The lesson-by Toni Cade Bambara

The main problem of poor people (often they are ethical groups), I think, is they haven’t realised they are poor and being treated unfairly. Every time I pass redfern, I saw many aboriginal people beg or crazily run along the street. They seem quite happy to live on the support of other people or the government and seem feel no shame. And I have talked with many poor people in China and in Australia, most of them are indifferent with their lives and never thought of flighting for better lives or better treatment.

Just as the children in this story They thought they are the smartest in the street and don’t care about education provided by the teacher who is also black. They wouldn’t realised they are poor if they haven’t taken to the shop in the town. The price of a toy is the amount of what a family could earn in a year. Without knowing how other people lives, the poor children would not know they are being treated unequally. Without realising the inequality, poor people are impossible to flight for what they desire.

So I start to understand why Chinese government tries to block the source of information for people to know the past and what is going on in China. Because once they know the true, it is possible for them to flight for their rights. If they have no idea of their situation, they may content about the existing lives though might be unfair.

Note: Toni Cade Bambara is one of the best African American short story writers.

The use of force-by William Carlos Williams

The story is written by William Carlos Williams and quite worth thinking for a while.




The doctor uses force as a means to check whether the girl has deadly illness. Trying to hide the sore throat, the girl dares not open her mouth, so the doctor uses violent actions to open up the girl's mouth. Finally, the mouth is opened but with brood and the girl's tears. The doctor's inner activities is quite interesting: he say to himself that what he is trying to do is in good purpose and it is what doctor should do-save life; but he also enjoys the violent attack, imagining he is tearing the girl apart. There is no description of the girl's psycological activities, but we can imagine that she obviously knows her illness and the need to be checked. But she tries her best to defense and would not let others know her secrect. After she is forced to open her mouth, her defence becomes attack with anger and frustration.



I natrually connect this story to the relationship between US and Iraq. US attacked Iraq violently, claiming that they did that for the sake of peace and welfare of people in Iraq and the rest of the world. But is it justified to use violence to achieve peace? During the war, how much blood and tears it brought with? How many innocent people died for so call "justification"? In the story, the doctor gains his success, but in the light of the girl's feeling, it might be a lost. Iraq people, just like the girl, know the ills of their country, but they just don't wanna other countries to solve problems for them. They try to defense though they know they may be better if the illness of their political system is cured. After US successfully won the battles and arrested Saddam and his accociates, people in Iraq started to attack US army by suicide bombs and terrorist attack. Exactly as what the story descrides!



The war, I think, is the exaggerated human conflict. The means applied to achieve the good aim might not be necessarily fair and justifed.

The Celestial Omnibus-by E.M.Foster

The Celestial Omnibus is one of the short story written by E.M.Foster.
I was attracted at the first beginning. A boy is curious about the sign-post opposite his house. It points up a blank alley with the words”Heaven”. He was told that the sign-post is a bad joy made by a young man ages ago and there is no need to think about it any more. But he can not control himself and decides to visit the alley to find out what is in it.

There is a notice on the wall of the alley saying that the company provides sunrise and sunset Omnibused, the passenger could buy a return ticket at this end and will not be issued ticket from the desitination. It seems there is Omnibus driving pass the alley everyday but why nobody knows? and why the dust on the ground is so thick? May be all the things are just bad joke.

But it is not the answer the boy wants.He want to prove that whether the Omnibus exists or not-he senses that all of them are true. At the dawn, he gets up, downstairs and heads to the alley. I can’t breath at this moment:imagine that I have to enter into a dark alley that nobody will go and may encounter something terrible. Normal person will be terrified but curious drives the boy to find out the truth.

There is an Omnibus! The boy jumps into the bus and was taken further and further away. Finally he finds out they are riding on the rainbow! He is in the heaven! It is true! He is right! The boy has a happy time in the heaven, talks with different people and runs across the rainbow.

