A few days ago I was watching a rerun of House, shaking my head as Hugh Laurie stated firmly, “People don’t change.” I was very opposed to that statement at first, thinking that people change all the time.
We change our clothes, we change our hairstyles, tires, the color of the rubber bands on our braces, computer desktops, and we may or may not vote for it. Most importantly, we change our minds, often without knowing it.
Think about it for a bit. It’s unfortunate but common for long relationships or friendships to end—whether it happens all of a sudden or is drawn-out—something is somehow different. We might claim that the other person has changed, or that things just changed. We’re never specific because we hardly ever know exactly what is different.
To further this point, I’ll ask: How have you changed? It’s hard to answer, mostly because we don’t see ourselves slowly becoming different. Nor do we necessarily see ourselves growing. When we have so-called constants in life (the things that always seem with us, like siblings, grandparents and pets), it’s less likely that we’ll notice the changes that take place. Fifteen years ago, your grandparents were fifteen years younger. But how many of us actually noticed our grandparents’ aging? This is a phenomenon particularly true in children. Think back to when you were a child. If you had grown up with the same family dog, you probably didn’t pay attention to how quickly it changed from a puppy to a full-grown dog.
We regard personal change in the same way. We are constantly undergoing change, and don’t realize it. I am not the same as I was just a year ago because each day brings new information, new experiences and new feelings.
And yet, I am still the same person. Essentially, new experiences build on the foundation of the existing personality and past experiences. A “new” person is never created, even if it seems radically different from how a person used to be.
We just gain a different understanding of the world through experience, which is called growth. A change of heart or mind is not a change of who or what a person is. For example, a religious conversion does not change a person’s makeup and past experiences; it just adds new experiences on. The “old” person does not die. It’s the same person who walks and breathes, but with new ideas and new beliefs. Growth.
So Dr. House’s conviction seems to ring true with me. And it actually aligns with one of my favorite quotes, which is from Lynn Hall: We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
For more thought provoking quotes about change.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Post 13: Gallantry Gone with the Wind?
It’s a bit of a used-up question, but when reading A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, a theme that I consider relevant in today’s world popped up: the disappearance of old chivalric values in men’s attitudes towards women. The main characters of the play are women (sisters brought up on a southern plantation, where they’ve been waited on by adoring men all their lives), Blanche and Stella. The lead male characters (particularly Stella’s husband, Stan Kowalski) are coarse and forceful. Typical Southern ladies, Blanche and Stella have much to get used to in New Orleans.
An example of a rude awakening for Blanche, the last sister to come to New Orleans: when Blanche and Stella return to Stella’s apartment to find Stan and his friends at a poker table, Blanche asks the men not to stand. Typically, gentlemen stand whenever a lady enters the room, and they only sit again once the lady is either seated or invites the men to sit. But Stanley tells Blanche not to worry; no one’s going to stand. Um, ouch. It makes Blanche’s comment about Stanley being a “survivor of the Stone Age” seem quite apt.
Further struck by Stan’s chauvinistic attitude and physical force used towards his own wife, Blanche cries out for the old romance, for the old values, for the old and familiar Southern qualities of a gentleman.
So my question:
Where did all the chivalry go? It’s accepted that the role of the gentleman has typically been to aid the damsel in distress; but what happens if all knights in shining armor suddenly decide to quit their dragon-slaying, let the ladies fend for themselves, and go off for a couple of kegs of ale at the tavern?
Bad things, that’s what.
The gallantry probably went out around the same time that women really started pushing for their independence and actually got something for their efforts. Women want independence from men? Fine! We’ll stop treating them like delicate flowers.
But men and women alike know that flowers don’t grow well in factory smoke and cramped, single-person apartments. The independence of a woman doesn’t change the fact that she has needs. And it really isn’t in the best interest for men to act like uncultured cavepeople. Men and women both like to be waited on, to have someone speak adoringly to them, to be shown consideration.
Hopefully our parents have taught us 1) men, never be rude to women, and 2) women, never take men for granted. But no matter what your sex, respect is the keyword here.
