Family

你 好。我很好。我是杜慧珍。我 是我的父母的女儿。我的爸爸生在马来西亚，可是他是中国人。我的妈妈生在首尔， 她是韩国人。我生在圣安东尼奥。 我是美国人， 可是我跟我的中国家人以前住在马来西亚。后来我住在荷兰。我觉得荷兰根马来西亚一样好。我想我的家人，因为只由我和我的爸爸住在美国。我长大以后想回去荷兰。现在有没有钱。因为我是大学生，所以我没有钱。我有的时候喜欢念书。现在我很困。。。再见。

North Korea and China Relations

In September of this year Kim Jong-Il's youngest son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-Un, was elevated to the status of four-star general and vice chairman of the Central Militray Comission. Also in the same month Kim Jong-Il was "reelected" as president of North Korea. Shortly after Chinese state councillor and public security minister, Meng Jianzhu, warmly congratulated Kim Jong-Il on the "the successful solution of the issue of succession to the Korean revolution." Considering North Korea's volatility, I wonder if it really is in the Chinese's best interest to align themselves with such an isolationist country.

Living in Chaos and All That

I personally would not recommend the novel Chaos and All That. The novel was written by Liu Sola, a member of the Lost Generation, and meant to illustrate the consequences of the Cultural Revoltion. Although, an insightful novel to one of China's darkest eras the novel has a tendency to be very jumpy and difficult to follow. The sequence of events are not linear; they seem to just be placed at random, as if from memory (note:  the novel apparently is not an autobiography.) The flow of the story seemed too fast paced; it felt as if the author was trying to recollect as fast as possible so as not to forget any detail, which is commendable but annoying at the same time.

The novel follows the life of one of China's Lost Generation. The novel starts with Haha Huang as a young child. From the very day she is born her parents, specifically her mother and auntie, are adament about her "superiority" to other children. They do everything in their power to raise her to be the ideal Chinese woman. They force her into ballet classes, to piano classes, and to opera classes. They sing songs of the past and induldge her wish of wanting to be a member of the Red Guard. As a child of the Cultural revolution Huang comes across horrible scenes that testify the depth of human depravity. (i.e. the beating of the old former landowner by teenage Red Guard members). These visions, the mass manipulation, and the turn on basic human morality have an impact on Huang. It doesn't seem like Huang does much with her life after she leaves China for London. She studies, she paints, she has a attached lover, she roams her apartment, and she sits to write letters that never come. Basically, I view her as a waste of space. She hasn't made anything of herself, she hasn't lived her life or done anything worth living for. I believe Huang feels the same way about herself, this can be shown by her repeating the quote:  "Why wasn't I just bornan ant?" An ant doesn't live for long and its main purpose is to constantly gather food. Huang seems lost she doesn't know what she wants and she doesn't even have the passion to try for it.

The novel was not sequenced in a orderly fashion ; this and the fact that I viewed the main protagonist as useless leads me to the conclusion that I did not find this novel enjoyable and doubt that others would as well. I admit the novel had its high moments and at times was able to give me a good giggle, but those moments were rare and far between.