Life Of The Old House

I was born in Iran (or Persia), and lived there until I finished first grade. Around that time my dad was already a western medicine doctor, but he decided to attain a PHD in Chinese Medicine by enrolling in a program at “ Beijing University of Chinese Medicine”. Thus, before I attended second grade, my family and I, sold everything we had in Iran, in order to begin a new chapter of life in Beijing, China.

Zhang Yimou presents a breathtaking snapshot of life in China from the 1940s to the 70s through the lens of a single family in “To Live”. China faced many tumultuous twists and turns during this time period as the country transitioned out of the bygone feudal society. Each decade brought in a new era: the civil war of the 40s, the communist regime and the “Great Leap forward” in the 50s, and the cultural revolution of the 60s. Zhang captures the essence of these distinct periods within the progression of Fugui’s family, a bittersweet story of perseverance against all odds. The plot of the story is rather simple, following a linear structure. The graceful juxtaposition of various historical elements alongside the underlying primary plot makes this a true masterpiece that manages to condense the lives of individuals into a short chunk of time.

The various negative influences on China are depicted through the characters that come and go in the Tea House and by the monologues of the three men who had ideals that were crushed by self-interested corruption. Foreign influence is portrayed negatively and Qin Zhongyi laments that although he advocated saving China by industrializing it, the government took his factory from him, demolished it and sold the equipment as scrap. “Is there anywhere,m anywhere in the whole world that you’ll find another government like this one?” he asks mournfully.

George Ella Lyon is a storyteller and that can be seen throughout her amazing collection of poems in the piece Many Storied House. The reader is able to experience everything with the family as it happens through the halls of George Ella’s family home. Lyon takes the reader through a range of emotion with the narrator. George Ella brings so many personal issues and hardships to light for the reader to walk alongside her down the hallways of her childhood. The style that Lyon uses, allows the reader to experience the emotions felt by her during these parts of her life. Weather is be her parents marriage issue or her own struggles with suicide and sexual abuse. We get to explore the different personalities and

the officials ...saw an opportunity to play their favorite game, Let’s make a regulation. This bag is too long. You can’t take it on the train….but these weapons are Chinese cultural artifacts, they can’t leave China….it was determined that the weapons might conceivably leave China, but I would need special permission… A Cantonese policeman I had met a year ago suggested that I give a small martial arts demonstrations… my pants split wide open ….a crowd of giggling old ladies rushed forward, convincing the officials to let me through without further delay. (p 3,4)

The Living Old program is about the United States of America population of people who are over 85 years old. This video was broken down into a six chapters. The first chapter was called, “Our Aging Society.” This chapter was about how the geriatric population is growing and changing our current society. In addition to the present changes, Doctor Audrey Chun commented on how people in the past died from pneumonia, flus, and other things such as infectious diseases. Whereas, in present time people are dying from chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart failure, strokes, diabetes and other things that require management over the years. This chapter also touched on how the current health care system is not set up to treat chronic diseases.

Kaye Hong grown up in San Francisco and attended university of Washington. At the begging of his essay, he was not sure where he should lie his future in because he sees his future clearly in both China and America. Through half of his essay, we can tell that he is also considered China as a weak and low quality county by saying, “I shall deplore China’s lower standard of living, that the chaos of China’s government offers me no promise of economic security” (62). Although he had thought of go back to China, the bad living condition and insecure economy has immediately stopped his thinking. To put it differently, Hong is also lack of knowledge of China, and they way he looks at China’s future was incorrect. Indeed, at that time China’s economy and condition were not as good as today. But due to his enormous population, it is possible for its citizens to make it strong and rich, which this is also what the Stanford students are trying to express. However, Hong is very pessimistic with China’s

The struggle to conform to both a particular social group and society as a whole has been a problem throughout the course of history. The pressure to conform has led people to completely change who they are and what they believe in. People who feel this pressure have been known to terminate friendships with people who are not in the particular social that they wish to conform to and become an all-around different person. This can include changing the way that they dress, the foods that they eat or the way that they act. In Gary Soto’s Behind Grandma’s House the main character is a clear example of this. The main character is not only trying to conform to a new social group but is also doing so against the wishes of his family. Conforming is always difficult but it can be made even more difficult but, as illustrated in Soto’s poem, if the familial support is not present where it should be.

Kinsay, China was one of Polo’s favorite destinations to travel to. He called it a “city of heaven” (“Marco Polo”). The houses of the city were very detailed and extremely elevated with layers of stone to prevent any fires from burning down the town. But, Polo’s favorite spot in the city was a gigantic watch tower in the center of the city that you could gaze over the whole town and wander your eyes across the

Today, the exact reasons behind his name change is still unknown. As a young child, Chin was schooled in the comfort of his own home, where he received lessons on literature and calligraphy coupled with core studies. In 1940, upon reaching adulthood, Chin was accepted into one of China’s top universities, Yenching University, where (INSERT HERE) program. Besides his early childhood education and his attendance at Yenching University, there is not much information concerning Mr. Chin’s upbringing

This book is a harsh criticism China's housing reform system for destroying its own people, written by the author who observes China from liberal's point of view. The author, Qin Shao wrote for those people who want to learn about the large-scale housing revolution in China throughout crucial experiences that citizens have gone through. It criticize the demolition and relocation system, questioning the level of morals. In introduction, he gives concretely negative words of China's abusing housing system and as he explains the historical process in order. For instance, Shao describes the government's policies and its corruption as “crucial,” “distrustful,” and he even calls them as “ugly twins.” There

Initially, the main character, Jing-mei Woo, lived in San Francisco. In contrast, her half-sisters lived in China. This spatial difference fostered Jing-mei’s lack of knowledge of what communist China would be like. This presents a distinct challenge in the story as there could have been over half a billion people in China

Sze states, “Under changing political contexts that reshaped the literal spatial development in Shanghai, its residents faced immense changes in the physical and ideological landscapes of the city.”(p. 111) She then goes on to say that even though the city was supposed to be a landmark in cultural renovation and cutting edge Chinese architecture, that it looked similar to the western building. Skyscrapers like the ones in Shanghai, “But the Shanghai Tower and Dongtan are not as different as their architectural rendering would imply.” (p. 91) Sze’s view of Dongtan was similar to that of a Californian city in the United States. The fact that the same American developers that made many cities in the U.S. also built these buildings leaves no doubt that the building are similar intentionally. The feelings that Sze has on this seems a bit misplaced seeing how she is an American with dethatched Chinese ancestry. She makes the inferences that it makes her mad and upset that her home island was made to be an alternate American city. One with whites models all over the street signs and American companies. To me this seems like a cultural push, whether it was intentional by the Chinese government or not, to force our culture upon the Chinese. An article by Gizmodo state, “When we talk about China, we're usually talking about megacities like Beijing and Shanghai. But China has

Communist China uses propaganda and force to hide the truth from the public, as well as controlling them in a sense. Ha Jin writes Waiting and in this book he comments and portrays communist China in great detail. Waiting’s main character, Lin Kong, is commonly criticized as indecisive and unable to love. In an interview published in Asia Week in 1999, Ha Jin comments on Lin’s inability to love:

The Abandoned house stood there, with fog rising to the sky. Lights flickered being the only light in the dark….. The fog dragged a cold breeze, that sent a chill up my spine, this house has been here forever and nothing like this has ever happened before, I gulped and strolled into the cold night fog. As I approached the house, the door slowly opens and a Shadow steps towards me. The weather just dropped like 40 degrees, I don't like this at all.