Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstres Reading Questions pg. 45~61

Vocabulary:
sadistic (adj.)
syn: cruel
ant: humane

vigilance (n.)
syn: caution
ant: carelessness

substantiate (v.)
syn: verify
ant: disprove

garish (adj.)
syn: ornate
ant: plain

myopia (n.)
syn: n/a
ant: n/a

belligerent (adj.)
syn: aggressive
ant: kind

redolent (adj.)
syn: aromatic
ant: unsavory

somnambulates (v.)
syn: n/a
ant: n/a

Questions
16. Four-Eyes is a friend of Luo and the narrator. The village where Four-Eyes was being re-educated was situated lower on the slopes of Phoenix mountain than the narrator and Luo's. His family lived in the same city as the narrator's parents; his father was a writer, his mother was a poet. In Four-Eye's presence, everything became tinged with danger. If someone knocked on the door, he would be frightened and he would spring to his feet.

17. The Western literature in China were confiscated by the Red Guards and they burnt them in the public. By the time the narrator and Luo had finally learnt to read properly, there had been nothing left to read and their interest in reading these books became much stronger.

18. Without his spectacles, Four-Eyes won't be able to see whichs makes his daily work harder to do. Luo and the narrator help him carry the rice and Four-Eyes has to lend them a banned book from his suitcase.

19. The narrator also likes the seamstress. Balzac's story also discussed about love and desire which was similar to what the narrator was thinking about.

20. The narrator copies passages from Balzac's book onto the inside of his sheepskin coat. Writing the passages on his coat makes it very secretive because reading western literature is banned. There is a blending of old and new. The old is the way how the narrator writes the passages on the sheepskin coat. It was like in the olden times when there was no paper yet. The new is the western literature. The narrator feels a strong connection to the Balzac story because he wished that he was like Ursule who can somnambulate and see what his parents were doing at home.

21. Lup and the little seamstress made love. Balzac's novel made them excited and more interested about love, passion, desire and impulsive action. And reading the story to the little seamstress also made her feel the same way. Literature can be dangerous because it can make the reader impulsive.

To Live - Grammar and Usage Practice and Application

1. Participle (ing or ed verb tagged on to the beginning or end of a sentence to evoke action) With an instrument, Fugui was singing along with the puppet show.
2. Absolute (a noun combined with an ing or ed participle added onto a main sentence to expand details and create more action) Fugui kneeled behind the puppet curtain, with the whole body curled, unable to move.
3. Adjectives Shifted Out of Order (shift some adjectives after a noun to spotlight and intensify the image) On the walls outside of Fugui's house was a picture of Mao, which was nearly as big as the wall, smiling and independent with the Little Red Book.
4. Action Verbs (eliminate passive vioce and replace being verbs with action verbs to create a motion picture and bring inanimate object to life) When the death comes to the family, it arrives silently and mysteriously.
5. Appositive (add a second noun image to a main subject) There would be a scene of hapiness - the family together around the small table in the house.
6. Methods for Painting Characters

By describing an action of the character Fugui was lost

By sharing specific speech of the character We'll call him little bun

To Live - Questions

Questions - Provide a thoughtful, thorough explanation of your repsonse to each question.

