Hemingway Stands in American Spirit

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it.
——Ernest Hemingway(July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961)

Ernest Hemingway comes to me immediately when I’m thinking of American literature. He is of great significant in American literature and world literature. His fame rose when people were suffering and depressed by the after-pain taking effects of World War I. His works curved the life of the Lost Generation, who have lost in the depression of war, forgotten their original dreams about life and given up hope. There’s a scene in Forest Gump that the veteran wanted to kill himself because he was disabled in his last battle. He yelled at Forest,” I had a destiny. I was supposed to die in the field with honor!” But he survived, he was saved by Forrest. And after that, the handsome Lieutenant Dan had gone, he got drunk all night, he spoke dirty words, he distrusted everything. He’s a good representative of Lost Generation. Hemingway didn’t do it purposely but he saved the lost angels souls. By recording their life, Hemingway provided us with an aimless and hopeless life. But underneath it, we can see the characters delicate emotion that encourages them to struggle, to fight with the fortune with their perseverance, to get back what they should get.
Take the Old Man and the Sea for instance, the sea is a vast, tender while untamable lady in the hero’s view. It is like the inner side of a person’s mind. It represents the veterans’ life also, with no friends, no excitement and with strong feelings. Santiago, the hero, is a lonely and unlucky fishman. He had great mercy and love on the boy who learned skills of fishing from Santiago. The boy is like the merging generation that dare to take adventures and learned from the Lost Generation. The Lost Generation was too old both physically and mentally to adapt the new life ahead. They were tired and bored. They were wasting time to wait for death. But look at the prime time when they were young, they had been the tomorrow of America. They had been energetic and their life was full of hope. They could still find that kind of strength from now and then, but the time had long passed. Santiago is a tragedy character because he got nothing left for the time-consuming hard work under the fierce sharks’ bite. But I can still see some positive point in him. He proved his power and faith again as an aged person. He struggled and he suffered from possession lost but his work wasn’t in vain that he gained admiration and respect again.
Considering his works, topics of wars can’t get rid of him. Wars influenced Hemingway a lot in a certain sense and depth, he recorded what he saw in mind and the world feed him back with a positive change in his novels.
There’re certain songs that make us remind of a nation. Hemingway is what I mark when thinking about American literature. He showed us a great nation that recovered itself with unbeatable strength. I’m inspired by his works. So I can say that though we speak different languages, risen up in different culture backgrounds, we have emotions of anger, sadness and love. So it makes Hemingway’s works universally well-known.

Where you can find the cartoon movie of The Old Man and the Sea:

PART 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1EbNvHDxbA
PART 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2_KszEnlq0&feature=related

Instrument Music in China

Chinese classical music is most attractive in China. There’re various kinds of classical music in China, from time to time, from east to west. The styles are quite different. People may know Peking Opera. It’s of charm that Singer’s dressing up and making great performance using both their voice and flexibility in the body on the stage.
Music played by instruments is one of the most beautiful and oldest genres and it’s my favorite. It’s usually slow and beautiful. The 1st song is played by Hulusi 葫蘆絲 - made of bamboo or another plant such as gourd, and played like a mouth organ, blown both in and out. Created by ethnic groups in the southwest of China, this kind of instrument seldom tells a sad story, nor shows a happy-go-lucky guy straight forward.

It sounds gentle, soft and emotional, just like an 18-year-old girl. She must be naughty sometimes, but she knows how to be a lady well. She might hide her feeling, waiting for someone to unpack the secret of hers.

