Sophie

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Journal during the Culture Revolution

Character Intro

Zheqi was a middle school student when the Cultural Revolution in 1966. She and her classmates started to believe that their study system was dark which the knowledge they learned was controlled.

As the belief spread, Zheqi became a Red Guard as the others did. She started to destroy the Four Olds and was sent up to the mountain to be re-educated at the end.

After the revolution started to reach the end, she finally got chance to come back home. But she found she was isolated during all those years and it’s hard to find her life back. She was now a big girl who could not learn things as quick as before. She started to regret.

 

Continuity & Change

The government system stayed the same. China was still Chinese Communist party and although Mao died, there was still only one-party leader. Maoism kept spreading and being believed by the peasants.

On the other hand, the economic dropped dramatically and people killed each other that caused a huge population of death. Education was also stagnant that many people were not well educated. The Four Olds were all destroyed which meant many old things from the past were disappearing.

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HOW WAS THE CHINA IN 1970s

This is the Chinese Cultural Revolution made by Sophie and Jack.

It shows how the leader, Chairman Mao, made the wrong decision for the good proposes, and how the huge amount of Chinese population made thing hard to control that turned out to be a violent sociopolitical purge movement.

I learned about how things goes back fifty years ago as I had only heard slightly before, such as the Great Leap Forward, the Red Guards, and the Gang of Four. I always heard people saying Mao’s merits outweigh his transgressions and how great he was, and now I learnt his mistakes in his last few years and understood him in a different aspect. He turned out to be a more vivid character to me. Also, I learned more about the environment my grandparents grown up from which was far different from our modern society now. As peasants, they had not much food to eat, had poor education and needed to work a lot. It’s lucky for us to born in this peace, advanced world now.

 

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‘The 57 Bus’–A book you should read

The book “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater narrated a true story with an agender boy, Sasha, and Richard, a black boy who lived in a poor environment in Oakland in 2013. It happened when Richard set fire on Sasha’s skirt and made a massive burn. The book explored Sasha’s life as an agender and the implicit bias and difficulties they faced. Meanwhile, living in the more dangerous and poorer environment where most murders happened was the only choice for this black boy, Richard. It explored justices, forgiveness, and discriminations and compatibility toward LGBTQ. One theme of this book is to accept and welcome to LGBTQ since they were facing discriminations from the society.

Three reasons you should read this book are 1) this book deep dived into some big problems hidden in the society like sexualism, classism, and racialism that happened in this realistic event. 2) the author narrated the story with flashbacks and described dramatically that attracted the readers keep reading and figure out. 3) in the last part of the book especially, the book gave lots of information for example, introducing Richard’s court process as facts that also provide us different knowledge.

Something I learnt from this unit is to focus on parts that didn’t understand well and reread to connect different parts together. It’s more useful than reading the crucial parts again because it’ll fill the blanks that I didn’t notice. Also, understanding the central ideas and themes is easier to figure out what does the author wanted to talk about.

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Does Boxers deserve a bad reputation?

Boxers do not deserve a bad reputation. The initial motivation of Boxers war to defend their own country, China, although the methods they used might have been unsuitable.

After the Treaty of Nanking, foreigners entered China freely with right of not following the Chinese Law. They brought both opium and their own religion, Christian, into China, which corroded Chinese on both fitness and ideas in mind. They changed the traditional culture in China. People joined the Christian and rubbed the village. Facing this position, farmers were organized spontaneously by learning and practicing martial art. They were called Boxers. They gathered together to protect their own land not being invaded by other cultures. People who joined the Christian were not actually accepting the new culture, but to have the church protect them so that they can make recklessly attack to those innocent people without being blamed. Boxers, however, were people who can’t stand the situation anymore, who stand out to say no. The whole motion was patriotically. So, Boxers do not deserve bad reputation for their resist towards dark environment.

Boxers cut down all telegraph line in Beijing to isolate; however, people in Hong Kong and Tianjin wondered and sent 2000 foreigner soldiers to check up. After they got in, they found that Beijing was controlled by Boxers and the railway back was blocked. They have to hide in the North Church for 55 days until Eight-Nation Alliance came rescue. It was a good way to protect information by cutting off the telegraph line so that they cut off all communication with other countries. For uneducated farmers, it was hard to find out ways difficult enough to compete with advanced foreigners. Beside the corruption of Chinese government, foreigners defeated the Boxers easily by technology. In a result, Boxers did so many unforgiveable actions, but still, there was no doubt for their aim — to fight for themselves.