Men, it doesn’t matter if you like a particular lady or not: you must still open doors for her, be polite, and keep the sexist comments to yourself.
Women, it isn’t true that men are only polite when they are courting: even if you are capable, don’t look at men like they’re aliens if they try to be helpful, or they won’t try to help again. As this brilliant essay states, “The act of deferring to women is an act of celebration and not of derogation…the radical feminists who laid siege to chivalry also laid siege to the basis of respect between the sexes.”
Goodness. I realize that this doesn’t sound optimistic, but I’ll just repeat Blanche’s lament over the deaths of gallant knights everywhere and, therefore, the death of all the damsels in distress. While we’re at it, let’s set funeral pyres for the sacrifice of respect and valor for the cause of “female advancement”.
Is this what we want?
An example of a rude awakening for Blanche, the last sister to come to New Orleans: when Blanche and Stella return to Stella’s apartment to find Stan and his friends at a poker table, Blanche asks the men not to stand. Typically, gentlemen stand whenever a lady enters the room, and they only sit again once the lady is either seated or invites the men to sit. But Stanley tells Blanche not to worry; no one’s going to stand. Um, ouch. It makes Blanche’s comment about Stanley being a “survivor of the Stone Age” seem quite apt.
Further struck by Stan’s chauvinistic attitude and physical force used towards his own wife, Blanche cries out for the old romance, for the old values, for the old and familiar Southern qualities of a gentleman.
So my question:
Where did all the chivalry go? It’s accepted that the role of the gentleman has typically been to aid the damsel in distress; but what happens if all knights in shining armor suddenly decide to quit their dragon-slaying, let the ladies fend for themselves, and go off for a couple of kegs of ale at the tavern?
Bad things, that’s what.
The gallantry probably went out around the same time that women really started pushing for their independence and actually got something for their efforts. Women want independence from men? Fine! We’ll stop treating them like delicate flowers.
But men and women alike know that flowers don’t grow well in factory smoke and cramped, single-person apartments. The independence of a woman doesn’t change the fact that she has needs. And it really isn’t in the best interest for men to act like uncultured cavepeople. Men and women both like to be waited on, to have someone speak adoringly to them, to be shown consideration.
Hopefully our parents have taught us 1) men, never be rude to women, and 2) women, never take men for granted. But no matter what your sex, respect is the keyword here.
Men, it doesn’t matter if you like a particular lady or not: you must still open doors for her, be polite, and keep the sexist comments to yourself.
Women, it isn’t true that men are only polite when they are courting: even if you are capable, don’t look at men like they’re aliens if they try to be helpful, or they won’t try to help again. As this brilliant essay states, “The act of deferring to women is an act of celebration and not of derogation…the radical feminists who laid siege to chivalry also laid siege to the basis of respect between the sexes.”
Goodness. I realize that this doesn’t sound optimistic, but I’ll just repeat Blanche’s lament over the deaths of gallant knights everywhere and, therefore, the death of all the damsels in distress. While we’re at it, let’s set funeral pyres for the sacrifice of respect and valor for the cause of “female advancement”.
Is this what we want?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Post 12: I'll Never Be like My Parents!
No, you probably won't
None of us will quite turn out as nicely as the generation before us. Generation Y (those born in the late 1970s and early 1990s) is already quite different from Generation X. In fact, “College admissions offices, employers and marketing companies are going into a frenzy over Generation Y, a cohort of individuals characterized as Generation X on steroids,” states this article. Generation Y is also called the Echo Boomers, Millenium Generation, iGeneration, Einstein Generation and Google Generation. The children of the baby boomers, Generation Yers are noted for their ability to super-multitask, live comfortably in the digital world (especially since PCs and the Internet have always been available since this group was born).
But of course there are negative stereotypes of Generation Yers as well. In light of all the bad things that have happened from the 70s to the 90s, Generation Yers are likely to be labeled as cynical and pessimistic. Consider the following events and the effects that they have had on Generation Y readers.
Members of a Generation are Shaped by the Same Events
When a group of people goes through the same trials, bleed in the same battle and cry at the same movies, it’s not hard to see where many of the attitudes of the generation come from. It’s the commonalities that those born during this period hold; though we are all individuals, it is likely that these world events affect people of the same generation in the same way.
