Anthem 30-48

Summary

I continue to unravel the mysteries behind this dystopian world and try to better understand the rules and customs of its people. One rule they have is that they have to work from age 18-40. Once they are forty, they are called the old ones. Once forty, you know that you are soon to expire and are very lucky if you reach the age forty-five (which I find surprising). Equality meets another outcast, International 4-818 and becomes friends with him. Equality says both have sinned because they have become friends and are suppose to love one another the same they love others. Equality and International venture out and find this deep hole. Equality wants to go down this mysterious hole but International is scared of going down a ‘forbidden hole’. Equality argues that it is not forbidden because the council knows not about it, so therefore there were no laws that made it forbidden. Equality goes down the hole, alone, and find out it leads to an underground tunnel that was made during the unmentionable times (which I presume would be our time). This tunnel would be where the trains would go because Equality felt some tracks that were laid down. When Equality goes back up, International says he wants to report the finding to the council, but Equality refuses and says “to surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it also” (Rand 34). Everyday Equality goes back to the same hole and steals candles so he can see the tracks for himself, which is yet another sin (stealing candles- I guess). Equality introduces us to Liberty-3000, a female. It is forbidden for men to notice women and for women to notice men, so Equality is committing yet another sin by looking at Liberty. Equality stares Liberty everyday on his commute to work and thinks she looks back at him. One day, Liberty actually turns around and notices Equality, and then turns back around and walks away. The very next day, they both greet each other with their eyes and by smiling at one another. Equality decides to start calling Liberty the Golden One, which is a sin because you cannot call one by a name that is not assigned to them. Equality says he does not know why or when he thinks about liberty but feels the earth is not a burden to live in anymore, so he tries to find out by talking to her. Liberty knows that Equality is not like the other men, and Equality believes Liberty is not like the other women. They’re having a conversation, which is cut short when the other women come out to spread seeds. As Liberty leaves, she throws seeds wildly onto the ground because her hands were trembling.

Quote

“Children are born each winter…Twice have we been to the Palace of Mating, but it is an ugly and shameful manner, of which we do not like to think”. (Rand 41)

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This quote was quite, well the first part, hilarious to me. When I read that children were born only during the winter, I wondered, what if everyone was born on December 25th. That would’ve been so weird and awkward, well to us but not to them. The second part of the quote made me wonder what happened to Equality at the Palace of Mating. Did something go wrong and he didn’t get paired up with someone? Did he feel disgusted and refused to participate in the ‘ritual’? What happened Mrs. Rand?

Anthem pg 17-29

Summary

My first impression of this book was that it was going to be a jungle book. It had tress in the front and some leaves, but after reading the first sentence, “It is a sin to write this” (Rand 17), I started to say in my mind, ‘something is not right’. And I was right, something isn’t right. The narrator says he/she has committed a great sin. A sin that has no punishment because it has never been committed therefore there were no laws that gave the specific punishment. I found out that the narrator’s name is not really a name actually, but a number. The narrators name/number is Equality 7-2521. Now that I found really weird, and I though to myself, where else have I seen a number being substituted for a name, then I remembered the Holocaust. I continued reading and I found something very strange with Equality, he/she refers to him/herself as a third person. Equality doesn’t say ‘my name’ but ‘our name’. Equality doesn’t say ‘I have committed a crime’ but ‘We have committed a crime’ which makes me wonder who is 'we’? Equality is 21 years old and 6 feet tall, which is supposedly bad. We, no I learn more about this society and the way it functions. I learn that there are councils that are in charge of different areas of the society’s daily life. They have the council of scholars (the smart people), vocations (ones who assign jobs) and so on. This book then reminded me of the dystopian society in Gathering Blue and The Giver (both by Lois Lowry). So that’s when I started to ask myself yet another question Is this book a dystopian novel? So many questions, so little space.

Quote

“ We are six feet tall, and this is a burden….We are born with a curse." (Rand 18)

Reaction

This quote was quite….humorous the first time I read it but then I understood what Equality meant. At first I thought I should be considered a gift because we, in my society, consider it a blessing to be that height because, well you can be a basketball player and earn lots of money, but then it is difficult being different from the others. Being ostracized from your peers and family, if he/she had one, and being looked down upon by your teachers and leaders and everyone telling you “You have evil in your body because you’re taller than me” is very difficult to handle.

