Quickwrite: Scar

How do you think An-Mei and her mother would respond? Would they think the statement is true or false? Would they be somewhere in-between?

I feel that An-Mei and her mother would have differing opinions on the question. An-Mei’s mother may have been someone who spurned family traditions and left her family for a man with 3 wives, but in the end she still showed that she felt that she had some obligation to her family. Even though her family somewhat hated her, she still came back in the end to take care of her mom in her final days. When her mom was dying, she still came back in the middle of all their hatred and did everything she could, she even cut a piece of meat from her arm off and fed it to her mother in hopes of it healing her. This shows that she had a lot of family devotion in the end because it takes a lot of devotion to go and cut a piece of meat off your arm by yourself without hesitating or giving up the the middle of doing it. She may be somewhere in the middle most of the time, but during certain incidents, she would flip to either extreme of the spectrum.

I feel that An-Mei herself though is somewhere in between in the debate weather family honor was more important than individual rights. She does seem to have some loyalty to her family. This is shown when she was almost going to die. When she was in danger of dying, her grandmother told her that if she did not get better, then she would have a lot of unpaid debt left to her family and that even her mother got so sick of waiting that she picked her things up and left. An-Mei suddenly hurried onto the road of recovery and she stopped complaining of dying and how bad that she felt, all she did was try to consciously get better. Even though you cannot consciously force yourself to get better, her grandmothers words still motivated her to get better and she treid to act upon her grandmother’s words.

Response to "Why Chinese Mothers Are Better"

In the article “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” I found an interesting paragraph to talk about.

Second, Chinese parents believe that their kids owe them everything. The reason for this is a little unclear, but it's probably a combination of Confucian filial piety and the fact that the parents have sacrificed and done so much for their children. (And it's true that Chinese mothers get in the trenches, putting in long grueling hours personally tutoring, training, interrogating and spying on their kids.) Anyway, the understanding is that Chinese children must spend their lives repaying their parents by obeying them and making them proud.

This paragraph/quote seems to be extremely controversial. Some people think that since the parents gave birth to the child, that the child should do whatever their parents tell them to do because their parents have gone though so much pain and suffering to give birth and raise the children to adult hood. Other people feel that the parents should not force their children to do anything and that their children owe them anything because the children had no choice in who their parents were.

I personally believe that children owe their parents some things. For example, raising a child from birth to adult hood is not an easy feat. I believe that since the parents go through so much effort to raise their kids, that the kids should have at least some obligation to help the parents. If it was not for the parents, then the children would have a hard time surviving to adult hood. However, I do not believe that  children owe their parents EVERYTHING. Just because their parents gave birth to them does not mean that the children should obey every last command that their children give them. The parents also have no right in ordering their children to do whatever their parents want them to. The children are their own people, and just because they are their parents, does not mean that they have absolute control over their children.

Quickwrite: Revolutions in the World

There are many similarities  between the revolution that happened in Honduras and what happens in the book “Animal Farm”. For example, both of the places, stories have a person that is already in power or has someone that is in a position of potential power. In Honduras, they  already have a Constitution in place that limits the powers of the president and the terms that they are able to serve as president. In animal farm, they have constitution that is supposed to limit the actions that the animals can take against each other. It is a set of laws that EVERYONE must follow, not just the people that are “lower” than the people in power. For example, in this article (to be added later) it talks about the Honduran president. He did what I talked about before. He was nearing the end of his presidential terms, so he decided that he wanted the power for a little longer. He then tried to extend the amount of terms that he had and the amount of time that he would stay in power. He tried to do this even though there was  amendment in the constitution that prevented the president from being able to do that. He tried to violate the laws of the constitution in what he attempted to do. That is a lot like what happened in animal farm. Napolean tried to take over the farm and tried to give him self absolute power. He even violated some of the amendments in the Constitution, or “changed” them to suit his needs.

For example, there were Constitutional amendments in Animal Farm that prevented the animals from being abused by other animals. Napolean changed those rules or adjusted them to suit his needs. For example, they had first outlawed alcohol in animals, However, Napolean changed that rule when he found out the alcohol was something that he liked. That showed how much of a hypocrite he was. He was like any corrupt leader, changing the rules whenever they suited his needs, and enforcing them when ever it suited or benefited him.

