The Remains of the Day

"What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?"

Make a friend with your emotions

The third son

Hello, this is Jan! The book I read is “The third son”-Julie Wu. The author divides the book into two chapters, "1943–1957" and "1957–1962". The first half describes the main character, Saburo’s growth in Taiwan, and the second half is about his life after studying abroad, getting married, and fighting for his own future. I am going to share the main point and some of my reflections about 1 to 5 chapters. 

This story is written in the first person of Saburo, a Taiwanese eight-year-old boy who was born in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation, and shows the society background with his monologue. When American planes bombed Taiwan in 1943, Saburo rescued a girl named Yoshiko during an air raid. Taking a new lease of life from several attacks, Saburo walked Yoshiko home, and it became one of the most wonderful memories of Saburo. Keeping walking further, Saburo recalled his little brother, who was dead from pneumonia. Every time Saburo went back home, his mom would whip him, which didn’t apply to other siblings. He understood his parents blamed this unfortunate incident on Saburo for taking his brother out, but after seeing how Yoshiko got along with her family, Saburo realized that his mom was wrong.

One day Saburo was bitten by a krait snake, he rushed to find his cousin Toru, who worked in a clinic, and escaped from death again. Saburo told Toru his dream that he wanted to go to America, then he received a book named The earth from Toru. From then on, Saburo started putting his attention to study, requesting his mom to learn with his brothers and their tutor Sato. However, just two days later, he was not allowed to attend class any more because his mom thought he would disturb his brothers. On the day the Nationalists Army arrived, there was a celebrating parade, and Saburo saw Yoshiko again, crowded to the front line. A ragged man chasing a chicken bumped into Saburo, and his book dropped out from his backpack, held by the man. Saburo wanted to take it back, but someone behind him stopped him by saying that the man was a soldier. Saburo was catched by owning a Japanese book, and his father saved him by bribery but his book that he cherished a lot also was given to his oldest brother by his father.

There are many reasons that this book attracts me. First of all, I am interested in the background of this book, which is in the early Republic of China. Originally, I thought “The third son” was a translation of the Chinese version because of the author’s name, but I found it actually was the original work after searching some related information of this book. Then, I knew that this novel was based on the real experience of the author, the second generation of Taiwanese American, and it is her family background that enabled her to delicately describe the half century of the social scenes of Taiwan. Besides, when everyone was cheering for the return of the Nationalist regime, Saburo wondered why people celebrated the defeat of Japan, and I think this is about his confusion about national identity. A child has Chinese ancestry, ruled by the Japanese government but lives in the land of Taiwan. How could he find his own idea about nationality? Moreover, during the war time and the sensitive period, only one simple mistake like a Japanese book might lead to a life-threatening outcome. Still now, with this multicultural society, some of us may miss our identity on this issue, but fortunately we have the freedom to talk and explore more and more information by ourselves, which should be valued and treasured.

Second, this story also mentions a lot of family relationships, including how Saburo gets along with his parents, and the competition or even conflicts with his oldest brother. Maybe it’s because of Saburo’s personality or his birth order, he is rebellious in his parents' eyes. All the actions he does don’t correspond to the standard of the third son. In the family, his older brothers have more right and better treatment in both material and mind aspects. When Saburo was staring at the interactions of Yoshiko and her brothers, the joyful, warm atmosphere set off the loneliness of Saburo and the essential parts that were lacking in his family. What’s more, after getting home, what Saburo faced was the beating and scolding from his mom, but these became his motivation to study harder and go abroad.

Looking forward to the following life story of Saburo, I think it is a great chance to understand what has happened in the past and dig into the history of this island and my country.

Gathering Blue

Lois Lowry - Gathering blue

I want to share an inspiring sentence in this book with you guys!

“Take pride in your pain, you are stronger than those who have none,” said by Kira’s mother.

