[Stella Castro]

I didn’t realize that the practice of drinking tea was such a big deal to both the Japanese and Chinese people. That Japanese and Chinese people hold tea ceremonies for different reasons, (e.g., relaxation, spiritual practice and meditation purposes). Some people also hold the ceremony as a means for social gatherings, but one of the main things in the tea ceremonies is to have a good quality and fine tea. Both the Chinese and Japanese people have to use authentic Japanese and Chinese tea utensils. The article states that a man by the name of Hideyoshi even had a tea room built just for this purpose in which the room and the utensils were gilded. Drinking tea is also drunk for medicinal purposes and the article states that it is even used as a hangover cure.  Tea is also seemed and regarded as a secret to ones longevity, that is it good for the heart, and since the heart is the “Ruler”, of one’s organs/ to one’s life, then by all means people should drink tea, to live a long and healthy life. I especially enjoyed reading the part of the “Harmonious Functioning of the Five Organs”, in which it states where the 5 organs, (, heart, liver, spleen, Kidneys and Lungs), have a certain seasons, Sprits, Directions, Colors and Elements.  Then the article goes on to state what types of foods these 5 organs prefer, (This I have never heard of this), but had me totally intrigued. I was so intrigued with this section of the article, as now I am going to start drinking tea to see if I see and feel a difference in my health. In reading this section of the article I am going to put into practice what I read about in session 7, reading about the art of fiction  I now ask myself, is this true? Or is the author trying to deceive me!

I would not advise my students to drink tea as it contains caffeine, which may or may not be bad. However I can still teach my student’s about their bodies, their organs, colors, sense of direction and the seasons.  I can also make a diorama of a teahouse.

[Stella Castro]

While all the readings to this session were interesting, the one I really enjoyed reading about hoe one gets merits. It is so precise but yet it was/ is to be done on a daily basis, but I can understand that being an officer, these officers do and should receive the merits for being good people. Then the section of “Articles of Excellence”, which to me again are things that should be done and regarded as plain and simple ordinary life practices, but they are stated as articles of excellence, There too many to write about here, but if one read this reading, they know what I am talking about. I also found it interesting when reading about The Vocabulary of Japanese Aesthetics”, as I did not know the word ,”Aware “ could have so many  different  meanings, and that it also means different things in different situation. Like for example that that in these reading meant “to be considered as of Unusual Beauty”, and that also this word had extensive research into it and even had volumes devoted to it. However the most fun part was titled, “MURASAKISAHIKIBU:ON THE ART OF FICTION, this was such an amusing part of the reading as, it is about a conversation Prince Genji is having with Tamakazura, BOUT HE Genji considers a waste of time in reading and translating books. Prince Genji sates to Tamakazura, that reading romance novels are a waste of time and that the authors write about trash and deceit to fool the readers, that it is just merely lies that they write about, but then he mentions to her that without these novels, how would one get by in a day when there is nothing else to do, so Price Genji ended up defended what he just contradicted. But the one point I really liked is when Tamakazura tell Genji, that a reader accepts what he/she reads as the, “truth”, which made me realize and thinks that Tamakazura is correct with saying this, as I never doubted that what I read is false, and I think most people also think this. Now I am curious to ask people if they accept what they read as a truth. I’m guessing they will all answer, “Yes”, to this question, but I still am going to take a personal survey of this.   I can teach my students that the art of reading is a fun and wonderful thing that can travel to many different places and times without even leaving their home and or school. I can also teach them vocabulary, and the art of being a good and fair, honest person, and also the Golden Rule.

[Stella Castro]