Happy, key events that helped shape many members of Generation Y include the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the Soviet Union. But on the other side of the coin, the current war in Iraq will be the war that this generation will remember best, and have more opinions about; catastrophes like the 1986 Challenger explosion, Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami and tragedies like the death of Princess Diana and the Columbine High School shooting are also events whose mention will bring waves of similar emotion to Generation Yers.
It seems strange that things like the O.J. Simpson trial is what Generation Y will remember most, and perhaps be remembered most for living through. Less exciting events for American citizens, like Hong Kong’s return to China, still leave marks on the minds of Generation Y. Even if we don’t particularly care about world events or what happens in popular culture, or realize how these events have influenced the way you think, these are the things that do shape us, that are kept in the back of our minds and affect how we act and react to things. And our actions translate into more occurrences. Is history is in the making? Every day.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Post 10: Plant Food
The Plan
I would like to be cremated once I die. I just don’t see a point in confining bodies in lacquered boxes that take forever to decompose. My dead body won’t even feel the velvet lining of a pretty coffin. Why make my family spend more for a six-foot hole in a grassy field that no one will visit after my grandchildren's passing? My family doesn't exactly practice ancestor worship, so there's no guarantee of a steady stream of visitors throughout the years. Though this article states that elaborate funerals for elders are expected from Chinese families, and that “It is considered good and proper for children to go into debt in order to pay respect for older people,” I would rather not leave my family such a financial responsibility during a time of grief.
No, I’d rather they burn the body and scatter the stuff. I like the idea of being everywhere at once, and nowhere at all. Why should I care where the body goes or looks like? My soul—I—am not there. And we all turn into dirt anyway.
Burial
At this point, I’ll apologize for the morbidity of the subject; but maybe burial is not right for me. It doesn’t matter if the fengshui of the place is good or not. In Chinese custom, many people are buried on hillsides; the higher along the hillside, the better the fengshui, which aids in the passage to the afterlife. But if the fengshui’s that good, I’ll be gone to the afterlife, and I won’t be around to enjoy the beauty of the hillside. It just doesn’t seem right to be buried at a beautiful site that I won’t enjoy, especially when my grave is likely to scare off the little children of picnickers.
Embalmment?
Even if I don’t mind terribly about being interred, there’s something odd about embalming that doesn’t appeal to me. Take a look at this website (albeit quite biased). There are so many chemicals that embalmers inject, spray, and rub onto and into our the bodies, that it can take several decades for an embalmed body to decompose, as opposed to the few years that a normal body takes. If I’m going to be fertilizer, I might as well feed the worms quickly. I wouldn’t relish the idea of being washed up as a perfectly intact body in the event of a flood or earthquake at the site of my cemetery. And nor would the picnickers.
Positives of Embalmment
The whole process is done with a great amount of reverence for the deceased. The body is usually dressed in a formalwear piece from the personal wardrobe of the deceased. Then there’s the cosmetic work: the deceased is moisturized, made up, his/her hair is styled, lipstick is applied for a more natural look.
The purpose for all this is so the family can see the face of their deceased. For many, seeing a beloved’s face finalizes the passing, and may make it easier for family to accept the person’s death.
In the end
There are perfectly good reasons for embalmment: for the family’s sake, cosmetic work may be desirable; and for the crops’ sake, disinfection of the body is a good idea. And the reasons for burial are good, too: that descendants may honor their departed ancestors. But my family doesn't follow the Chinese burial tradition, so I doubt my descendants will be bringing me honeycakes and rice after I pass.
My opposition to burial is not about being squeamish, but about being rejoined with the earth as quickly and as naturally as possible. For my own sake as the dead person, if I’m going to be stuck with needles of formaldehyde and then stuck in a hole…I’ll pass. For the sake of those who will have to deal with my passing, it would be much easier, more economic and less stressful for my family if I'm just cremated.