1. Why do you think the the name of the movie is To Live? I think that the movie is called To Live because it is a story where everyone is struggling to live and ironically, so many characters die in the story and only Fugui, Jiazhen, and their grandson, Little Bun, survive to live.
2. How does the main character, Fugui, represent life in China during this time period? Throughout Fugui's life, Fugui is obsessed with appearing to be an enthusiastic communist supporter because anyone else that is not, is deemed a threat to the communist party, publicly humiliated or sentence to death. An example of this is Long'er, who was humiliated and executed for being a privileged landowner in the pre-communist times of China.
3. How specifically does Fugui's wife, Jiazhen, adapt to the changing times? Fugui and Jiazhen continue their fateful service to the communists in their town, delivering water and surrending all of their cooking pots when iron donations are requested.
4. In what ways did the loss of his house and fortune, ironically, become the best thing that ever happened to Fugui and his family? Fugui finds out that if he had not gambled all of his fortune and his house, he could have ended up like Long'er, being taken away by the soldiers and was executed for Fugui's possessions he won.
5. What do you think of Mr. Niu and what do you suppose happened to him near the end? Mr. Niu was known as a capitalist by the party he has faithfull served since the revolution and he was probably humiliated and executed.
6. How do the two children become victims of the political climate? Give specific example. Youqing was a victim of Mao's great idea of social progress because he died in an accident caused by a political leader, but the family couldn't complain. Fengxia was a victim also because all the doctors were counter-revolutionaries and the nurses at the hospital were inexperienced, and no one knew how to take care of the situation so Fengxia died.
7. The Communist Revolution is widely seen to have been successful in raising living conditions for millions of Chinese peasants. Give some positive examples from the movie of improvements in living conditions and good results from the change in political system. Land reform provided equal opportunities to form a living. Everyone was united and the poor people weren't poor anymore.
8. What is the final positive outcome for this one family? Explain. Fugui losing his house was great for him, because it could have cost Fugui being killed by the communists. Having his son pass on was important because Youqing wouldn't hae to go through the trauma of watching his sister die while giving birth to his newborn nephew.
9. To Live was banned in China, and the director, Zhang Yimou, and the leading actress, Gong Li, were bared from film making for two years. What specifically do you think that the Chinese government objected to? Give at least two or three examples. The government did not want people to see the "bad side" of the cultural revolution. They did not want people to see the failures of the Communist society and agriculture. They also did not want to show the failure of their steel industry.
10. Write your own movie review for this film. (Your rating, how many stars, on a scale of 1 to 5? Who would enjoy it? A 5 to 10 sentence response would suffice. Be sure to refer to a remarkable scene to capture your reader's interest in the movie. I would rate this move a 4/5 because the movie was very well-developed and smooth of a family during the Cutural Revolution. At the film's opening, Jiazhen was so angry at Fugui for gambling all of his property and so she took along Fengxia to another place. Ironically, after all Fugui losing his property was a good thing so he wouldn't end up being executed. I thought that this was really strange how you lose your property and end up being very happy in the family. I would recommend this film to other people who are willing to understand how peoples' lives are like during the Cultural Revolution.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Reading Questions: pg. 21~41

Vocabulary:
prudent (adj.)
syn: cautious
ant: careless

pitiless (adj.)
syn: cruel
ant: pitiful

capricious (adj.)
syn: fanciful
ant: sensible

precarious (adj.)
syn: hazardous
ant: certain

anthracite (n.)
syn: n/a
ant: n/a

livid (adj.)
syn: gloomy
ant: radiant

poultice (n.)
syn: dressing
ant: n/a

Questions
10. The Chinese Seamstress wore pale pink canvas shoes while nearly everyone in the village went barefoot. She had fine features and looked almost noble.

11. Because Luo's parents were intellectuals and Luo had also attended school, he finds the Chinese seamstress below his status. She can not read much. And Luo probably hopes to find somebody of the same level.

12. They had to do dangerous work at the coal mines and they felt that they could die anytime at the mines. It was symbolic of their reeducation because their fear that they could die anytime represents the mental torture of reeducation.

13. The narrator describes Luo's crying as "someone weeping with passionate abandon". It was like crying to release the mental pressure he experiences from working in the coal mines. The narrator was convinced it was Luo because they were the only two newcomers to the mine while the rest were old miners.

14. She wrote a letter to Luo to invite him to their village to tell a story and she sent workers to take their place at the mines. She cancelled the oral cinema and she put him into bed when she saw that he was very sick. She pounded some leaves and applied it on Luo's wrist. She invited four sorceress to cure him.

15. A sincere heart can move even the hardest person. And maybe the flower girl was not sincere enough that is why her mother died.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Reading Questions: pg. 3~20