Freemasons: a history and exploration of the world's oldest secret society iX-40

Summary: The book begins with an introduction of the author, H. Paul Jeffers. Jeffers says, in the introduction that he is not a Mason and does not have any affiliation with the masons. So what I want to know is, and probably you as well, how is he writing a book about a group he is not in? Jeffers talks a little about the masons as if he had joined them. Masonry, the oldest society in the world, is an international fraternity whose members are mostly men, but some admit women. Masonry is open to all people from different races and religion those who believe in immortality of the soul. At the head of the Masonry society is the Grand Lodge, a person who governs a particular place/country. People who are and were masons include presidents, kings, tycoons of industry, writers, composers, educators, generals, doctors, social and civil rights leaders. The origin of masonry has often been debated. Some argue that it began when King Solomon was building his temple; others date it way back to ancient Greece and Egypt. Free masonry was practiced in Europe and when colonies were established in the Americas, free masonry also establishes itself. Many of the U.S presidents were free masons and it is even said that the one dollar bill has some Masonic symbols. It is also said, or believed, that Congress was formed under Masonic beliefs. Masons are sworn to extreme secrecy and they look out for each other. Even though people believe Masonry is wrong, others believe it helps people express themselves. Chapter 1 and 2 both talk about the history of Free Masonry, which Jeffers believes, started with the building of King Solomon’s temple in the Holy Bible. Chapter 3, however, talks about Free Masonry and its relations to the…Knights…Templar? Huh?

Quote:

“He declares ‘Dues Vult’ (God wills it)” (Jeffers 13)

Reaction:
I found this quote to be quite humorous when I read it. Here is a society so secret and so…dedicated to things that most people believe are anti-Christianity, but one of its members is saying “God wills it”. What now they believe what they’re doing is what God told them to do, kind of like the idea of Manifest Destiny, when the pioneers traveled west spreading their democracy and said “It is God’s will”. Pfft, please.

The Joy Luck Club 145-184

Summary

The book starts another section called American Translation which talks about the ST. Clairs. Lena St. Clair talks about the freaky prediction powers her mother, Ying-ying St. Clair, has. She says her mother wasn’t able to predict earthquakes or the stock market, but the bad things that affect the family and she knows what causes them. She remembers when her mother predicted her unborn baby would come out dead, and it did. She also predicted that a bank would go bankrupt and lose all its money. A month later, an officer was arrested for embezzlement. She also predicted that something bad would happen to her husband because the flower he had bought he died even though she watered and took care of it. The next year, Mr. St. Clair died of a heart attack. She also remembers that she said “‘you future husband have one pock mark for every rice you not finish’” (Tan 151). Lena starts to eat up everything that is given to her because of fear of having a husband like Arnold, neighborhood bully, who already has pock marks on his face. She later stops eating and becomes anorexic. Linda then marries a man name Harold who owns an architecture firm. Both keep track of all their expenses and keep their bank accounts separate. When Harold decides not to promote his own wife, Lena gets upset and wants to pick a fight. That same night Ying-yings visits them and accidently breaks a vase that was set n a table built by Harold himself. When asked why the vase was put there, Lena says “I knew it would happen” (Tan 165). The book goes back to Waverly Jong. Waverly Jong had previously been married and now has a daughter. She later gets a divorce because of unknown reasons. She meets a new guy named Richie who are planning to get married. When Waverly plans to tell her mother, she takes her to a hair salon, but every time she brings up Richie, Lindo changes the subject or ignores her. Waverly then continues to talk about her chess life. After quitting chess for a while, she decides to start playing again, but her mother doesn’t care. After losing a couple of tournaments, it seems that Waverly has finally lost her talent. She quits playing chess at the age of 14. Waverly and Rich are invited for dinner and Waverly sees this as a way to break the news to everyone that she was engaged. Things didn’t go exactly as planned when Rich does not blend in. First of all, he brought a bottle of French wine which was not appreciated. He made the mistake of drinking two glasses of wine which shows his drunkenness. He ate too much or at too little and even criticized the hostess’ cooking which is the worst thing anyone can do in Chinese culture. Waverly’s plan was a utter failure, but she did not give up. The next day, when Lindo was sleeping Waverly wanted to wake her up and tell her the good news, but instead freezes and starts to weep. Lindo awakens and tells her that she already knew about her engagement with Rich. Lindo tells Waverly she hates Rich but approves of the marriage. She also tells her to postpone the marriage so they can have their honeymoon in china.

