imPerfect Stranger

The Real in The Debt

2011-09-14T23:39:00.003-05:00

Thought Piece On “Stereotype, Realism, and the Struggle over Representation” by Shohat and Stam

MACS 361: Film Theory and Criticism

Fall 2011

Professor Sarah Projansky

Shohat and Stam discussed the meaning and function of cinematic Realism in their article, and raised the issue of self-representation concerning language use in Hollywood film. Using The Debt as an example, I will further their arguments, and illustrate my understanding of “the real” in cinema—there is no absolute real but the re-presented real; it is a textualized real, perceived by audiences.

Shohat and Stam assert “although there is no absolute truth [in cinema], no truth apart from representation and dissemination, there are still contingent, qualified, perspective truths in which communities are invested”(179). This is what Mikhail Bakhtin called “artistic representation”; they are “textualized” and “themselves social and historical” (180). The Debt is an example. First, the anti-Nazi or anti-war-criminal theme is “social and historical”, and sympathized by audiences, which is one reason for its recurrence in cinema (e.g. The Reader). Second, on the question of how real a film is, the audiences are smarter than we think. In The Debt’s case, the plot and characters are apparently fictional; however, the spirit of bringing Nazi war criminal to trial is real. Instead of asking for the real-life prototypes for the Israel Mossad agents, audiences might be more interested in the question if there were emissary action of crusading against Nazi war criminal historically—considering how people would respond to the notorious evil of Nazis postwar with background knowledge of espionage, the basic plot of The Debt seems legit—so the answer is probably yes. And this is all what matters; this is “the real” to the audiences. Thus, no matter how fake the plot and characterization are, they can be recognized and accepted. In this sense, although the story is not real, The Debt “succeeded” in re-presenting the real.

Yet, The Debt also failed in Realism on a basic level—if one cares to observe—the language. Shohat and Stam bring up the fact that Hollywood films are always in English no matter in its own (American) stories or those of other nations. As a result, Hollywood language, namely English, “becomes the model of ‘real’ cinema” (193); this is particular true to audience whose first language is not English—I myself am an example. Although I know German as a third language, I often feel more comfortable with English-speaking even it is a German film. Partially it is because my English skill is much better. But it is more of that, in the context of globalization, the dominant Hollywood cinema makes me have this impression that (foreign) films are supposed to be in English, which functions as a world language, and even better with some American accents. Applying for The Debt (2011)—it is a remake of an Israel film in 2007 and tells stories of Israeli secret agents, which is supposed to be in Hebrew. Instead, it is mainly in English with pretended accent (because of characters’ identities), and the castings are English-speaker actors and actresses. Then there is an immediate question—which version of this film is more authentic, or more real? Conventionally, the Israeli version should be more authentic because it is the original, and the Hollywood version is already unreal on language in the first place. Yet, without watching both versions because of a language preference, I really could not choose a “more real”. Lastly, to say the least, I would not really think of “the linguistics of domination” as an issue on representing “the real” if I hadn’t read the Shohat and Stams’ article before watching, as I would had been too immersed in the film.

As a summary quoting Shohat and Stam, “spectators themselves come equipped with a ‘sense of the real’ rooted in their own experience, on the basis of which they can accept, question, or even subvert a film’s representations” (182). In other words, we all know there is no absolute real in cinema, and Hollywood filmmakers also know that we know that –that’s where they approach to re-present the reality in the way we might feel more believable or more comfortable.

“Texting while driving”-- Attractive and Effective

2010-03-08T20:07:00.008-06:00

English 200

3/5/2010

As we all know, vehicles are essential to American’s daily life, which follows with the driving safety problem. “Texting while driving”, which has caused and has been blamed for numerous deadly traffic accidents in the past few years, is obviously not a wise idea for drivers. Unfortunately people are not aware of the severity of this problem and many of them still do it, especially young drivers, the group for whom texting is part of normal, everyday communications, making texting while driving more likely. Aiming at this serious and nationwide issue, the political cartoon called “texting while driving”, whose author was Mike Luckovich, a former “Pulitzer Prize” award-winner for Editorial Cartooning, was published at Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2009.

This black and white cartoon is combined with two equal-sized pictures. On the left side, a man with glasses is sitting in a car holding a cell phone, and the texts “Im txtng while drvng,” within a dialog box at the top that shows what he is doing at the moment. There is another car right in front of him, suggesting there will be a car crash which was not noticed by the driver. From his appearance, we can say he is mid-aged, it showed this visual argument is not only targeting teenagers, but also at some careless adults, which expanded the audience rank. So the primary audience can be identified as relatively young-aged vehicle drivers, which is a smart choice to remind people who see it that—“it’s not just a matter of teens, it could have been you”. On the right side, there stands a tall and skinny man with a hidden face, shrouded in a long hooded cloak wielding a scythe. From this appearance, we can identify him as Grim Reaper, the man who brings death. He is also texting, but simply sent an acronym message “Lol” (meaning laughing out loudly). Reading from left to right, we can easily get the meaning of this cartoon --a man is texting while driving, and he got the message back from Death. It showed the claim and the reason of the visual argument at the same time with humor—do not text while driving, or you will be killed.

I think this is a very attractive and effective visual argument. It is superior in Pathos by its dramatic humor and Logos by its suggestive and obvious understandability. It did a great job on catching attentions by showing the connection between “texting while driving ” and death wittily, and sent the strong message “ don’t text while driving” to the primary audience—relatively young drivers. Later in this paper, I will stress on analyzing this cartoon’s simple understandability, profound contrast and humorousness on image, which are also the main successes of this visual argument.

First of all, the author Mike’s use of type, and layout made his visual argument straightforward and outstanding. Political cartoons are usually mini-narratives and sometimes without textual explanation, which makes understandability very important. To a cartoon with only a few texts like this, audience must read the caption to get a first quick look -- in this cartoon they are apparently SMS (short message service) “Im txting While drving” and “Lol”-- they are in sans serif fonts within two big, quadrate dialog boxes, which are quite well-marked. Then we know it is a texting scene without even reading the whole picture. In the meantime, the layout which consists of two same-sized pictures informs us that the two figures are equals in this situation. Additionally, the order and content of the texts obviously tell us the left man sent SMS first and the right one responded.

Secondly and most importantly, Mike’s use of images and color made his visual argument funny, vivid and profound. Let’s clear the logic and train of thought in this cartoon. According to the timeline, “texting while driving” on the left part was the beginning and the cause; meanwhile the color was mainly in white, which associates with light and life in western culture. However, Grim Reaper who signifies death, on the right part, was the response and also the consequence to the left part; in addition, the main color black also associates with darkness and death. If Mike created a multi-colored cartoon, the effect would be much more attenuated.

In addition, we can see, both the man and Grip Reaper are smiling, and the meaning and differences between their smiles indeed increased the irony and humor—they have nothing to do with their friendship. The former facial smile showed the man’s ignorance, the latter literal smile showed Grip Reaper’s vicious nature and his sneer at his human “friend”.

Furthermore, there’s a deeper thought which cannot be seen from the picture immediately, but helped to make the humor come to a climax. Meaning that, the man must know who the recipient is so that he could send SMS, which also means he knew he was sending a text message to the evil Grim Reaper, but he still did it—wasn’t he stupid? This actually coincides with the irony in reality, most drivers know how dangerous and improper it is to text at the wheel, but some of them still do it.

In brief, the suggestive images, especially the image of Grim Reaper, portrayed the issue of this visual argument dramatically and humorously. It gave the reader a grin of understanding and a shock of insight; it helped us as both good Logos and Pathos to get the essence of this cartoon, and it’s the key point of its success. Below is a small chart of the analysis of the image and color.

	Cause	Consequence
Image	A man is smiling and texting SMS “Im txtng While drvng” while driving Another car was in front	Grim Reaper respond with “Lol” (laugh out loud)
Color	Mainly white	Mainly black
Literal meanings	The man knew what he was doing and he still did it smilingly An accident was about to happen	Grim Reaper didn’t show his face but literally smiled Death came fast, quiet, and cruelly
Underlying → funny irony	The man must text to someone he knows, which means he knew the recipient is Grim Reaper, which made him an idiot	Grim Reaper’s not stupid, he is not texting and driving '‘Lol” made the humor of the cartoon come to a climax

Conclusion	Texting while driving → death
Claim	Don’t text while driving, because it kills

Finally, I have to mention that, this visual argument used good Karios appeal at present. In the past weeks, the U.S. Federal government formally bans truckers and bus drivers from texting while driving, and so far 19 states have outlawed texting while driving, and 6 prohibit using hand-held cell phone while behind the wheel. The effect of this political cartoon can be more influential and instructive than it was before.

In conclusion, “Texting while driving” is a great example of visual argument. It did a very good job on getting attention from people who see it, and sends strong message to the primary audience—relatively young-aged vehicle drivers, letting them laugh and reflect to make the right choice. First, it perfectly reveals the potential danger of death by “texting-while-driving” in the use of well-marked type and layout, suggestive images, vivid contrast, and humoristic atmosphere, which made it superior in Pathos. Besides, the obvious understandability of the issue from the image showed the author’s good use of Logos. In addition, it also has a creditable resource—Atlanta Journal-Constitution and an authoritative author—a former “Pulitzer Prize” award-winner, which is a good use of Ethos. What’s more, this visual argument has a good Karios at present in consideration of the texting while driving ban in the states lately. These excellent features together, made it is an attractive and effective visual argument.

From instructor: A

This is a very well written paper.While there are a couple of places where you expect the reader to do the work of making the connection between the example and the rhetorical elements, you still show a clear understanding of t he material.

Normally I would advise against charts, however yout chart is effective.

You analyzed this iamge at a deeper level than most would, making the irony easy to understand to the audience.

Their Eyes Journal 1

2010-02-03T14:59:00.012-06:00

How is Janie's story/Bildungsroman similar/ different from Jane's?

Similar :

1. Their parents died very early, they were raised up by relatives.

2. They were both teased or bullied by peers.

3. They have desire of freedom.

Both of they didn't realized what they really want and make changes until certain incidents happened—

To Janie, it's her grandma's and the failure of her first marriage.

To Jane, it's Miss Temple's leaving and the boredom of life at Lowood.

4. They fought for what they wanted through their lives and didn't care other's judges.

5. They were both fulfilled in themselves in the end of the story.

Different :

1. There's also difference in the 3rd similarity (see the underlining sentence earlier):

Jane is more determined than Janie, she took action (advertising to get a new job) right after her sense of changes in heart.

Janie didn't turn to the shift point until her big fight with her first husband Logan.

I think the reason for this is the difference of their living environment which influenced their disposition → see my following points.

2. Janie's grandma raised her up and cared for her, they inhabit a house in the backyard of a white couple, who were their master and treated them well.

Jane has lived by her aunt's through for a couple of year during her childhood; her aunt's family never treated her well.

3. Janie's teenage life was not as severe and strained as Jane's,

Janie's temperament is more girly than Jane's.

Janie went to school and played around with kids; she loved flowers, trees and anything beautiful in nature. She could feel sweetness of life and had dreams. She was not distant from guys and got her (first) kiss at sixteen. Basically, Janie was not a lonely and unhappy person through her teenager life.

However, Jane was pretty much isolated from the society and people; she had fantasy rather than dreams which is her way to escape from the reality, she immersed herself into studies and school routines.

4. Jane had only one romantic relationship with one person and got married with him in the end.

Janie had three relationships with three men and 2 of them were dead, she was alone in the end.

Jane Eyre Journal 5

2010-02-01T15:08:00.001-06:00

I do think Bronte endorsing colonialist attitudes through her depictions of characters and events in the last part of novel.

1. From the depictions on St. John.

The never-sun-set empire, as a strong colonizer, needed to get knowledge of the colonies and control them by setting rules for them, including the imposition of language, law and culture. “The missionary activity is one of the social practices through which the British established their dominance” (Pg.12)

Bronte gave efforts describing St. John’s greatness for scarifying himself going to India to do missionary job. She beautified St. John’s character and his missionary career, and this actually covered the nature of Britain imperialism’s cultural aggression.