While when he is home, his story is not believed by his parents. The guest-Mr.Bons appreciates the boy’s potery but disbelieves that is true. The boy insists he has not tell a lie and successfully persuades Mr. Bons to have a ride with him.

Things happen again. When Mr. Bons sees the Omnibus and has been taken to the ride, he worries and frightening, afraiding he is being kidnapped. But when he hears the boy met some people that are the authors of his great books, he is overjoy,deciding to have an intellitual conversation with those admirable authors. But when he realises only the boy not him can go back to the world he scares to death. He cares nothing but cry and beg. Finally he falls through the rocks as it were water and vanished.

Next day, his body is found by people in London, had apparently been hurled from a considerable height.

I am thinking why Mr.Bons is not allowed to return to his world. I think the ending indicates that Mr.Bons lack of imagination to enjoy the peotry and own the books without appreciate them. The boy, may not have read all the great books that Mr. Bons proud of, but he can really enjoy what he have encountered and what he imangines. The boy,rather than the adult, is more welcome by the heaven and is allowed to return to the world. Mr. Bons falls from the heaven because he could not appreciation the joy and beauty of the heaven which actually is a symbol of imaginary literature world.

The Warden-by Anthony Trollope

Some said that this story is based on the real event happen in St Cross Hispital. But Trollope denied this, saying in the beginning of story that :

Were we to name Wells or Salishbury, Exeter, Hereford or Gloueester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended…We are anxious that no personality may be suspected.

But I doubt this. It seems Trollope tried to avoid troubles by claiming that the story is not real. But the harder he tried to deny, the more we believe the story is real to some extend. Anyway, it is just some of my thought beyond the subject matter and we are not gonna find any information in reading fiction.

The book is well structured and related smoothly. I am not familiar with religion so it took me some time to figure out what is archbishop, clergyman, archdeacon, canon and so on. But after I have known what those mean, I fully enjoyed reading the story. By the way, I find it useful to draw or write the charactors and their relationship in my notepad. The strutures would be presented more clearly and I don’t need to bother to remember all of the name of charactors.

Chapter I briefly describes the warden, Mr Harding-his personality, his family, his job responsibility, and the cause of the conflict. As the value of the trust estate keeps increasing and the amount given to 12 bedesmen is fixed, which means the large amount flows to the warden and the steward rather than beneficiaries. The warden is a kind old man who has never doubted with his stipend until he hears some rumors that trigger his thought.

The story begins in Chapter II. John Bold, a rich heritor (if he is not rich, I doubt that the reform would not be happen), has a very good wish to seek justification for the society as he knows the huge payment to warden contradicts the nature of the will by John Hiram and is unfair to the 12 bedesmen. Things would not be so complicated if Mr. Bold is a merely a stranger to Mr.Harding. Unfortunatly, he is a close friend to Mr. Harding and he even falls in love with Mr. Harding’s daughter, Eleaner. Mr. Bold’s reform is by no means unjustifiable, however his act aggravates the warden’s inward suffering. Actually, not only the warden but also Mr. Bold is internal conflictive. This is reflected in a conversation between Mr.Bold and his sister, Mary:

Mary: And for what?For a dream of justice. You will never make those 12 men happier than they now are.
Bold: The duty of righting these poor men would belong to nobody. If we are to act on that principle, the weak are never to be protected, injustice is never be opposed and no one is struggle for the poor (pp. 46-47)

Personally, I admire Mr. Bold. Even though he seems to act on impulse, he is passionate and ready to sac
rifice all he has-his wealth, love and friendship-for social justice. It is rare to see this kind of people nowadays.

Mr. Grantly, the archdeacon and the son-in-law of the warden, is a strong opponent of the reform. He is not a bad man; he just a conservative man ready to fight for anyone and anythings that may harm the reputation of the church. I think Mr.Bold and Mr Grantly are similar: they are both strong, determined, confident and believe in what they believe. That is why they are enemies at the first beginning but turn out to be friends at the end.

