Summary Of The Record Of The Peach Blossom Spring By Tao Yuanming

Nature is the playground for every human. It is essential that we include nature in our lives; it keeps us on our correct path. However, if we dismiss ourselves from nature, we begin to stray from our correct path. We become engulfed in the distractions from the modern world . The only approach to appropriate this quandary is to break our pervicacious ways and return to peaceful serenity known as nature.

In the essay, “A Literature of Place”, Barry Lopez expresses the importance of nature as it applies to human life. Through this he states that humans’ imagination are inspired by the scenery around them. Lopez revolves around a central perspective; Ancient american literature has always been rooted in nature. By acknowledging that modern human identity has been interpreted by nature, Lopez describes how the landscape of an area can shape the structure of the communities and how it can help with spiritual collapse. Nature writing has often been summarised by being one of the oldest threads in american literature. With our nation's aging one needs to reflect on their literary past; therefore, Lopez insists that we find our path to nature that

Soon the men began to gather. Surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk.(1)

From that first day of kindergarten fraught with mothers scraping their loving sons and daughters from the safety of their legs, to those tearful partings between lovers, siblings, and friends as careers, family, and extenuating circumstances fling you two on opposite ends of the state, the country, or the globe, separation is an opportunity at growth often masked with considerable pain and hardship. In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the Narrator must face a great number of conflicts, from alienation to avarice; the numerous trials and tribulations he faces are troubles difficult to face alone, but chief among them is a conflict he must fight alone: dependency. In this passage, the Narrator must face the mutilated mountain ridge torn apart by recent storms with Luo, whose daily journey to the Little Seamstress’ village has grabbed his attention. Soon we realize there’s more to this journey than Luo’s supposedly excessive fear of heights and come to see that their camaraderie is a crutch the Narrator depends on. Through his experience on that ridge, his attempt at separation and autonomy reveals itself to be no more than a boomerang careening away from dependency on Luo and looping back again.

“There were orchards, heavy leafed in their prime, and vineyards with the long green crawlers carpeting the ground between the rows. There were melon patches and grain fields. White houses stood in the greenery, roses growing over them. And the sun was gold and warm.

The Tao Te Ching is a 81 chapter book written by Lao Tzu. It’s wisdom is entirely immortal and focuses mostly on the theology of Taoism and explaining how Tao is part of our lives and how we as people can become part of the Tao. In the 81st chapter of the book, Lao Tzu describes to us a village of people and how they live their lives. In my analysis of this chapter I have come to agree with Lao Tzu in that this is the way that enlightened people live their lives and that living any other way than this will only lead to conflict

Tao Qian, also known as Tao Yuan-ming, was a Chinese poet of the Six Dynasties period. Tao was well versed in the classics of Confucianism and Daoism, which is evident in his poetry. However, he wasn’t known for the extent of his knowledge but for his distinctive voice as a poet of transition and reclusion. Throughout his life, he held and resigned several minor posts before his ultimate decision to renounce public life and “return to his gardens and fields” (Owen 1996, 312). As the founder of the poetry of “fields and gardens,” Tao’s writing revolves around nature as a philosophy and as a way of life that embodies the simplicity of living in recluse, away from the chaos of high society. He uses the philosophy of nature not only to retell

“She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with new spring life.” Speaks of hopefulness and rebirth

While physical isolation allows customs and practices that are far more violent and brutal in “Blind Mountain,” in “The Isle of Wang’an,” isolation seems to romanticize and ameliorate every

Zhang Zeduan’s masterpiece depicts the landscape of his hometown, Kaifeng and the life of its people during the Song dynasty. Nearly 500 years later, Qiu Ying portrayed his hometown Suzhou in a similar way, but in his version, the scenes are different to the original version. Compared to Zhang, Qiu Ying added more blue-and-green landscape patterns, and the feeling of the artisan is not strong in this work. The most important thing is that both artists show different visual perspectives of the culture and customs of the city.

“…till he came to the country that he did not know. The valley opened out into the great plain dotted over with rocks and cut up with ravines. At the one end stood a little village, and the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe” (Kipling 55)

When the sun slowly peeps over the range of mountains, birds shake the morning dew off their feathers and give a cheerful song that would lift even the most sorrowful of spirits. A light fog wraps around the mountain range, reaching to touch every bit of life thriving there. The slight chill in the air is enough to give a gentle shiver, but not enough for the need of a jacket. A breeze tickles the trees, making their leaves shake and sway with laughter. Sunlight seeps in past the thick canopy of branches with hopes of being able to reach the damp mountain earth. The mountains are the best place to live to be relaxed, see the most beauty, and never get bored.

A landscape painter “tended to be a recluse, an individualist, and a Daoist (Morton and Lewis 2005).” These artists thought of landscape painting as the “grandest and most satisfying way to represent nature as a whole, to feel a sense of communion with nature, and to know oneself to be part of an orderly cosmos (Morton and Lewis 2005).” Thus, one can see the implications of landscape painting lay not just in its beauty and simplicity, but also in its spiritual connection with Nature, and thus had wide appeal. The point of view in landscape painting was also of paramount importance. The Chinese artists understood that Western artists took in scenes from five or six feet from the ground. Chinese artists worked from a raised viewpoint, so that they are not bogged done by small details in the front and get a better sense of the whole scene (Morton and Lewis 2005). Every part of the image that is created has its own innate interest, and yet it all comes together and works well as a whole (Morton and Lewis 2005). It is clear that landscape painting was a cherished and important art form in Song Dynasty culture.

At the bottom of this society you have the peasants, who are seen as commodities: killed by communists and oppressed by foreign landlords. For them the Japanese occupation is not much different from the British Rule. For some it’s better than the British rule. The Chinese-Malaysian elite share the same limited “free” of Sartre’s “bad choice.” Sartre mentions the dilemma of people making choice under constrained situations which he called bad faith. Caught between a rock and a hard place their choice is molded by the rocks and this situation is similar to the “follow the request of the stone” philosophy of building Japanese gardens. It represents one the most important principles in designing a garden and symbolizes the average Malaysian’s dilemma. Ironically when building the Japanese garden in memory of her deceased sister, Yun Ling had to observe this principle. Caught between a hard place and stone she and her sister had to make unwilling decisions during the Japanese

Secondly, in Wang Anyi’s short story, “The Destination,” Chen Xin experiences the changes in his home city, Shanghai, following a ten-year period of life in rural China. In returning home, Chen Xin embarks on a never-ending journey to find true happiness. As a young man, he volunteers himself to move to the countryside in order to avoid the repercussions of the Communist government. The Cultural Revolution,