The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Hueshi

While reading different essays addressing the topic of nature, I came to the conclusion that they all shared the idea that being outside can make an impact in everyone no matter if you believe you only belong in a city or forest because it can bring you serenity and show you all the amazing things you wouldn't be able to see anywhere else. In Wendell Berry’s essay “An Entrance to the Woods,” he states that people can use the quiet of the woods to forget all their problems. Berry wrote “One is that, though I am here in body, my mind and my nerves too are not yet altogether here. We seem to grant to our high-speed roads and our airlines the rather thoughtless assumption that people can change places as rapidly as their bodies can be transported.” Nature has a way to transport ones mind and spirit elsewhere while the body is left behind on earth as we travel deep into thought. Adding on to that idea, the essay “A City Person Encountering Nature” by Maxine Hong Kingston the author explains that nature is a giver of peace and patience with its slow cycles that may frustrate people, but help keep a sane mind. Society is fast paced, making everyone feel that they need to keep the same pace in order to get things done, but we don't realize that although our bodies are moving and pushing, our minds are exhausted and cannot keep up with the fast pace. Kingston wrote “Preferring the city myself, I can better discern natural phenomena when books point them out; I also need to verify

With authenticity, insight, and compassion, Mitali Perkins delivers another culturally rich coming-of-age novel, The Bamboo People. Chiko and Tu Reh are dynamic narrators whose adolescent angst and perspectives permeate the trauma of their daily lives. This novel takes place against the political and military backdrop of modern-day Burma. Narrated by two teenagers on opposing sides of the conflict between the Burmese government and the Karenni, one of the many ethnic minorities in Burma, The Bamboo People explores the nature of violence, power, and prejudice. Perkins gives readers a glimpse into what it means to be a hero. Readers will not return from this book without a new sense of the geopolitics of modern day Burma (Myanmar). War and

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is comprised of eight short stories about different Indian families’ struggles in America, many of them going through the immigrant experience. The conflicts are with friends and family, and also with themselves, as each of them attempt to find their own identity along with fitting in with the rest of society. One of the causes of these struggles that because the families in the stories are mixed in terms of generation. Many of the adults in the stories were first generation immigrants from India, while many of the children were raised in the United States, which is the second generation. This led to blending of culture and at the same time, clashes between the immigrant mentality of living and the American mentality of living. In Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri demonstrates to the reader the important influence of environment, specifically culture and how it impacts parental teachings, on the personality and development of an individuals’ identity, and how the actions and development of characters can affect one’s family and friends; the impact of environment and culture is shown especially by the characters and stories “Hell-Heaven” and “Hema and Kaushik”.

The novel centers on the theme of social class, a key factor that separates the world of Amir from Hassan and tries to hinder their true friendship from blossoming. As what caste system suggests, those who are under the dominant and powerful party must adhere to rendering service to those in the upper class. True enough, in the novel, Hassan respects and admires upper-class Amir amid neighborhood bullies and intimidation which make them stick together through any hindrance. It is in their friendship that the concept of caste system is explicated.

In his novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini depicts his homeland Afghanistan as a host to many different cultures and classes, such as Pashtun and Hazara, Sunni and Shiite, with this dichotomy of beliefs and attributes being powerful enough to shape diverse, sometimes negative relationships amongst the characters of the novel and their behavior to each other, as well as establish that individual’s identity. Each person interprets the impact of the role of belief and social status differently, while all living in the same setting, adding to their complexity and depth as a character in the novel with many different figures tied together by the same geographical and cultural conditions.

“Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are, it solely relies on what you think”, The Buddha. Buddhism is a message of deep enlightenment for the spiritual mind set of breaking the chain of reincarnation to achieve nirvana. Buddhism was founded by a man named Siddhartha Gautama who lived five hundred years ago. He spawned a spiritual enlightenment for the mind which we call Buddhism and eventually it came to the United States. Buddha, spreading his teachings of the four noble truths throughout Asia and many parts of the world that would someday enlighten the minds of the American culture and help lead people to a higher state of enlightenment. Over many hundreds of years Buddhism has transformed into many sects throughout history and is becoming one of the many fastest growing religion in America. (Pew, 31-33).