2. From Bertha’s image and her end in the story

We have discussed Bertha's characteristics—savage, crazy, “pigmy intellect”, “contamination”, which are all negative compared to Jane's.

In consideration of Bertha's origin—as a Creole from a Spanish Town of West Indies (the colony of the U.K), she was totally a devil in Bronte’s description. Bronte does not pay sympathy to Bertha but only stands on Rochester’s side in the novel—Bertha is the beast and the one who gained a marriage by cheating. What’s more, she was locked up in Thronfield and ended up dead by jumping out of the roof.

What interesting is, there was a rule that widows should sacrifice themselves in India. There was an opinion by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (an Indian literary critic and theorist) that “Bertha's suicide is constructed in a manner that reflects her inferiority through imperialism”[1] , and her self-destruction was an innuendo to Indian widow's sacrifice.

[1] Issues of identity between Jane Eyre and Antoinette-Bertha in the books Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea http://www.helium.com/items/1067613-issues-identity-between-jane-eyre-antoinette-bertha-books-jane-eyre-wide

Jane Eyre Journal 4

2010-01-27T14:27:00.003-06:00

Three monents of “Mr. Rochester to Jane Eyre”

(J=Jane, R=Rochester, B=Blanche)

One of the most interesting and challenging things (at least to me) to do with a romance is to catch the moment that hero and heroine fell in love with each other and who is the first one to recognize the feelings. The boundary of “when exactly” is always blurry because of different understandings, but I think all readers would agree—there're some moments before the hero and heroine made clear confessions, and it's those moments and the later process made them pile up their feels which confuse themselves but also help clear their minds. After reading those moments again and again, the readers will suddenly really, “wow, he/she has fallen in love with her/him at that time”.

In Jane Eyre, what I firmly believe is Mr. Rochester got initiative at the beginning of the relationship, because--

He is the master and experienced one,
He is interested in Jane in the first place and started all conversations with Jane (because of curiosity and instinct)
He exposed his past and stories to Jane first-- on account of his words and deeds, Jane was aware of her strong feelings for him.

I concluded briefly with three moments and also dialogue between Jane and Rochester which symbolized R's confession to J. In all of these conversations, Rochester wished to express more but paused. I call them “the unfinished”.

Moment 1 (end of Chap.15):

the night that fire incident happened, in Mr. Rochester’s bedroom. R held J’s hand and with warm words and special looks.

Key sentence: “What! You will go?”

→ The blaster of love (direct cause of J's feeling).

Moment 2 (end of Chap. 17):

Jane felt uncomfortable in the party (hearing the rich’s comments on governess) and quickly quitted with depressed look. R comforted her and gave her excuse to leave.

Key sentence: “Good night, my—”

→ What is it after “my—”?

1) My Jane? Did he think Jane was or would be hers (possess of love)?

2) My love/ darling something like that? Is it appropriate?

→ Why did he pause?

1) He was afraid to confess this love despite age differences

2) He realized that she was not hers (yet).

→ At this moment, R realized there’re still distance between Jane and him.

Moment 3: (The interesting part I chose to analyze,from Chapter 21, Page 223-226): the dialog between Mr. Rochester and Jane before Jane's leaving for Gateshead to see her dying aunt.

Here is my summary of this dialog's lead and Mr. Rochester's response

1. J inquired of R, calling Blanche “that person”:

R's face was curious, strange and equivocal → both of J & R recognized B’s special existence

2. J asked for absence:

R showed concern and asked for detailed reasons

→ R was surprised J didn’t tell him about her family

3. R's compromises and nervous tone inch by inch :

stay “as short as possible” → only “a week”

→“at all events will come back”

4. R mediated and ask for departure information(time and safety)

5. Money /salary issue:

R gave J money more than her asking → J bargained

→ R used salary unpaid wage as a “bait” to “ensure” her coming back

6. J’s new job and R’s “potential marriage” issue:

“Go straight to ‘Devil’” → “shouted” → J didn’t want his help → R got angry, spoke bitterly: “walk up the pyramids of Egypt” → R played childish: “Little niggard” Wanted his money back → R claimed to make arrangement for J

7. R asked J to teach him the ceremony of parting:

“Farewell” → “must I say?” → “is that all?”

→ it’s “stingy”, “dry”, “unfriendly”

→wanted more, even handshake was not enough

→ “blank and cook—‘farewell’ ”

I am especially interested in the 7^th point.

R apparently knew how to act as a gentleman in a parting situation, but he still asked Jane, what was his intention?

My understandings are:

It's polite to say some formal good-bye. It seemed make sense to say something about parting in a situation like this.
His abnormal behavior and upset feeling was agitated by Jane’s leaving. And his unbeknown childish side could only be evoked by Jane!
He was nervous and couldn’t come up with other better topics, but still wanted to stall for more time with Jane before she left.
He just couldn’t help expressing his feeling using irrelevant

Jane Eyre Journal 3

2010-01-25T15:17:00.012-06:00

In chapter 15&16, Mr. Rochester held Jane’s hand after she saved his life from the fire. There was a special moment between them, something feelings were growing, but Mr. Rochester paused and Jane was too inexperienced to admit it—“the first taste of love”. She wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester the next day; however he was gone and left all those confusing and complicated feelings to her.

Here is the interesting passage I chose to analyze（from Chapter 17 Page 166）--

“You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him: so don’t make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste; and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.”

I think every girl who read this passage of Jane’s interior monologue would feel a blow on the heart, especially those who once bore a secret love for someone. This is Jane’s second time to say such harsh words to herself (the first time was in Chapter 16); this time was after Mr. Rochester’s leaving for ten days, she “was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart”.

We can image how hurtful it is when Jane, who had no love experience and for the first in the life, felt a connection and warmness with someone, but couldn’t read and understand his feeling. She spent her restless night on thinking about those vague signs instead of seeing any actual respond, all she could do to stop this romantic despair, was ending up with a conclusion—it was an impossible and hopeless love.

To make this conclusion convincing, she had to be heartless to herself by using all kinds of reasons, by considering herself sentimental and foolish, by recognizing the reality and drawing a clean line between her and Mr. Rochester. These words let us see the tender part of a girl’s heart. — She didn’t degrade or blame Mr. Rochester but herself. From this, we can see her pure feeling for Mr. Rochester, and deep down inside, she did some inferiority complex when thinking about him, the man she started to fall in love.

Jane Eyre Journal 1 & 2

2010-01-22T14:23:00.010-06:00

Note: comments in green and yellow colors are from Classmates & Professor

Journal 1 :How would Jane like Mrs. Mallard in The Story of An Hour ?

I don't think Jane would like Mrs. Mallard, she might even contempt her.

Jane is what one may call a feminist. (perheps!)She is an independent and educated woman. She is brave and has a strong will to live.

What Jane and Mrs Mallard in common is both of them long for freedom.(agree)
What differentiated them is Mrs. Mallard submitted to the reality.

Mrs. Mallard lived a oppressive life, that's why she felt a new life when she thought her husband was dead which was not true.

However, Jane chose the resistant life path.(I'm curious to see if you think she will keep up this resistance?) She is a unyielding character.

I urge you to think of Jane for a second, did she live an oppressed life as well？
Perhaps Jne is the version of Mr. Mallard prior to her marriage even. Both women are obviously independent and crave the satisfaction that derives from it.

Journal 2:What kind of story is Jane Eyre?

     The novel was written in the first person form, which made it sound like an autobiography of Jane Eyre(right)—she was telling people her stories, how she read life through her eyes, how she responded to those experience, and how she grew up and become what she was later.

     As a good example of intelligent, brave and independent woman, Jane Eyre's story was also a history of her striving and development. There might be some descriptions of her unfortunate childhood and the secrets of Mr. Rochester's past, which made the mood in the story a little dark,(critics call it Gothic) but those served as a foil to her shining characteristics.

     From story between Mr. Rochester and Jane, we can also call it a romance in a way. But as the title of the novel showed, Jane Eyre was the main key to the theme of book-- she was the protagonist, and it's a life story of her pursuing liberty, dream and happiness.

I like how you emphasized Jane throughout the whole story. It's an interesting point that that the other characters are foils to augment the reader's impression of Jane.

This is a life story and therefore it contains elements of life (coming of age, romance,etc.).But ultimately Jane is the main focus--good point.

2.
Good point on the autobiography. Bronte does throw in Jane's present thoughts as if she is analyzing and telling the story of life.

Confucianism and Religion

2009-12-21T00:30:00.016-06:00

Four years ago, I had a small conversation about religion with my first American friend when we were exchange students in Switzerland. I said, “I don’t believe in God, but I believe in fate” —by “fate”, I meant the Confucian idea of “Tianming” 天命 (Mandate of Heaven), or “Tianyi” 天意(the will of Heaven).Apparently he didn’t understand at all, he asked, “how could you say that you believe in Heaven but not God, is there any difference?” I didn’t know how to answer him at that time, and later I was having doubts about my belief or Chinese’s for a long time.

Now I am taking an ancient Chinese history course in America, I have officially learned the term “Tianming”. I also noticed that we haven’t really made reference to religion when talking about Confucianism. Then it occurs to me that--Is the concept of “Tianming” religious? Is Confucianism a religion?

In consideration of the language difference, first I have to make clear the Chinese translations for Confucianism --

Rujia儒家: School of the Scholars
Ruxue儒学: Studies of Scholars
Rujiao儒教: Teaching of the Scholars
Kongjiao孔教: Cult of Confucius, or Confucian religion

In particular, Rujiao is often also called Kongjiao, but there are also difference between them— “Rujiao” technically emerged during the reign of Emperor Wu(r.141-87 BC) in the Western Han Dynasty when Confucianism became a state-supported orthodoxy, although the word wasn’t coined until the Eastern Han Dynasty; however, “Kongjiao” was brought up by Kang Youwei of late Qing Dynasty(1644–1911) when he tried to “launch a reform movement to transform the Confucian tradition into a state religion”(Xinzhong Yao, “An Introduction to Confucianism”). Both of the word contains “Jiao”, which could imply Jiaohua教化—enlightenment, or Zongjiao宗教—religion. Apparently, “Rujiao” was given some religious color, and its existence is quite controversial.

What about Ruxue? The Ruxue, which directly connected with Confucius and Mencius, is the primitive source of Rujiao. So before we define Rujiao as a religion or not, we have to understand the nature of Ruxue. There is no doubt about its significance as a philosophy, but is Ruxue religious so that Confucianism is eventually or virtually a religion?

There are basically three kinds of views:

Confucianism is a religion.
Confucianism is not a religion, but it has religious characteristics.
Confucianism is not a typical religion but a special religion (“Moral Religion”[1]).

In fact, this issue has been debated globally among scholars over centuries. Although there is no definite answer on this question, all of the three have been studied with in-depth investigations and satisfactory results. In this paper, I am going to combine the second and the third views to talk about my opinions on the relationship between Confucianism and religion. First, I will discuss Confucianism’s religious character in terms of the idea of “Heaven”. Then I will investigate the view of religion in Confucianism culturally and discuss its religious role in modern society.

I. The idea of “Heaven” in Confucian thought

As we know, the traditional Chinese idea of Tianming has been presented on different bases through different periods of Chinese history, but using western philosophical terms, there are nothing more than these three theoretical principles: “Theological Determinism”, “Moral Determinism”, and “Natural Determinism” (Jie Wang, “On Confucius' view of Tianming, human nature and political value”). The kings of late Shang used spiritual force to rule people by deifying themselves—calling themselves the son of Di(the high god of the Shang).In this way, their power were justified by the god—this was typical “theological determinism” with religious thought. In the Zhou dynasty, people use the word “Tian” (Heaven) to take the place of “Di”. Although both are acting like god, Tian is different from Di because it has morality (Qingzhong Yang, “Why Zhou people call the high god Tian”). Tian helped Zhou succeed in overthrowing Shang because the Zhou rulers had morality and it is their Mandate of Heaven to rule the people. This “Tian” concept showed a transition to “Moral Determinism” in Tianming’s interpretation, it is “a ruling or presiding Tian”[2], or a heaven of arbitrator. Connecting morality and Heaven with religious faith made the Zhou people pay attention to virtues and rituals because they wanted to get blessings under Heaven’s watching. However, when it applied to governing, things went differently-- the ruler behaved badly but still didn’t get punished by Heaven, so what’s the point of looking up to Tianming? “Then the trend of doubtful thought emerged inevitably” (Yibo Yang, “Reading Confucian morality's religious role from Heaven”).