It is devastating to know and learn how much pollution there exists in China. A couple of the readings,,”China pesticide pollution blamed as hundreds of pupils fall ill” and “China to unroll nationwide soil pollution survey”, both articles by Ms. Lucy Horny, who was a guest speaker at one of our seminars’ meeting days stated how students started feeling nauseated and then they got sick and then finally they were diagnosed with cancer, when in one of the articles mentioned that a high school was built on an former pesticide factory. Those students at this high school start to get nose bleeds and also started to get rashes, and then they were diagnosed with cancer. What an outrageous audacity. Then the government wants to cover this up and keep it a state secret, how they can be so thoughtless. They want to keep this a secret so that people will not know how mean and corrupt China can be. Not only is their soil polluted but their water supply is also polluted, in this article it states that more than 80% of the groundwater it jihad tested was polluted. That is just an enormous amount, and to think that these people of Chinas have to use this water to cook with, drink, and bathe in. I feel sad for these people. I also found it interesting about how some the people in China like to eat the seasonal delicacy of hairy crabs. Just the words," hairy crabs", makes me shudder, but according to the article they are sweet and tasty because of the lakes/ water they come from. However the article stated that in testing some of these crabs, they are found to have high levels of cancer causing chemicals. The worst part of this is that these crabs come from a city in China that had a multibillion clean-up against pollution. So that means that there is so much pollution in China, and the people who are eating these crabs don’t know this. So they keep on eating these cancer casing hairy crabs. In reading all the articles pertaining to session 8, it is noted that there is much cancer due to all the pollution, where it is soil contamination, water and air pollution, or industrial pollution.

The lessons that I can teach my students would be about pollution. I will teach /tell my student’s hat one way to reduce garbage is by recycling. That recycling helps the earth. So my lesson/s would be on recycling

[Stella Castro]

It was a great pleasure to have Professor Yamashita   to come all the way from Pomona and lecture at today’s meeting. Professor Yamashita seemed to really enjoy talking, presenting and sharing his knowledge. I really like that Processor Yamashita takes the time to have his material printed out for us. The topic of today’s session was about Japan.  I really enjoyed listening and learning about the origins about classical Japan. The topics such as agriculture, taxes, liquor, food and longevity were touched upon but, I really found it quite interesting to learn that back then, the finger print pattern and blood types determined what origin of the peoples live in what areas/legions. I found this bizarre, as to who would even think to look into this subject, like what were they thinking, what made someone decide to thinks and say, “I know let’s look at fingerprints”, as if they had nothing better to do. However upon analyzing this I suppose it does make sense, as after they have dead corpses,( and I really do not think they would do autopsies on them, as it would seem there would be to many corpses), but yes they probably do look at the fingerprint patterns when doing an autopsy. I guess this was helped them determine that in the North the fingerprint patterns consisted of the loops and arches, while the South corpses had the swirls. Also if ones family live in a certain section, naturally their fingerprint patterns would be similar as they are family, they are related, heredity. I always like and enjoy hearing about the mysteries of life, so when Mr. Yamashita started to talk about Cosmology, I was intrigued. Mr. Yamashita talked about the Mythological Evidences, that the vertical cosmology has to do with the heavens, sky the earth, and the horizontal cosmology deals with the land and sea. Again here I wonder to myself, who makes and decides these things, but someone did and so I should just be justified with it.  Mr. Yamashita also talked about, “Shinto”, the native Japanese religion, the spirits and the Kami Gods.  I wasn’t too sure if I spelled the word Kami, correct, as spell check was not able to correct it so I asked, ”Siri”, for what is a Kami God, and she took me to a page that had all the names of the Japanese Gods, which was an awesome one, it had this address lowchensaustralia.com, but since it did not highlight I tried this address and it was a page advertising  dogs?,  I couldn’t find the page, I tried several times and various ways by using upper and lower case letters to no avail. I again asked “Siri’, and again it took me to the same awesome page, again when looking it up on the web; I still couldn’t find it, as I wanted to share it with my colleagues, but I still could not locate it. So I finally came to the conclusion that the Gods were messing with me. LOL!

[Stella Castro]

In reading, “The Passerby” about a man walking past an older man and a child, while it is/was an intriguing read, and one can probably guess at the feeling, the angst the writer is portraying in his writing.   This seemed as a difficult reading to me. While it reads easy, it was a difficult reading for me in trying to understand the meaning of it. Although I re-read it many times, I was and still am dumfounded by it. So it makes me wonder, how possibly one can translate the meaning of it. Maybe there is no meaning to it, but I highly doubt that since, it was written by Lu Xun, (which by the way is such a good and interesting author/writer), I can’t understand how possibly Ms. Cheng can know or understand the writers feelings. Can anyone help me to understand this reading and the meaning of it? Maybe I do not know the meaning of a translation. Maybe it was written in Chinese, and Ms, Cheng translated it into English, but either how, the meaning seems so simple and yet I cannot understand it. I am sure the meaning is subliminal. Or maybe I am just reading to hard into it. However the reading describes a, “Passerby”, who is down on his luck encountering an older person and a young girl, whom the passerby stops and has a chat with them. The little girl tries to be helpful, the older man just wishes the passerby gone, (to me), as some of his words are harsh. But still, yet at times, the older man seems to be kind trustworthy and helpful. But it was written by Lu Xun, and so from the pieces/excerpts of what I read so far from Mr. Xun, all seem to be written in the same form and manner. I really like his style of writing and I can hardly wait to order and receive his book/journal, “A Madman’s Diary”. 