Completely by different circumstances are the members of the middle generation shaped – Amir, Hassan and Assef. Their childhood covers the transitional part of Afghanistan’s 20-th century history. Of course, the boys are really different in nature, but Soviet occupation is what caused such different roads to be chosen by the three characters. And that huge change in their lives determined who they are going to grow into as adults.

Through its ethnocentric tales and family based beliefs, Elizabeth Warnock Fernea’s Guests of the Sheik suggests that to find the true representation of Islamic culture, one must leave ethnocentrism behind. Not only will we discuss ethnocentrism and the cultural differences between Western and Middle Eastern societies, we will also take a look at the women of El Nahra and family within the differing societies.

The Buddha in the Attic is an emotional novel written by Julie Otsuka in 2011. The novel is unique in the sense that it is written in the first person plural in order to tell the story of many characters simultaneously. There isn’t a set plot except for the chronological stories of multiple picture brides coming to America in the early 1900’s. Each chapter serves as a major section in the women’s lives and assimilation into American culture. The first chapter is titled “Come, Japanese”, which focuses on why the women are coming to America. They describe the decision, sometimes forced, and journey to come to America to meet their new husbands. Many did not necessarily want to come, but they were promised a better life by their husbands, and most of the families of each wife received some sort of endowment money. One of the wives’ said that she was forced to go to support her family, while her older sister was working at the local geisha house just to put food on the table. They described the crowded conditions and long journey of the boat ride, as well as the cliques made and friendships formed on the voyage. All they knew of their husbands at this point was from a letter that was usually not written by the husband, as well as a picture, which was usually of a different person. Each woman’s story was different, and they all had different motives for coming to America, whether to seek a better life or better yet, forget about their previous life in Japan. They all had

Amir and Hassan enjoy each other's company and spend their days playing together, but their friendship is one sided majority of the time. Hassan is constantly sacrificing himself to please Amir, yet Amir never expenses himself in Hassan’s favor until after Hassan’s passing. The relationship between Amir and Hassan is difficult by the fact that Hassan is a Hazara, which is a lesser status in Afghan society. Although Hassan is loyal and faithful, Amir is torn between his love for Hassan and his sense of shame at being friends with someone who his society views as below him. Amir is faced with a constant battle within himself to love Hassan as Hassan loves him.

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.

Amir’s misadventures begin as a boy living in an affluent Afghanistan world. On the day of his birth, his mother hemorrhages to death. Robbed of any feminine influence or comfort, he goes to his overshadowing Baba for love and acceptance. His father denies his only son the tenderness he desires, leading Amir to believe his father despises him. After all, Amir’s

In the novel “The Moor’s Account” by Laila Lalami, the author stresses how the main character Mustafa is effected by his family and how that relates to the future he has in the New World. This is most identified by how he feels about his father, the giving up of his name, and his struggle to fight for a new life. Unlike other slaves in the New World, Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori chose his fate for the possibility of a better life. He had the opportunity to try to work for himself and his family while still in Morocco. In fact, his father had even wanted him to do that. But Mustafa knew that he was confident in his decision to sell himself into slavery so that his family can be better off from there. In the story, the reader sees how Mustafa struggles as he journeys from Morocco and across the New World in search of the possibility for a new life. Overall, the reader sees how Mustafa struggles with not following his father’s guidance, his loss of humanity from his name being taken away, the quest to avoid changing his entire humanity in his new life, and how everything changing has affected him and changed him as a person.

Buddhism arose in northern India in the 6th century BCE. The historical founder of Buddhism, Siddharta Gautama (c.560-480 BCE) was born in a village called Lumbini into a warrior tribe called the Sakyas (from where he derived the title Sakyamuni, meaning 'Sage of the Sakyas'). According to tradition Gautama's father, Suddhodana was the king of a small principality based on the town of Kapilavastu. His mother, Queen Maya, died seven days after Gautama's birth. Following the death of Maya, Suddhodana married Maya's sister, Prajapati, by whom Gautama was brought up in great luxury and sheltered from the harshness of the outside world.

The work of literature “Midaq Alley” by Naguib Mahfouz introduces the audience an Arab culture through his descriptions of different characters. Each character is used as an analogue, representing people in the alley with different beliefs and ambitions. Moreover, the characteristics of Mahfouz’s characters also draw international readers’ attention concerning how westernization takes place.