 

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Helena’s characterization

In Shakespeare’s play,A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena’s experiences unrequited love for Demetrius, who is in love with her best friend, Hermia. Helena is really unstable towards Hermia’s compliments, she is jealous that Demetrius loves Hermia, and is thought to be beautiful by Hermia. It is really clear to see that Helena is suspicious of Hermia’s compliments, when Hermia greeted to Helena by saying “Godspeed, fair Helena” (line 180), she reacted intensely as questioning “Call you me ‘fair’? that ‘fair’ again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!” (line 181-182). It might be a really normal greeting way for Hermia as a bestie. However, in Helena’s view, she thought it was making fun of her without thinking, so she yelled at Hermia right away. Hermia is confused and denies loving Demetrius, but Helena said “None, but your beauty. Would that fault were mine!” (line 201). Although Hermia was saying something good about Helena, Helena thought it was mean. Helena complained “How happy some o’er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so. He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs. Doting on Hermia’s eyes. So I, admiring of his qualities” (line 226-231). Even though the whole Athens think she’s as beautiful as Hermia, Demetrius ignored her and pursued Hermia. This led Hermia have the thought of that “go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight” (line 246). Because of the jealousness of Helena to Hermia, she wanted Hermia to end up running away with Lysander unsuccessfully, so that she can’t follow her true heart but chose to be killed or marry Demetrius. Hermia thinks Helena is beautiful by saying “Godspeed, fair Helena! Whither away?” (line 179). This shows that Helena is fair, which means beautiful. Also, when Helena thought “Through Athens I am thought as fair as she” (line 227). Although Demetrius ignored her beauty, the whole Athens thought she was as beautiful as Hermia.

 

 

 

 

 

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How Humanist am I?

I identified 4 elements for humanism during Renaissance, and evaluated from 1-5 of how much I agreed with each element to see how humanist am I.

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Power Causes Desires

Greed always turns people into a different person which shows in story, “The Monkey’s Paw”. In the story the family got a monkey’s paw which can have three wishes from it. Without listening to the warnings, they wished to have two hundred pounds, and the wish came true with paying for the death of the son. After some days, the woman wished to have her son alive but was stopped by the last wish the man made at last. In the story, “The Monkey’s Paw”, by William W. Jacobs, the author believes that power usually compels greedy desires from the heart.

Sergeant Major Morris, the man who gave the monkey’s paw to the family, tried to persuade them not to have it for many times in different ways by telling the experience of the first man who wished, throwing the paw into the fire and mentioning many times not to have it. As this wiser in the story said, “‘if you keep it, don’t then say that it is my fault’” (Jacobs 2). However, the family ignored the warnings. They wished for two hundred pounds for they thought it wouldn’t hurt but turn out to be death of their son. If the pay on that two hundred pounds didn’t hurt, the next wish would become “wishing that [he was] an emperor” (Jacobs 2). That’s the desire inside them, but not just a two hundred pounds. With power, greedy desires came out without control. The only reason they didn’t wish it directly is that they didn’t know how the paw works and were just giving a try.

After losing the son, the White stuck in a down mood until “‘The paw!’, [Mrs. White] said wildly, ‘The monkey’s paw!’ …… ‘Go down and get it quickly and wish our boy alive again” (Jacobs 4). Although the boy trapped in the machinery and buried ten days ago, the existence of the monkey’s paw made the woman have thought of using it. She was actually going mad at the time which much different with the one who was unbelieving the magic before. She was like turning into a different person. She didn’t care what would the thing knocking on the door outside looking like but shouted and struggled to open the door. She had all these thoughts of turning a died person alive is because of the paw, simplify as a tool to realize the desire.

There are desires in everyone’s heart but whether or not thinking of it depends on the what the one has; it’s wasting time daydreaming things much uncontrollable for one’s self. However, after having the paw, it seems possible for anything wanted. That’s what the power does, compelling more and more desires.

 

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Found Poem in Fish Cheeks!

A found poem is a type of poem using the words found in an article which were highlighted.

The story “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan, is talking about a girl named Amy whose parents invited the boy she liked, Robert, for Christmas. She was so ashamed about all the Chinese traditions in her family towards the American boy that she wanted to disappear. The main conflict in the story is the internal conflict of Amy which she struggles between the food she liked and the boy she liked.

The paragraphs I chose to do the found poem started when Robert arrived. The words for the poem were how he reacted towards the movement of Amy’ family and how Amy felt inside her heart, how awkward she felt.  And that’s what her internal conflict was, which I wanted to show.

The background I drew was a girl crying with tears dropping down on to her hair. Also, I drew it and highlighted the words in blue which is a really sad color. The background color is red hinted that the setting was the Chinese tradition and red is a representing color for this tradition.

 

 

 

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