The weather, the news, the morning commute, the stock exchange, all change on a daily basis, but people don’t get all flustered about them compared to the changes in politics, country affairs, culture, and society which become overwhelming and shocking to people. The overwhelming transformations that people cannot stop are believed to have a negative effect on their way of life. People are so content with the way they are living that they do not want this adjustment to happen, even though it will come eventually. Throughout the three essays by Maxine Hong Kingston, Cornell West, and Kofi Annan, there is a positive and a negative change that is projected throughout the writing.
Cultures are seen as behaviors and beliefs of social ethnic or age groups, these change overtime, and the people involved with the change can become stubborn and scared. Kingston’s “No Name Woman” illustrates how change towards a culture can make a mother tell an extreme story, so her daughter would not bring embarrassment to their family. “What happened to her could happen to you” ending such an extreme story brings serious anxieties about alterations to a girl who has begun her menstruation. An affair could cripple a family’s name and this was the way her mother could change her daughter’s way of reasoning. In the Chinese culture when crops don’t grow or there is no work for people they come up with the excuse that the spirits are angry with them. They used the aunt as a scapegoat “She cursed the year, the family, the village, and herself” when their village became struck with bad crops and no work. The culture of this Chinese village forced a young woman to take her and her child’s life because she was blamed for their misfortune. The d...
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...eason there should be any conflict on something no one can really prove. Annan believes change is a necessary for the world to collaborate and different heritages and faiths can live side by side. There are many things around the world that need to change to make this place better for everyone, but it does not start with countries or religions, it starts with an individual person.
Change will happen for better or worse, people cannot stop change, this is why it has such a drastic affect on their lives in some cases. People will become overwhelmed and petrified towards these changes but in the long run it will all work out. These changes are required for our cultures, our society, and our way of life to survive in today’s world. Once people can grasp the nature of change and start to understand it’s meaning, they will be able to relax and go with the flow of life.
“The Death of Woman Wang”, written by Chinese historian Jonathan Spence, is a book recounting the harsh realities facing citizens of Tancheng country, Shandong Province, Qing controlled China in the late 17th century. Using various primary sources, Spence describes some of the hardships and sorrow that the people of Tancheng faced. From natural disasters, poor leadership, banditry, and invasions, the citizens of Tancheng struggled to survive in a devastated and changing world around them. On its own, “Woman Wang” is an insightful snapshot of one of the worst-off counties in imperial Qing China, however when taking a step back and weaving in an understanding of long held Chinese traditions, there is a greater understanding what happened in
The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan Spence is an educational historical novel of northeastern China during the seventeenth century. The author's focus was to enlighten a reader on the Chinese people, culture, and traditions. Spence's use of the provoking stories of the Chinese county T'an-ch'eng, in the province of Shantung, brings the reader directly into the course of Chinese history. The use of the sources available to Spence, such as the Local History of T'an-ch'eng, the scholar-official Huang Liu-hung's handbook and stories of the writer P'u Sung-Ling convey the reader directly into the lives of poor farmers, their workers and wives. The intriguing structure of The Death of Woman Wang consists on observing these people working on the land, their family structure, and their local conflicts.
The author of the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, Anne Fadiman exhibits a story about the collision between two cultures and the way things affected the character’s lives. The main character, Lia, is found grasped in a dilemma within her family’s culture and the American lifestyle. Since a baby, Lia suffered form epileptic seizures, which were viewed as a positive trait for the Hmong community; those people who suffered from seizures were credited to be a twix neeb, in other words, “a person with healing spirit” (Fadiman 21). Lia’s parents Mr. and Mrs. Lee, were having a difficult time comprehending the seriousness of the epilepsies that Lia was suffering from. Her parents had never been exposed to Western medication; therefore, it was very difficult for them to understand the procedures that needed to be completed in order to save Lia’s life. Fadiman enhances her opinion in regards to the situation by stating, “I have come to believe that her [Lia’s] life was ruined by not septic shock or noncompliant parents but by cross-cultural misunderstanding.” Cross-cultural misunderstanding is indeed; the main cause for unsettled immigrant lives in new countries, such as Lia’s family. In order to enhance a successful life at a new country, the Lees needed to adapt and understand American culture into their own lives.
The “prodigal” aunt in Maxine Hong Kingston’s essay No Name Woman, was shunned from her family and ultimately ended up taking her life and her bastard child’s, as a result of public shaming. Instead of being heralded as a heroine and champion of women’s rights, the aunt’s legacy is one of shame and embarrassment that has been passed down through generations. While this story’s roots are Chinese, the issue at hand is multi-cultural. Women suffer from gender inequality worldwide.
Change happens all of the time in our ever advancing society. Many changes have occurred from 1930 to 2009. Changes like these can be very affective in a positive or negative way and I, as a young Alabamian experience changes every day. Moral upbringings have become unimportant and have caused a drop in society. Education of children now is very important and necessary to help them to succeed. The crime rate has risen in small towns causing more uproar in usually quiet towns. These changes are not very drastic but they are important factors in our daily life and can help or hinder our society.
