Response to Elephant Vanishes

      Haruki Murakami is the  best-selling writer in who earned lots of reputation through his noevel work. Instead of short stories, I had read some novels of him like Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore and so on, all of which is easy to read but hard to understand the idea it want to express. And so does this short story, The Elephant Vanishes.     There are only three scenes throughout the story which I find them irrelevant. It starts with a nameless narrator in kitchen who has a long, careful, and reflective examination of the event that inspired the story’s title.. He then continues his personal encounter with an attractive femal editor at a business event. Finally they date in a bar and talk about the anish of the elephant. During this conversation it reveals how deeply the mystery of the elephant’s disappearance has affected him.
     After finishing the story, the most impressive part to me is the description of  movement of the government after the elephant disappearing. It looks like a farce which may statirize the negative attitude of government towawrd peoples life and what they only care is the power and money. Besides, all the plots seems developed in a nature order but I find I get lost what this story want to tell. I have a lot of question as following: why the narrator so care about the elephant? What does the elephant means to the government and the narrator? Why the narrator feel bad after telling others his idea toward the vanish of elephant? Which type of person can narrator be in the truly life? What is the purpose of having the woman editor in the plot? 
     And finally, where did the elephant and the old keeper go?

Utopia Project

 Group member: Vince, Andrew, Maldini, Miner & Leon


1.      What one social issue do you want to correct/address?  (Economics, religion, class/race/gender inequity? Please see the prezi on Utopias for types)
(Let’s choose a variety of issues so we don’t have 10 presentations about gender equity).
-          How will this community correct these issues?
-          What central value will your utopia have/promote?
Example: Rush’s Tsau is designed to correct gender inequity. It therefore not only promotes the equality of women, but gives women more rights than men in order to create a woman-friendly culture.

Religion.
Problem: there exist religion conflict cause war
Solution: 1. Only one religion belief - Datong, is allowed in the society
Central value:  Everyone is the different

2.      What are the rules of this society? (at least 10)
-          What is acceptable behavior?
-          What is inacceptable? What are the punishments?

·         In Tsau, only women are allowed to own property and vote.
·         Men are allowed to live in the community, but they 1) must be invited and 2) are dependent upon the women who invite them.
·      
1. Prohibition of firearms and only army can have firearms.（if someone use firearms, he/she will be imprisoned for all life)
2. All managerial staff must be the believers of Datong, and Only Datong believer are supposed to have rights of voting.（if someone break the rule, he/she will be imprisoned for all life)
3. No death penalty allowed, only Life imprisonment can punish the most serious sins.(if someone breaks the rule, he or she will be fined a lot of money)
4. The missionaries from other religion are not allowed enter in the country. (if he did, he    would be imprisoned)
5. Everyone can only wear their departments’ identify color during their work time.
6. Each department has one male and one female leader, the final decision is decided by the male leader, female leaders and Big Leader (who is in charge the whole country, we will mentioned on question no.3).
7. Monogamy and people own marriage freedom.
8. Different departments shall not allow to participant in other departments’ work.(if someone break the rule, he/she will be imprisoned for all life)
9. There is 7 days one week, In one week, 2 days for rest while 5 days for work.
10.The rule of country is fitting the rule of Datong which define people have power to change the Big Leader anytime.

3.      Governance
-          Who is in charge? While it is possible to have one person in charge, this is not common in utopias. Usually the power is distributed as equally as possible. How is power distributed in your utopia?
o   What are the difference branches of government? How do they work?
-          What is the hierarchy system?
o   Who has the most power?
o   Is there anyone whose power is limited? Why would this be?
-          What system is in place to enforce the rules?
-          How does the culture deal with people who break the rules? (How are “punishments” carried out?)

In Tsau, the governing structured is called Kokopelos. Only women can be in this structure and they are women of every age group. Kokopelos has regular meetings, open to everyone in the society in which information is presented and rules are voted on. But the ultimate decision lies with the Kokopelos.

1. Big Leader, who is religious leader and also served as military and political leader.
2. Six different colors represent six different departments’ classification.   Black represent  management department (which charges political and religious management); Red represent the army department (contain the police, the security and the inspection organization); Green represent agricultural department (charging food’s supply) ; Yellow represent industrial production department; Blue represent education department; White represent medical treatment department
3. The religious leader, Big Leader, has the most power. (because he is religious leader, he need to follow the Datong's thought and it limited Big Leader's some of power for avoiding dictatorship )
4. Everyone is limited by the rules of the religious doctrine to show the importance of religion.
5. Religion system.
6. All the punishments is decided by black and carried out by Red.

