Steps Toward A New Family Dynamic

In Confucianism, the family is most important. The men in the family have larger roles than the women in the family. In London, the family roles are not as rigid. When the Chen family immigrates to England, at first they are still very traditional in the interactions. Chen handles the money and finances while Lily and Mui stay at home and cook the soup and take care of Man Kee. However, as the story progresses, we see that Lily and Mui are the real dominant ones in the family. Lily later takes care of all the finances and drives the car while Mui communicates with the English people and finds ways to generate extra revenue, while Chen takes care of Man Kee. I believe that the Chen family has strayed greatly from the Confucian family model, and is taking steps towards a new family dynamic.

I'm Curious

Lily loves her dear Man Kee and get's excited when people request to have photos of him. However, when it comes to taking care of the child, Mui seems to be doing the most work. In the earlier chapter Man Kee fell, while Mui was watching him. Also, while on the public transit, Man Kee was strapped to Mui's back, rather than Lily's, even though Lily is the mother of Man Kee. Why does Mui take care of Man Kee more than Lily, even though she has enough time to do it herself? Does Lily truly love and care about her son?

At Home At Heart

In Sour and Sweet, there is always a clear distinction between the native English people and the Chinese foreigners. The Chen's homeland of China is always described as an idealistic place, almost like a fantasy. They never describe the UK, their immigration destination, in this way. The Chen's assimilated in one way or another. They participate in the community, however, some of their actions and customs haven't dwindled over the 4 years the Chen's have lived in London. The gang members seem to not have assimilated very much. They mostly are interested in making deals with foreign people, like themselves. I think that the Chen's and the gang members are similar because they both still have Chinese traditions tied to them and prefer to interact with other foreign Chinese people.

One Person's Strength is Another Person's Struggle

I believe that everyone is special and everyone is unique in their own way. However, I do not believe that being a unique individual makes you entitled to anything. In the AYSO analogy, I think that not everyone should get a trophy, because this makes children believe they will always get the prize no matter what. The problem with that is in the real world, not everyone gets the promotion or the nice car. People have to work for what they achieve.
I do believe that there has to be some sense of inequality in order for there to be creativity because in society, where one person falls short, another person accommodates. Not everyone can be an amazing doctor or a hilarious comedian. But every doctor can't make his or her own scrubs, so they depend on someone who is talented in that area to create them. In the world, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, so no one can be completely equal. However, this inequality allows everyone to help one another to achieve larger goals and to create successful communities. Also, I believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to purse whatever their strength is.

A Solution to Pollution

Pollution is a key factor in the very important topic of global warming. With it being 2014, everyone is aware of global warming. However, not everyone takes action on the reduction of pollution. Me personally, I see the effects of pollution everyday. I see the thick, dirty, and ugly layer of smog looming over areas, and it always makes me feel guilty. It makes me feel guilty because as I am looking at the harmful air that every child and adult is breathing, I am driving in vehicle that is adding to the nasty layer of smog. I would love if the amount of fossil fuels we put into our atmosphere were significantly cut down, but I don't have another way to get place to place, then to emit the harmful fumes.

Once upon a Nightmare

The thing I fear most is catastrophic earthquakes. All earthquakes are unpredictable, which is unsettling to me. However, my fear is the fear of something bad happening that doesn't happen often. Similarly, the "perfect" family in the short story "Once upon a Time" fears being harmed or robbed by people of a different race, which does not happen often. They try to cope with their fears by installing concentration camp-like security around the perimeter of their "perfect" house and only letting the most trustworthy of house workers onto their property. This family heard a single story of an unemployed loiterer harming another family, and applied that story to all of the unemployed people. I don't agree that the people should take such intense and gruesome precautions to block out innocent people who have no intention to bother this "perfect" family.

Theme of Education: First Paragraph

*Revision of my first paragraph*

Theme of Education

"Once again, I arrived at my usual conclusion: one must educate oneself."(Satrapi 327).  The 

Complete Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, is the story of a girl growing up in war-stricken 

Iran. Marjane shares many stories that overall fall under the theme of education. Throughout the graphic 

novel, Marjane is constantly being enlightened, whether it is intellectually at school and 

through books, or mentally by developing a deeper understanding of herself and where she fits in the 

world.

1000 Words: 1 Picture

A picture is worth a thousand words because visuals impact us stronger than written descriptions. For example, above is a picture of me at the beach on the last sunset of 2013. I could sit here and describe how vivid and beautiful the sunset was, how calm and relaxing the waves were, or how I felt a sense of release and tranquility within myself, or I could just show you this picture. To be honest, if I didn't have this picture, I wouldn't even be able to accurately describe the scene as well as this picture can. A picture is literally a visual capsule of time that allows you to recollect landscape as well as the energy, and emotions that were present in that moment. 

"One Must Educate Oneself"

    

    "Once again, I arrived at my usual conclusion: one must educate oneself."(Satrapi 327) In The Complete Persepolis, a novel surrounding a girl growing up in Iran, education is a very important theme.  Throughout the book, Marji encounters educated people, as well as people that were very small minded and were not enlightened on the world outside of their home country. Also, Marjane learns quite a bit about herself as the novel progresses and she learns from experiences that she has had.
   As far as the main protagonists personal education, she begins to enlighten herself very early. "I realized then that I didn't understand anything. I read all the books I could."(Satrapi 32) As well as some self education, Marjane also is heavily influenced by her parents and relatives who also are very knowledgable. However, once Marji migrates from her native country, she encounters some people that are not educated on her culture and insult her, due to their ignorance. An Austrian nun that has only heard a single story of Iran states, "It's true what they say about Iranians. they have no education."(Satrapi 177) And lastly, through Satrapi's coming of age story, Marjane learns about herself as a person and where she fits into society. "I am Iranian and proud of it"(Satrapi 197), Marjane exclaims as she finally realizes that trying to assimilate into European culture was not the woman that she wanted to be. Therefore, Education is the main theme of The Complete Persepolis.

Music Wordle

Shown here is a wordle I created that represents the musical genres, artists, songs, and albums that have impacted me throughout my life. Music has always been very important and influential to me because I believe that it is so much more than just a sound that our ears perceive. Music is an art form that moves me in ways that other things cannot. It won't take you long to see that I like very many different genre's of music, ranging from Korean pop music to Vivaldi. Even though all the types of music displayed in my wordle may be very different, they share the common fact that they never fail to evoke emotion from me.

Say Hello to My Intro

Hello I'm Maia and this is my blog for my English class. The blog is entitled 'Morning Coffey' because my last name is Coffey and because morning coffee gives your day a boost and hopefully this blog will do the same.