But it's a strange decision that not many people like to make. Their families are forced to decide what to do with their beloved once he/she has passed. And that is not a time for clear thinking. The responsibility is ours. Will away!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Jiang Qing in Communist China
The Role of Jiang Qing in Communist China
The Gang of Four
Jiang Qing is most famous for creating the group known as the Gang of Four in 1966, which included party leaders Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyan and Wang Hongwen (men who had helped her husband, Mao Zedong, secure Shanghai in the Cultural Revolution). She was active in the Cultural Revolution, and the Gang of Four was largely responsible for both the propaganda during the CR and the lawlessness of the government’s actions during the CR. Toward the end of the CR, a power struggle between the Gang of Four and Mao’s rivals—Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying—took place.
The Fall
Though it is unsure today, the Chinese Communist Party holds that a year before his death, Mao had turned against his wife of nearly forty years and her allies in the Gang of Four; and that after Mao died in 1976, the Gang of Four attempted to seize power.
Imprisonment
With her husband’s death, Jiang now had no justification for her political actions. Hua Guofeng, the new Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, arrested the Gang of Four in October 1976. In 1981, the Gang of Four were tried publicly and convicted for being counter-revolutionaries. Yao and Wang confessed their crimes, and were given twenty years and life in prison; but Jiang and Zhang maintained that they only followed Mao’s orders, so they received death sentences, which later became life sentences to prison. Jiang was accused of persecuting creative artists, hiring people disguised as Red Guards to ransack homes. Later, all four were released.
Jiang was discharged for treatment of the throat cancer she had developed in 1991; she committed suicide ten days after her release.
Info about the Gang of Four
The Gang of Four
Jiang Qing is most famous for creating the group known as the Gang of Four in 1966, which included party leaders Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyan and Wang Hongwen (men who had helped her husband, Mao Zedong, secure Shanghai in the Cultural Revolution). She was active in the Cultural Revolution, and the Gang of Four was largely responsible for both the propaganda during the CR and the lawlessness of the government’s actions during the CR. Toward the end of the CR, a power struggle between the Gang of Four and Mao’s rivals—Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying—took place.
The Fall
Though it is unsure today, the Chinese Communist Party holds that a year before his death, Mao had turned against his wife of nearly forty years and her allies in the Gang of Four; and that after Mao died in 1976, the Gang of Four attempted to seize power.
Imprisonment
With her husband’s death, Jiang now had no justification for her political actions. Hua Guofeng, the new Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, arrested the Gang of Four in October 1976. In 1981, the Gang of Four were tried publicly and convicted for being counter-revolutionaries. Yao and Wang confessed their crimes, and were given twenty years and life in prison; but Jiang and Zhang maintained that they only followed Mao’s orders, so they received death sentences, which later became life sentences to prison. Jiang was accused of persecuting creative artists, hiring people disguised as Red Guards to ransack homes. Later, all four were released.
Jiang was discharged for treatment of the throat cancer she had developed in 1991; she committed suicide ten days after her release.
Info about the Gang of Four
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Post 9: Check Yes for Grouchy
All right. So it’s tech week for this play I’m in. Read: I’m tired, I’m loaded to the eyes with homework, and yes, English Class, I am a suffering, whiny mess. For the non-drama-heads, tech week is comparable to hell week for sports. It’s a week of super intense line memorization, onstage blocking, and five hours of quality time spent with our cast members after school every day (which usually ends in the intense desire to rip each other’s heads off because of the stress).
Truth be told, I don’t feel like doing anything. I’m shivering from cold, but I’m too tired to get some socks on. My hands feel gross because I haven’t washed them in five hours, but I can’t wash them because I’ll spend too much time on that when I have to finish this blog by the deadline. (Notice the run-on sentences? An observation of mine: when people are tired, they generally answer in either very short or very long sentences. I am a long-sentence person.)
Now normally I’m not a big fan of whining, and I know that Rower probably won’t be too happy after reading this—didn’t anything about the unattractiveness of a constantly complaining person go into my head this week? Well, you know what? Complaining is a release. It’s an outlet that allows people to harmlessly let out whatever has been bothering us (though abuse of this outlet comes at the expense of our own social demise). And knowing how unbecoming complaining is, I’ll probably edit this post later so that I don’t sound like such a grouch.