Get out of my head 12/21

 

Things to do on 12/22

 Dear all,

We are moving to the last one-third of the semester. You are almost there (, so am I). We'll be focusing on the creative projects, and I strongly encourage you to revise your individual videos according to the comments that Louis gave.

Essay 3 is the last written work you are required of. You'll get my comments on your draft 2 to be returned tomorrow. I have to say: you finally have a clear concept of structure! But here are some overall comments:

1. When you choose to elaborate on 3 or several aspects, please explain why these aspects? Why are they the most important factors in your arguments? 

2. How are these factors/aspects related to one another? Please note this will make it easier to have proper transitions among paragraphs.

3. Once you have structured your points logically, what's left is the depth of your arguments and the power of words you show in your writing. Your sentence structure also determines the flow of your writing, fluent or awkward, empty or solid with viewpoints.

For tomorrow, a young, beautiful, but senior CEO from a high (digital) tech company will come into class to give a talk on the making of promotional videos. 

Reminder: Please save your first progress report and prepare the second one this week. I am expecting that you increase material in the report every week. From last week on, your minutes for the workshop hours can be done as a group.

Time slots for your essay conferencing will be posted after class. 

See you!

ps. If you find any break time, I'll hope you continue reading~ That can include the material you read for your projects. 

Facing problems and working through them, that's what makes you strong.

    

    Hello, everyone. I’ m Serena. Welcome to my log 6!

    In this week, what I have read in Charlie and Great Glass Elevator is that Mr. Wonka chose to defeat the monster in order to save government officials from being attacked by the monsters on the spacecraft. In my opinion, Mr. Wonka does not need to consume himself too much with defeating monsters. I mean if it is simply about saving people’ life, he can just take everyone to escape the spacecraft, staying away from monsters to keep everyone’s life. However, he didn't escape, he chose to face the dangerous monster, trying to defeat it which is everyone's nightmare.

    This plot of the story led me to come up with a question: When encountering difficulties, will you choose to avoid or face it?

    Just at the moment, it occurred to me that my friend came to seek help from me recently because he didn't know how to reject others, so he chose to escape the problem instead of facing how he could do to reject the invitation of others.

    Specifically, due to the recommendation of my friend’s fitness coach, he met an insurance manager. After an interview, the insurance manager said to my friend "I think you have great potential, and you are very suitable for this business. For reminder: You will be very busy afterwards, because I will spend a lot of time training you." Originally, it should be a pleasure for my friend. However, after three meetings between him and the manager, I gradually found that he often looked glum. He told me he spent a lot of time training by this manager, and it has already affected his university studies. Lastly, he didn't know how to refuse the manager's invitation afterwards.

    My advice to him is that “you should face this problem instead of avoiding. Evasion will only make you unable to graduate because you didn’t have enough time to take care of your university studies. What’s worst, what if you find the insurance industry is not what you want to do in the future. Think about it, the time you spent on all these training plus the inability to graduate, is it really the result you want to see?”

    Therefore, I advised him to face the problem of being unable to reject others. First of all, you must first understand what kind of life and work you want to pursue in the future. Secondly, how to implement it, such as taking relevant courses in the university, or studying with friends in relevant fields. Last but not least, have good time management.

    After hearing this, my friend realized that he had to face his own problems, and he also realized that he had to complete his university education first. In the end, he successfully declined the invitation of the insurance manager and focused on his studies. 

    In this incident, I observed the fear behind my friend’s escape is from the confusion about the future. I also realized that sometimes the problems can not be evaded because it will only make the result worse. Moreover, through the events of my friends, I also remind myself just like how I told my friend, I should pick up my courage to face problems, overcoming difficulties.

 

 1.       What is SDGs

https://www.slideshare.net/mes0/sustainable-development-goals-sdgs-70859274

2. Four reasons to teach SDGs

https://www.participatelearning.com/blog/4-reasons-to-teach-the-sustainable-development-goals/

3. Progress report

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WkT9QdYosDSCVNnfzmZFCWpvya0pUCiT/edit

3. Process report

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WkT9QdYosDSCVNnfzmZFCWpvya0pUCiT/edit

Things to do on 12/15

Dear all,

One more month to go! Yeah! This is for both you and me, ha!

