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With our time on this earth, people are bound to change. Whether it is age, the environment we are in, the people around us, or certain responsibilities, change is just evident and there are minimal ways of getting around it. In “ Woman From New York” by Ha Jin, it portrays how a woman has… Continue reading People Can Change

Men are certainly creatures of emotion. They act with lust, love, empathy, and entitlement. My husband only acts with two of them. According to him, one of his lifelong regrets was not having a concubine during our “marriage”. Apparently, I was not enough to satisfy his needs and marriage is more of a transaction to… Continue reading A Letter to my Brother

Today was our first meeting with Kwan from the Indiana Association of Chinese Americans (IACA). It was nice to have an informal first meeting where we were able to enjoy some good Chinese takeout food and learn more about Kwan and the IACA in a lecture heavy format. Kwan was nice enough to bring in… Continue reading 9/22 ICR Reflection – IACA

Although this husband and wife may be what they need for one another, they just straight up do not like each other. Between the man not being able to provide enough and complaining about every action of the woman, and the woman not wanting to do anything for the man and gossiping about what he… Continue reading Letter from Feng Yen to his Brother-in-law Reflection

I just have to get it off my chest that Mencius and his mother are both a little odd. The fact that they had to move a couple times and the mother agreed to settle down in a place based upon the aspect playing a game of sacrificing an ancestor is a tad odd. It… Continue reading Mencius’ Mother Reflection

These readings all circulate around traditional gender roles, sexuality, and familial values in China. In the Ha Jin readings, I found a lot of Chinese values regarding what a family should be like and how each member should act. In the story “Alive,” the main character Guhan forgets his family after he suffers from amnesia… Continue reading Ha Jin, Mencius’s Mother, Letter from Feng Yen, & Small Happiness Docu. Blog

When reading Bridegroom I was very saddened by the progression of the story. There was a lot of injustice and ignorance from the characters regarding homosexuality. When Baowen was taken by the officers for attending the meeting, I was shocked to find out it was an offense punishable by imprisonment. They either put them in… Continue reading Bridegroom

The big takeaway that I got from this short story was that being homosexual was considered to be a sickness, and a crime, and was just overall not accepted in Chinese culture. People were arrested or were sent to mental hospitals to be treated even though there is no cure for this “disease.” In the… Continue reading “The Bridegroom” Reflection

I was able to take a lot of notes this class, which was nice and helped me stay more engaged with what we were learning. I liked how the reading from Chuang Tzu started a conversation about how we can never learn too much–there’s nothing we can know 100% about, but we can try our… Continue reading 9/23 Notes

In a letter from Feng Yen to his brother-in-law, Feng Yan explains to his brother-in-law why he must divorce his wife. Feng asserts, “According to the rules of society that have been set down by the sages, a gentleman should have a primary wife and a concubine as well.” Feng then explains that since his… Continue reading Letter from Feng Yen to his Brother-in-law Reflection