Chapter 11

Jay Pan

Sutherland 5^th Per

2/9/11

The Anger of Benjamin

The sun was setting, and the day had almost come to an end. The coming of the humans and the subsequent argument had confused the animals. The humans had stormed off and vowed anger at the cheating animals. Clover walked around that farmhouse, thinking about what she had seen that day, the cheating between the humans and the pigs. After the farmers and Napolean were discovered to have been “cheating”, Napolean had kicked the human farmers our of Manor farm. They had ran out the gate and down the road, chased by the guard/attack dogs that Napolean and the pigs had set on them. It was unknown who had started cheating first, but it was suspected that it was it was Napolean and the pigs who had started the cheating, judging by the smug looks on the faces of the pigs, and the indignant ones on the faces of the humans.

“This farm seems to get worse and worse.” thought Clover. “I may be wrong, but I will ask Benjamin what the farm was like before.” “He would remember everything that had happened since Jones was here, he has such a great memory!”

She walked over to Benjamin and asked him to tell her about how life was like before Napolean had come into power. He was extremely reluctant to do so, but when he remembered the death of Boxer, he could not contain his anger at Napolean anymore and told Clover. He told her about how lif was like when Jones was still there, the lack of animal freedom, the small amount of rations (and sometimes none at all) , the whippings, the cruel punishments, and intolerable tyrannical ruling fist of Jones etc etc. But when he thought back to Napolean, his anger grew. He told Clover how Napolean had started out as a shifty person, how he seemed to be the least trustworthy even when Snowball was still around. He also told her about the suspicions that he had about Napolean framing Snowball and chasing him away so that he would have no competition.

When Clover heard about all of this, she grew angry. She could not believe that someone could do such a thing to their fellow animals. She had decided that something had to be done about it, so she decided to try and start her own revolution on the pigs. She tried to convince Benjamin to join, but he had denied her, saying that he had seen too many things and did not want to see her go through more hardships. Clover felt betrayed, but did not scold him. She went to the old barn where old Major used to give his speeches and prepared everything. When night came, she held a speech trying to convince the animals to rebel against the pigs and convinced them to sing beasts of England once again. They animals were afraid at first, but as time went on their courage grew and they sang it more and more with more and more feeling. The animals sang and sang until the pigs grew suspicious and came to investigate. The animals scattered, ran, and tried to go to sleep before the pig arrived.

Later that week, the pigs called Clover in. They talked to her about what she thought about the farm, and what she thought about life on the farm. She said that it was not so bad, but it would be better. The pigs dismissed her and then held a secret conference. They had found out that Clover was planning a rebellion due to the spies that they had within the animals. They decided to go and poison Clover's food and pretend that she was sick.

The next week, Clover had come down with an illness. The pigs had no idea what was wrong with her, but they told everyone that they would take her to a doctor, jus tlike what they did to Boxer and take care of her. They animals, suspicious but still believing the pigs, accepted that statement and let Clover go. However, Benjamin saw that the truck that came to pick her up was the same as the on that picked Boxer up and rushed to get Clover, but it was too late. By the time that Benjamin arrived, Clover had already been taken away.

Days later, the pigs told the animals the same story about Clover that they told them about Boxer and buried Clover. Benjamin, shocked and angry to the extremes at the pigs for lying and killing Clover, decided to take over the rebellion. He plotted for days but could not come up with a plan until he had heard that the humans that Napoleon had wrong had planned to go and attack the farm. He plotted wither the other animals and told them how to act during the battle that was inevitable.

When the day finally came, the pigs called all of the animals out into the yard. Squealer convinced the animals to fight, and that they were fighting for a good cause. However, the animals had already been convinced by Benjamin on what they should do. When the humans came, the animals got into position. As the humans came in, the animals rushed to the sides, opening a path between the humans and the pigs. The humans, enraged at the pigs for cheating, aimed at them first and shot and killed all of the pigs. The animals then rushed in from the sides and killed the humans. Benjamin cheered, they had finally completed a rebellion, and he had avenged Boxer and Clover. However, this time around, he would personally monitor the development of the new “animal government” so that some one like Napolean would not rise up into power every again.

The End