Living in Spring and Autumn period, Confucius used to deeply believe in the Shang and Western Zhou’s traditional idea of Tianming. He thought Tian has will and force to arrange people’s life. He said, “Life and death are governed by fate, wealth and honor are determined by Heaven” (Ivanhoe, 34). He saw the limitation of manpower and believed in Heaven’s mysterious power, even with some awe—“The gentleman stands in awe if three things: the Mandate of Heaven, great men, and the teachings of the sages” (Ivanhoe, 47). However, Tianming didn’t respond to him as he expected, in his troubled times, he fell into contradiction between his beliefs and reality.—“If Heaven intended this culture to perish, it would not have given it to those of us who live after King Wen’s death. Since Heaven did not intend that this culture should perish, what can the people of Kuang do to me?” (Ivanhoe, 25)By this time, the “ruling Tian” has transformed into “a fatalistic Tian”, or a heaven of fate.

It seemed Tianming’s “Moral Determinism” did not work for the society, what then? The fall-down of the “ruling Tian”, accompanied with “a fantastic Tian,” directly brought about the rise of ‘a naturalistic Tian’ (Yang), in other words, people began to use “Natural Determinism” to explain “Tianming”.

Confucius also had his answer to this question, he said, “…at fifty I understood Heaven’s Mandate” (Ivanhoe, 5). What did he mean by saying that?

According to Sima Qian’s Record of the Grand Historian, Confucius was studying The Book of Changes later in his life, which also accorded with his remark in the Analects[3]. So Confucius first studied the I Ching, the divination manual which connotes Daoism idea like “the way” or “Yin Yang”, then get the essence of Tianming (Junhua Ren, “Awe Tianming and Ecological Ethics--on Confucius' idea of ecological ethics”),which meant this Tianming is not the previous Tianming anymore. It actually means natual law[4] (Ren).Confucius, the great thinker, didn’t stay stuck in this contradiction of the previous Tianming’s theory, instead, he stopped to talk about the Mandate of Heaven, but “achieved two big shifts on his view of values”:1from “Tianming” to “Tiandao” (the Way of Heaven) 2from divinity to humanity (Wang). There is one thing we need to notice, Confucius actually did not concern himself much on Tiandao, he even didn’t talk about it--In the Analects, the only place “Tiandao” appeared is Zigong’s remark, where he said, “…one does not get to hear the Master expounding upon the subjects of human nature or the Way of Heaven ” (Ivanhoe, 15).Confucius would rather focus on his second shift to humanity--“the Goodness”, “the Wisdom”, “the Sage” and so on .As a result, these series of cultural refinements had a tremendous influence on Chinese political views and civilization.

In addition, Confucius’ view of Tianming was also represented on his attitude towards ghost and spirits. In his time, it’s impossible to deny their existence, because most of people were superstitious about the unexplainable natural world. According to Confucius cautious personality, when he realized it was difficult to clarify a question, he wouldn’t answer it arbitrarily. Then he gave an equivocal statement-- “respecting the ghosts and spirits while keeping them at a distance—this might be called wisdom” (Ivanhoe, 18). He thought devoting efforts and doing good to people (务民Wumin) was the priority, it was what the Wisdom would do. Again, like I said before, he shifted his attentions to moral practices. “‘This is why Confucius didn’t make his teaching become a religion like Jesus’, said by Mou Zongsan[5] in his book The Particularities of Chinese Philosophy (page 21, 47)” (Wang).

Although Confucius’s view of Tianming didn’t solve the ethical dilemma, and his view of Tiandao was deficient, he still had profound impact on later Confucian schools. After Confucius, Mencius had a different idea about Tianming. He didn’t think Heaven had will, but he pointed out that Heaven was the origin of human nature—therefore, “If one understands one’s nature, then one understands Heaven” (Ivanhoe, 152). In this way, Heaven was connected to people, it was still powerful, but it was not incomprehensible, as long as one “preserve one’s mind and nourish one’s nature” (Ivanhoe, 152). Mencius used Heaven to explain everything, but didn’t take it as some kind of god, from this, we can see a rational philosophy thought. Mencius’s Ruxue did not lose touch with reality; its religiousness was quite limited.

II. Rujia’s unique religious character

After discussing the two greatest Rujia philosophers Confucius and Mencius’ views on Heaven, now let’s go back to the question I asked at the beginning about the relationship between Confucianism and religion. Apparently, we need to define “religion” first. Look at what basic factors Buddhism and Christianity have in common: God and scripture. But Confucianism had neither—Tian was not a personified God, and the Analects didn’t play a role as religious scripture. So Confucianism was definitely not a traditional religion. However, religions in different culture always imply different definition. Besides the idea of Heaven as I discussed earlier, Confucianism also showed other important religious characters, for example-- “Ritual”, which was also the core concept of Confucian thought. Does that mean Confucianism had religious basis? Some people agreed, some did not. Here I will use “sacrifice” as an example to show Confucianism’s unique religious character compare to other religions and explore the diversity of religious meaning in Chinese culture.

Xunzi said, “Ritual has three roots”—“heaven and earth”, “forefathers and ancestor”, “rulers and teachers” (Ivanhoe, 275), correspondingly, there are also “three sacrifices” to these “three roots” in Confucian traditions. Most modern people think the “three sacrifices” only had a sense of gratitude but not praying, and the ceremony was given to visible objects but not to some transcendent, which showed its non-religious character(Renfu He, “The Religious Value of Tang Junyi's Ideas on the Confucian ‘Three Sacrificial Offerings’”). Tang Junyi, who was a representative figure in the second New Confucianist, expressed his insights and contradicted toward the “non-religious” comment in his book the Development of Chinese Humanities. “He pointed out that, the ‘three sacrifices’ not only had a deep religious spirit, but also had a high religious value beyond any other religions (He).

His two main reasons are:

It’s true that ancient Chinese regarded their gratitude to the cult objects, which include ancestors or some specific people who was related to the worshipper, usually won’t be worshipped by others and won’t be replaced by others, which gave them a unique meaning. And this uniqueness made this “sacrifice” religious.
It’s also true that the cult object was real and it can be imagined during the ceremony, but the thing is, all the ceremony needs images—figure of Buddha, the Jesus statue, and so on—these are inevitable. However, because the object was real, the worshipper would see them objectively, they wouldn’t get too lost in it. Moreover, when Chinese worshipped the ancestor, there were only Ancestral Tablet without portrait (portrait usually was put aside), this made the worshipper more concentrated (He).

Generally speaking, the Confucian “three sacrifices” gathered both realistic and transcendental religious spirit which was incomparable to other religions.

III. Rujiao as a “Moral Religion”

Image via Wikipedia

As I mentioned earlier, the word “Rujiao” came out in the Eastern Han dynasty. By that time, Confucianism had been used as a tool of enlightenment for governing for a while. As a matter of fact, ever since after Confucius died, he had been apotheosized in a way, which started as building Confucian temples in Western Han, then offering sacrifices to him (Jihui Zhao, “on Confucianism as both philosophy and moral religion”). Gradually, later generations embraced Confucius; even until today, a lot of these temples are still full of people burning incense and praying. It is hard to say if Chinese had worshipped Confucius as an oracle or just a sage ancestor. But according to the statistics, from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, there were around 1560 Confucius temples (Zhao).Common people worshipped Confucius just like Buddha, this must meant something. They might think of Confucius as a symbolization of morality, ethics and civilization rather than a supernatural being, for example, a scholar would worship Confucius before they went for the imperial examination[6]. But indeed, he became a sort of spiritual sustenance where one can rest hope on. On this point, calling Confucianism as a “Moral Religion” makes sense.

Before I started to work on this paper, I never thought of Confucianism as a religion. But now, I will have to be surprised at my conclusion--I think before the Han Dynasty, Confucianism acted as a philosophy with religious characters, but later on, it was developed into a “Moral Religion”. This is not the ultimate answer to the topic of this paper, only my own idea, and I’m not sure how long I will hold onto it. But no matter what Confucianism is, it was already part of the essence in Chinese culture; it was where I lived in, where I believed in.

[1] “Moral Religion” was put forward by Mou Zongsan, but later in my paper I didn’t elaborate Mou’s opinion. I only borrowed this term to express my idea of Confucius’ apotheosis.

[2] The Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan differentiates five different meanings of tian in early Chinese writings:

(1) A material or physical Tian or sky, that is, the Tian often spoke of in opposition to earth, as in the common phrase which refers to the physical universe as 'Heaven and Earth'
(2) A ruling or presiding Dian, that is, one such as is meant in the phrase, 'Imperial Heaven Supreme Emperor'
(3) A fatalisDic Dian, equivalent to the concept of Fate (ming 命), a term applied to all those events in human life over which man himself has no control.

(4) A naturalisDic Dian, that is, one equivalent to the English word Nature.
(5) An ethical Dian, that is, one having a moral principle and which is the highest primordial principle of the universe. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian#Meanings

[3] “If were granted many more years, and could devote fifty of them to learn( I-king), surely I would be able to be free of major fault”

[4] My understanding-- the Tianming here means Tiandao, because Tiandao has a sense of nature.

[5] Mou Zongsan, a Chinese New Confucian philosopher

[6] In modern life, people still do things like this. Personally, I remembered my parents asked me to worship Confucius once or twice when I was a kid for a better grade even we didn’t really count on it.

Works Cited

He, Renfu. "The Religious Value of Tang Junyi's Ideas on the Confucian "Three Sacrificial Offerings唐君毅论儒家“三祭”的宗教价值" Journal of Sichuan University(Social Science Edition) 3 (2009). Confuchina.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confuchina.com/05%20zongjiao/tangjunyi%20lun%20sanji.htm.

Ivanhoe, Philip, and Bryan Norden. Readings in classical Chinese philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2005. Print.

Ren, Junhua. "Awe Tianming and Ecological Ethics--on Confucius' idea of ecological ethics敬畏天命与生态伦理--孔丘的生态伦理思想新探" Confucius Studies 2 (2000). Confuchina.com. 29 June 2003. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confuchina.com/03%20lunlizhengzhi/kongzi%20shengtai%20lunli.htm.

Wang, Jie. "On Confucius' Tianming,human nature and political value论孔子的天命、人性及政治价值依据." Confucius Studies 6 (2005). Confuchina.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confuchina.com/02%20xinxue%20yu%20renxinglun/kongzi%20tianming%20renxing.htm.

Yang, Qingzhong. "Why Zhou people call the high god Tian论周人何以称至上神为天." Journal of South-Central University for Nationalities 1 (1997). Confucius2000.com. 26 June 2004. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confucius2000.com/confucian/lzrhyczsswt.htm.

Yang, Yibo. "Reading Confucian morality's religious role from Heaven从以天论德看儒家道德的宗教作用." Social Sciences in China 3 (2006): 39. Confucius2000.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://www.confucius2000.com/admin/list.asp?id=2604.