See, if I don’t get it all out now, you’ll just be wondering at the rain cloud over me tomorrow morning. Plus I’m not allowed to complain at home. Never was. I was supposed to use my grown-up tone, or something. Did this actually work? Sure; but not when I was a child. Like this website says, “Asking a cranky child to justify his feelings or to explain what he wants is fruitless: it will only frustrate the child even more.”
Okay. Maybe I should just stop while the run-on sentence count is still below ten.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Post 8: Too Much of a Good Thing
An article I read in Newsweek (March 23rd edition) called “Jihad Chic Comes to London” tells of the author, Sami Yousafzai’s, time in London after fleeing Peshawar, Pakistan. While in London, Yousafzai met several young Afghans promoting the cause of the Taliban; this came as a shock to see the very people Yousafzai had been trying to escape.
Supporters of the Taliban rule initially consisted mainly of Sunni Pashtuns and deeply religious students who were educated and trained in Pakistan. These days, support of the Taliban is something Americans tend only to expect from raging-religious, dangerously fundamental Islamic terrorists; but this article reminds us not to be so ready with the tape to stick labels on people. Yousafzai’s article gave some insight about who might support the Taliban rule of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and what their reasons may be.
The need for the preservation of identity, Yousafzai believes, may be at the root of the fervor of so many young Afghans far from home. Often, Islamic immigrants still have very deep roots in their old lives. Tradition does not fade for them because they still see themselves as separate from the Western world.
In London, Yousafzai found one such man, nicknamed Talib Jan. Jan, only twenty-three, steadfastly follows his religion and firmly believes in Taliban practices of brutality against immoral Muslims. He stands outside mosques to hand out flyers that outline the utopia he believes Mullah Mohammed Omar (spiritual and military leader of the Taliban) will bring.
The man harasses Afghans in London about socializing with European women, shaping their beards, wearing Western clothing, or touching hands with women; he threatens that their infidelity to Islam will cause trouble for their families in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet London police “regard him as a deeply religious man…or at least as a harmless eccentric.” Well, religious? An understatement. But he’s a little more than just harmless.
And Jan proudly states, "I'm winning converts to a holy cause every day.” But I think that there are those who might be—just possibly—put off by Jan’s radical behavior. There is such a thing as being too fervent.
Everyone is entitled to his or her own beliefs, of course. But if one’s beliefs cause him to act in a way by which others feel threatened, there may be something something wrong.
Supporters of the Taliban rule initially consisted mainly of Sunni Pashtuns and deeply religious students who were educated and trained in Pakistan. These days, support of the Taliban is something Americans tend only to expect from raging-religious, dangerously fundamental Islamic terrorists; but this article reminds us not to be so ready with the tape to stick labels on people. Yousafzai’s article gave some insight about who might support the Taliban rule of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and what their reasons may be.
The need for the preservation of identity, Yousafzai believes, may be at the root of the fervor of so many young Afghans far from home. Often, Islamic immigrants still have very deep roots in their old lives. Tradition does not fade for them because they still see themselves as separate from the Western world.
In London, Yousafzai found one such man, nicknamed Talib Jan. Jan, only twenty-three, steadfastly follows his religion and firmly believes in Taliban practices of brutality against immoral Muslims. He stands outside mosques to hand out flyers that outline the utopia he believes Mullah Mohammed Omar (spiritual and military leader of the Taliban) will bring.
The man harasses Afghans in London about socializing with European women, shaping their beards, wearing Western clothing, or touching hands with women; he threatens that their infidelity to Islam will cause trouble for their families in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet London police “regard him as a deeply religious man…or at least as a harmless eccentric.” Well, religious? An understatement. But he’s a little more than just harmless.
And Jan proudly states, "I'm winning converts to a holy cause every day.” But I think that there are those who might be—just possibly—put off by Jan’s radical behavior. There is such a thing as being too fervent.
Everyone is entitled to his or her own beliefs, of course. But if one’s beliefs cause him to act in a way by which others feel threatened, there may be something something wrong.
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