“United we stand, divided we fall. “ -- Aesop. In the book The Good Earth, Pearl Buck uses Wang Lung’s marriage to O-lan to show that as a unified people they make each other whole, and fill the gaps that the other has. Before Olan, Wang Lung had different views on schooling, slaves, farming, and loyalty. As Wang Lung married Olan they started very different because of the different up bringings of both of them.
Neither O-lan nor Wang Lung went to school when they were children, so they didn’t find it necessary for their children too. Wang Lung wasn’t in school as a child because he had to work in the fields for his father. Olan wasn’t in school because she was sold by her parents and raised as a slave in the House of Hwang. They didn’t plan on sending their children to school when they were born because they thought that they would be needed in the field. Then when Wang Lung became rich and tried to go sell something, he couldn’t read what the paper said, and that was when Wang Lung decided that his first son needed to go to school.
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Wang Lung grew up as a child in the field with his father learning how to do his work. When Wang Lung’s was thinking about selling his daughter as a slave, he didn’t know what it was like so he wasn’t against it. But Olan did know what it was like so she told Wang Lung that they would beat the girl and rape her if she was pretty, so she was completely agaisnt it. They agreed that they didn’t want their daughter beaten and raped so they kept her, and were thankful later on because she was mentally impaired and would’ve been
3. “It is over once more. It is only a slave this time- not worth mentioning.’ Wang Lung stood still. A sense of evil struck him.
The young girl Sarney was taken from her mammy at a young age and raised by another mother. Most children are taken away from there families at a young age, but if there lucky they left at 7 years old and sometimes even longer. Most children are taken away because they were bought by other slave owners which became there new master. While slaves are kids they are sold around throughout childhood. Children aren’t strong and tough yet
Hee-Sook Lee’s conversation with her daughter about how she and her husband broke the mold for the traditional Korean’s. Lee had never seen her parents kiss, or even touch. Which is common among Korean marriages. It wasn’t until she met the American missionaries and saw their model of marriage that allowed affection. So right then and there she decided that she would have that kind of marriage.
Amy Chua’s intense Chinese mother style is extremely hard on children. The author begins explaining how many stereotypical Chinese children become successful.
Jiang Ji-li and her family were forced to make difficult decisions due to the prejudice on their family name. Ji-li was not able to audition for a place in The Central Liberation Arts Academy because her family’s political background would not have passed the strict recruiting requirements. She was certain that she had a good chance of qualifying based on her skills, but she obeyed her father’s instructions to not compete. Ji-li felt that it was unfair for her to be judged by the position of her ancestors rather than her individual talent.
“Her actions remind me that, even under unbearable circumstances, one can still believe in justice,” in David Henry Hwang’s foreword, in Ji-Li Jiang’s memoir Red Scarf Girl, commemorated even during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution anyone can overcome adversity (9). Ji-Li Jiang was a young teenager at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and living through a very political time in China’s history made Ji-Li into the person she is today. Ji-Li’s intelligence, her choices, and family devotion made her into the headstrong and successful person she is today. Even when Ji-li thought she was unintelligent, others saw she was wise. There were many moments when Ji-Li was reminded she was very smart.
The novel, The Good Earth, is set in a time period where the terrors of war are brewing and people are starving. Plagues of locust, floods, droughts, and famine afflict the nation. The protagonist of this novel, Wang Lung, and his family experience these adversities along with the rest of China; however, the countless hardships that mark the early 20th century cannot stop Lung from fighting for his family. He takes advantage of every opportunity that crosses his path. When they are starving, he strips bark off trees to calm the aching stomachs of his children.
In the story, Chang competes with her husband’s concubine, Ma, for her husband’s favor. Out of envy, Chang murders Ma. Chang’s immoral actions, though unpunished in any governmental sense, directly lead to her demise. Firstly, her husband dies, and upon remarriage, Chang suffers a long and difficult labor. The story reveals that, “In broad daylight, Chang saw Concubine Ma holding a stick and whipping her belly” (xx).
The novel’s fictional version of China is sometimes an unfairly bleak portrayal of the country, and its most shocking scenes cohere with false Orientalist narratives of Western imperialism and Asian inferiority. However, for an American author, Buck writes with unique authority; few Westerners in her era could match her breadth of knowledge about China, and even fewer could match her dedication to the advancement of cultural empathy with China. Despite the inescapable influences of dominant Orientalist narratives, Buck was able to craft a socially truthful, yet relatable text for Western audiences. Looking back at the outsize impact of The Good Earth, it becomes clear that it defies conventional definitions of Orientalism. Rather than assigning the ‘Orientalist’ label as a veiled accusation of racism and ignorance, scholars should instead recognize that—with the appropriate author intentionality and real-world impact—certain Orientalist works could be culturally acceptable, if not valuable
It came to dominate my understanding of the discussion on the social and historical scene and to restrict my ability to participate in that discussion.(444) If we go back and use the reference again of the electronic tool we can see the struggle of being at home and communicating with her family and having an influence of capitalistic viewpoints and living the life of a capitalist, then immediately having to communicate in a different language at school and being surrounded by socialistic views and living the life of a socialist. Her thoughts were constantly flip-flopping and this became very frustrating for her. If we bring all these struggles into one main purpose, Min-Zhan Lu’s mother falls into silence two months before her death and Min-Zhan Lu attempts to “fill up that silence with words that I have since come to by reflecting on my earlier experience as a student in China.(437) The struggles that she faced growing up in China as a student and her past experiences have really helped her overcome life obstacles and develop her as a better reader and writer.
MEMOIR: INTERVIEW WILLIAM WU I 'm a first generation Asian-American. I was born in Lima, Peru, right before my parents came to America from China, and we moved to America when I was one. Growing as a first generation American, my parents worked a lot. I can 't say that I wasn 't loved, but my bond with my parents was weak because I was always home alone, being babysat by others, or going out because they had to work.
She'll get it whether I give it to her or not.” This shows his obvious disregard to see her as a human being. To him, she's hardly even human and doesn’t even deserve a second thought. Another example of a slave being treated inhumanely would be in the part of the story describing a slave, “Weylin called her a good breeder, and he never whipped her.
She seemed to lack social skills for interacting with her classmates. Wang looked different from working in a textile factory, working there stained her hands and she had old faded clothing. I feel that Wang lacked education because her father appeared uneducated she worked in a factory, and because she did not have the right social skills to fit in with her classmates. Moreover, her father was an uneducated man.
The fall of Hong Kong gives this couple some spaces to live together, to have an ordinary life. As the poem from the Book of Song says, humans are not able to control all the events, "but through natural turns of events and against all expectations" (Louie 23), the couple holds each other 's hands and gets married. Chang gives the story rather a happy ending, Fan Liuyuan is able to marry the woman he loves, and Liusu gets remarried, she gains back her social status. However, many scholars question that if wealth and social status are all Liusu desires. She achieves what the society expects of her, but maybe this is not what she desires in her deepest heart.
In this paper, we’ll study some of their famous pedagogy thought to explore what influences they have brought to the Chinese and westerners’ cognition and behavior and why the two civilizations developed in same period would diverge in such a degree. Furthermore, I