Yao, Xinzhong. An introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Books.google.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&dq=Xinzhong+Yao,+An+Introduction+to+Confucianism+pdf&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=ahYiS47JKMXBngf4l430CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

Zhao, Jihui. "On Confucianism as both philosophy and moral religion论儒学既是哲学又是道德宗教." Confuchina.com. 04 Mar. 2003. Web. 11 Dec. 2009. <http://www.confuchina.com/01%20zong%20lun/ruxue%20zhexue%20zongjiao.htm>. published on Huangshan International Ruxue seminar in July,2001

Feedback from professor: A-

This paper addresses a very important but complicated problem,and show very sophisticated understanding of names while still being able to arrive at a clear conclusion.There are a few points I’ve indicated where the writing is not so clear ad left me puzzles as to your exact meaning. In addition, Xunzi’s ideasabout Heaven deserve to be mentioned along with those of Confucius and Mencius,since they seem to be a further development of this trend you identify（see page 269-274 in Ivanhoe)

Zhuangzi on Confucius

2009-10-16T13:25:00.014-05:00

Although both Confucius and Zhuangzi lived in a historical time of chaos, these two philosophers had quite a different view of the world and life. The fundamental difference and also the reason for their arguing is, in short, that Confucius rushi(入世), Zhuangzi chushi(出世).

What is rushi and chushi? They are actually Buddhist terms in Chinese, literally meaning entering and renouncing the world, or “entering worldly affairs” and “withdrawing from worldly affairs” (Brook,p.70).In details, the former word signifies “an action to participate in social change”, and the latter one signifies “a retreat to a spontaneous, natural, and personal life” (Liu).

Confucius was an ideologist who tried to reform the social reality. He advocated to “restrain oneself and returning to the rites”(Ivanhoe,p.33); when it applied to governing, it shows the performance of the rules of virtue, including honoring one's parents, loyalty to government, and keeping one's place in society —“Let the lord be the true lord…the fathers true fathers…”(Ivanhoe,p.36),and so on. In another classic book about Confucianism called The Great Learning, there are eight characters written by later scholars to describe Confucius’s idealism—“Things being investigated”, “knowledge being complete”, “thoughts being sincere”, “hearts being rectified”, “persons being cultivated”, “families being regulated”, “States being rightly governed”, then “the entire world was at peace”. These are the standard Confucius set for himself, which lead to his Utopia—Datong大同(this term comes from The Classic of Rites),or the Great Harmony which means a perfect society towards uniformity. In a word, Confucius has a heart for the society.

However, Zhuangzi emphasizes the value of personal life. He thinks the big questions of individual’s life are more important than society’s issues. His attitude to governing is quite cold, we can see it from the sacred turtle story that shows his rejection of administering Chu’s kingdom (Ivanhoe, p.246). He claims “Wuwei 无为”or “non-action” which means following the nature, and act without efforts, because he thinks any “Youwei 有为” (the opposite to “non-action” )is against Tian天 or nature—they are “mechanical contraptions”, “mechanical business”, “mechanical mind”, which can stop us preserving our simplicity and having a settled spiritual life (Ivanhoe,p.243)——and that is harmful; one of the examples is the emperor of the center who when holes were drilled in body ended up dead——“Everyone has seven holes to see, hear, eat, and breathe, but he alone he alone has none. Let’s try drilling him some! Each day they drilled a hole. And in seven days, All-full died” (Ivanhoe, p.243). Apparently, “Follow the middle line and you can protect yourself, complete your life, raise your family, and finish your years” (Ivanhoe,p.224) .This is Zhuangzi’s ideal of life that we should withdraw from the society, not worry for desires; in this way people can return to nature and to have a free spirit, and that’s what it matters.

Below is a comparison chart between Confucius and Zhuangzi’s ideas with key words.

	Confucius “rushi”	Zhuangzi “chushi”
Value 基本价值观	social ideal 社会理想	life ideal 生命理想
Governing 治国	ritual 礼乐之治	wuwei "non-action" 无为之治
Pursuing 追求	want to become an official 出仕	hermit life-style 隐士
View of secular affairs 世俗观	Negate greediness, approve proper desire 否定贪欲，肯定以道得之的私有满足 “If wealth were something worth pursuing, then I would pursue it, even if that meant serving as an officer holding a whip at the entrance to the marketplace.” (Ivanhoe,p.21)	Negate all secular desire with a neutral attitude 以不肯定不否定的态度否定 “…the sage does not make it his business to attend to affairs. He does not seek gain or avoid loss. He does not enjoy being sought out and does not follow any way. Saying nothing he says something, saying something he says nothing, and he wanders outside the floating dust ”(Ivanhoe,p.222)
View of life and death 生死观	respect life 尊重生命 “lavish funeral”; Cry for Yanhui’s death (Ivanhoe,p.31)	“It’s just like the round of the four seasons” 达生主义 Sing for his wife’s death (Ivanhoe,p.247)

Moreover, from the description of Confucius’s image in the book of Zhuangzi, we have to admit, Zhuangzi doesn’t approve of him very much, especially in the story of Robber Zhi, Confucius was even accused of being a hypocrite by an infamous robber. But does that mean Confucius and Zhuangzi have nothing in common? Actually they do. They both pay attention to enhance personal cultivation, or the inner power of human, and both of them think that is the prerequisite to achieve their ideal. Either Confucius’s Way on humanity, or Zhuangzi’s Way on nature, is the idealism of civilization, and both of them play a role on criticizing and maintaining the reality.

Maybe personally I prefer Zhuangzi's refined spiritual world, but —Confucius teaches us to take responsibility, Zhuangzi teaches us to handle complicated matters with great ease—indeed, we should take both of them in.

Works Cited

Brook, Timothy. Praying for power Buddhism and the formation of gentry society in late-Ming China. Cambridge, Mass: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University and Harvard-Yenching Institute, Distributed by Harvard UP, 1993. Print.

Ivanhoe, Philip, and Bryan Norden. Readings in classical Chinese philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2005. Print.

"The Great Learning, a Confucian classic - The Gold Scales." THE GOLD SCALES of Art, Wisdom, Extracts, Folktales, and Lore. Ed. Tormod Kinnes. Web. 16 Oct. 2009.
http://oaks.nvg.org/sa3ra7.html.

Xu, Feng. "Review of Kongzi and Zhuangzi' Cultural idealism动摇与依违--孔子及庄子之文化理想主义述评" JOURNAL OF LINYI TEACHERS' COLLEGE (2000). Print.

"Yan Lianke, Shouhuo, Liu Jianmei." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center. Web. 16 Oct. 2009. <http://mclc.osu.edu/jou/abstracts/liujianmei2.htm>.

Confucianism -- Concept Speech

2009-10-10T03:50:00.004-05:00

Outline

I. Introduction
· Reason of the topic
·Definition of Confucianism
·Transition

II. Body
1. Confucius and analects
2. Key words about Confucius’s teaching
Ø Core idea: 仁(ren)—Goodness·德(de)—Virtue
·礼(li)-Ritual: propriety, good manners, ceremony.
·忠(zhong)—Dutifulness: loyalty, doing one's best.
·义(yi)—Rightness: right conduct, morality.
·孝(xiao)—Filial piety: honor one's parents
·恕(shu)—Sympathetic understanding: reciprocity, consideration for others.
·君子(junzi)—the Gentleman
·小人(xiaoren)—the Petty Man

III. Conclusion
Confucianism is social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion, it’s important to keep the good part of our ancient culture and tradition.

Speech Draft

1. Introduction
    The reason I brought this up because I am taking a history class about ancient Chinese philosophy. So we have learnt quite a lot Information about it and I find it very interesting. So I decide to share this significant historical event with you.

The definition of Confucianism from “Encyclopedia Britannica” is “Scholarly tradition and way of life propagated by Confucius in the 6th–5th century BC and followed by the Chinese for more than two millennia.”

     It is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the social values, institutions, political ideology and so on in ancient China society; which means it plays much the same role as religion does in other cultural contexts

    Though there’re quite a few different schools under the Confucian legacy, when we talk about Confucianism, we are pretty much talk about Confucius, the founder of Confucianism’s thought.

    Here I’m going to give a brief introduction of Confucius, and the most famous book which was called Analects, and some basic key concepts in his teaching.

2. Body

Confucius

-- He was born about 551 BC and lived until 479 BC.
-- He is the single most famous, important and influential thinker in all Chinese history. For much of the history of imperial China, from about 100 BC down to 1906, his ideas were the state-supported orthodoxy.
-- He was a political figure but his lasting impact was as a teacher. He acquired a reputation for knowledge of ancient traditions and texts and rituals, and young men gathered around him seeking instruction.

The Analects

     Most of what we know about Confucius’ ideas comes from the Analects.
    It is a collection of moral and ethical principles presented in the form of conversation between Confucius and his disciples. It does not consist of organized essays but more like a scrapbook of valuable ideas that someone thought worthy of recordings.

Key words about Confucius’s teaching
     In the Analects, the core idea was仁(ren) or Goodness; Sometime also translated as "Benevolence, humanity, kindness, or compassion”

What is Goodness exactly?
      Confucius said: “restraining yourself and returning to the rites constitutes Goodness”
What does that mean, and what are the rites then?

     Actually Goodness is not one virtue, but the source of all virtues, signifying excellent character in accord with礼(li)—Ritual, 忠(zhong)—Dutifulness, 义(yi)—Rightness, 孝(xiao)—Filial piety, 恕(shu)Sympathetic understanding, and so on…Together these constitute德(de)—Virtue.

The Gentleman

      When we talk about the Goodness, then we have to mention another keyword 君子junzi or the Gentlemen. Junzi is a very important idea in Chinese culture and one of the most prominent terms classical Confucianism .

“The Gentleman takes rightness as his substance, puts it into practice by means of ritual, give it expression through modesty, and perfects it by being trustworthy.”

     The opposite of Junzi was 小人(xiaoren) or the Petty man literally means small person. The character small in this context means petty in mind and heart, narrowly self-interested, greedy, or superficial.

“The gentleman understands rightness, whereas the petty person understands profit”

“The gentleman seeks it in himself; the petty person seeks it in others”

     In one word, the gentleman was described as "perfect man" who combines the qualities of a saint, scholar and the virtue of the Goodness. And becoming a junzi (gentleman) is one's ideal in Chinese culture.

3. Conclusion
     A Christian might find himself in agreement with many of Confucius' ethical principles and virtues. A Christian might also agree with many of the character qualities of the true gentleman and seek to develop those qualities. But after all, Confucianism is social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion as I mentioned at the beginning of this speech.

     In modern China, religion apparently is not that much valued as western country; I think one of the reasons might be that—deep down, people are still unconsciously influenced our culture tradition; And if we can keep all the Goodness from Confucius, what’s the point of a religion?

Works Cited
Berling, Judith A. "Confucianism." Focus on Asian Studies 1st ser. ? (1982): 5-7. Web. http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln270/Berling-Confucianism.htm

"Confucianism." Encyclopedia Britannia. Web.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/132104/Confucianism.

"Confucius." Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy. 3 June 2002. Web. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/.

Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Bryan W. Van Norden. 2nd ed. Hackett, 2006. Print.

Notes from HIST 504 class

“High education record is not everything!” ——High Education & Success

2009-09-29T23:57:00.004-05:00

Informative and Surprising Essay

English 100

05/05/09

Before I came to the United States, a lot of my friends had already been abroad, and many of them are preparing to do it now. I asked a few of them why they wanted to study abroad—one thought Gaokao(Chinese SAT) was too hard, she didn’t think she could get into the best university even if she tried her best; another one said his current college was too average, he felt himself a loser if he stayed. And they asked me, “and you?” I smiled and replied to them by something conventionally vague and much more the same. Though it’s not the answer I want, it’s true that we all agree on the unspoken theory—high education record is the top priority in life! But why is that?

There’s an old saying in China, “To be a scholar is to be the top of society”. Apparently, high education record, as a symbol of success in Chinese culture, means a decent and high-paid job which leads to a perfect mate and a comfortable life, which is everything we are going after. Professor Xin remarked in his essay that in Chinese traditional thought, it was supposed to be the start of “a bright future” when someone gets a foot in the door of a prestigious academic institution and is dignified with a Master or Doctor’s degree; especially to some poor farmer’s kids, this kind of achievement even glorified their family name --the parents must entertain lavishly for celebration like a big feast, only feel more honored (Xin).

