Creative Insight

Leo, Senior 2 Changzhou High School, commenting on the title of “And of Clay Are We Made” by Isabel Allende:

The title: Clay can’t stand up to stress and pressure. It is easy to break. Like the life of the girl, it is easy for her to die. [Some believe] God creates people with clay. The clay can mean us or any human being. All human beings are easy to break too. Our life needs be protected by ourselves and those who love us. This means we are born from earth and die or return into the clay and mud.

White Cloth

"An infant travels through adulthood like a piece of white cloth, so once dyers thoroughly tint it they can not make other major changes."

Armstrong Li, Senior 2 AP English Essay - "Childhood Memory"
Did I mention that I love my students? : )

Flowers of War in Changzhou

I saw Flowers of War in Changzhou, a city that is about an hour by train from Nanjing, on Christmas Eve-afternoon. It was a more emotional experience seeing the film in China rather than seeing it in the States because I am so near the museum commemorating the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. The memory of visiting that museum in August 2011 and touching the notebooks filled with transcribed interviews from survivors of the massacre- oral history fresh and raw in the Chinese memory- shapes my perception of the event in a way that would have never happened had I remained in America.

My students at the Changzhou High School of Jiangsu Province and I have discussed issues of censorship and art in our Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition class. We also discussed the credibility of one of my senior 3 students to critique the film in the context of the rhetorical triangle- her ethos.

Read what the director, Zhang Yimou, had to say about the making of the film in this L.A. Times article.

'Flowers of War's' Zhang Yimou: Censorship limits Chinese films

We live in time -- it holds us and moulds us -- but I've never felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assure us passes regularly: tick-tock, click-clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing -- until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.

The Sense of an Ending by J. Barnes

Yellow Ostrich

Alex Schaaf, singing Sharon Van Etten's "Love More" from her album epic

When I was in Congo, I heard my students say that when an elder died, a library burned down. This Yellow Ostrich song callled "Libraries Burn Fast" reflects the speed of knowledge production and the murkiness of memory in the information age of wi-fi and world news in a minute.

The Yellow Ostrich Website

Libraries

Let me take your words from you today
Tell me what you’ve always yearned to say
Sing about the trials you have known

‘Cause there will be a fire here today
All you see will slowly fade away
Into ashes, shadows and the mist

Make it quick, don’t try to understand
Trucks and hoses soon will be at hand
Tell all that you know before you go

And I will write it down here in my book
I promise you that I will never look
Until the day has come when the fire starts

Libraries burn fast
When they’re in the past
Once you leave all your stories will be gone
Libraries burn fast
They weren’t built to last
Flames of memory burn brighter than the rest

Libraries are burning
Should we try to save them? What will we be missing?

Banana Flower Toting Santa

I bought this stuffed monkey at the Taihu Electronic Music Festival in the Joyland Amusement Park in Changzhou, China on October 28, 2011. It was a misty night, and I remember two amorous robot dancers in their red blinking body suits circling each other lustily on the outdoor stage. My monkey is having dreams of space and fantasy journeys to lands where stuffed animals frolic free.

(http://www.taihumusic.com/)

International Women's Tea Santa Claus

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Writers on Writing: Students on Writing

My student in senior 3, Sun Yi, reminded me to slow the pace of my life. She recommends an unhurried and deliberate approach to the day. Working closely with her on the editing process, I recognized her philosophy of creating art emerging in this piece.


In Sun Yi's words, "The hot pot slowly reveals its attractive fragrance under the fire. The hot pot needs to be persistently and patiently cooked so that it becomes the symbol for the creativity and culture over thousands of years. I am also the cook, in the kitchen, in my life, slowly absorbing the knowledge, constantly putting effort into my pursuits and gradually displaying my talent. I bring happiness to others’ stomachs and hearts."

All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotion. - Joseph Conrad

Grow With Why

Sun Yi wrote this brief application essay for entrance into Tufts University, bringing a delightful new insight to the word WHY.

Why, Why, Why, Why, Why...

This word in my existence keeps annoying my parents, and later in school sometimes makes my teachers confused. Scientists try to fill the mystery behind this word. Philosophers and sociologists devote their life to this word, formulating various interpretations, but never reaching an agreement.

This word, combining both simplicity and complexity, is important in every culture and for every individual. It doesn’t matter in Chinese, English or other languages; this word can be used as a single word or added into any situation.

That is my dear “why”.

I never stop asking:

Why does a rainbow have seven different colors?

Why can’t fish close their eyes?

Why does this or that happen?