Sorry to keep you busy by bombarding you with essays, reading and blogging, and video projects.  You probably don't know that this course used to contain two different subjects: Advanced Reading and Composition II. Think it this way: if it were three years ago, you would have to work for two "insane" courses taught by me, the reading teacher, and Gloria the writing teacher, at the same time! Or, it was actually two "insane teachers!" XDDD! But, once again, I have seen that you keep making progress, and that really makes me happy!

Ok, from this week, we'll focus more on the video projects, giving you time discussing and critiquing video examples and working on your projects supported by our comments, suggestions, and technical support. So please bring your laptop to class.

For the final creative/group project, I'll show you the videos made by your seniors to give you some ideas to begin with. Certainly, I'd like to give you more flexibility on topic selection, but, with some conditions. I'll explain in class.

Louis will come into class for the third hour bringing his comments and suggestions for your individual videos. We do not want to overwhelm you with lots of revision works,  only to help you make a video that you'll be proud of. 

Then I'll leave for an activity that starts at 11:30. While Louis is helping with your videos, others shall begin to brainstorm ideas for your group project.

See you, eh, in the morning~

the abuse of authority

Once, Jane unintentionally drops her slate in front of Mr. Brocklehurst, a harsh and unpleasant man, making him furious and blaming her in public by asking her to stand on a stool. Moreover, Mr. Brocklehurst requests everyone to exclude her and forbids anyone to talk to her the rest of the day. While the clouds of despair obscure Jane’s sky, the silent consolation from Helen, smiling at her every time she passed by, becomes the beam of sunshine that illuminates the darkness. It reminds me of my childhood experience. 

I used to be a child that always performed well on my schoolwork, but not the typical type of “good student” that received much love from teachers due to my mischief. When I was 11 years old, I was humiliated in front of the class by my PE teacher who insisted that I didn’t finish the 800-meter running test. Out of rage, he shouted at me loudly and used abusive words regardless of other classmates and my defense that I did finish my run with another classmate running with me. As a compromise, I ran another 200 meters with all my classmates staring at me and my tears dropping from my eyes. After the class, no one came to me, even the one that ran with me, except for one classmate that accompanied me patiently. She was like my Helen, providing me the courage to retrieve my broken heart at my darkest time. 

This event came to an end and followed another event that also hurt me when I was 12. I was elected as the model student by our classmates while the ideal candidate for my homeroom teacher is another one. As the model student of our class, I had to compete with model students in other classes for the representative model students of our school. In the end, I won second place out of three nominees, which I considered not a bad result. Yet, my homeroom teacher disclosed terrible messages that seriously hurt my self-esteem once I was caught passing letters with others during the class. She had me stand up and read aloud the contents of the letter in front of the class. Accusing all of my behaviors she considered rebellious in mean words, she also despised me by telling the class that no teachers liked me even though I was good at studying, no one voted for me in the election, and some teachers even discussed me behind my back. Once again, I felt ashamed and cried in front of the class. From then on, every time I encountered teachers reminded me of these words, resulting in my dread of teachers, even the ones that I thought we had good relationships with. Furthermore, my confidence faded away, causing me to blame myself for minor mistakes all the time and care about how others judge me to an excessive extent. 

For those teachers, it is not a big deal to vent their emotions on students at their wills. For Jane and me, these experiences could be a wound that would never heal. Possessing a relatively higher status, those teachers exerted their authority and oppressed students with a superior attitude. Students, on the other hand, become the victims that have no strength to resist the dominant power. In addition, the temporary pleasure for teachers could be a trauma that haunted students for a lifetime and pushed them to the valley of low self-esteem. Fortunately, Jane and I have supporters like Helen that are willing to save us at our worst. Nevertheless, I still disagree with the unhealthy subordinate relationship between teachers and students and hope that students can be on equal status with teachers rather than being inferior objectives that have no choice but to endure the unreasonable treatment from teachers. 