However, in the money-oriented society, not judging the value of “success=money”, the convinced belief that “high educational qualification=good job=high pay=success” doesn’t necessarily apply anymore. This doesn’t happen by chance. In theory which is already proved in statistic, the more education people receive, the more relative income they will get (Xin); everybody knows that. But we don’t know the differences between incomes among these people are not as big as we expect. What’s more, this theory is just “an overall trend”, which doesn’t adapt to everyone; also, a so-called “high income” is measured in individuals’ life (Xin). In practice, people also start to be aware of the new equation—high academic qualification=high unemployment or underemployment.

The DGBAS (Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics) of Taiwan showed, “from January to November in 2008, the average unemployment rate of young people between 15 to 29 years old has reached 8.25%”, and the rate of people who “have university education or above” is 9.33% (Zhong). How could this phenomenon happen? The basic cause is—“Oversupply of labor market” (Zheng), in other words, there’re too many well-educated people to get limited jobs. Imagine one day, everybody gets a university diploma, most people are graduates, what do you think will happen?—The society will apparently be out of order, no one wants to do the cheap labor work because they think they deserve better. It will only result in waste and worthlessness of the education qualification. This imagination is growing nowadays; high education is losing its upper hand.

China mainland is more or less the same employment environment as Taiwan. The hype of “A Beijing University[1] graduate selling candied haws stick”[2] event in 2006 may have passed, but similar news keeps popping up, and the complaints from students and parents won’t stop (Xin).At the same time people start to think about a concerned question—Is prestigious university out of date?

It has become a common and terrible belief that if you want to go to college, you have to go to the elite college. As I remember in my high school in China, every year during the graduation season we can see a lot of posters and banners hung between buildings and walls say “Cheer for X’s admission to Beijing University ”or “Congratulations on X’s being the top in Gaokao in our Province”. What we hear are all praises about how many students have gotten into the best colleges, and the teachers always ask us to learn from those very few top students. Besides, students from different schools often compete which school has more students enrolled in prestigious university even if it has nothing to do with them. It seems like, in people’s subconscious, only going to those elite universities means being useful and getting “a golden passport to success” (Easterbrook). In Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg’s research in 1999, they found that students who were able to get into an Ivy but chose a “less sexy” one, had “the same income twenty years later as graduates of the elite colleges” (Easterbrook).Apparently, success is not so relevant to a school’s brand or fame, it’s up to you, your ability and talent. And it’s not the top college make the students capable; they’re already elites even they don’t go to the elite schools.

During Loren Pope’s writing of Who’s Who[3] in 1990, he found out the fact that “the glamour schools were losing their status as the gatekeepers of accomplishment”. And today, as the “non-elite school” have greatly improved their quality of academic input, more and more employers don’t value applicants’ above their famous school background, “some may even avoid candidates from the top school, on the theory that such aspirants have unrealistic expectations of quick promotion”(Easter). The people who have that “expectation” are over-reachers, they think themselves above the business and aren’t easily satisfied with what they have; this often happens in China, that’s why even elite students from top colleges ending up with “underemployment”. Chinese’s “elite college complex” is not realistic, and it could be even harmful for students--they could repeat year and year in school with extreme pressures and hard work just to make their “top school dream” come true, and after that, there’s even no guarantee for them to get a good job!

Not only the “elite college complex”, but also advanced degrees gave Chinese students a mistaken idea that it’s never hard for graduate students to get a well-paid job. In old days, a Master or Doctor’s Degree means knowledge and respect. However, there’s an ironic phenomenon called “high degree discrimination” in employment today. To employers, high degree means “high cost” (pay), “high age”— aiming at women Doctors, who have possibilities of giving birth to a child, and “zero experience”—aiming at students who attach more on theory but lack of practical skills (EOL). Now a lot of graduates have descended to an inferior position, choosing the job they thought too cheap that a Bachelor or even a college student can do; the advanced theory they have learned were completely left behind. It’s just how the society works despite the cruelty.

From theory to practical situations, and from “elite university effects” to “advanced degree discrimination”, indications showed one fact that a high education record doesn’t necessarily bring money and success. In addition to money, what about the well-educates’ inner life, does the high academic qualification bring them a successful emotional life?

Here are two news titles--“More and More highly educated people use drugs in Beijing” (Beijing Daily Online). “Highly educated women become obsessive-compulsive disorder of the ‘susceptible’” (Oriental Today). We don’t even need to talk about serious drug problems or psychiatric disorders; we just need to see some pop words in the media to know how the true life of well-educated people and how they are considered and biased in this society. For example, “The Left” or “3S” (single, seventies, stuck) is used to describe those elder unmarried girls who were born during 1970s and highly educated. A lot of them from elementary school to graduate school, basically never had a deep relationship with anyone of the opposite sex. That long-term isolation makes them have a “love phobia” (Bl.gov.cn)—being afraid of falling love or not knowing how to love. With “3 high” (another pop word, indicates high education, high position, and high pay) but with no love or confidence, are they successful? I don’t think so.

The headmaster of Qinghua University [4] gave his graduates five advices on their life road:

“Direction is more important than efforts,

Ability is more important than knowledge,

Healthy is more important than achievement,

Life is more important than qualification,

EQ is more important than IQ” (Gu).

I think these golden sayings are the most important meanings of this research paper.

At last, on the whole, my conclusions are--Education record is a study experience, and high education record is just a reflection of one’s academic attainments. It’s nothing but a proof of the past. There’s nothing wrong about going after high education record, but it shouldn’t be everything we’re going after-- If you do, it’s not only success you lose, but also yourself.

[1] the top university in China

[2] “candy fruit on sticks”, a very cheap traditional snack on street in Northern China

[3] “a direction of American distinction”

[4] one of the best university in China

Works Cited

Easterbrook, Gregg. "Who Needs Harvard?" College Admissions 2004 October 2004 Atlantic Oct. 2004. The Atlantic. 3 May 2009 .

"Graduate students facing employment problem--'high degree discrimination'" Graduate studies news. 4 Nov. 2008. Eol.cn(China Education Online). 03 May 2009 .

Gu, Binglin. "The headmaster of Qinghua University gave advises to his graduates." Education Campus. 5 Sept. 2005. Aweb.com.cn(China Agriculture Web). 03 May 2009 .

"Highly educated people have 'love phobia'" Psychology science. 11 Sept. 2008. Bl.gov.cn. 03 May 2009 .

"Highly educated women become obsessive-compulsive disorder of the 'susceptible'" Obsession. Ed. Huaiqi Wang. 4 Aug. 2005. Linzi Counselling. 03 May 2009 .

Xin, Lijian. "High Academic Record? High Income." Lijian Xin's blog. 16 May 2006. Usors.cn. 03 May 2009 .

Zhang, Weina. "More and more highly educated people use drugs in Beijing." Legal news 29 Oct. 2004. Hbfz.gov.cn. 3 May 2009 .

Zheng, Juanfeng. "High level of education = high unemployment?" Work 26 Aug. 2008. The Liberty Times, Taiwan. 3 May 2009 .

Zhong, Lihua. "Dim future of pay/ highly educated youth unemployment rate 9.33%." Life 21 Jan. 2009. The Liberty Times, Taiwan. 3 May 2009 .

Cliques in My Schooldays

2009-09-27T20:01:00.004-05:00

English 100

Educational Narrative

Feb. 1^st, 2009

       If not because of this paper, I may never think about the question “do I ever have a clique before?” which occurs to me—“what is a clique?” Clique is a word from old French. Wikipedia defines it as “an exclusive group of people who share interests, views, purposes, patterns of behavior, or ethnicity”. If we translate it into Chinese, it could be “Xiao Tuan Ti(小团体)” which means small group , but lacking of group cohesion in a sense; or “Bang Pai(帮派)” which means small faction, but it sounds too serious to get the factional fighting involved. Then Professors Fengbin Wang and Wenpin Tsai, two Chinese scholars—call cliques “Xiao Ji Ti(小集体)” in their book[1] , which means small collectives. As you may have noticed, there is “small” in all of these three translations, which implies a kind of negative meaning “exclusive” in Chinese; at least when the adults hear it they may frown slightly and judge it by the first impression. From this point, I suddenly understand why most of us Chinese students don’t realize that we were in cliques but call them all friends or buddies instead. Under the influence of the CCP(Chinese Communist Party) culture, what we have always been advocating, is collectivism; as it said “Unity is strength”, that’s also what we learned from books and in school. We started to cultivate our team spirit since we went to kindergarten, we must act collectively and stick together through thick and thin, and we would be blamed for engaging in “some cliques”.

      However, who doesn’t have a clique anyway? As humans, we do have our very own social circles; it changes as time goes by, from kids to teenager to adults, especially when we were students. And those circles were exactly cliques in some ways. Looking back to my interpersonal experience in schooldays, cliques did play an important role through my lifetime.

      I lived in a small city in the east of China which was relatively conservative compared to big cities. I had always been to key (top) schools in my city, where they offered better teaching quality, study environment, and more hardworking and excellent students. In my memory, there were not too many different types of cliques in my school; in contrast to western countries, I can say the amount was very little. As I mentioned, this is about culture, about some stereotyped thoughts-- Chinese are used to following the mass, so being cool or unique is not always good. Chinese have the traditional virtues of “working hard and living plain”, so students spending time on clothes is meaningless. Chinese students are just kids in ivory tower, so they should just devote themselves to studying, blah, blah, blah... For example, my school had the rules of wearing school uniforms everyday or as much as possible, if a girl didn’t follow that rule, but dress up very pretty instead even wearing make-up, she would probably have a tough school life—being judged by other classmates esp. girls, lecturing by the teachers, and changing back to the uniform eventually—who would be so brave to do that? Apparently, cliques on clothes were out of the question in my school. So what do Chinese students care about and make us a clique? It really depends. In my experience, from primary school to middle school to high school, my cliques changed a lot, from several to less, explicit to tacit, along with the development and changes in this great country.

     If there’s really such a clique culture existing in China, I believe it pops up mostly in the primary school. Because kids are frank and straightforward, they won’t hide their feeling whatever good or bad ones, and they don’t use tricks. That’s why it’s easy for them to hook up or split up. I had quite a few cliques back to that time. The main two groups were “playmates” and “leaders”.

     It is quite easy to get what the two cliques are. The “playmates” group was primarily my playmates. As a kid, I was fond of playing with my girlfriends. I was very good at rubber band skipping, rope skipping and shuttlecock kicking, kind of queen among the girls on these. And these entertainments were also extremely popular among girls; we were obsessed with them, and also enjoyed them so much. We would play together as long as we had a chance, during the class break, or in the PE, or after school, maybe at weekends. Most of these group members were just classmates, but a couple of them are more than that. We lived near each other, so we spent more time together--walking to school and back home, hanging out at weekends, many visits to each other’s apartment on holidays, and we became very good friends. We almost did everything together except studying.

     The “leader” group was much simpler ; the members were just my work partners. I was the class monitress and Chinese course representative throughout the six years in primary school and there were quite a few subordinates below me, which made us a class leader system. We might have different assignments, but we often get together to discuss all kinds of class affairs. We might not know each other very well, but we understood each other for taking the same responsibility as leaders. During the 5^th grade, I became one leader of the Young Pioneers group committees in the school, which means I had another “leaders” group then. I also had meetings with them to deal with some school events.

      It was an honor to be a leader, but at that time, I was just a kid too, not all of the classmates would obey an equal peer. I worked a lot and still offended many classmates because of this position, which made me sick of being subordinate and having powers. Then things went quite different in the coming years--middle school. I always kept myself a low key dealing with everything. During this early period of adolescence, I once had one or two close friends; we almost told each other everything. However teenager girls were just insecure and fickle, we thought we knew and believed each other, but it was not true. The friendship was gone very soon. So precisely speaking, I was not in any cliques during the middle school. I had classmates to talk to, but no intimate friend. With increasing pressures on study, I was automatically keeping distance from the others, focusing on study. If “lonely nerd” can be a clique on one’s own, I think I belonged to that minority. This situation lasted for a while; I maintained an unconcerned attitude to surroundings. It was not until the second year in senior high school that I started to have a clique again. After coming back from one exchanging-year in Switzerland, I felt myself more mature after experiencing a lot in another country, especially on relationships. Maybe we didn’t have to have a close friend in a short term. Maybe we just need to know more interesting people making us feel better in the life stream. That’s what I thought, then the clique came up; I call it “bus fellows”.