Mr. Harding is tortured by two set of opinions represented by Mr. Bold and Mr. Grantly. In addition to those forces, a newspaper call Jupiter publishes some opinions attacking Mr. Harding. He can not stand it not because he is weak and scared but he has awared that there is something wrong with the distribution of the money. He can not live on those money that should be given to the bedesmen. It is his self-consciousness and honesty that impress me.

Eleanor wants to help her father and thus begs Mr.Bold for giving up the case, ready to give up her love in return for her father’s peace and happiness. She is really a unselfish and naive woman! At the end, Mr. Bold gives up his act and find himself deeply love and beloved. But this does not exempt the warden’s pain and doubts and he decides to resign.

Mr. Harding: A man is the best judge of what he feels himself. (p.142)

The ending is a happy one: Eleanor marries Mr. Bold, Mr. Grantly and Mr, Bold become friends and Mr. Harding lives free from worries and pain. While the 12 bedesmen are the true victims of the reform: they are given hope of receiving large sum of money every year and get nothing more at the end and even lose their best friend, Mr. Harding who is the only one that truely care for them. They live and then die sadly and lonely. What is the use of the sudden wealth to these old men? Nothing can make them more happily and cozily. I think it is a pitfall of the reform.

Reading The Warden is one of the happies thing in these two monthes. This is a great book that worth reading.

Stories of belonging (1)--edited by Kali Wendorf

It is the 'belonging' in the title attract my attention. But what on earth is belonging? Is it possible that we do belong to something? And belongs to what? I can not define it, so I want to see how other people think about belonging.

Not all of the stories are good enough, but some of them are quite impressing.

The second stories: Jasmine Petals by Banafsheh Serov.

The author tries to connect main events in Iran with her grandparents' lives, her parents' lives and her own life, in order to define their belonging in Australia. I appreciate her attempt, but unfortunately, parts of the connections are not smooth and well enough. However, the beginning and the ending of the story are touching and well express the real feeling of most of the immigrants. As an immigrant, he or she belongs to two countries or belongs to neither of them. More often than not, immigrants can not waive their memories and their family bond in their own country while they are not truely accepted by the country they are living in. It is kind of sadness of semi-belonging.

There are some of her words:

My grandmother found her sense of belonging in her devotion to her family and her religion. Her children, now living in exile, find their sense of belonging in common memories, culture and the language they share with others from Iran. Her grandchildren left Iran before they could form any lasting memories of their own, yet our dark features and slight accents set us apart from locals in our new country. We exist at the peripheral edges of both cultures and at times struggle with our identity and sense of belonging.

The end of paper books?

Some people said that the e-books will eventually take the place of paper books because they are costless, easy to be accessed and convenient. However, although I appreciate the merits of e-books, I do not share their opinion that the traditional books would lose in the market. Audio books and others can supplement, but not replace the traditional books.



Of course, e-resource has numerous benefits with the help of computer and advanced gadgets like iPad which are capable of storing and downloading large amount of books from the Internet. It is cheap, compared with the paper ones. And for some people, they can listen to the audio books while they doing housework or read e-books from the gadgets at anyplace and anytime. In addition, writers are also benefited from rich information online and the e-version of out-of-print books downloaded.



Nevertheless, the e-books may not replace the traditional books; instead, they could enhance people’s initiative in reading. More often than not, an e-reader would first access to e-book to see whether the book is worth reading, then he or she would buy the real book if he or she find the books appealing. On the other hand, the feeling of reading the real books is different from reading on the screen. Especially, the readers can mark, make notes or underline in the real books which can not be substituted by e-resource.



While the real problem lies behind this issue is the regulation and implementation of piracy. How can we make sure that the e-readers pay for the information? And what amount should we pay? If we do not pay, is that means we are committing crime? Mess of problems have to be resolved and discussed.



Overall, e-books would only make traditional books more important

How to Read a Book--by Mortimer J. Adler (Discussion 2--Readable)

Readable.What is this means? Apparently, it means easy to understand. You may say, Oh I get it--magazine is readable, newspaper is readable, sixth-grade textbook is readable.