Change is good." We hear the catchy phrase everywhere. From company slogans to motivational speeches, our world seems to impose this idea that change is always a good thing. Assuming that the change is for the better, it is probably a true statement in most cases. The root of this idea seems to come from the notion that we are dissatisfied with the state that we are in, so, in order to create a more enjoyable surrounding, we adjust. Others, however, stray from this practice, and instead of trying to adapt to the people around them, they try and change others.
In a village left behind as the rest of the China is progressing, the fate of women remains in the hands of men. Old customs and traditions reign supreme, not because it is believed such ways of life are best, but rather because they have worked for many years despite harsh conditions. In response to Brother Gu’s suggestion of joining communist South China’s progress, Cuiqiao’s widower father put it best: “Farmer’s have their own rules.”
For many, change is a cause for ignorance. Most of us fear the idea of change. When one is faced to deal with c...
...e. People will have to learn to accept change, even if they are skeptical of it. Change, as Oakeshott argues, is inevitable, and is something that everyone will have to learn to accept. However, the conservative prefers these changes to happen slowly and gradually so that he can examine their costs and benefits. Conservatives know that changes bring forth disruptions, but if such changes are necessary to solve an existing problem, then they will be willing to accept it. To them, changes that are simply for the sake of change, especially when the current life is satisfactory, is meaningless. They do not believe in the possibility of an utopia, and do not seek for it. Indeed, I have learned to be content with my situation. While I do have a goal that I work towards, I try to use the present as an advantage, rather than trying to change the present to achieve my goal.
Kingston’s “No Name Woman” is a story that revolves around morals, society and family expectations, and women role in society. Kingston writes the story of her aunt that committed suicide in China and she has never heard of until her mother spoke of her once. The purpose of Kingston story is to show women role in China and how women were trap in their society.
The patriarchal repression of Chinese women is illustrated by Kingston's story of No Name Woman, whose adulterous pregnancy is punished when the villagers raid the family home. Cast out by her humiliated family, she births the baby and then drowns herself and her child. Her family exile her from memory by acting as if "she had never been born" (3) -- indeed, when the narrator's mother tells the story, she prefaces it with a strict injunction to secrecy so as not to upset the narrator's father, who "denies her" (3). By denying No Name Woman a name and place in history, leaving her "forever hungry," (16) the patriarchy exerts the ultimate repression in its attempt to banish the transgressor from history. Yet her ghost continues to exist in a liminal space, remaining on the fringes of memory as a cautionary tale passed down by women, but is denied full existence by the men who "do not want to hear her name" (15).
...ny one individual. You might ask three people what their personal definition of change is and receive three different answers. Some people offer very little resistance to change, they consider it the spice of life; it prevents stagnancy and maintains excitement through diversity. Some people view change like the U.S. viewed Russia during the cold war, as an inevitable threat that we must constantly monitor and prepare for. Other people react to change like an ostrich reacts to danger. They just stick their head in a hole and pretend it doesn't exist. Change is constantly happening all the time to everyone in someway or another. Whether or not change is accepted does not alter the fact that it exists however the way you accept change can alter the way you exist.
Why is it that people are so against the idea of change? Change isn’t scary or frightful. For those people who are scared of change, are the ones who make unfair laws and rules that people who are different have to follow. Like African-Americans, who had far few rights then they do today.
Kingston’s mother takes many different approaches to reach out to her daughter and explain how important it is to remain abstinent. First, she tells the story of the “No Name Woman”, who is Maxine’s forgotten aunt, “’ Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her can happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born”’ (5), said Maxine’s mother. Kingston’s aunt was murdered for being involved in this situation. The shame of what Kingston’s aunt brought to the family led them to forget about her. This particular talk-story is a cautionary tale to deter Kingston from having premarital sex and to instill in her fear of death and humiliation if she violates the lesson her mother explained to her. Kingston is able to get pregnant but with the lecture her mother advises her with keeps her obedient. Brave Orchid tells her this story to open her eyes to the ways of Chinese culture. The entire family is affected by one’s actions. She says, “‘Don’t humiliate us’” (5) because the whole village knew about the pregnant aunt and ravaged the family’s land and home because of it. Maxine tries asking her mother in-depth questions about this situation, but her m...
Although she got pregnant by someone other than her husband they did not look at the good and joyful moments the child could bring. Having a baby can be stressful, especially being that the village was not doing so great. The baby could have brought guilt, anger, depression, and loneliness to the aunt, family, and village lifestyle because having a baby from someone other than your husband was a disgrace to the village, based on the orientalism of women. Society expected the women to do certain things in the village and to behave a particular way. The author suggests that if her aunt got raped and the rapist was not different from her husband by exploiting "The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders; she followed. ‘If you tell your family, I 'll beat you. I 'll kill you. Be, here again, next week." In her first version of the story, she says her aunt was a rape victim because "women in the old China did not choose with who they had sex with." She vilifies not only the rapist but all the village men because, she asserts, they victimized women as a rule. The Chinese culture erred the aunt because of her keeping silent, but her fear had to constant and inescapable. This made matters worse because the village was very small and the rapist could have been someone who the aunt dealt with on a daily basis. Maxine suggests that "he may have been a vendor