       Apparently, high school was far more different from primary school. In my school, you could barely see or feel cliques. Everyone was so independent even we still went to the same classroom and meet the same class everyday. People were kind of cold and incommunicative. We didn’t really care about anything else except for studies, since studying took up most of our time. We might always have someone around, but that person could just be a companion; we might know everyone in our class, but it’s possible we had never spoken to some of them. In circumstance like this, “bus fellows” and “basketball boy” became two typical cliques. And I was in the former one.

      “Bus fellows”, were always my classmates or schoolmates. We took the same bus to school and back home, we were chatting all the time, about everything, the homework or test, a movie or a star, news or gossips, and so on. We didn’t have to have similar interests or personalities, we didn’t even have to care about the topics we were talking; we just need to have free talks, to get rid of the study stress, to get to know other people’s mental world, to promote ourselves. It was also a chance to find a bosom friend by accident among these familiar faces, which could be quite a nicety of life …

        So now, looking back to that question again--“what is a clique?” I get some different answers .Throughout my schooldays, I think, not only did cliques work as small social circles, but also they tell the choices we made as we become mature, choices to what kind of people we want to be and what kind of life we want to have. There are no regrets but learning from the past and looking to the future. Second, cliques are more part of culture, they see from generation to generation growing up. Time flies, culture changes. People are becoming more and more open-minded, even non-mainstream could become popular and that’s what is happening, isn’t it? So cliques, as an important part of teenager or popular culture, what will happen to them in the future? Will they still exist at that time? I just hope they will not confuse us, because we will be already very old and out of time then.

[1] Fengbin Wang is the translator of the book Social Networks and organization written by Martin Kilduff (U.S.) and Wenpin Tsai(China)

Concert Report

2009-09-26T16:33:00.024-05:00

Concert Report MUSIC 250

October 13^{th, 2008} Guest Artist. Solon Pierce, Piano recital. AFC 7:30pm

Repertoire

From Moments Musicaux, D.780…………………Franz Schubert(1797-1828)

No.2 in A-flat

No.5 in f minor

No.6 in A-flat
I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise…………………George Gershwin(1898-1937)

Swanee (from Songbook)

Rialto Ripples (with Will Donaldson)

The Man I Love (transcribed by Percy Grainger)
Graceful Ghost Rag………………………………William Bloom(b.1938)
Menuet…………………………Georges Bizet-Sergei Rachmaninoff(1873-1943)

(From L’Arlesienne Suite No.1)
Prelude in G-flat,Op.11 no.13……………………Alexander Scriabin(1872-1915)
Liebesleid………………………………………Fritz Kreisler-Sergei Rachmaninoff
Nocturne-Impromptu(1985)………………………Nathaniel Pierce(1969-2007)
Carnaval,Op.9……………………………………Robert Schumann(1810-1856)

I hadn’t been to too many recitals before, but this was definitely one of the best to me. Since European classical music and Chinese pop music has taken up most of my entertainment time, I have very little knowledge of American modern music including Jazz and Blues. While in this recital, the pianist played mostly jazz piano (except for 3 pieces of Romantic works) which led me into a completely new music world and expanded my limited horizon of jazz. It was a feast of listening, brilliant and fantastic. It was also very emotional as the dedication in memory of the pianist’s brother. I was quite touched by this musical experience.

After making some searches and clearing my mind, here I am going to make a brief description about my feelings of some compositions.

Schubert :Op.94 D.780 Moments Musicaux

No.2 A flat — Slow and peaceful. Very quiet throughout the piece except for a small middle part showing up with a dramatic forte. The whole piece feels much like a barcarolle, with free rhythm and floating melody.

No.5 f minor — Short and fast, like a small march which was done at a dish

No.6 A flat — Longer and slower. The pianist looks like a thinker or a poet losing himself in thought. The melody transferred from sharp to flat from time to time, displaying a subtle mood, sometimes sounding like sighing. I wonder if the pianist was thinking about his dear brother~

George Gershwin:

Swanee — After a long slow and quiet piece, the pianist's emotion suddenly became bright, with music style changing from Romantic into Jazz, fast and jumping. Well, I guess there was not only sad memory but also happy things~

Rialto Ripples — Fast ,similar rhythmic pattern and theme repeated, humorous, allegramente, and funny which reminded me of Broadway ,ended with a sudden stop.

The Man I love — Allegretto, beautiful romantic melody with fanciful grace notes. We can feel an in-love woman’s heart; affectionate and dreamlike.

William Bolcom :Graceful Ghost Rag

It was one of my favorite compositions in the recital.

Rag, short for Ragtime ,which I thought was part of the title but later figured it out to be a 19^th-century dance form characterized by highly syncopated melodies, contributed to early jazz. And that’s the charm of this composition—the melody seems like unbalanced but compact to make a conflicted mood.

It was played as Moderato. As the title says ”graceful ghost”, the theme was so graceful with a kind of gloomy beauty, gentle and blue, I can imagine that a ghost was circle dancing on tiptoe again and again, freely but lonely, dropping itself into memory. When the music came into the middle part, the melody became unrestricted, it looked like the ghost was relieved from itself, sort of “American dream” feelings. Later when it came to the theme again, the speed was a little faster and there was less of a maze than before.

Fritz Kreisler: Liebesleid

It was the composition I like most in the recital.

When the melody firstly came into my ear, I felt it so familiar that I must have heard it somewhere. Then I realized that it was recomposed into a Chinese pop song called “half cigarette” which was one of my favorites. It’s kind of weird to hear the same melody but in complete different styles. And later I found a third version and the original version—violin version. And I got to know that the composition was often played by Trios.

The comparison of the piano and pop version:

The piano version

Fast, free rhythm, emotional, dreamlike.

The theme is so graceful with fancy gloom. It was repeated about four times and reached the peak at the two minutes 20 seconds. Every time I could feel the heavy mood in the main melody, but then that the music subtly changed into a flowing and gorgeous part. The listener may think they have passed the sad part in this piece of composition, but the tension and dissonance just came into their ear again when they haven’t realized it. I guess that’s why this composition was called “Liebesleid”, which means “love’s sorrow” in German, because sorrow was everywhere even presented in bright way, but it’s also true that I felt more elegance than sorrow in the music.

The pop version

Moderato, steady rhythm, more gentle and graceful, blue beauty with imaginative lyrics which is quite suitable. It is a perfect combination of post-modern and classic and mixed with a little Latin.

The prelude at the very beginning is very interesting, with funny descending leaps; it sounds like someone sneaking around on his tiptoes which matched to the lyrics. The interlude of violin may be the most wonderful part of the song, making the music more dramatic.
According to the singer's comprehension to the lyrics— the second hand just made one round when I passed by the hallway on tiptoe and turned around, the time of waiting for her(my lover) was up when half cigarette burnt away.

Here are the Chinese lyrics and my translation (may not catch the Chinese charm)

半支烟 Half cigarette

秒针究竟转了几圈     How many rounds has the second hand turned ,
已过去了多少时间     how much time has already gone ?
我悄悄地进了房间     Quietly I went inside the room,
转过回廊的脚尖       turning around on tiptoe at the end of the hallway.

打不开熟悉的唱片     I couldn’t play my old CD,
我猜因为作祟的指尖   I thought it was my annoying fingers.
踩着飘过去的音乐     Sliding with the floating music,
向着她吐一口烟       I puffed out a smoke at her.

燃掉吧半分感情的烟 Burning it up ,the cigarette with only half love

that’s been left!

一段在嘴边            part at the mouth,
一段在空空荡荡的房间 part remained in the empty room.

想着她哼出来的歌      Thinking of the song she hummed,
舞步像掉进了旋涡      my dance step were as if falling into a swirl.

散落在空中的烟灰 The cigarette ash that fell down in the air
是等待过的滋味 tasted its waiting.

写下我来过的便签      I dropped the note saying I was once here,
在我离开她到来之前    before the time I have to leave her comes;
等待是半支烟的时间    Waiting counted the time of half cigarette,

你转过脸就发现 But you wouldn’t notice unless you turn around

燃烧吧半分感情的烟 Burning it up ,the cigarette with only half love that’s been left!

慢慢消失 It’s fading away,

留给我的是苦滋味 leaving me only the taste of bitterness.

All three version audios had been put on here (my Chinese blog):

http://www.mtime.com/my/lanxinwu/blog/1495330/

socialization—A story from 3 years ago in France

2009-09-20T14:21:00.007-05:00

This week we move into socialization...the idea that reality is socially constructed. Last week I facetiously asked you when you learned that it wasn't okay to eat dogs. This week, I am going to ask you to think back in your life. You may think about a toy, a tv show, a conversation with a family member...anything really. What did it teach you? How were you socialized? Did you know it at the time? How has it affected/impacted your life? ——Prof.

Three years ago, my father was in Lyons, France on a business trip. So I also went there from Switzerland to meet him(I was in Switzerland for one year as an exchange student). We went out with his colleagues one night for French food. We were at a restaurant, it was already very late, around 9pm.We waited for our steak, and spiral shell for a while--Most French eat dinner very late; and they do things slow. So my father and his friends started to drink and talk first. One of them brouhjt a Chinese liquor(Baijiu in Chinese, you can check it here if interested:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baijiu)-- I don't drink wine, so i was only eating my salad. Anyway, it's a long night.

During this dinner, we met some interesting strangers next to our table. They’re Americans, one was an actress, one was scriptwriter or film director, and one was soundtrack musician if my memory was right. When they heard we had Chinese distilled alcoholic beverage, one guy was curious .So my father's friend offered him to try a glass of Baijiu. They also warned him that the alcohol was very strong and intense, he should taste it little by little. But the American guy was quite excited and didn't listen, he drank that glass up in one breath. Our Chinese friends were worried, ask him if he felt OK. He stayed calm for a second saying “I am OK", but one minute later, he said " I think I need to go to the bathroom". And on his way to the bathroom, he fell. Fifteen minutes later, he came back, he said the Chinese wine was amazing that he felt his stomach was on fire, and he threw up; but he was sure if he just drank a sip of it, it would be much better. And we all laughed.

Later, we continued to have our dinner. And I started to talk to the Americans. And I knew it was their last night in France, they had an early flight the next morning to catch, they were so glad to experience some exotic Chinese stuff before they left. And I also told them my experience as an exchange student, they we were quite surprised by that.

I learned a lot from that night--

First some basic culture difference.

Second, it's easier to talk to a strange on a trip than in daily life. Well, we know that Americans are open, but I was also somewhat opened my heart to talk to the American actress. We even left emails to each other. However, I don't know if I will do it again later in my life. And now I'm in America now, I never spoke to a stranger, I guess that's what people do--they can easily open their heart to strangers because they will never meet each other again.

Third, I think every behavior from others can influence our lives. I'm in USA but not UK or Australia because I met so many nice American friends (some acquaint some not), but i had unpleasant experience with people with British accent. And I just changed my major to English last week; I may also be a scriptwriter later. I believed it all happened for some reason, or what happened in my life.