The second song is played by a new classical music band in China. You can see a lot of musical instruments that are most common used in classical music. A kind of magnificence calls inside the audience mind.
The 3rd one, is mainly played by Guzheng 古箏 (or the Gu-Zheng, or the Zheng, or the Cheng). It tells a story about an ancient musician who felt only one of his friends could understand his music. This song was for his friend’s funeral. After that, the musician never played any more. Guzheng often builds an atmosphere of sadness and meditation.
Instrument music is like riddle that it doesn’t tell you what it is about by explicit words. You should always guess. It right fits the high-context character of Chinese and Chinese culture. People appreciate that understanding by certain indication. If you’re a foreigner to Chinese and you can understand instrument songs, you’ll surely be popular in China. I mean, songs convey certain cues of a culture. The song is another language of a nation. People create the song and they’ll go back to songs when they’re dominated by some kind of feeling, whether tired or happy. So music is a great topic if people start a casual conversation to know each other. Because music reveals characters of a society, a relaxed way to study cross-culture is to learn from its music and don’t forget to enjoy it!

A Pharos in China's Literature Field

There was a giant in Chinese literature before the World War I. His name is Lu Xun.
Literature attaches much to culture and history of his nationality and time. Before the World War I, China was in a reformation from feudalism to a democratic country. It was not an easy process, because China has experienced thousands years of feudalism when all emperors had highly control to the society. Hereditary System had existed for many years in the feudalist society, which presented in the intensive power control of the central government. The emperor was the emperor because he was born to be instead of being elected. Some people of common classes fought for establishing a new government, in result of a new intensive control government with hereditary system. It was a vicious circle and a maze. People in China had been trapped in the feudalism for a long time for thousands years. People seemed to be born with all the rules of feudalism and that China’s society was a pitch of backwater at that time, with civilians deadly dull, seldom knew what was going out of the outside world and with a motionless mind.
At that time, a class that consisted of some Chinese educated abroad raised, wanted to lead China to a modern and democratic country. They were too weak to fight against the feudalism, but offered China a new solution in the fast changing world and evoked more and more people in the new thought.
Lu was a great writer for the great revolution. Fight against the absolute authority would be dangerous in any time. Looking back in history, we can find Giordano Bruno in Italy who was burned to death, Galileo Galilei etc. Reformation costs lives, let alone China, which had been a highly centralization power for so long time. People died, and those who were alive would be killed by any moment. The reformation seemed to stagnate because some people’s hesitation. Lu wrote about common people’s life, with a calm style to tell people how their life suffered. People could see a Pedantic life in his novels and essays, without a word showing dissatisfaction. Lu’s works cover almost all topics in the society. They were indication of the reformation and also an encouragement to do so.
His works, telling stories about low class people, is a mark stone in China. His works is also a beginning of modern style in China. Sometimes I have comprehension problems when reading his works, because the time he lived is too far away from me. He is a recorder of that time, telling the latter generations how life was when feudalism met modernism in politics then all kinds of walks.

Mainly we perceive a culture by its people before we study seriously in it. And furthermore, we turn to look at its people to improve if the conception of the culture is correct.

I suppose people look at me like “that is the Chinese way” or “that is not a Chinese way that I have ever expected”. Some people are strict as to say it to me, some are not, but I see the invisible lines. As one day a friend of mine said, “Hey, Jude, you’re so outgoing, unlike any Chinese guy I’ve ever seen before”. I judge how American culture likes in my view to the people, too. I mean, it’s a human nature to do so, perceiving another culture from its people. People in it are the most apparent evidence of their culture. I have such kind of experience to illustrate it.

I’m a person who can be evolved into a new culture very quickly. But I didn’t realize it until I met some Chinese guys on the campus, who are more reserved who will talk little and who will reveal names or personal information of little importance to you at cost of yours first. I arrived here for almost two weeks and I’m quite used to the habits here, like greeting by smiling, hug or kiss. They’re kind of tacit actions last for less than a second. But some Chinese guys I meet here walk on the way as if there’s nobody beside. They won’t make eye contact with any pass-by because we don’t do this in China. Let alone hug and kiss. Usually I’ll start the conversation, but people talk in a shy and distant manner like “how dare you talk to strange people? And what’s worse, you’re a girl, how dare you be so open?” Even though I’m a Chinese like they are.