It is true that these books are easy to read because ithe language they use is simple and straighforward. They convey idea and information that are easy to catch. They call for little effort to understand.

But this is not truely readable, as far as I am concerned, they are just simple to read. The readable ones should have logical sense with little gramma mistakes. What the books are trying to say should be well structured and has no or little ambiguous expression and can be understood by readers who have make reasonable effort to read.

One clue to see whether the book is readable is to find its "bone". If you can briefly state what the book is trying to say and what is the important words or sentences in the book and what the author is trying to argue, the book might be readable one.

The great books are readable in this sense. Why the great books can pass from long time ago to nowadays is because they are readable, well written and can convey knowledge to the readers.

How to Read a Book--by Mortimer J. Adler (Discussion 1--Active learning)

Only those who learn actively can benefit from reading books. That is the reason why I prefer self-study to being taught by school. When I engage in learning process either by reading or writing, I am actively exploring new knowledge on my own.

Most of students hate reading books because they are trained to swallow content in the books, they are directed to the wrong way of learning, they are spoon-fed by teachers and thus they lack of actively learning enthusiam. That is the failure of today's education--we are trained to be taught not are taught to learn by ourselves.

One of my friends said that every time he tried to read a book, he would quickly fall into asleep. He blamed his unsuccessful reading attempt for lacking interest and talent. While I think the cause of the failure is due to the fact that he had not prepared for active learning and not fully realise the hardship in the process.

Actively learning needs huge amount of effort, relative skills, determination,awake mind and so forth. It sounds terrible and difficult to most people and that is why some people never try to learn actively. While like any other kind of arts, reading can be improved by practising skills. At the very beginning, we would feel painful to read and interpret words, sentences and paragraghs,let alone criticising author's views. But we will get better after we try several times and only the practice day by day can make our reading skills come near to "perfect".

Self-learning is not a mission impossible. But you should start it as soon as possible and try to develop the reading practices into life-long habit. Sooner or later, you will see the benefits of it.

google would quit the game of censorship

I feel glad when I heard the new that google,one of the largest searching engine, would quit Chinese growing market because it does not wanna apply the rule of censorship.

Every foreign company that wants to build up business in China is forced to apply China's censorship rule. Ebay, Apple, yahoo, and google, all of them have to do so by self-blocking any sensitive words from websites read by Chinese users. For example, Chinese users are forbidened to write and see the words "human right", "Tibet", "June 4" and other political sensitive words.So what Chinese users would see in the internet may totally different from what others see outside China. What is worse, most of the users are not awared of the censorship.

Baidu, the other searching giant, is willing to follow the rule of censorship, thus can win in this uneven game, constitutes 70% market shares. While google is trying to flight against censorship, as a result, it lacks support from Chinese government.

Not like China, the rest of the world has no intent to prevent people from reading what they want to know about. Why China tries every effort to take away freedom of speech and read? If China has not done anything wrong to its people, why the government afraids to let people know the true and why they not allow people to express their views and complains?

After google showed its intent of leaving China, US commercial and defence systems are attacked by Chinese hackers. The only response from Chinese spockwoman is that China has applied the laws and laws not allow hackers to do such thing. She talks nothing! We are not fool and we should not be fool like that. We are Chinese and we have the very right to speech and know the true.

I am very disappointed with my country and the party. China has developed quickly in terms of economy while nothing has been improved in human right. We complain and critise not because we do not love our country but we hope China gets better.

But still we haven't see any sign of trend that China will abandon its censorship, at least in the coming decades.

why we need books

I enjoy reading and I love books due to many reasons--for pleasure, for learning, for enlightening and any other reasons.I grew up with lots of books which are regarded as my friends and mentors. And I feel that I learn more from books instead of being taught by schooling,

I love books wheras others may not be interested in them.One of my former classmates had discussed the need of reading with me. When I asked why he doesn't read books except textbooks, he answered in a self-important manner that he doesn't need to read other books because he knows every thing even without reading books and besides he can learn from his experience. His answer was a real shock to me. Even the wisest man in the world won't say that. How can a 20 something say like that?

