Stone's Annotated Bibliography : The Da Vinci Code

In the fall of 2006, a lonely girl by the name of Jessica Jiang sits in the corner of a noisy classroom in Shanghai, China with a unique journey that dates all the way back in a hospital at Edmonton, Canada in the blizzard winter storm of 1999. The faces of the childhood friends flows through my mind, as well as the curiosity of the new things coming into my life. This all started from when I came to China from the United States at a age of 7 years old.

The parents came out of Grandma’s room by one by one, bags under their eyes, makeup running down their face, and bright red noses. By that time, I could almost predict what happened. As my mom and dad approached us with their heads down, I prepared myself to hear exactly what I never wanted to hear. “The doctors are turning off the life support machine. She isn’t suffering anymore, and she will be looking over every one of you guys. She said she loves you all so much,” Mom told us while my dad didn’t hide his tears back.

     Mark Salzman’s purpose was to take you to China and introduce you to the people he had met on his journey. He had published this book only two years after he had gone to China. He desperately wanted to share an outsiders look into China and what influences were in his life. Mark wrote so fluidly that it was person to person.

The night air was heavy with silence. Clouds drifted across a calm sky, and a full moon shone in the distance. In a small hut on the outskirts of the valley, an old man lay in bed, awake in the peaceful slumber of the village. His breaths came in rattling gasps, his forehead burned, and his joints felt stiff with pain. He shifted on the blankets, his withered hands clenched in fists as he tried to suppress the wave of bitter memories coming to him. His life had been nothing more than work, loss, tragedy. He remembered all of his hope, his ambition, in his youth, and he smiled bitterly. No one would remember him as the man that he had once hoped he would become. Now, as his breathing became heavier and he felt himself fading on the brink of

In her essay written as a travel journalist, The Old Man Isn’t There Anymore, American journalist Kellie Schmidt does a remarkable job entertaining readers with the awkwardness of her relationship with her Shanghainese neighbors, and describing a subsequent Chinese funeral. The author explains her neighbor’s hesitancy towards having a friendship with her in the shared three story house she had lived in four a year. After she observes some of her neighbors crying in the hallway, she phones her cleaning lady and learns an old man in the house, who she has believed has always said hello to her, has died. In her continued attempt to be neighborly, Kellie takes flowers to the family of her deceased neighbor; while there, she was invited to the

A morbid melancholy stole over me. Anxiety gnawed at my heart. I was a living corpse. There was a feeling of chill in the air every day as I felt. I faked illness so as not to go to school. Despair hangs heavy in the stifling air. It was a dreary day for me , cold and without sunshine. I dread people and always avoid people. The door was locked from the inside. A cold grey light crept under the curtains. The windows were secured with locks and bars. The room felt cold and sterile.The flowers faded for want of water. A single lamp was suspended from the ceiling. The clock ticked louder and louder in a quiet room. I regarded the room as a refuge from the outside

Crumpled newspapers scattered the table like the bones of dead bodies after war. Windows wiped down of memories huddled between oak frames, facing a street with cosy cottages. Single embroidered carpets hugged the floor, covering the marble tiles in delicate silk. A whisper of wind floated in through cracks of the panes of glass, whispering it's songs of misery throughout the house. I breathed in gulps of air, allowing the icy coolness to fill my lungs, and the morning frost creep out. My glistening blue eyes presented purple bags, and my sleek hair was a tangled cobweb. My feet dragged along the stone floor like the walking of the undead. I’d been up all night, searching and seeking for answers.

Nonfiction Children's Books: 3- 4th grade: Not only do these four children nonfiction books show resilience, but they also convey social injustice in the world.