From Hauptbahnhof to Leinestrasse -- Leipzig’s shadow in the sun

2009-08-31T20:12:00.010-05:00

     The first day I arrived in Leipzig, the sky was gloomy and the weather was cool. My new friend Helen and I got on the tram with our big suitcases from Hauptbahnhof(main train station), it took us half an hour to get to Leinestrasse—where we need to be, and another twenty minutes to find our student dorm. When we had everything done and were ready to eat, it was getting dark and it started to drizzle. Everything didn’t seem fine, we were hungry and tired foreign strangers who walked on the lonely street trying to find somewhere for food, but there was barely a person, not mention an open restaurant! That just reminded me of the scene I read on the first page of Jana Hensel’s book After the wall—“We didn’t see a single soul”. Yes, that’s my first impression of Leipzig — damp and cheerless, and I didn’t like it.
    Germany’s character in stereotypes is a combination of strength and tenderness. Of course, their complicated history and the hard accent of their language always make people feel German people cold and distant; on the other hand, the classical music, the fairy-tale and the beautiful landscape are so opposite. As one important part of formal GDR (German Democratic Republic), what on earth is Leipzig like? It was just “damp and cheerless”? In the following four weeks, I changed my mind.


      Every day on the way between dorm and school, sitting on the tram, I could see people getting on and off and walking on the street; I also watched nice views of the city through the window —it was really a great trip of a culture show—I truly got involved in the Leipziger’s life rather than only being a tourist. I was so attracted by its dark and lovely sides. “Hard-core”, but not in a bad way; “intense”, but natural –that’s what I felt about Leipzig. Here I am going to write down a few representatives of what I saw from Hauptbahnhof to Leinestrasse, which are Goth, graffiti, old constructions and some miscellaneous daily life scenes, and how they impressed me on my mind between Chinese, American and German three cultures.

1. Goth

It’s quite normal to see very different people, like hippies, street punks, hipsters, or Goths with the business folks dressing suits on the same tram. And among these, Goth was the one interested me most.

First, what is Goth?

White face, black lipstick, wild colored hair, mostly dressed in black, the coolest crowd ever—that is my first thought—I had seen people like that once in Switzerland and many times in movies, but never be so close to them in real life until now, in Leipzig, Germany.

Actually, there is no specific definition of what Goth is or not. My first thought was just a typical gothic stereotype. Even on looks, there are some differences. For example, Voltaire, author of What is Goth, tried to not seriously put Goth into some categories like “Romantic Goths” (a),who like to dress in elegant Victorian clothing;“Death Rockers”(b), who tend to dress more punk; “Cyber Goths” (c),who wear more futuristic clothing and generally have facial piercings; and so on. Even though different Goths differ in some way, they are all bond by loneness, depression and hopelessness (Phillips), which we can connect to darkness, blood, and the beauty of pain….

I can clearly remember one scene on the tram one day, a young Gothic couple who dress like “Death Rocker” stood right beside me in the middle of the walkway, were kissing. That was a very long and deep kiss, I felt so embarrassed that I turned my face to the window. But I could not help taking a small peek, I was attracted, not by the love from the kiss, but something else which was more intense—the fearless of their action; then I noticed that the girl was quite short that she was stepping on the guy’s feet, who was wearing a big pair of gothic boots of course(see the picture on the left) —that was the moment that I felt a sudden shock. Yes, I sat so close to them, but they were so “far away” from me. Right, that’s Goths, “they share the belief that freethinking and self-creativity are the most vital human freedom”(Phillips). Then a feeling of complication came to me—admiration for what they’re, doubt for what I am, loss for what I have lost.

I had long assumed that “Gothic” was part of German culture since I knew it, I don’t know why, probably just thought only German was cool enough to have it. So it didn’t surprise me at all when I confirmed the fact that Germany has become the center hub for Gothic subculture; but actually “before then it had always been Great Britain, where in the early 1980s it had emerged from Punk” (Erkart 549). And later during mid 80s, Gothic became on its own, completed with its own graphic art, literature, music and fashion. Members of an emerging subculture in Germany were called Grufties (German Goth) started to grow, and they formed the early stages of the "dark culture".

Today, East Germany has already have two-thirds of the Gruftie (Phillips). I also heard from some Leipzig college students saying that “West Germany is less hard-core than East Germany”. Well, why did modern Gothicism bloom in Germany and why was East Germany more “hard-core”? As I mentioned before, looking back into its complicated history—from Weimar Republic, Nazism, Communism until the reunited Germany, all it happened in less than 100 years, East Germans did struggle through radical changes and brain washings. “After the wall”, as Jana Hensel said in her book, her entire generation (who were born in 70s) arose because their nation disappeared—“That’s what defines us: absence”—for them, everything has changed(Hensel 164).

I also clearly remembered the vivid descriptions on Jana’s childhood—young pioneer in uniform, flag saluting every morning, the “class solidarity ” slogan, the ideological education that children were taught that they were supposed to study well and grow up to be a useful person to the state(Jana)—Yes, of course I remember, because it was also my childhood. I still remembered the class scene in my elementary school, everybody had to put their arms and hands straight on the desk where the teachers could see, and thrust out their chest, sit tight. If they didn’t do that, they broke the discipline, they would be blamed. Yes, there was no freedom, but only discipline--that’s how a kid grew up in a Communism society. Well, even now, after spending two years in western countries, I still don’t feel wrong about that, because I was raised up like that, and in Chinese culture, it was supposed to be like that. But in Germany? I’m not judging the communist’ life style, but I, as a Chinese international student who live one life in three—Chinese, American, and European--do understand the feeling of complications or say contradiction between the past and the present, the tradition and the new. After the fall of the Wall, after truly being part of western culture, how could the East German get over the history so fast that to be natural and right in their happy freedom?

Deane and David Heller said in their book: “Not surprisingly, the deprivation of human rights which The Wall represents—the barring of Western scientific and cultural contacts, the inability to escape from the incessant barrage of ‘hate the west’ propaganda—have twisted and perverted the lives of unfortunate people of East Germany in striking ways”(Heller 213) Apparently, East German chose Gothicism this dark path for a reason. Life was just not easy in there, “For them, joining the Gothics, dressing in strange ways and listening to strange music with lyrics about death, might be a way of transcending their individual lives and thus freeing themselves from the burden of an unsatisfactory and scary reality”(Eckart 549).

These scenes seem more accepted in Europe—particularly in Germany, which hosts Wave Gothic Treffen--the World’s largest annual festival for “dark culture”--in Leipzig.

However, not only one dark exist in Germany. Just like Goths, Graffiti is another sub-culture which is quite popular among young people, and also a art from quite common to be seen in the whole country.

2. Graffiti and street art

“It was not the gangster image of that movement, but its very idealistic tone that interested me. Graffiti was a somewhat underground culture for a lot of people, and knowing that there’s something there but not being able to see it from the outside made it very attractive”. Says Lafayette, who is a college student from Rostock ,northern Germany (Siegel). It looked like graffiti did become a mysterious and cool art in young people’s mind.

Though Germany was known as a very clean country, and German was considered to be careful and responsible, they still sometimes confused me. I was often thinking and looking out through the tram window, the street was clean, the city planning was also neat, the gardening was so pretty, how could this kind of place be full of Graffiti on the wall, on the car, even on the roof? That was just somewhat incongruous, isn’t it?

Besides the reason come from that college student in the previous statement, I figured out another one for seeing all graffiti covered walls in Germany, especially in East Germany. As we all know, graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority. Just like the reason for gothic subculture’s blooming, German has absolutely their right to be rebel. Let’s see, Berlin has become world-famous because of its international architecture and cultural diversity. Moreover, it was rated as one of the best places for street art. So a lot of German accepts and support graffiti not only because of their rebellious spirit, but also because of the graffiti painted on the Berlin Wall, some of which was the most famous work in the world (Roig). And that was already part of who they are, and they are proud of it.

However, not all the street art was art, some of the graffiti in Leipzig were just scribbles, or maybe scribbling with free will was also kind of art.
Following the route going to Leinestrasse, we are being away from the city center little by little. Not for a while, I could totally smell the decadence and rebirth from those construction—

3. Abandoned building & those which are under construction

I had always been wondering if there were any shadows of socialism remaining in this city. Eventually, I found some very familiar images—the buildings under construction. Actually I really hated that when I was in China, because there were new building being built every day in the city, and in the same time there were also many of them were tore down. I hated it because it was a waste of building materiel and it was not environment-friendly--with all that noises and pollutions. However people kept doing that to make money. But who said only new buildings can make money? That’s why I liked it here, in Leipzig, it was different—there was no tearing down, the old ones stayed where they were and renovated into the new ones.

Leipzig could also be odd. Sometimes, a few nice restored structures standing right next to the ugliest, most run-down, abandoned buildings covered with graffiti and every second window smashed. And sometimes this kind of building was full of a certain street, it looked like that time just stopped on that street.

Ironically, in the city center of Berlin, the old building which reflected old days were gone little by little. For example, the Palace of the Republic, which was considered as an integral part of Berlin's culture, was demolished since the year of 2006, and now it was totally gone. People actually appealed to save the Palace at the beginning, but 880 petitions were rejected. There were many other similar cases. It’s true that “The former East Germany made significant contributions to modern architecture. Today, they would be historical landmarks full of insights into life in the GDR. But many have been lost.”(Richter)

Besides Goth, Graffiti and old buildings, there’re some other tiny things in daily life got my attention, they might be so tiny that not worth mentioning, but I found them special and lovely—

4. Miscellaneous observations about daily life

Baby carriage

That was one lovely morning, we were on the tram going to the language school. We were tired and quiet, and maybe still struggling with German grammar somehow in our brains. Suddenly a middle-aged lady got on the tram with her big baby carriage, it was like a sun light streaming into our sights—there were eight babies in the carriage! They were all well dressed in cute colors, they looked so innocent and lively, one of them were sucking a nipple, and one of them were staring at me with her big beautiful eyes, it looked like she had never seen an Asian before! I felt excited but also shy by her straight look actually. There were not so many passengers at that time, but we were all watching these little lives; our K-State group was waken up, we stared to talk and smile. At that moment, I thought life was so sweet, I felt myself full of energy. I didn’t know why, but I knew it was the moment I realized I was already in love this city.

Flower and wine

I was surprised to see many flower shops around the cities, they were everywhere—at the Hauptbahnhof, in front of the school, near the restaurant…. It’s not that we don’t have flower shops in China, but not like this. In a Chinese flower shop, all the flowers look so delicate, maybe even a little bit ornate, that you think they must come from some far-away greenhouse and were taken care of by professional gardeners. But here, the small flower just looked adorable but not distant; they were more like the girl next door than a pretty but proud princess. I thought that was just part of German’s characters—they love nature and they were close to nature.

What is also important in a picnic besides flowers? Wine, right. I had never thought wine could be so cheap here. 1.5 Euros equate a bottle of German wine? Mineral water could be more expensive than expensive than that here which was so strange. Or maybe we should get used to that— beer, wine & German.

At the end of this paper, I have to say, Leipzig really surprised me. I was no more the Chinese girl who was interested in the Germans’ grimness in the movie or in a fairytale imagines a magic story. I was there, in Leipzig, in East Germany, I found the special characteristic in German culture--an integration of hard-core and elegance--the historical rudiment on the buildings, the distinctive and colorful sub-culture, and the natural romantic tinge from people’s daily life. These are what I had learned from the mass media, but it’s quite a different experience after living in the real life once. After all, German are not cold-blooded, they would help me find my way when I got lost, they would try to speak English with me when my German stuck. And their free and romantic mind makes their life more personable.

Maybe there are always a couple of unread historical pages alive in East German’s memory, but the modern life do bring more vitality and changes, and it only make East Germany grow better and better. Then the shadow of the past spontaneously becomes a kind of charm and beauty in the sun of today.

Before the Germany trip —— academic & personal goals

2009-06-08T21:53:00.002-05:00

Actually I didn’t really feel like I was going to Germany until yesterday, which is already the last weekend before I leave the U.S. Maybe my experience in Switzerland before was telling me not to be devoted into this trip so soon--dreaming of a trip in Europe trip is romantic, but doing it is not so true; it could be exhausting, unexpected and disappointing, especially to the newcomers. Germany and I are both new to each other, but looking on the bright side, I’m not a completely a rookie. I spent almost one year in Europe when I was 16 years old, and I just finished my first year in the U.S. Experiencing a new culture is not so new to me anymore. However, culture is always a topic at length or in depth, and I’m still learning it. Apparently learning German culture is one of the most important tasks and also goals during this trip, including the German language of course.