Quote

“‘I knew it would happen.’ ‘Then why you don’t stop it?’ asks my mother. And it’s such a simple question” (Tan 165)

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This is a time i would like to make a prediction of my own. I believe Lena thinks that her marriage with her husband Harold is going to end soon. The vase is a sign that the marriage is going to fall apart and Lena is saying she knew it would happen because she is already think about getting a divorce with Harold. That is what i believe is going to happen.

The Joy Luck Club 23-144

Summary

Back at the Mahjong table the three old women talk about Suyuan's twin daughter she abandoned in China. It turns out that these two girls are still alive and are eager to meet their mother. Problem is, their mother is dead but they don’t know that. The two daughters write a letter to Jing-mei asking her to come to China to talk about the mother they never had. For some reason the three women seem scared, but I don’t know why. They raise some money through “investments” and used this to help Jing-mei with her travel expenses. It was an act o kindness but the aunts tried to cover it up as paying a debt they owed to her mother. The story then switches to another story. This is the story of An-Mei Hsu. She was never allowed to talk about her mother because her mother was a disgrace to the family. She left the family for another man when her husband had died leaving two children behind. She sees her mother for the first time in a long time when Popo, her grandmother, becomes ill. All of An-mei’s feelings changed when she remembered an incident that occurred when she was four years old. It turns out that An-mei’s mother never left, she was chased away. They had a little family disagreement and the whole family turned against her and told her to leave. During her stay with the family, An-mei’s mother made soup for Popo. She took a knife and cut a piece of her own flesh and put it in the soup. Disgusting, to us it may be, but it was tradition. It was suppose to help heal a dying family member. This action taken by An-mei’s mother made An-mi love her mom again. The story then takes yet another change in P.O.V. This is the story of Ant Lindo and her daughter Waverly. When Waverly was young she was a “chess prodigy”, which means she was extremely good in chess, and that’s fantastic for a 6 year old. Like every prodigy, there has to be a beginning. Waverly began playing chess on a cold snowy Christmas day. All the presents were handed out and Waverly got Lifesaver candy, (yay her), while her brothers received a Chess set with two missing pieces. She offer two of her lifesavers to replace the two missing pieces if they allowed her to play. The brothers agreed and that was the birth of a child prodigy. Waverly started playing in tournaments, and ultimately winning, and also appearing in magazines. She was well known in the Chinese community. There she was, a nine year old girl who plays chess at the national level and wins. Aunt Lindo brags about her prodigy everywhere she goes. She force Waverly to go places with her so she can show off to everyone her little chess champion. One day, Waverly got tired of her mother’s constant bragging and showing off, s she yells at her and tells her to “STOP SHOWING ME OFF” and runs away. She comes back to the house hours later and it doesn’t look like her mother’s is mad but inside she is burning with fire. The book then takes yet another change in P.O.V. his is the story of Rose Hsu Jordan. Rose is the daughter of An-mei Hsu, and being the daughter of An-mei Hsu is not easy. For instance, if you were dating a Caucasian man and you’re the daughter of AN-mei, you are going to be under constant criticism. Fortunately for Rose, she isn’t dating a Caucasian man; she’s getting a divorce with a Caucasian man, which makes things a little bit better. An-mei urges Rose to try and save the marriage but Rose says it cannot be stopped it is what Ted, Rose’s husband, wants. The reason behind the divorce is, as told by Rose, when Ted lost a big lawsuit, he lost all his confidence in making decisions, which he use to do well when he was with Rose. After the loss, he made Rose make the decisions but Rose felt the man should be the one deciding and Ted got angry and filed for divorce. Stupid reason, yes, but…I don’t know I can’t defend his decision. Rose remembers an event that became a tragedy to the Hsu family. One day, while the family was at the beach, Rose was supposed to watch her brother Bing who was the youngest in the family. Bing wanted to go to the reef where his father fished, Rose allowed him. Rose watched him carefully, but when the other brothers began to fight, An-mei told Rose to stop the fight. She took her eyes off of Bing and when she looked back up at him, he fell into the water. The whole family immediately went to his direction and looked for him. They called the cops and rescue teams but they could not find Bing. The next day, An-mei had not given up hope. She drove, for the first time, to the beach and made an offering to The Coiling Dragon. The coiling Dragon was the guardian of water so she thought she could make an offering in exchange for Bing’s life. It was futile and soon An-mei lost hope. Bing was never to be found. The book then goes to Jing-Mei and tells her story. Jing-mei and Waverly Jong were rivals the day their mothers met. The didn't want to be but their mothers made them. While aunt Lindo was talking about Waverly’s success as a chess player, aunt An-mei is forced to sit and listen to her brag. The An-mei enrolls her daughter into piano class hoping she would have a special talent like Waverly. Unfortunately for An-mei, Jing-mei does not want to play the piano but she is forced anyway. She hires Mr. Cong one of the Chinese people in the community who can play the piano to teach Jing-mei how to play. Problem is Mr. Cong is tune deaf so whenever she messes up, Mr. Cong says “Good Job, keep practicing”. Jing-mei is asked to perform a piece at her school which excites her mother but frightens her. At the school performance, Jing-mei does well at first but once she hits one wrong key, it’s all down hill from there. Jing-mei plays one wrong key, then another, then the next series are off and it ended with her mother looking very disappointed in her. It was as if the mother did not want her to be her daughter anymore. When they get home Jing-mei tells her mother that she does not want to play piano anymore.