They filled me with the images of two invincible grandparents who were to always be the same. Fun, energetic, and strong enough to carry me through any adversity. These illusions were shattered by my visit back. They had aged so much in the years I was away. On the plane ride to Guangzhou, I painfully remember the anxiety I had as the plane ascended and descended. My grandmother had developed heart disease and weakly smiled through the turbulence. It was torture to see her in that state. To watch helplessly as I clutched her arm tightly, distracting her through the discomfort. From that day on, I swore to protect my grandparents. Now it was my turn to hold their hands and create a better

Suddenly, I was at home in Irvine looking across the table at my brother playing on the IPad. My father was no where to be seen and the apartment was quiet. Currently, the smell of the hot pot has become symbolic of my connection to my father. Recently, my friend and I drove an hour in horrible traffic to LA in search of the same hot pot that I had eaten in China.

It’s so still here, so quiet, so peaceful. I walked past rows of gravestones as I finally approached the site where my relatives lay. To many, visiting their relatives in a cemetery can be a sad experience; I however, was happy for them, because they still gathered together as they had before. I smiled as I remembered those times, when I was but a child and I could just barely see over the table. I could hear their talking and laughter again. How warm and familiar it all was! I remembered how laughter would erupt after my father told a good joke – he was always telling jokes. I could even smell the feast my mother and aunts would cook for us, and could almost feel them slapping my hand as I tried to sneak a piece of turkey before the meal. I remembered sitting at the smaller table with my cousins and siblings, feeling as if I were too old to sit at the kid's table. I remembered feeling left out, as if the adults kept some kind of grown-up secret from me. That same feeling I felt again, as I stood there seeing them all lying as they used to sit, in those two long rows. Although I had grown to be an adult, they still seemed to keep some secret from me, one that I was not to know of yet, one that I am not ready yet to

I slipped beneath the surface of the pool of grain, my hands sticking straight up over my head as I held my breath, preparing for death. I was preparing for the world to go silent. This was the exact situation my father had warned me about, and I had fallen victim to it despite that. Fourteen years old as of two months ago, and death had already come for me. Or so I thought. I felt firm, callused hands grasp my own, plucking me from my grave. The relief was wonderful. I drank the air in, filling my burning lungs with as much as possible. I almost laughed out of sheer happiness – until my eyes met my father’s.

On a train my father and I, Going to Guangzhou then Shanghai. To see my aunt, he hasn’t seen since he was ten. Then see my twin sisters who survived death, He has tear in his eyes.

Today was funeral day. My mom’s funeral. It was a dark October thursday, the clouds were brewing a storm. A slight breeze disturbed my neck. My uncomfortable suit sleeves bellowed in the cold breeze.. I hadn’t felt any emotions since the day of her death, which was weeks ago, almost as if my emotion is grey. It was warm then, as my mind was too. Nowadays, up until today, my mind has been a dark fog, as if my mind was released into the sky, darkening everyone’s day, arriving at my mom’s funeral or just to cuddle up with their friends and family in front of a warm crackling fire, telling the stories of their childhood and how times were better. Not me, my dad usually ignored me and he only worked on managing my mom’s fortune. Yeah. My mom’s

And I was there, too, hoping to find you and say to you, Come back, come back, there's only one street, one door, we didn't mean it, we didn't know, whatever was wrong will be different. Several times I decided you were dead, even wished you were dead, but then another postcard would come, with another message to ponder. And I've always read them, even when my husband said not to, even if they've driven me to tears or rage or a blankness when I've no longer cared if you were dead or anyone were dead, including myself. I've been faithful, too, you see. I've always looked up where you were in the atlas, and put your postcards in the box. Sixtythree postcards, four hundred—odd lines of scrawl: our life together. Why are you standing there like that? my daughter asks me. I must have been away somewhere, I say. But I'm back. Yes. You see, Mother, I always come back. That's the distance that separates us. But on summer evenings, when the windows are open to the dusk, I sometimes smell cities … wheat fields … oceans—strange smells from far away—all the places you've been to that I never will. I smell them as if they weren't pictures on a postcard, but real, as close as my outstretched hand. And sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll sit bolt upright, my husband instantly awake and frightened, asking, What is it? What is it?