Response to Mating chapter 4

    In this chapter, the narrator finally reaches the village and been discovered by a local women. However, the wowen treated her friendly and even clean her injures. Then narrator decides to pretend to be an ornithologist to stay to look for Nelson Denoon. During her living in the village, she is given a history of Tsau and told that Tsau's women, and she also learn to speak Setswana. One interesting episode is that another local suspicious woman, Dorcas, making veiled derisive references about bird studies as though she doubts the narrator's cover story. The committee finally votes and they make a rare exception allowing the narrator to stay as long as she is interested in the struggle of poor women strengthening themselves. 

     Through the narrater’s description we can find the village as an utopian society where women get high status and the reason how it comes into being. But what will happen after the committee finally find her real purpose here?

Response to The Handmaid's Tale Part 2

     What will a world fill with red looks like?

      Red shoes, red gloves,  red habits, red bag, everything coverd Offred except her wings around face is white, even the umbrella belong to her is red. The color of blood, defines the identity of every handmaids. According the duty of handmaid, is the red suppose to be the symbol of life? 

     Besides red handmaid, there are many other things are in red. Red brick in thesidewalk, red smile, and red lipstick on Japanese women's uncovered face, which looks sexy. What can these Red be?

      Red remains its mysterious before I finish the whole tale. 

Response to The Handmaid's Tale

       It is hard for me to say understand to The Handmaid’s Tale, which is consider as the classic novel of dystopian and earned lots of reputation. In the selected part one, it only described several scenes, seemed to be irrelevant, of handmaid Offred’s daily life. To me, those scenes looks more like a puzzle. With more pieces I find, a totalitarian society with guarded hierarchy slowly comes out as well as my confusion. Here, I’d like to talk about the things happend in the way they went shopping.

       Offred met another handmaid, Ofglen, in the same dress at the corner. They have been shopping partner for two weeks. At first I though they were sisters since their names are so similiar to each other and in the same dress. However I find my wrong and how ridiculous the fact is. Their names are the combination of “Of” and the family name of the commander they belong to. They even did not have right to own a fixed name because they were at “Handmaid” level. Every handmaid will suffer two years with different three commanders to be a breeding machine, and every time they get a new name. Later on, I find things more tragic than class system itself, it influence how people think while limit what they can do. Among the conversation they had in the way shopping, we can see that only praise, weather and talking about war in the state’s position is allowed. Pelple are afraid by reported by those “eyes” then lost their last living right. They chose to hide their own idea, attitude and curiosity inside and finaly they lost it like Ofglen, that is what ruling class want. In the process they passed checkpoint, the short eye contact between Offred and sodier suggest their nature wasn’t totally disappear. But Offred did know those sodiers were been changed, they prefer to work hard for a higher rank rather than to revolt the brutal guaraded hierarchy. One question I came across here is that why Offred teased the young soider? Does she believe that is an effective way to inspire the sodier?

All I think after finish the first part of The Handmaid’s Tale is that, the strongest weapon the ruling class own is to use religion to limit their people’s mind. And the greatedst enemy stop people to resist, besides the vested interestes, is the unmatch between their eagerness of equal right and their courage.

Response to Boy Marries Hill

           Boy Marries Hill is consider as a piece of drama which is quite easy reading. It only contains three main characters ( which I supposed it to be four include Tapesh’s mother and it will be talk later) and one scene about how the lovers break up. Although it is as short as can be played within ten minutes, I am impressed by the well -developed characters and social problem it reflected while feeling its ridiculous. Here I want to talk about the characters from the the perspective of an only child.

     First of all, I want to talk about the most enriched character even never been shown up, the boy’s mother, whose figure was carved by others words only but lead the development of plot. Through Tapesh’s description we can see she is a kind and brave mother at least in the eyes of her son. She killed her husband for he is violent and harm to her children, raised up children and sent the son to college in America. Up to now, the character of a good mother is successfully shaped, however, a selfish mother is also conveyed. Tapesh said “She always said she wanted me to learn medicine, marry a local hill—I mean girl—and come back to be the village doctor.” From here, we can see her selfish also difficulties as well. She shaped Tapesh’s dream to be a doctor from very young and can only marry local girl. The local girl here obviously refer to girls who live in local area since Darshini is also a Hindu but lived in America. It is not hard to analyze her intention, she had lost her husband, she need her son’s company in her rest life. Therefore, her order for Tapesh to marry a local hill seems reasonable but you cannot deny it as a kind of selfish. Her tough life lead her selfish and later on lead the broke up of Tapesh and Darshini.