As we learn more, we know more about our limitation and feel humble. On the contrary, if we know less, we thought we are the best and thus have no bother to gain more knowledge or improve ourselves.

So, does that means reading can help us find out our limitation? Yes, it is and more than that.

First, it is quite important to understand our disadvantages. As a result of that, we can then look for ways to improve ourselves. Through reading, which is a good way of learning, we talk with a wiser man who can give us fresh insight and inspirations.For example, if we are weak in arguing, we can improve our communicate and logic skill by reading Francis Bacon.But we should bear in mind that we should only learn from the best books that have primary knowledge. What is meant by that is those popularizations and textbooks do little help to our understanding and learning because they are merely repetition and digestion of other sources. We should read those generated from authors who discover wisdom themselves.Always learn from those who are better than you.

Enlightenment is the other fruit of reading. What we gain from great books is not only information which can be obtained from other activities such as schooling and discovery, but also enlightment. Thus, we read by connecting with our lives, by refleting our past, by relating all current knowledge rather than remembering the facts and stories told by books. Only by doing this can we apply what we learnt from books in our daily life.

Believe it or not, reading can be a lifestyle which would benefit you in such a long run.

No freedom

China has recently blocked numerous website in the name of "Ensuring a healthy and regulated virtual world".

My another blog which was signed in one of the popular Chinese website has been blocked as well. It is already 2 weeks, but we still don't know when we can access to our blogs. What's worse, no one has given us any reason--we like a group of poor people, abandoned in the street without explaination. A lot of us feel the possibility to lose all our information in the blog(some have already writen for more than 5 years).

We all know there is not much freedom to speak and to complain in China, but I never expect the situation would be such worse. China has develped quickly in economic sense while not much progress can we see in terms of huam right.

It might be good to regulate the Virtual environment, as far as I am concerned. However, it is not acceptable for China to act in this way whereby no reasons, no communication and no solutions are provided.

Resolution--Books that I plan to read in 2009

1,The Warden
2,The Return of the Native (Reread)
3,John Christopher (Reread)
4,The Wind in the Willows
5,How to Read a Book
6,Stories of Belonging
7,Living in Australia (If I can find it)

List to be continued if I find more books worth reading. And I will spend more time on reading Classic and other great books--what I am concern is quality insteading of quantity and speed.

Digging to Amercia--by Anne Tyler

The story begins when 2 Korean baby girls--Jin-Ho and Susan arrive in America and be delivered to 2 different Baltimore families. Jin-Ho comes to Bitsy and Brad's family--a typical white American family while Suan goes to Ziba and Sami--an Iranian immigrated family.

It seems that story mainly tells how 2 Korean girl take roots and become American.But it is not. It talks about how Ziba, Sami and Sami's mother, Maryam and more Iranian characters adapt to American life as well as how American try to accept foreign people and foreign culture. The core character--Maryam, is an elegent widow who has moved to America 30 years ago to marry her husband. Maryam takes pride in her foreigness and always stays away from American people and their way of life. Even though she falls in love with Dave, Bitsy's father, she afraids that she would lose her "Independence". Therefore, she escapes from her love.

But the ending of the story is warm, out of my expectation (cause I thought the 2 families would seperate and never meet again for their otherness, pride and prejudice). All of Bitsy and Brad's family members leave the "Arrival party" to look for Maryam. They say to Maryam that they can't enjoy the party without her, they want her, they need her friendship. Maryam finally takes off her pride and joins them. Two cultural different families come to one.

Actually I am really appreciate Maryam's pride and independent. Her choice that not to marry again and keep her peace is a rational one. You know,though love is amazing, it also brings harm, hate and sadness. Love takes away freedom, private desire and independence which women should treasure with great care.

Generally, it is a book easy to read and it can be a good holiday book.