[Stella Castro]

Today’s lecture was awesome as we had guest speakers Brett Sheehan author and Ms. Eileen Cheng who focuses on Lu Xun, who is considered  to be the father of Chinese literature but she  also  translates books, documents, and biographies. Then we were supposed to have Ms.  Xiaowei Zheng speak on the sent down youth , but she fell ill, and so was unable to make it, which was a disappointment for me, but things happen and it’s best that she take care of herself and her health. I sure wish she is better now and doing well. Mr., Sheehan spoke about Tianjin, and how this city became a treaty port that was open so cities opened here for work and to live in but now became mini cities, which was a walled city, sort of what President Trump wants to build in the United States. Mr. Sheehan went on to describe the routine of an urban professional. The routine consisted of morning exercise, breakfast, read the newspaper, go to work, goes home for lunch, then reads before going to bed. That sounds like a perfect day for me. I don’t see anything wrong that daily routine.  Ms, Cheng mentioned some books that may be of interest, but  the book that was interesting to/for me , was/is titled, “Diary of a Madman”. However I am confused, because at an earlier time the book, or maybe even an excerpt, was called A Madman’s Diary, which is confusing to me as I do not know if this is the same book/excerpt, or because of the words in the title or maybe someone got confused about the title, and wrote then in wrong succession, or it is part of a chapter book but with this being a title of one of the chapters. I suppose I can easily Google the answer to this, and I will, but as of this writing can anyone clarify it for me?

 While Ms. Zheng was to speak about he sent down youth, Mr. Dube filled in for this part/section of the seminar due to her absence and did a fine job of telling us about the sent down youth and their trials and tribulations. I can apply this lecture talk to my students about the ways reading can help us learn things, and looking up fact from fiction on the internet/ non-fiction/fiction. I can teach them about the importance of ports, and the in port/export of business. I can teach them the importance of journal/dairy writing, and also sequencing.

[Stella Castro]

I was amazed at the readings for this session, they were awesome. Thoroughly enjoyed reading the article, “A Madman’s Diary by LU Xun, the excerpt thoroughly amazed and intrigued me, with the Authors sensing and believing that everyone was against him, that all wanted to eat him, from the neighbor kids to his own brother and he thought, "why on earth would my own brother want to eat me”. When I read the part of an execution that had happened, and a local, soaked a piece of bread on the deceased person’s blood, and sucked the bread, this part of the reading turned my stomach. This was only a small reading of the book, but it got me to want to buy the book, as I would like to know the whole story or how it began, and the outcome of the story. I remember in the lecture part of this session , that Mr. Dube, said that he once asked a couple of people to read this book, and that they said, they tried but couldn’t because of its  darkness. But I on the other hand would love to read this book, who knows, maybe if I purchase and start reading it, I also may find it too dark to read, but I am willing to take my chances. With this reading I can teach my students that reading is a good and fun experience, and that reading can take you places where you think you may never go. That it is good to read.

The other reading that also amazed me was, the excerpt, “preface to Outcry, translated by Eileen J. Cheng.  Again this was also a great reading. It tells of how a man, at first decided to become a doctor, because the one that his dying father was seeing was nothing but a crook, and would charge a lot of money for medicines that would not help his father, who eventually died, because of this. So he decided to go to medical school so that he would/could help out the people but then changed his mind because he/she felt that THE BEST WAY TO HELP THE PEOPLE WAS THROUGH LITERATURE, and no one was doing it at the time. So he recruited a couple of people and invested into making a magazine, called, ”Vita Nova”, ( translated New Life”, but their magazine went under, as contributors started to back out. He then fell into a lonely and empty phase. An old friend of his saw him copying inscriptions and asked,” Why copy, when you can write your own”, to which he did and it turned out to be his first writing, (Dairy of a Madman), to which he ended up writing ten pieces, plus. With this reading I can tech my students to always believe in themselves, to persevere, and the art of writing.