“Why” is the essence of my education and the key to my achievement. “Why” forms my habits of acutely observing, constantly questioning, widely searching, carefully testing and logically analyzing. “Why” gives me energy to study days and nights and never lose my strong curiosity. “Why” shapes my determination to study abroad, to pursue my dream as a diplomat regardless of all the challenges, and today, to apply to Tufts.

I grow with “why”.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

All of our family acquaintances have followed the same path: their youth spent trying to make the most of their intelligence, squeezing their studies like a lemon to make sure they'd secure a spot among the elite, then the rest of their lives wondering with a flabbergasted look on their faces why all that hopefulness had led to such a vain existence. People aim for the stars, and they just end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right away from the start that life is absurd.

- Muriel Barbery

Weekend QQ News from Yixing

A Penguin Waddles In Yixing

principally due to our wonderful co-hosts, Jon and Mark, one of whom was recently referred to as my BF- boyfriend. That's weird.

Who decides when and if someone becomes a BF or BG? In this case, it was a friend I was chatting with online. My friend and I were talking about our romantic prospects at Thanksgiving. He was going to spend the holiday with a woman he had met in the Peace Corps in Niger, and I was spending the weekend with Jon. A few days after the holiday, my friend and I picked up the thread of our previous turkey day conversation, and that is when he referred to Jon as my BF.

Despite labels, Jon is Jon, and he gave me a plush gift on Saturday- a QQ stuffed penguin joining the friendship circle of my fuzzy teddy bear and pudgy monkey. May he be a happy QQ penguin in their midst.

Hand warm feet warm sleep! Impulse Buy

electrothermal water bag pillow for heating my hands and feet

photo shot with my Mac cam

It was a crazy-sort of impractical (but also practical because I need the heat) impulse buy when I was in the grocery store today. The product is a "utility model hand heater electrothermal water bag for heating hydrothermal body heat" according to the description on the box. What this means is that it's a plastic pillow with a gelatinous substance inside that heats up to boiling in about 4 minutes. The company, Meilu Electrical Appliance Factory, makes similar designs of the same pillow, which you can see on the company website.

Three of the seven characteristics to enhance the quality of this product include:

1. Hand warm feet warm sleep;

2. the use of simple easy to carry;

3. and, ideal for heating is a new generation.

I just hope it doesn't burn down the house!

Top Five Regrets of the Dying

By Bronnie Ware

From: Regrets of the Dying

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard. This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks...

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
This is a surprisingly common one.

Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice.

They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Hongmei: Red Plum Park and Tianning Temple

One of these things is not like the other!

Dumplings!

Tianning Temple November 26, 2011

Tom's Crystal Clear Whiskey Glasses

Temple Wall

Tianning Temple in Changzhou on November 26, 2011

Beijing Temple Stairs on November 19, 2011

Thoughts, thoughts like crazy rushes of the November breeze stirring my autumn imagination and generating questions about why I am where I am... of all places, China.

At a random bus stop in Changzhou, I look down at the sidewalk and small intimate piles of phlegm and blood cling stickily to the concrete. One man is squatting, unknowingly I suppose, over the red human stain looking as if the shiny fluid underneath him is being excreted from his rectum.

I finished reading Haruki Murakami's short story "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning" and felt like weeping because humans are doubters, always questioning happiness and equipped with only a faulty sense of fuzzy memory.

The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in the chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

Without a word, they passed eachother, disappearing in the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don't you think?

To preserve his anonymity, I will refer to him as: The Man I Am Dating or TMIAD. I saw this man off at the bus station Sunday afternoon. He helped me tidy the kitchen after we had eaten breakfast on Saturday morning, and he sprinted to the bus station Friday evening so he would make the last bus that dropped him in Changzhou at 7:30. That's backwards. We spent the weekend together and found some not-too-sweet Chinese white wine. We drank it in bed from Tom's crystal clear whiskey glasses. He's a vegetarian, TMIAD, not Tom- which is a bragging point on his behalf. He introduced me to vegetable dumplings at the dumpling fast food chain Wu Da Niang Dumpling.

I am full of 12 vegetable dumplings and one green tea and red bean smoothie. The weather reminds me of a tropical summer's day and there are banana plants in the park.

I would take a nap if I could. But I shouldn't.

Nanjing South

SAT Identity

My students in senior 3 wrote an essay on their midterm exam addressing the power differential in relationships between themselves and important people in their lives such as college counselors, teachers, mothers and fathers. Alyson's essay struck me as typical of the American college entrance experience for many Chinese high school students. My students are competing for places in the top universities in America, which only compounds the pressure.