     Second comes Tapesh and Darshini. The reason I want to analyze them together is they are at the same level, child level. Tapesh is so obligated to his mother because his mother helped him out of the tough life. However, the obligation he hold conflicts with his love with Darshini. This is also a controversial and common topic in China, especially in Wenzhou. Wenzhounese own a strong sense of regionalism and exclusiveness typically on marriage. Besides, I find Tapesh is not an only child since he said “When I was young she saved us from our father.” It is confused why the author does not set him as an only child. If Tapesh is, his mother’s will to have her son living with her seems more reasonable and therefore the conflict becomes more dramatic. As for Darshini, it is really hard for me to say she is selfish since I am an only child too. At least in my eyes, her lie to urge Tapesh to stay is more reasonable than the lie Tapesh’s mother told. What is more, I also appreciate her choice to stay to work in America at her age, this is also what my true parents want me to do. Sometimes we need to be brave to make decision on our own, parents are important in life but life is not all of them.

     Last is the Pizza boy who I sympathize. I sympathize the poor experience the author set for him. It is easy to see he is set to warn Tapesh does not take mother’s suggestion though he failed. But from Pizza boy at least we can see the author also stand with the view - do not take all your mother’s suggestion.

     There must be some prejudice in my analysis since the reader is an only child, whatever, this is what Boy Marries Hill in my eyes.

Response to The Book of Genesis

     The Bible is regard as a masterpiece of religious work in western country. It earns a lot of reputation for forming the spiritual origin of Christianity. It also influence deeply in western culture, social system and many other fields. Although both my grandparents are devoted Christian, it is my first contact with the Bible. Since I grew up in the environment filled with Chinese culture, it is hard for me to touch the essence of the Bible. What I do following is like to described the flower I see in the other shore and do some compare with I found in this side.

     Firstly, I see God. The God is omnipotent who created the world with sky, sea and various of creature including human in six days. Similar to God, we also have the immortals creating the world in ancient fairy tale here in China. But the difference is that we have more than one omnipotent immortals, and they have spirit of self-sacrifice which the God doesn’t appear to have in the Bible. This conclusion is drew by the different way the create the world. The God in the Bible creates the world and human easily by words while Pan Gu, the immortal Chinese fairy tale devote his entire life. His eyes became the sun and moon, his bone formed the mountains and his blood formed the river and lake. Besides, Nv Wa, the female immortals use soil created human one by one for a long time and endowed them with her own blood. Later, in order to prevent human she made, she used her body as material to fill the hole of the sky. Here we can see two different attitudes toward God, in the Bible it admires god for his sovereign power while ancient Chinese praising the spirit of utter devotion.

     Another thing I find confusing about the Lord God is why he forbids Adam and Eve to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Does the Lord God feared about human becoming as wise as he is? But how come the Lord God would get the fear feeling like a human? The Lord God is suppose to be omnipotent.

     The flower in the other shore always seems charming, hopefully one day I can touch it and feel its sweet-smelling.

The "Light" in How to Tell a True War Story

1."A nature hike, they thought, not even a war, so they went off into the shade of some giant trees—quadruple canopy, no sunlight at all—and they were giggling and calling each other motherfucker and playing a silly game they’d invented."

     The sunlight here means bad expectation. They never expect they would die here or even get injured, it is just like a hike.

2."I remember the smell of moss. Up in the canopy there were tiny white blossoms, but no sunlight at all, and I remember the shadows spreading out under the trees where Lemon and Rat Kiley were playing catch with smoke

grenades"

     The sunlight here turn out to be different, it represent the sign of life. Although Rat still can see some plant, but Lemon is no longer alive.

3."They were just goofing. There was a noise, I suppose, which must’ve been the detonator, so I glanced behind me and watched Lemon step from the shade into bright sunlight. His face was suddenly brown and shining. A handsome kid, really. Sharp gray eyes, lean and narrowwaisted, and when he died it was almost beautiful, the way the sunlight came around him and lifted him up and sucked him high into a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms."

     The sunlight in this paragraph it means heaven and holy spirit.

4."I heard this one, for example, from Mitchell Sanders. It was near dusk and we were sitting

at my foxhole along a wide, muddy river north of Quang Ngai. I remember how peaceful the

twilight was. " 

     Twilight here means the hope of ending this cruel war and go back to peaceful life.