Then the reading, “The Passerby”, was a fun one to read although I found the content of the story quite rare, and I really didn’t understand the meaning of it, but it still was a worthwhile reading, with a lot of wisdom embedded in the story line.

However the article/reading, titled, “ The New Year Sacrifice", was just awesome the story was another bizarre tale of how the woman, got to get a job, and excelled in it, and was so efficient that she got high pay for it, although upon reading this I did not quite think this pay was correct, because of the time it was written in, and I do not think, people would have that type of money, but maybe they did, but it is just a story. Then the story goes on to state of the fact of how she lost her child, to a wolf, and how the townspeople’s, at the beginning were enthuse with her tale, and she told it many a time, but as time wore on the enthusiasm, faded, and people got bored with her tale, and how a woman finally put her to a stop by asking her, “What made you willing”?, this I assume meant what made the woman willing to get pregnant,(but I can be wrong). So she told the woman to go make an offering to help her fix her sins now, so that one can rest in peace in the afterlife. This reading can help me teach my students about doing the right thing, being nice to others, friendship, respect, and if you do a bad thing, fix it.

[Stella Castro]

It is always very interesting to listen to Mr. Dube tell us the facts of Asia, and although I was disappointed that the guest speaker, Ms.  Xiaowei Zheng would not be able to attend due to illness, Mr. Dube made a wonderful presentation on the subject of the sent down youth. The presentation contained many of the points in the reading, such as how the sent down youth were fooled into believing that they were going to get educated, paid, live in better living conditions  and homes, rather than at home. Only to find out, that the higher the ride up the mountains, the more they saw of what was to be. Then upon arrival, at first, it was okay but as time went on, (after one week), the living/working conditions worsened. Now the sent down youth started to try to fend for themselves and started to demand for fairness of what they had been promised. This led to public outcry, such as movements and defiance of authority. Basically, just fighting back for what they believed in, after the betrayal by the government.  It was interesting to hear some of the same fact as from the reading, however; being it read or heard from a person, it still is a devastating part of history that the people had to endure, and all the while even they did stand out and fight for their voices to be heard, (which they were at last), they still had to endure the pain and suffering of working the land, and just being lied to. What was amazing to hear was that their food is rationed, and the youth would get only about 2ounces of meat per month. That is being less than the equivalent of a Quarter Pounder from Mc Donald’s per month. That is not very much meat. This is a sad fact, making me realized how lucky I am.  An interesting fact that was mentioned in this lecture part was that people spend a lot of money of “Wedding Pictures”, which to begin with cost a lot of money, but it seems as if they have to do this, even though sometimes the people may not have the money to do so, but they do it anyways. Another interesting fact I learned , was that in China, the popular show here in the United States, “ The BIG BANG Theory”, is a  very popular show over there, This fact I found amusing, as to me, it seems as if the Asian culture would not be into American comedy sitcoms, but then  again, why not?. A final amusing fact is that in China, their Alphabet book, is a book of luxury cars, (e.g., A for Audi, B for Benz, etc.), this I find a funny fact but I really don’t know if it is really true.

[Stella Castro]