My point is, since those shy guys are most seen here, people may perceive Chinese culture to be reserved and shy. When I met the 1st one, I thought he was wired. But when they all react to me in this way, a question raised in my mind. Am I exceptional in my culture? Is that how my culture looks like? I realized that I seldom did greeting to strangers when I was in China. I do so here because I’ve been conformed to native culture here, though I’m not doing this on purpose. I have to commit that there’s a sense of distance in Chinese culture. That’s the way I gain concept of my culture. Because I’m not typical of Chinese people, I assume I can see Chinese culture as a foreigner from this aspect.

Culture is never a good boy. It keeps changing. It doesn’t have a list showing every type of people in it. It varies when viewed by different people from different groups. Not every single person agrees the definition of their own, nor every single person likes what is regarded widely what their culture is like. To contacting every possible person in the culture if we really want to know it is maybe the shortcut to get to know the culture as a whole.

Chinese Dragon Boat's Day

1. Qu Yuan

Dragon Boat's Day is on the May 5th in Chinese calenda. In memory of a great poet Qu Yuan, who ended his life for his country and people. Qu Yuan served a playful emporer who paid least attention to the invasive danger the country facing. Qu Yuan was drifted immediately after saying something rude to the emporer. Qu walked by the river and by jumping into the water, he committed suicide. Maybe he was thinking that the country will be beaten down by the cruel enimies. His fame in literature and politics reached far from the young and to the aged, from the illiterary to the educated, and from his country to foreign countries.

2. People by boat play fireworks to threatened the ghosts for Qu Yuan.









3. People buying Zongzi to memorize Qu.

4. fragrant purses. People wear them to get away from illness.


His death evoked great influence in the country. Villagers living nearby made a large scale of search for him on the river by boat for many days. They threw food to the river in wish that the fish wouldn't eat Qu's body.


Many years having passed by, the date after Qu had died for seven days has been a national holiday called Dragon Boat's Day. Why the date is set to be the 7th day? You may ask. It is believed that the soul of the dead body will come back to pay the last visit to the world. So the 7th day is also regarded to be the most efficacious. Qu has long become a spiritual icon in Chinese culture. People admire his talents in literature and his care for the country so much that we still have this kind of tradition to go boating, eat Zongzi (the food that villagers feed fish), carry fragrant purse (indicate the mortarity).

Dragon Boat's show

5. Chilren singing Qu's song.

6. College students reading the funeral oration.

What I Learn from Ridwan's blog

To read Rid’s blog is a journey both of joy and knowledge. His skill in mastering English is really surprising and I can always find some new expressions upon his journals.
The Philippines is an archipelago, of 7,700 islands. I read his blog on Filipino culture and his view on the importance of language for several times and I like them very much. There’re some points that I want to share with Rid.
First of all, the immigration and the colonization of the Spaniards, Americans and Japanese do result in the cultural diversity of the country. Rid introduced us that there’re some dialects that sound like Spanish thanks to the Spanish three-hundred-year domination. It seems to be the most apparent evidence that Spanish is part of the Filipino culture now. And Rid told me that there’re Chinese restaurants on every island. Even though the Philippines focus on its farming and manufactory industry, its tourism is also a shining charming to explore. After Rid had introduced the traditions and the food in the Philippines, I got that the finest product one can buy in the Philippines is its culture. That’s why the Filipinos have a natural sense of culture inclusion.
Moreover, I want to talk about the language issue with him. "Language defines a person" is what he quoted and what I couldn’t agree more. Language is what has evolved from time and space. Though we’re not what our ancestors like some hundreds years ago, we do have some shadow of them in language. Time is like a funnel; the old-fashioned elements of a language are gradually dying away while bank of new vocabulary throws a lot of words in it which start the dying-away process once put into use; if there’re no new words to enrich the bank, the language will extinct. And, language is the code of a culture. If a language died out, a kind of culture will become a secret that will never be thoroughly known.
All in all, language is what identify as who we are and our history.
Thanks to Rid, and I’m very glad to learn some Filipino before I go back to China. And I’m trying to gain a tolerance on different cultures as Rid!