Alyson's Analysis

The conflict in the essay I write is about the conflict between counselor (college) and me. My counselor insists that "I should put all my energy and time on improving my SAT score," and my hobbies or interests should be put off to the side. She wants the outcome (of a higher SAT score) and she takes charge of the talk.

I want my conversation in the essay to appear as a conversation between a busy business woman and her poor client. She makes me feel that I am working for her because she is condescending.

Alyson's Essay

When I talk to you, look at me. OK? Show your respect. Shen Zhoutian, are you listening? Give some reply, OK? Are you listening at all? Look at people's eyes when they talk to you, OK? Mind your manners. I don't know, but I think your eyes make people feel you are flippant. I am worrying about you. You are certainly not going to pass the college interview with the admissions officer. If I were the college admissions officer, the least person I would want to accept is you. I tell you, you are doomed if the college requires an interview. Mind you with your eyes, OK? Do you have any research? The college application requires you to write about research that you have conducted before. OK- that-eh-eh... stop, stop here. Do you even know what research is? I can't understand what you're writing. And what are you talking about? I can't understand and the admissions officers cannot understand either. So don't tell every step of your so-called research. Do you really have no other to write about? Are you sure? Just remember what I tell you. You should write it down, you know, in case your forget about it when you write. We have a tight schedule here, and time is limited. There are 5 students waiting for me. So how's your test preparation going? What! You are learning Spanish now? Don't joke. Look at what time it is. You are applying for colleges. Now focus on your SAT, OK? Promise me. Are you a serious girl? Your friend takes the SAT course, and she has a score of 2,300. You are way behind her level. The most urgent thing you need to do now is improve your SAT score. Do you have confidence in yourself? OK, I see. Send me your college essays before this Sunday. I have a really tight schedule.

American Girl: Dating Game

Life

I never thought I would date in China.

I had given up the search assuming that most Western men wanted only to experience the female Chinese partner. Dating a Chinese man seemed like a cavernous cultural divide both incomprehensible and inaccessible. I was dreading the lack of intimacy when... I wasn't alone anymore.

to be

continued

photo caption: The school bought me a new mattress- a comfortable highlight of my day on November 14, 2011.

Yixing, China - November 12 and 13

Shanjuan Caves in Yixing

The Lovely Snail Woman

Bride Beautiful... groom too

Stealing Ice Cream in Changzhou

Sophie Ren

Professor LJ the Raingirl

AP 2 English

11 November 2011

The Ice Cream Thief

Changzhou, China always has a hot summer. I hate summer because it’s so hot. I just want to stay in my room with the air-conditioning on, but on the other hand, I love summer too. I don’t have to wear a lot of heavy clothes like I do in the winter. I don’t feel cold any more, and I love sunshine, although sometimes it’s too bright. But the most important thing is that I can enjoy my favorite ice cream at any time.

Last summer, I was living in my grandfather’s factory. I bought a huge supply of ice cream and put it in the chest freezer. The chest freezer was sitting in a small room on the first floor of one of the buildings at the factory and other people knew I had my delicious ice cream there. When I felt like eating some creamy and cool ice cream, I would go and get one from the freezer.

Time passed. Suddenly, one day I discovered that it seemed the number of ice cream treats was not correct. I counted them carefully and then left. The next day, I opened the freezer and checked again. To my surprise, I had lost one of my delectable ice cream treats. When the count did not add up to the correct number, the smile disappeared from my face. Several days later, I lost two more, which made me think I should investigate the situation. I was going to catch the thief.

There is CCTV in the factory, but I did not want to watch a minute-by-minute video record of the entire time period my ice cream had been disappearing. It was too long. I was not sure when the thief took the ice cream, so I gave up on that plan after watching only a small part of the video. I didn’t find anyone in the video, except me.

Second Step: I checked on all the trash cans outside the building. I finally found some wrappers from the ice cream in the garbage; however, I proved that they were bought by the workers. I failed again.

I changed my tactics after getting nowhere with first two strategies. I decided to warn the thief rather than catch him. I wrote a letter with the words, “Don’t steal my ice cream! I am always watching you through CCTV!” on it and stuck the letter on the chest freezer so that anyone who opened it would see it. I didn’t lose my ice cream anymore. The thief got the message.

Later in September, I was told that it was my cousin who ate my ice cream. I realized I was like a little stupid child doing all these petty tricks to catch a thief. I felt like a 5 year-old again who cared more for her ice cream than her cousin. I knew now that I shouldn’t have worried so much about a few ice cream treats that disappeared from the freezer. I relaxed and chose to ignore small things which don’t matter. The world then became a better place.