I thoroughly enjoyed the reading the article of the sent down youth titled, “Images, Memories and Lives of Sent-Down Youth in Yunnan” as it was sad to read how these poor enthusiastic kids/students were tricked into leaving their families with false pretenses of money, jobs, free room and board,  and free meals. These poor sent down youth had to give in to their parents pleading who begged them to go. Actually, in a family of three children one child had to go and in a family of 5 children, three had to go. The sent down youth had to enforce their filial piety to please their parents. Not only were the students fooled, but also the parents, as the parents thought of their hardships being alleviated by sending their sons/daughter to such a wonderful place, where they would be taken care of and easing the responsibility and the burden of the parents of having to take care of their children in ways such as not having to feed them, not having to clothe them, their living quarters would be less crowded, a little more room for the rest of the family. Then as these youth reached the country side and were greeted by  barefooted farm workers, instead of soldiers, and upon seeing their new homes, which were one story bungalows with no electric lights, instead of what they had envisioned as military type dormitories, with telephones. Upon realization set in that they had been tricked, as they were given heavy manual work, the now poor youth had to fight back, and wanted to go home. The sent down youth now regressed to stealing chickens, and they did not seem to think this was wrong, which to an extent it wasn’t because of the mere fact that they had been lied to. And the false pretenses of all of the wonderful things they were promised, seemed to fade in their eyes. They did not care anymore; they just wanted to go home and be home. This was such an excellent reading, as the reader catches a glimpse of life and of the realities that these sent down youth had to go through and endure. It is a good thing that these youth persevered and lived long enough to talk about it and do something about it, all the while still being able to hold their heads up high, and keep going forward, a true sign of one’s virtue.

[Stella Castro]

It is always I interesting to hear Mr... Yamashita speaks about Asia, especially today’s topic/s for today’s session, which will be about Warrior Japan.   The thing that I most enjoy about Mr. Yamashita is that he always has and prepares his lecture notes for us, the students, this is just awesome. I recall that in one of his appearances as a guest speaker he mentioned the fact that students should not have to sit down and write notes. And this he makes certain of, by preparing the notes for us. Kudos to Mr. Yamashita!

The lecture was quite interesting to learn about warrior Japan, as how it got to be. In the lecture Mr. Yamashita told us and showed us pictures of bows and arrows that the samurais use to fight with. I learned that the word Samurai is a noun derived from the verb,” saburau”, (sorry if I did not spell this word right), which means” to serve someone” Some of the pictures also were of the armor and helmets they use. Mr. Yamashita also brought some books that may of have been or held an interest to us on the subject of the lecture. Mr. Yamashita also talked about the different types of castles, the Mountain castles, and the Flatland Castles. The Mountain Castles appeared around the 1300’s and many were built. The Flatland castles, usually were built near rivers of highways, were usually about 40-60 acres, and were used for administrative/political purposes, they had a dual function.  Mr. Yamashita also told us he was going to tell us how to cook/make sushi, but we would have to wait until the end of the lecture, and he delivered. I am not a sushi person, but it was nice to learn about the sushi, process, as many Asian people are fond of it, Mr. Yamashita told us the process of making sushi, and that it originated in China/East Asia. He also told us of places of where to go eat this Sushi in China, where at one place it is quite expensive, but the people love it there and are willing to wait the 1-2 hours to eat at this place. He also mentioned a couple of places here in the Los Angeles area/vicinity, where they have great sushi, but  again since I am not a Sushi lover, I did not note these places, which as of this writing I wish I had, so that I could mention these places to friends, and family who are sushi lovers. This was a fun session.  The things that I can apply in teaching my students about this lecture/readings, is how to make a recipe of Asian food/s, architecture, (castles/s dwellings), geography, (rivers and mountains), and mapping.

[Stella Castro]

The seminar is over and I just want to say that, (I also was a participant the fall seminar), again it was a wonderful experience. It was so interesting to learn about East Asia. This seminar is without a doubt one of the best course/seminars/class, I have ever taken. I learned so much and not only that, the guest speakers partaking in the/this seminar were awesome. From the talks about Africa, and the lions from Mr.Simba, to the devastating information about the tremendous pollution China is facing and has faced for many years. It was also a great pleasure hearing and listening to Mr. Yamashita speaks about warrior Japan.  It was also a pleasure listening to the other guest speakers like Bill Bikales, speaking about the poverty China faces and the other guest speakers.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the readings and the session’s topics. One of the best and most enjoyable reading for me was the “Letter from Emperor”, in this reading the emperor shut down all the requests of a king to enter his kingdom, with only the mere and plain facts of the situation/s, but, as one read along, (or at least I),  interpreted it as a sarcastic satire. But in reality it wasn’t, it was just the Emperors stating his responses in a matter of fact manner. .Another reading that I was really fond of, was that of the Chinese Philosophy’s, (Daoism, Buddhism, Maoism and Confucianism), That was an excellent reading, not only was it informative of the different philosophy’s but it also gave us a clear differentiation of the philosophies, It was a kind of compare and contrast version, and that is one of the things that we, as teachers teach our students, Comparing and Contrasting.

