Xiag Yi Observations

About a year later, Mr. Chong and Jing-mei's mother wanted her to play in a talent show that was going to be held at the church. Jing-mei was going to play a piece called "Pleading Child." Her parents invited just about everyone they knew to come and watch their daughter in her moment of glory. When Jing-mei's time came to play her piece, she was so proud of the way she looked that she wasn't even worried about how she was going to sound. She walked up to the bench, sat down, and just started playing away. Then it hit her. She didn't know the piece, and just about every note she hit was wrong.

When Jing Mei recognizes the similarities between her mother and herself she begins to understand not only her mother but herself as well. There are subtle connections and likenesses from the beginning between Jing Mei and her mother that Jing Mei does not see. The book commences with Jing Mei taking her mother's place at the mah jong table, creating a similarity between them from the beginning. Suyuan dies two months before the start of the book, and therefore is not able to tell the stories. Jing Mei has learned and must tell her stories in her place, forming another parallelism between mother and daughter. Because Suyuan is dead, Jing Mei must act in place of her mother when she goes to meet her Chinese sisters in China. Throughout the book Jing Mei takes the place of Suyuan, showing she and her mother

Towards the middle, Jing-mei knows she isn’t been doing well on the tests, but her mother persists by giving her harder tests and begins quizzing her on anything from predicting the weather of cities halfway across the world to finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards. Thoughts such as, “[...] she wasn't good enough,” (2) start to occupy Jing-mei’s mind. Her focus on her future fame suddenly disappears as she no longer wants to be famous, or anything special for that matter, in fear of ‘not being good enough’ at a growing list of things. Her fear of failure significantly contribute to her self-doubt.

However, once Jing-mei stepped off the plane and saw her sisters, she was able to embrace them with "all hesitations and expectations forgotten"(331). The rapport between Jing-mei and her sisters demonstrates the capability of Jing-mei to forget her fears and have faith that she can do anything. Both Suyuan and Jing-mei worked through their problems by remaining strong and willful, making their lives much easier in the end.

Our second character is Jing-Mei. Jing- Mei lives with both her mother and father. Her mother wants her to be a child prodigy, "a Chinese Shirley

The name of Xin-hua translates to New China and it was her powerful belief for a new China that made her determination so strong. Throughout Forbidden City her determination seemed to grow. It required a lot of guts and determination for the powerless ordinary people to take on the all-powerful government. Determination, though not her only characteristic, was certainly the strongest one, but through her determination she showed Alex a different world. To die for your country is not as heart rending than to be executed by an army who used to die for their country instead of killing their people. Xin-hua, though fictional, was one among thousands of people who died for their beliefs and still had no effect on China's Communist Party.

May gives life to the bat, who is flirting with the ball at the same time the ball is in and out of the mitt being tossed around.

swinging three bats in the on-deck circle. The reaction to him doing so indicates that he

Furthermore, Jing-mei discovers, “Old Chong’s eyes were too slow to keep up with wrong notes [she] was playing,”(472). As a result, Jing-mei performs “Pleading Child” miserably at the talent show her parents and all of the members of the Joy Luck Club attended. Jing-mei saw the disapproval and shame on her mother’s face, and decided to stop practicing piano. If Jing-mei’s mother wouldn’t have looked so disappointed and been proud of her daughter Jing-mei wouldn’t have been so discouraged. Jing-mei would’ve still had faith in herself like she did before her performance. “When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. This is it!” (474). After seeing the dismay in her parents eyes Jing-mei changed her whole outlook on the situation, which weakened Jing-mei’s pride, causing her to fully rebel from being a prodigy. Furthermore, encouraging her to be who she wanted to be.

In addition, Jing-Mei says, “then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me”(2).

Suyuan had very high expectations and envisions of what she felt Jing-Mei should become in order to make make it in America. Suyuan became obsessed with the fact that she could give her daughter the chance to experience the american dream; which in result caused her to start to compare Jing Mei to Waverly, the daughter of her friend, who coincidentally was a chess prodigy. Suyuan did everything in her capability to give Jing-Mei the opportunity to become an excellent pianist. Jing-Mei’s mother offered to clean the house of a retired piano teacher, Mr. Chong, in exchange for piano lessons for Jing Mei. Everyday, Suyuan pressured Jing Mei to practice the piano even though Jing Mei had no interest.

Instead of taking part in the Confucian beliefs that his father is involved in, he spends most of his time walking through the gardens talking to females that cross his way. Bao-yu has his own beliefs and doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. When is comes to Bao- yu’s maid he usually mistreats him because he thinks he has such power coming from a royal family. When Bao-yu sees Dai-yu weeping on the rock, he becomes emotional at the words that she is reciting and begins weeping along with her. This shows the sensitive side of Bao-yu and how Dai-yu emotions also affect his own. However, he has a fun and playful side to him as well. He constantly seems to be speaking to women, especially Dai-yu, in a flirty way. For example, he “could not resist teasing her a little” (87) when he was trying to get Dai-yu to talk to him after she

In the Reign of Assassin, Xi Yu is a female assassin who decided to change how she looks after she met a monk, Lu zu. Lu zu taught her for months and tried to stop her for killing more people. Xi Yu did not want to listen to him, so he sacrificed himself by letting Xi Yu killed him, hoped that he was the last person that she killed, and before his death, Lu Zu told her words from Buddha. Those words let her finally understand and want to leave the path being assassin. She went to surgeon to change her face, she only want to get ordinary face and has ordinary life.

There are ancient accounts about the history of a small kingdom along the Yellow River that existed from about 2,000 BC to 1,600 BC. The main ancient accounts are in the Records of the Grand Historian (史記) that were written between about 109 BC and 91 BC by Sima Qian and another textthat is called the Bamboo Annals (竹書紀年) that was a text that was said to have been buried with the King of Wei who died in 296 BC and was rediscovered in 281 AD during the Jin Dynasty. The text was written on flat pieces of bamboo, and this is why it is called the Bamboo Annals. Are these accounts accurate? It is said that the Xia Dynasty people didn't keep written records, but that their histories were passed orally. Archeologists

Qi is energy that is moving around in the meridians of our body. The meridians are throughout the body and they correspond to certain internal organs. The purpose of the meridian points was for acupuncture and moxibustion. If one were to prick the meridian points, instead of getting rid of the pain, the disease would worsen it. They could also be used as a deadly weapon, if you hit the right meridian at the precise point. Qi is found in the lower abdomen and it passes through the whole body. Qi is used in medicinal by letting energy flow through the body and it also fight against illnesses. Qi is also used in fighting because it would help with either creating a resistance towards something or it will help with using full force in a battle. The vital points are