recently, I am reading a book, The Serpent’s Children by Laurence Yep for Language Arts class. And we have a research of how does the cultural background of the author affects his book. Lawrence Yep, a Chinese American author who was born in San Francisco, china town. However, his neighbors are black people which impose a significant effect on his later work. He tends to write novels related to his own culture. Since he went to Chinese school till his high school, many of his opuses involved the elements of Chinese history and some of American history. His father is an immigrant from China while his mom is American. He began to create his first work piece in his high school, and his later novels includes a lot about science fiction which is appealing to the young people.

So does for this book–The serpent’s children, has related to his own cultural background, especially for Chinese history and his own life experience. As we can figure out from this book, the whole story sets up in a small Chinese village and involved with the war. This is also partially because his own experience involved with war, actually from the story of his grandfather. Also, some of his books have mentioned about myth, so does this book, the woman have telling short myth that I have read so far. Finally, the title of the book–the serpent’s children, originally saying as an insult from other people, many of Lawrence Yep’s books talks about aliens which means people who are not social and viewed like strangers.

I guess for most of authors, when they are writing their articles and stories, it is inevitable for them to add their own experience and their own culture, that also makes the works more brilliant, and thus bringing the reader into the stories.

100 words challenge

Born in an aristocratic house, his name was Jack. When he was six, he started to study math, business, literature, and how to act like a noble man. He was smart and kind of successful in politics and business, helping his family welcome a golden age.

But he was bored. He travelled in a big ship, visiting different unknown islands with only his wife. But the ferocious wind crashed the ship, sweeping him away.

Seventeen years later, a misterious and lone pirate on the high seas, he constantly looked through the edge of the sky, searching for his lost love.

100 words challenge

A pair of eagles living in the forest, deeply loves each other, married with 3 babies. Unfortunately, the male eagle has been killed fighting with a strong fox. The eagle mom needs to find the food by herself to support the lives of her young children. Sadly, children was ate by bears when she go out. The old eagle feel sad until one day she catches a little human. She feed the little child and he always eat all of the food, although the little human never make a sound and grow up. She may never know it is a LEGO toy and there is a kind girl took out all the food when the old eagle fly out.

100 Words challenge

One master and the three apprentice fight against the Monsters and the devils and finally, they arrived their destination, where gods lived in.

‘you guys working together and ovecome all the sufferings. Because of your cooperation, I will give you some precious treasure.’ The gods said. ‘But unfortunately, I just got 3 “immortal medicine”, so only three of you four can get the treasure. Whenever you decided, tell me.’

‘I help you fight the monsters and devils, I should get one.’ Monkey says.

‘I help you get the food, I should get one.’ Pig says.

‘I help you carry luggages, I should get one.’ Monk says.

‘I’m the Master, I should get one.’ Master says.

They fight.

‘When you guys face the questions of benefit, you fall. No one can get the treasure.’ Gods says.

–depend on the journy to the west

100 Word Challenge-week 29

I am going to meet my old friend and we haven’t met each other for about 10 years. He lives in a mountain which is snowy almost every day. He is a cool guy and always wears a pair of sunglasses because he said that the snow white is not healthy for eyes. When I been to his house, I knock the door and I found that there is full of snow in the ground haven’t been tide for a long time.

Hello?

No one answer.

The door is opened easily by the wind, keep moving over and over with the creepy sound.

I go into the house, the dusts and spider nets are everywhere. Makes me cough.

Hardly, I see that an X marks the spot on the white wall. And the blue of X looks so mysterious.

I push the wall and it slowly moving, I see a hole.

Suddenly, I drop into the holes……

When I open my eyes, I hear the voice of my friend. ‘Welcome, my friend, you are the second person come to this world.’

Sky is blue, tree is green, plants is mysterious and laugh on my face……