Another very interesting thing for me to learn was about The Filial Piety, which was such an interesting thing to learn about. Although I had always known this existed in the Asian Cultures, but not to the extent of the comic books, were which were assigned to us as readings. Although they were fun readings, as I read them I could not fathom that they could be a reality, and then boom it was mentioned in one of the sessions, as how much Filial Piety exists and to what extent they exist in the Asian families. Filial Piety would and could be used to teach the students about respecting others, especially the/their parents, the elders, and also themselves.

One of the most fun parts of this seminar was learning how to pronounce some sounds or certain words of the Chinese alphabetic principle, although I do not really think that they have an Alphabetic Principle, but rather they use Chinese characters, which could mean and represent different but like similar things/objects, words. Here antonyms could be taught to the students in the English language.  It was very interesting to look at the Chinese characters and to learn about what some of the figures mean. However learning about pronouncing some words was also fun and interesting to learn.  For example I always pronounced the word “”tempura as, tem-purr-a, but was told it is pronounced temp- ura, 2 syllables as opposed to my 3 syllables. This was a learning moment for me a, “ah ha”, moment. Other words such as Qing, is  pronounced as “Chin”,  Also the word “Song” is not pronounced as the word “song”, like music correlated  but it is pronounced as “song”, with a long  “O”, vowel sound. Teaching the students ‘Phonics”, can be applicable here.

If one thinks about it, there are many ways to teach the students about Asia. I just wish there would be more seminars about Asia ,as there is so much to learn and also to assist/help us in bringing Asia into the/our classrooms.  

 This seminar is truly an interesting one. There is so much to learn. Plus it is also a fun one, as one gets to meet and interact with colleagues, voice one’s opinions, ask questions, etc. It is a truly learning experience.  Thank you so much USC U.S. China Institute!

 

A special thanks also to Mr. Clayton Dube and Ms. Catherine Gao.

[Stella Castro]

                I’m pretty excited about the upcoming sessions as, as I was reading the flyer, the/these sessions are going to be about how biographies can help enlighten issues in China’s modern history. There will be 3 guest speakers all of who will speak on different topics/subjects. All topics seem so interesting; I can hardly wait to see what the guest speakers have to say. The subject matters range from discussing the work of acclaimed critic and writer, (Lu Xun). Lu Xun was an essayist, a short story writer and editor. Lu Xun is considered China’s best modern writer. A second guest [speaker will talk about how the Song Dynasty/family hoped to build an industrial Utopia, and the 3^rd guest speaker will discuss how during China’s Cultural Revolution, the educated youth were sent to work in the countryside. All these topics have me intrigued. As I mentioned before, I can hardly wait for Saturday.  Because of our seminar occurring on the same day as the Los Angeles Book Festival, I feel it is most appropriate. Maybe it was intended as such, or maybe it is pure coincidence, but I feel it is most appropriate.  As after hearing/listening to our guest speakers, we may want to attend the book festival in order to purchase books on the subjects/topics, authors, the guest speakers spoke about or about the history of China/Asia or on any other topic/subjects that we are/ may be interested in. Since we will be there already, with complimentary free parking, we might as well take advantage of this situation and take a stroll to the Festival of Books. I know I certainly will!

[Stella Castro]

Pollution was the topic of Ms. Hornby lecture today. I was quite astonished by the devastating statistics Ms. Hornby talked about.

Actually it was quite scary for me to learn that many of our imported food could quite possibly be tainted and/or contaminated with pesticides and or soil pollution. In watching the pictures that Ms. Hornby, showed us, I can’t fathom, how people can live like that, but it is a reality and that is how life is in China/Asia. I guess I am just accustomed to the nice, way of life here in the states.  Air and water pollution, maybe even soil pollution, are still experienced in the States, but not to the extent as in China. For that I am grateful, but  then, I feel for those unfortunate people in China that just have to deal with it and bear it; as no one really cares for their  welfare and since they have no health insurance , that makes it even worse. However I presume that even if they did have health care, it would be an issue for them to attend to a doctor’s appointment and get the necessary treatment/s, as I think their employers would not grant them the time of to go seek medical advice.  Then take the time off needed to recuperate and/or get better. While it is interesting to find out about life in Asia, and their trials and tribulations, I cannot help thinking about the life situations in Asia, as compared to here in the States.  Yes, we have our problems, also, , like homelessness, poverty, hunger, etc., to name a few, but life here in the States, life can be assisted with local government programs like Welfare, food stamps, energy reeducation programs for  the gas, water, and electricity bills, , ( if one qualifies),Shelters, etc.. I guess I am quite lucky to live here in the United States. I sure do hope they have the same kind of assistance programs in China/Asia, as they do here, but that is one fact that I do not know of for sure.

