Blog #4

What is a good thing for the children’s development? To tell them to follow the rules of this world or to let them do whatever they want to do? Everyone knows that the feeling of to do things with a big freedom is wonderful. But how many of us have thought about that if that is a good thing or a bad thing? We can let the children to play or watch TV all the day; on the other hand, we also can have controlling for children to limit the freedom they think they should have. Which way you will choose if you are a parent? Some of the parents just thought that playing is good, it can let the kids learned something through the playing. What they did was sitting side to do their business and let the kids play games or eat lots of snacks while they are watching TV. But without the parents doing something to direct the kids, how the kids can learn something from “playing”. And also I don’t think those are not kinds of playing that the children can learn something. The parents should tell the children that this world is limited, is not totally free. If they couldn’t get this massage when they are kids, it only will bring more pains when they understand it older. So I don’t think to let the children too free is a good thing for their development.

Fat or Thin?

In today’s life, we are having too much criticism, and “become too fat” is one of the things we are criticizing crazily. I am not agreeing that become too fat is a good thing for the healthy and the body developing, but as we put too much attention on the words “too fat”, it becomes a sick of this society. Some people deeply believe that “fat” is totally bad for the human body; and “fat” also becomes a marker that not smart enough even stupid. The thinner you are, the more beautiful and smarter you have. But for the other kind of people they just think “to be fat” is the popular of this world. They don’t care how fat they are, and they don’t think become fat is “my false”--because this world is becoming “fatter and fatter”, there is nothing wrong to become fat. All the things are talking about “to be fat” and “to be thin”—to be normal or to be beautiful. Who even have thought that why we do care about become fat or thin? Just only because of the ideas of this world, because you care how the others look at you? Where is the “healthy” we wanted and needed to talk about at the beginning? My thought is that because we put too much criticism on “become fat”, we began to transfer our attention from “health” to “how the other people look at me”. It separates the people to go to two extreme directions. We should back to the point that we began to discuss the problem to become fat; and only if we do that we correct the “sick”—some people wanted to become thin is because hate fat, and some people don’t care to become fat is because the world wants them to become fat.

Blog #3

In this video, there are two kinds of total different lives of two children. One is living in a big house, and he goes to school to get his education. The other one is living in a small dark and dirty place, and he have to work every day and have no chance to get education. The music of this video very fits the plot. The music is lively, but in the music there is a heavy tempo with the song. It seems like to tell the people to think about the life—when we are in the good environment, have we ever thought about that it still has another opposite life in this world. I thought this is a compelling argument as it let us to have a chance to see a different kind of life that we never ever have a chance to experience it. The difference is so big that it makes me felt sad about it. For this video I thought it has made two kinds of appeals, one is telling us that we should be content the things we got and the lives we have; the other point wants us to pay attentions to the children who are having the unfair life, and also it wants us to help them.

Essay #2

The Power of Literacy
I still can remember that, when I was a child with no senses about reading and writing, my grandfather always kept telling me some words: “书中自有黄金屋，书中自有颜如玉。” (in the books, you can find the house which is made of gold, and also you can find the woman who is beauty.) These are the words from Chinese ancients. Because of my young age, I did not understand what my grandfather was talking about at the time. But I did begin to learn how to read as I wanted to find the golden house and beautiful woman in the books.
As I did not know the characters in the book, the first step I went to find the golden house and beautiful woman was “looking” at the book. In the early time I learned to read, I didn’t know the characters, so what I can do was “reading” the pictures in the picture book. I was busy at finding something. What was I looking for? Of course the golden house and the beautiful woman! Every time I found the house looked like made of gold and the woman like snow white and sleeping beauty, I always showed them to my grandfather and asked him if that’s the gold house and the beauty woman he has talked about. But every time I only got the same answer: they were golden houses and beautiful women, but they were not the house and woman he has told me. That was a confusing answer for me—it seemed I was right, and I also was wrong. I really couldn’t get the answer, but I began to get the shape of the world from the picture books I have read.
In the first two years of elementary school, I began to learn the pinyin and some Chinese characters; so at that time I kept going forward on the journey of finding the golden house and beauty woman by real “reading” the books—but it was reading the pinyin, not the characters. As I was reading the books by pinyin, I should guess the meanings of some words and sentences. At that time, I got lots of different kids of stories, like the Snow White, the Thumb Girl, and the Supper Telephone; I also got lots of rules of this world, like I should say “Good morning” to other people when I see them in the morning, I should say “Sorry” when I do soothing wrong, and also I should say “Thank you” when some one helps me. I have learned lots of truths, like the trees needs to water, the starts never fell down, and fishes can live without water. I also learned lots of things that told me how to become a human, like we will have happiness, but also sadness; I could be a winner, but also a loser; we have loved, but also hatred. In my world, the things became to have their own sign—good or bad, black or white. Although I got more and more things in my little head, one thing has never changed, I still wanted to know where the golden house and the beauty woman are. As liked the time I was reading the picture books, when I found some words sound like the golden house and beauty woman in pinyin, I kept asking my grandfather that: “Did I find the golden house and the beauty woman you have told me?” I still remember that my grandfather always kept smiling, and then he told me that the more books I have read, the closer I can get the answer I want to get. Here was not the end of the journey, I should keep going.
I just kept going on the journey to finding the things I wanted to get. Time went by, I got more and more characters of Chinese—I learned the meanings of them, I got the senses of them, and I had the ability to use them. Books became more fun and serious for me as I really could understand them, not by looking at and not by guessing.

Bolg #2

We should have the freedom of speech and wearing clothes, but it never means that we can ignore other people’s feeling. To speak something and to wear some clothes are the ways that we show our thoughts out. For the video of “Obama t-shirt”, I think the school does not have the right to let the boy put off the t-shirt, as the boy just wanted to show his points about the fact that “Obama became the new president”. But the “Redneck” t-shirt was not showing a fact. It just showed a point of view that some people have—not all people think that is true. Also, the word “Redneck” may hurt someone’s feeling—which is not a part of the freedom of speech.