Quote

“‘You can’t tell me because you don’t know! You don’t know anything!’ And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle, and in her hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached the corner”. (Tan 87)

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I found this quote to be quite humorous when I read it. To understand this quote you have to understand the situation. I think this is Waverly Jong and Lindo Jong because this is right before their story. So, the mother is the person who thee child is yelling at. The mother tells her daughter not to ride her bicycle around the corner because there might be an accident and she would not notice because she was so far away. The mother brings out a book The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, which is a collection of stories about things that could happen to you outside the protection of your house. However, the book is written in Chinese and the little girl cannot read Chinese. The girl asks her mother to tell her the twenty six things that could happen and when she refuses she yells at her, gets on her bike and falls down around the corner. Kinda funny how the mother knew that something bad was going to happen and here’s her daughter telling her she doesn’t know anything. Now, I wonder who knows more now, the mother or the daughter. (I know you’re going to say the mother, they always say the mother, and the mother is in-fact right).

The Joy Luck Club pg 1-23

Summary

The Joy Luck Club is separated into four sections. Feathers From A Thousand Miles Away, The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, American Translation, and Queen Mother of The Western Skies. Each Section is telling a story of a Woman and her daughter. The book begins with the story of a woman who is on a boat headed for the United States. She buys a swan and that once was a duck. The woman dreams that one dy =, when she has a daughter, her daughter will speak perfect english and no one would look down on her. She had high expectations while going to America. When she arrived at he destination , however, America was not all that she hoped fr. She was being bombarded by a ocean of immigration paper she had to fill and the immigration officials took her swan away from her. The woman later married and had a daughter named Jing Mei. Years later, Suyuan dies, and her daughter Jing Mei is asked to replace her mother at the Mah Jong table. I learn that the other mothers , An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair, were all close friends to Suyuan. They all sit down at the Mah Jong table and start to talk about...

Quote

" 'This Feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and caries with it all my good intentions'. And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English".

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I found this quote quite sad after reading the next page which told me that Suyuan had died. I immediately felt sad that a woman who not only wanted to change her life but her daughter's life as well. She did change her life, but she never got the chance to speak in perfect American English which was sad.

Youruba Girl Dancing pg 155-185

Summary

At the start of chapter 10, Remi is getting accustomed to her new school. She already has a best friend named Phoebe Vincent who called Remi’s father a nut for unknown reasons. She meets and befriends a German girl named Herr SchÖfbeck. Remi visits Germany for a short period of time and when she got back, phoebe asked her how Germany was, she says it was ok and that Germans had so many questions to ask her about Africa. It has been a couple of years that Remi has been in England and now she has finished high school and is now looking for a college to go to. She decided to apply to London University, but don’t know if she got accepted or not. She falls in love with a man named Akin Williams who she had met during Sisi Bola’s weeding (back in chapter one). She is going to a party with Akin and there is where our journey ends with Remi.

Quote

“Is there a sight more beautiful, the older women said, than a Yoruba girl dancing?” (Bedford 185)

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This quote, to me, was the most important quote of the book. Well not only because it has the book’s title in it but also because it shows that she was the person who stood out, the most beautiful. She used to be the girl who every one made fun of, the girl who everyone ran way from, but now she has become a beautiful sight.