It was very sad to see the picture of a person infected with skin disease because of the pollution in the soil, while that was just a random picture , I am sure there are many more of this type that one can gain access too.  The one picture that really blew me away was the one of the worker who did not wear a breathing mask, as he was spraying the fields/soil with pesticides, as it made me think and realized that this person already knows his fate. The results, of his occupation, and that would be getting infected with a disease/ condition, and knowing he could not do anything about it. He already was facing his destiny, and that being death from his occupation, in order to survive, what an irony.

[Stella Castro]

It was very nice to have Mr. Simba come to our seminar and talk to us about his adventures and life in Africa. I thought as did National Geographic that Mr. Simba a Chinese National was a rarity to want to go to Africa and help out the wildlife, mainly the Lions. Granted that upon seeing the video pertaining to the help Mr. Simba wants and has been able to do in Africa, goes to show that he is a true believer and advocate for the lions. As in the video/documentary it states that in? There were about a billion lions, and now there is only about? thanks to the human civilization. Granted that if a lion, or a group of lions) is called, (A Pride), if they get to near the people or their villages, it would call for drastic measures, meaning kill the beast, or ale get eaten by them. It’s a dog eat dog world, so everyone has to fend for themselves. However if the lions continue to be killed and phased out then they would probably become a next item on the endangered species list. Of course that probably would take a long time but upon seeing the statistics that Mr. Simba presented, it probably won’t take that long of a time. Watching the documentary was a delight and a treat for us, (Actually I should speak for myself, as I do not know how my colleagues felt about the lecture. Lions always have intrigued me, THAT IS THE FIRST ANIMAL I want to go see when I visit a zoo.  So I commend Mr. Simba for braving himself to go to Africa and help put this species of animals. I, myself, would be petrified to do what Mr. Simba DOES, but as he pointed out the lions do not bother him, as maybe they know he is there for a mission only, and that is to help them out. To save them from the villagers attacking and killing the lions.  One thing I thought about was that Mr. Simba spoke of how he had taken his daughter on these excursions to Africa, and that his daughter had been going to Africa since she Ws 4 years OLD. In That I did not agree with him, as, as I saw it he was putting his daughters life in jeopardy, in extreme danger.

One thing that did cross my mind , but I was kind of embarrassed to ask because I felt it did not pertain or go with the mood of the conversation, and  that questions pertains to gasoline. Mr. Simba said some people are assigned to patrol on motor bikes. But also the patrolling is driving jeeps as Mr. Simba and his immediate group do. So I was wondering how far is the nearest city to go get gasoline, and if the city is far, where and how do they store the gasoline, as motorbikes, and jeeps require gasoline to work. Then again how often id gasoline delivered to the nearest big city, and how long does it take, to deliver gasoline to the mainland, and who pays for the purchases. As driving around the savannah in search of aide to either to the lions/animals, or the village people, would seem to require quite a bit of gasoline.

[Stella Castro]

Lin, thanks for sharing the link, while I do not understand or read Chinese, just by looking at the the actors facial expressions, and body movements one can feel and understand what the actors are trying to portray/say and or covey. The music accompanying the videos is very appropriate goes very well.  Locking at the dresses and menswear they look so elaborate, so exquisite, and formal. It must take quite awhile to finish a garment like this, not only that they must cost a fortune, they must cost a pretty penny. I guess that is how the peasants were differentiated from the rulers, princes/princesses, emperor/s, through their attire. It must be pleasant to own this type of dress. One must feel proud to wear these types of attire. Of course if one would be able to wear this type of attire, then that would mean that they were rulers of some type, maybe not rulers but associated with the ruling class.

[Author]

Posts