Vocabulary:
risible (adj.)
syn: jovial
ant: melancholy

surreptitious (adj.)
syn: stealthy
ant: honest

sonata (n.)
syn: n/a
ant: n/a

audacity (adv.)
syn: boldness
ant: caution

reactionary (n.)
syn: traditional
ant: liberal

vertiginous (adj.)
syn: dizzy
ant: steady

insidious (adj.)
syn: deceitful
ant: honest

Questions

1. The village headman assumes that the violin is a toy. Luo told them that the violin is a musical instrument and fooled them when he played a Mozart sonata and he called it "Mozart Is Thinking of Chairman Mao". The villagers do not know anything about music and anything outside the village while the boys are educated and had training in music.
2. All textbooks and school subjects were banned. They were only taught industry and agriculture. Peasants and workers became important members of the society. Mao Zedong was the Chairman of the Revolution and they had to read Mao's "Little Red Book". Intellectuals were labelled as "enemies of the people". All young people were sent to the countryside for re-education. The purpose of this revolution is to make everybody equal and suppress learning and ideas that are against the government.
3. Is it ironic that Luo and the narrator were sent to be re-educated because they were not even high school graduates. They have never studied at any institution for education. But they were sent to be re-educated because their parents were intellectuals and they were labelled as "enemies of the people".
4. Luo punches the narrator because he was very angry when he saw his father under public attack. He just needs to release his anger.
5. The mountain was called "Phoenix of the Sky". The narrator thinks that the name is due to its high elevation that even birds and sparrows can't reach it and only the phoenix can fly there.
6. The mountain has copper mines and workers have to carry buckets of copper down the mountains. But because of the lack of transportation, the production of copper has declined and bandits are growing opium. The village is poor and the economy is controlled by the opium growers.
7. The boys changed the time on the alarm clocks to allow them extra time to sleep or end their days' work earlier. This shows that the boys are mischievous and creative.
8. For ordinary families, re-education lasts for 2 years. But Luo and the narrator are sad because they know that they'll never go back to their families. They were identified as enemies of the people and their re-education will last forever.
9. Luo has a gift of storytelling and the village headman appreciates this so he assigned Luo to tell stories about the films that they had seen. The village headman also sends them to Yong Jing to watch a new film and they have to re-tell the story to the whole village. I think that the narrator says that this gift will lead to complicatoins because the boys will discover films and books that were banned.

Notes: The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution

• Mao Zedong – chairman of communist party of China, on May 16, 1966 began a struggle for power within the communist party of China
• This struggle manifested into wide scale social, political, and economic chaos, which eventually brought the entire country to the brink of civil war
• The Cultural Revolution led to the ban of what became known as the “Four Olds”
  1. old customs
  2. old cultures
  3. old ideas
  4. old habits
• Between 1966 and 1968, Mao and his principal lieutenants placed youth militia called the Red Guards – Mao’s army, usually young students between the ages of 15 and 20, in charge of destroying items from the Four Olds
• In the chaos and violence that ensured many revolutionary elders, authors, artists, and religious figures were purged and killed. Why did this happen?
• Millions of people were persecuted, and as many as half a million people died.
• In 1957, Mao Zedong called for an increase in the speed of the growth of “actual socialism” in China.
• To accomplish this goal, Mao began the Great Leap Forward, establishing special communes in the countryside through the usage of collective labor and mass mobilization.
• The Great Leap Forward was intended to increase the production of steel and to raise agricultural production to twice 1957 levels.
• However, industries went into turmoil because peasant were producing too much low quality steel while other areas were neglected
• Furthermore, the peasantry, as agriculturalists, were poorly equipped and ill-trained to produce steel, partially relying on such mechanisms as backyard furnaces to achieve production goals, which had been mandated by local cadres.
• Meanwhile, farming implements like rakes were melted down for steel, impeding agricultural production. This led to a decline in the production of most goods other than steel.
• To make matter worse, in order to avoid punishment, local authorities frequently reported grossly unrealistic production numbers, which hid the problem for years, as so, intensified it.
• Inadequate resources and unfortunate climatic conditions resulted in widespread famine, while Mao continued to export grain to “save face” with the outside world.
• According to various sources, the death toll of members of the lower classes due to famine may have been as high as 20 to 30 million.
• Understand these key phrases:
  1. intellectual = highly educated person
  2. communism = common or shared ownership of goods; an economic structure which attempts to achieve economic equality for all (a classless society)
  3. propaganda = information intended to persuade and/or brainwash people (mind control)