I picked up a little German when I was in Switzerland. When you’re learning a language, you’re actually already learning a culture. English is my second language, so I did not have the advantage of being familiar with German and English words. It was a really hard situation to be an Asian learning a complete different language who was surrounded by students who had learned some German during high school or who had mastered the same Latin language system. I felt like an Asian exchange student who was expected by her host families to learn this language (German) well. The catch-22 was that if you studied too much, some people think you are wasting your time in a foreign country; if you took it easy, someone think you are not here to study. Yes, that year was hard; I grew up from the innocent, with pain also great experience. But now I get it, I’m independent in this trip, I know what I will deal with and I’m going to be cool with it.

Learning language takes time, but we can learn faster and deeper if we live in that environment. We don’t need to struggle with it if we don’t need to be the master of this language; it is more a communication tool than a subject. We could stammer in a German conversation in order to make the local people understand while English is still the mainstream in the world, which means doing whatever it takes to communicate, possibly as a last resort using English to explain and make jokes about ourselves. I think it is ok even like this. We learn, we fail, we laugh and we learn.

I have taken German 121 in spring semester; it was not hard for me because of my basic knowledge of German. But from now on, it will get harder and harder, and I will skip German 2 to German 3 in the fall semester, which means I have to make up the missing part by myself. So hopefully I can get enough in this trip to make my future study easier.

For the culture part, I think everything will be much truer when we indeed experience it. All I know about Germany so far is just some shallow things; I want to know more about its secret beauty and also its dirty side. So I will go there, see it, listen to it, taste it, feel it and write about it.

Those are pretty much my academic goals for this summer. Of course, I have more personal goals. I love classical music and I played piano for seven years mostly Bach and Mozart; before I came to the U.S., I almost did go to Poland for a music college. The reason I didn’t go there was music was too important to me and I was afraid to fail myself there. That was a bad excuse but I always believed if I had this fate with music, we would eventually meet each other someday. So as the origin of classical music, Germany is one of my dream places to visit. It’s not just about a music dream; it’s a place to allow me to think about my life and future, or maybe it’s a place to bear a dream. So I take it as a goal of searching goals.

At the beginning of this essay, I said I was trying to avoid thinking about the coming adventure because it could be unexpected and unpleasant. But the truth is that’s also what I love about. I guess I’m a person who longs for great encounters and the so-called “miracles” which could bring my life to a higher level spiritually. Accidents are not good, especially those unexpected results we learn from movies, but I believe in the good in accidents just like I have some faiths in fate. It’s a trip of spiritual travel. Every trip is a spiritual travel.

Finally, I think I’m trying to prove myself subconsciously by doing this trip. A long time ago, I couldn’t say I failed that journey, but I lost some part of myself in that beautiful land of Europe. I was daydreaming in my Swiss school, I walked down by Seine riverside like a frustrated poet, I was too scared or upset to be alone in Rome street, so I hid myself in the hostel for two days. I mean things just happened, I couldn’t control the past, but I can look forward to the coming. I just watched the classic romance and conversational movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and I was especially touched by the latter one which was filmed in Paris. I felt sad about the nine years’ loss between the lovers, what passed is past. But I was also inspired from the message that we shouldn’t miss the beauty in life. This time I’m going to Switzerland and Paris again after the German study, going over the old ground, even I can’t get the old me back, I will become the new me. Starting from Germany, it’s a trip of finding myself.

At the end, there’s no need to talk about the upcoming trip now, I will just wait, and I know it’s worth it.

German 529 assignment：what if I grew up in another country?

2009-05-01T22:51:00.004-05:00

The first time I heard the paper’s topic from my classmate, I was thinking about what if I was born in a western country--say Switzerland or America. Apparently, as a home-grown Chinese, there’s no big differences between Switzerland and the United State to me--they’re both western countries, they share the same European ancestry, they have similar culture, and they’re the only two foreign countries I know better than others.

Then I had a second thought, according to what we have been studying from eastern Germany’s history, this topic is asking us to talk about the state systems. Yes, I’m from a communist state, the way I think about this question can be very different from the other American students. In our Chinese text book, there’re something we always keep in mind— “ We must integrate the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete realities of China, blaze a path of our own and build a socialism with Chinese characteristics--that is the basic conclusion we have reached after reviewing our long history.” And yes, the communist state I was born in is unique in the world, it’s not the same thing as some western people think about predecessor of Russia—the Soviet. In consideration of my English skills and culture understandings, I think I didn’t get a lot from the book and the additional article precisely, but one thing for sure, I totally understand the writers’ feelings, the feeling of standing between socialism and capitalism.

If I haven’t been living in both Switzerland and the U.S. for a year, I might feel offended after reading the book after the wall or anything related to this topic. But now, I’m “a middle person”. I think I like capitalism more—I would never say this in China, a country with one-party system. Politics is always so sensitive there, you don’t have free talk which will only get you trouble; what’s more, general Chinese people don’t care about politics or any of their rights because they can do nothing about it. I like capitalism, but I don’t think I can live in a capitalism state for lifelong time. I was born and brought up in socialism and a traditional Chinese family, though I don’t know this country’s system well, I may dislike it, but I was already influenced by it in every respect. I can’t get over it.

Obviously, the stereotype of a socialism state is relatively poor, falling behind or unstable. But this is not completely true, China is a proof –it’s on a point of transition, it’s changing faster than people thought. But for the rest of my life, I don’t think China can develop into a brand new face and people like me can also belong to a “lost generation”. It’s difficult for us to value an exact view of society; it’s difficult for us at least for me to choose a side of the two society systems. Because we know how great it feels like to live in a capitalism state, but we still hold onto our own root, our own tradition-- it’s who we are and where we are from.

If I were born in the U.S., I think I can get more freedom--we could talk about politics if we want to and we can go for what we think is better for us. We don’t need to study everything so hard like a “study machine” in school, we can learn anything we’re interested in. We study because we want to make a difference not because we have to make a living. “Just can do everything you want”—that’s a very American way to say. And “American dream” is great.

If I were born in the U.S., I think I will feel happier. But if it happened, I will feel very pity not to know the Chinese culture. China is a great country with so long history, we have our old doctrine, like Confucian Tradition or Taoist Philosophy and so on—they’re very old, but they’re the pith of the Chinese traditional philosophy— These are something a foreigner can hardly understand if they were not born on this land. I do have pains and struggling living in my home country, but I enjoyed and got used to and this pain; it feels great to understand, accept this culture and try to make it better, it’s something only Chinese who combine knowledge of both the east and west can understand.

The relationship between East and West Germany before is similar to the thing between China mainland and Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the society was still run by capitalism just like British, only in the name of Chinese-Hong Kong.

In conclusion, I think we shouldn’t judge any state systems, because they were determined by a country’s history and national condition. What a nation or a social person should do is to learn from the history lessons, to learn from the good of outside countries and make their own social systems better and their own countries stronger.

Report on Return of the Yellow Peril

2008-11-29T16:28:00.006-06:00

A Survey of the Work of Roger Shimomura, 1969-2004.

Shimomura was born in Seattle in 1939. His family experienced one of the harshest instances of racism against Asian American citizens when they were among the 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were forced to give up most of their property and relocate to U.S. internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor .At that time, he, who was only 3 years old, spent two years with his family behind a barbed-wire fence at Camp Minidoka in south-central Idaho. Following the war, he completed school in Seattle and studied commercial design at the University of Washington, receiving a BA in 1961. He received an MFA in painting at Syracuse University in 1969 and started to teach in the University of Kansas until 1994, rising to become a University Distinguished Professor.

Shimomura has had over 100 solo and 200 group exhibitions in the US, Canada, and Japan and has lectured as a visiting artist at over 200 universities, art schools, and museums across the country. His experience as an Asian-American professor in Kansas led him to paint about culture, discrimination, and ethnic stereotypes.

Some people think Shimomura is “a prankster with a brush”. In my opinion, that’s quite true according to my first impression to this exhibition. The works are so vivid and colorful, they contain inviting American tableaus, and they also depict some of his childhood scenes which were actual and also fantastic in an art work.

People also say Shimomura is “a social commentator whose art represents a unique Japanese-American style and point of view”. By my primary impression, I would think these painting are not as pretty as Impressionist Paintings, not as lovely as Japanese comic. While after knowing some context of the exhibition, I think it is unique ,and the comment about Shimomura is much truer. I can easily see Shimomura’s effort to explore the relationships and contrasts between Japanese and American culture from his painting. For example, there’s a picture titled “Jap’s Jap” from the Stereotype series; in this work, Shimomura depicts himself as a Japanese-American Donald Duck, painting his self-portrait as a European-American counterpart, decked out with Scottish bagpipes, tam, and tartan. This picture is just so weird, funny (which is not amusing funny) but with a black humor, and attractive.

The Return of the Yellow Peril directly plays on the derogatory color metaphors for Asians—“Yellow peril” or “Yellow terror” that have been aimed Asian-Americans since the 1800s, which bought to our mind that the painter’s 2 years living behind a barbed-wire fence (as mention above); theses works mean a lot, not only to the painter, also to all of us.

A person like me with a shallow thought on racism, politics and sociology may not profoundly tell the inside meaning in Shimomura’s painting, but from my one-year experience in Europe as an Asian exchange student when I was only 16 years old, I can deeply feel the emotion that Shimomura may have before that sometimes lonely, sometimes confused, and more often conflicted, about who we are, how we look on the “culture shock” or “culture identity” and how we live among this by adapting to it.

In the present time, racial discrimination may be less than yesterday, but it’s not extinct, and there’re still biases somehow. I think what Shimomura had experienced, studied and created will definitely inspire a lot of people, to think about the issue of culture identity, discrimination, and ethnic stereotypes, and some of them will make a difference some day.

Report on Janice Radway’ lecture

2008-11-27T16:16:00.007-06:00

“Zines Then and Now:

What Are They? What Do You Do With Them? How Do They Work?”

Janice Radway, the Walter Dill Professor of Communication and professor of American studies and gender studies at Northwestern University, gave a lecture about social impact and literary role of zines on American society on Nov.17.

Prof. Radway first discussed the definition and scope of zines—“A zine (an abbreviation of the word fanzine, or magazine) is most commonly a small circulation, non-commercial publication of original or appropriated texts and images”—as she showed us the definition on Wikipedia and the sample of zines on slide show, she brought up the question “what else people can do with it but read it (like a book)”. Indeed, just like books , people engaged in zinging more than read them ,at the same time, they have their own subjectivity thinking, they are participating in different kind of activities and performances which connected with social relations and culture values.

In Prof. Radway’s investigation on girls’ zines , a lot of girls who engaged in zinging actively in 1990s have given up as they turned to their twenties or thirties at the turn of 21 century --the information era. While actually, zines moved on, too. So how do zines function over time?

Prof. Radway gave some examples of girls’ zines collections which are quite representative. She studied what girls’ zines are and how zines connected with girls and other zines from these cases. Here’re some conclusions by myself from here speech--zines are (mostly) made by girls, for girls; they are a way to depict how girls think ,write and respond to the society to express themselves; they have charms and they’re highly miscellaneous forms “displaying a wild mixture of handwriting and print”; they touch on sex, punk music, movie stars, diet & beauty, whatever may be hot conversation topics the next day in school among classmates, which is how they help to build up alliances, friendships and sisterhoods, they’re part of the social community; zines are always related to zines, you can often see one recommend another, just like the social network between people, they “re-circulate culture discourses” and “alter them by juxtaposing and combining them”.

As Professor Radway concluded, zines bring hopes to a different future and the social construction. And in this high-tech era, whether paper zines or e-zines, I believe, zines will never grow old, it will continue even in a new media and area, bearing girls’ dream , self-excitation, sweetness, or any characteristics that made it such a charming thing within modern media publishing.