(Of course, there are still many teachers that are exceptional and worth respecting! The main point for this article is about the unequal rights between students and teachers. )

How our relationship has changed under the influence of technology?

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, my friends. Happy to see you again in my blogger. Unexpectedly, this is the last required log in this semester; but I will keep reading “Snow Crash” until I finish it and keep sharing my reflection with you. So, I’ve read approximately half of this novel so far, I will briefly update the progression of the story for you in the following paragraph, and further discuss an issue regarding human relationship and technology in the third to fifth paragraphs. This time, hope you can still read it at ease and can relate to your own experience by reading this log.

In previous log I mentioned that the main character, Hiro, started his adventure in the Metaverse and again commerce on his original occasion (also his strength), hacker. So, why I called his journey an adventure? Because in the Metaverse, there were lots of challenges waiting for Hiro to conquer. Among these, the most dangerous one is a drug called “Snow crash (kind of computer virus)”. If people in virtual world consumed “Snow crash”, they would have serious side effects or even disappear in the virtual world. Initially the main characters had been indifferent to this drug until some of Hiro’s friends went mindless in reality. Hiro found out this drug would cause effects on both virtuality and reality, so he started to investigate the source of Snow crash. To stop this drug, Hiro demonstrated his hacker skills, inventing more powerful weapon to combat the Bob’s corporation, which was the inventor of “Snow crash”.

(Since I’ve been a bit busier recently, the above contents are about what I’ve read. The following is my personal reflection to it.) 

So far as I’ve read, I really feel that the world in the novel is a bit wild, but for some reason it makes me think that it is possible to be realized. A world that went both downhill and crazy, which were only four things worth paying attention to in the novel: music, movies, software, and high-speed pizza delivery. People put their focus in the virtual world, trying to escape from the dangerous and doom world. However, due to the appearance of “Snow crash”, their lives were even more dangerous. From author’s description, I also think about how technology has distorted the human relationship, which seems to interact frequently but in fact is alienated.

Last weekend, I didn’t go back home. My grandpa scolded me for not informing him that I wouldn’t go back this weekend. He said “people relationship now isn’t as sturdy as before. Even though we have the convenience brought by the technology, we still ignore the basic human relationship.” Of course, this is not the first time he said that. However, this time I seriously think of his words. Why people don’t be closer but be more distant under the development of tech? (Or more extremely says), Why human relationship seems to be distorted by the development of tech?  The relationship in real life has been gradually changed or even replaced by the one in the internet. For instance, I can tell a stranger all of my personal affairs but I cannot socialize with any person in real world. Another example is in a family reunion, all family members were staring at their phones, immersing in their phones as if they were independent individuals instead of family. Also, the frequency of warm greeting was reduced, instead, it was replaced by those cold online texts and texting image (長輩圖). I usually ponder over this question：Might people cherish human relationship more without the convenience brought by technology? Yet the fact is people have been affected by tech to a certain extent. Some can fall in love with a person by a couple of lines of texts; or some can commit suicidal due to anonymous comments in the social media. They both forget what should really pay attention to, the genuine relationship between people around them and themselves. People now (including me) are similar to the characters in this novel, we all take a different character in virtual world. What a shame, we seem to like the identity in virtuality much.

I sincerely hope that our future would won’t be like the one in novel, at least I will try my best to prevent that world from happening. For me, I really love the time when my brothers and I were playing hide and seek instead of immersing into phone games like now. The former let me feel the true warmth while the latter only make me feel a sense of distance. What about you? Does your world be affected by technology? and what kind of world do you prefer?

Comment below if you want. 😊😊😊