Notes: Thesis Statements

• After you have brainstormed and you have some main ideas of what you would like to write in your essay, you can begin thinking about writing a thesis statement.
• A thesis statement is a complete sentence that contains one main idea. This idea controls the content of the entire essay A thesis statement that contains sub points also helps a reader know how the essay will be organized.
• Thesis statement states the main idea of the essay in a complete sentence, not in a question.
• Thesis statement is usually at the end of the introductory paragraph
• Thesis statements state an opinion or attitude on a topic. It doesn’t just state the topic, itself.
• Thesis statements often lists subtopics.
• Thesis statements does not directly announce your main topic.
• Since the thesis statement is the main statement for the entire essay, it should express a complete thought and be a complete sentence.
• English readers like to know what an essay will be about near the beginning of the essay rather than at the end. This is why the thesis statement is often found at the end of the introductory paragraph.
• The thesis statement comes at the end of the introductory paragraph.
• Good thesis statements often express a writer’s opinion or attitude on a particular topic.
  You can make you thesis statements mote specific by including subtopics or supporting ideas.
• In thesis statements, you should avoid using statements like, “This essay will discuss…” or "I will talk about..."

Applying Methods of Integrating Quotations

1. "Introduce the quotation with a complete sentence and a colon"
Wang Lung says in his heart: "It is true that this is a shame to me that I cannot read and write. I will take my elder son from the fields and he shall go to a school in the town and he shall learn, and when I go into the grain markets he will read and write for me so that there may be an end of this hissing laughter against me, who am a landed man." (173)

2. "Use an introdutory or explanatory phrase, but not a complete sentence, separated from the quotation with a comma"
He stood there silent for a while and then he said to her roughly, and he was rough because he was ashamed and would not acknowledge his shame in his heart, "Where are those pearls you had?" (199)

3. "Use short quotations - only a few words - as part of your own sentence"
In The Good Earth, a novel by Pearl S. Buck, the author compares Wang Lung to "a rat in a rich man's house". Like a "rat in rich man's house", he earns barely enough money for his family, while around the city, he sees the market full of food and the shops selling silk. The money he earns are merely small money compared to the riches in the city. Wang Lung does not feel comfortable in the city and wants to go back to his land. (112~113)

Lectures Notes: Integrating Quotations in Compositions

Notes on Lectures: Integrating Quotations in Compositions
Goal: Integrate short quotations smoothly into sentences/compositions to make and support a point.

• A quotation is any sentence/paragraph/phrase/words taken word for word from the novel (or other books, magazines, article)
• It does NOT mean only things in a novel which are said by a character.....
• There are at least four ways to integrate quotations
• 1. Introduce the quotation with a complete sentence and a colon (common in research papers).
• Example for #1: Thoreau ends his essay with a metaphor: "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in."
• An easy rule to remember: if you use a complete sentence to introduce a quotation, you need a colon after the sentence
• Be careful not to confuse a colon (:) with a semicolon (;). Using a comma in this situation will most likely create a comma splice, one of the serious sentence-boundary errors.
• 2. Use an introdutory or explanatory phrase, but not a complete sentence, separated from the quotation with a comma (common in literary analysis).
• Example for #2: According to Thoreau, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us."
• Remember to use a comma to separate your own words from the quotation when your introductory or explanorty phrase ends with a verb such as "says," "said," "thinks," "believes," "pondered," "recalls," "questions," and "asks," (and many more).
• You should also use a comma when you introduce a quotation with a phrase such as "According to Thoreau."
• 3. Make the quotation a part of your own sentence without any punctuation between your own words and the words you are quoting (common in ).
• Example for #3: Thoreau argues that "sham and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous."
• Reminder: Notice that the word "that" is used in three of the example above, and when it is used as it is in the examples, "that" replaces the comma which would be necessary without "that" in the sentence.
• 4. Use short quotations - only a few words - as part of your own sentence (common in ).
• Example for #4: Although Thoreau "drinks at" the stream of Time, he can "detect how shallow it is."
• Remember: When you integrate quotations in this way, you do not use any special punctuation. Instead, you should punctuate the sentence just as you would if all of the words were your own. No punctuation is needed in the sentences above in part because the sentences do not follow the pattern explained under #1 and 2 above: there is not a complete sentence in front of the quotations, and a word such as "says," "said," or "asks," does not appear directly in fron of the quoted words.
• All of the methods above for integrating quotations are correct, but you should avoid relying too much on just one method. You should instead use a variety of methods.
• Notice the there are only two punctuation marks that are used to introduce questions: the comma and the colon
• Note: A semicolon (;) is not used to introduce quotations.