5."...But if I could ever get the story right, how the sun seemed to gather around him and pick him up and lift him into a tree, if I could somehow recreate the fatal whiteness of that light, the quick glare, the obvious cause and effect, then you would believe the last thing Lemon believed, which for him must’ve been the final truth." 

     Here the light is complicated. It superficially refers to the mine killed Lemon, but I think it also means the change of their perspective about the war. There is no moral in the war.

The Schedule of Analysis Paper

Step	Deadline
1: Determine text	March 20
2: literary review	March 25
3: determine element	March 29
4: Meeting with Dr. Marquardt	April  1
4: determine sources	April 6
5: determine quotes from primary sources	April 6
6: determine quotes from secondary sources	April 8
7: Outline	April 15
8: Draft 1	April 29
9: Peer Review	May 6
10: Draft 2	May  20
11: Final Draft	June 5

How to read a war story: Response to How to Tell a True War Story.

 Since born in the peacetime of China, the young people always have endless curiosity and imagination of the war, and I do too. There are only three source of our information about war: history book, TV series and story from our grandparents. When we are younger, we are more appeal to the TV series and history book. They are encouraging and shaped many war heroes who we revere deeply at that time. In those wars, it only cares about what the heroes did to convey the moral of the war, and instruct us to believe and be faithful to our country. Leave aside the authenticity, I still believe those war stories are good, even they appears to be a political ploy. However, when I grow up, I find the stories said by my grandparents more attractive. No matter how cruel the wars seems in the stories, it is true, it is true feeling what my grandparents experienced.

     That is also the reason why I love How to Tell a True War Story. In this article, the author Tim O’Brien confirmedly tells the first rule of thumb is that there is no rectitude whatsoever or virtue in the war. A war is actually evil more than moral, and the authenticity of war story is more important than shaping a hero. In this piece of work, the author avoid to describe grand fighting scenes but a detailed life story of his buddy, who others call him Rat. From the perspective of Rat, we see how cruel the war is, not to their enemy but to soldiers themselves. Rat lost his best friend and got no reply for his terrific letter from the guy’s sister. He wanted to be moral but the war doesn’t allowed. When they were sent to mountains on a basic listening-post operation, they were tortured by various of illusory strange sounds. The pain of lonely and silence only did them know but not the colonel.

     Sometimes it is hard to tell a true war story because it just beyond telling. What makes up a war makes up the true war story, and the war is not only about what soldiers do but also what the feel and think. That is the reason why I prefer my grandparents’ story and deeply moved by Tim O’Brien.

Response to three selections of 1001 Arabian Nights

  1001 Arabian Nights is more familiar to Chinese children with another name called One Thousand and One Nights. It is regard as one of the most popular fairy tale in China. Like many other kids, I read the stories by comic book or heard them from my parents. Without knowing any information about the years and the culture of the society when the book was written, I was attracted by those fantastic stories, lost in my own imagination of handsome kings, beautiful princess and animals who can talk to each other. However, after I searched some information about ancient Arab through the Internet and reread it in word version ten years later, I find some new messages conveyed by those fancy stories.

     In the first selection, Story of King Shahryar and His Brother, it describes two brother kings hate women because both their wives betrayed them, and king Shahryar does not trust the faith of women any more. After slayed his queen, he orders his chief to find him different virgin everyday, what the king do is to abate their maidenhead at night and slay her next morning, to make sure of his honor. What shocked me is that this situation last for more than three years till the day chief minister find no women. Why the rest of women choose to run away while no one decides to stand up and resist? My problem solved when I learned the political institution of Arab at that time. With administrative power as its core, the king plays a vital role in the society. Besides, Islam is the national belief and in its religious doctrine, it emphasize the highest right of their leader and no one can betray him, that is the reason women and their family would rather choose to leave instead of resisting. 

At ancient Arab, all people can do is expecting a wise and able king. So in the third selection, Conclusion, the story has a happy ending. The king Shahryar promises his wife Scheherazade would never hurt her and other women in the country anymore. Then the Shahryar becomes the wise king his subjects except, also the citizens of ancient Arab except.

As for the second selection, The Tale of the Bull and the Ass, I am still confused why it was chosen by chief Wazir when trying persuade his daughter not take the risk. Anyway, I still learned that one must be assertive and make up his own decision.

When read a book, try to associate it with its written year and society, we can always find something new and build a bridge to explore a different but charming culture.