Qhuong's Blog

My first impression when looking at the book “Mao’s Last Dancer” was boredom. The cover of the book gave me an idea of this book being all about Chinese culture, which I’m not really interested in. However, as I started reading the first page, my opinion changed. The way the author tell the story was concise but attractive, and that’s what I like the most in this novel. Life under Mao’s Cultural Revolution was reveal truthfully and precisely and one could easily imagine it while reading the story. Moreover, for me, the story is also attractive because of it personal context.I feel like experiencing a new life which is totally new for me, a life under a cultural revolution. Mao’s Last Dancer is really interesting to read, as it  gives the audiences a great chance to understand Mao’s Revolution under a more personal context, and life through that period of time.

People often do things with the highest enthusiasm when they actually believe in it. Belief brings them motivation to carry out the performances with their best. But sometimes, belief is no longer the main motivation in them but money, responsibility, and so many other things. This essay will answer the question of why would people sell out for doing something they don’t really believe in, for example: advertising for tobacco.

We know that tobacco brings us nothing besides diseases like cancer, and affects not only smokers but also others people around. Government has banned smoking in pubic areas. Many people died because of smoking. We ourselves also see the damages of tobacco. We know it is a harmful thing, but above all that, we still accept it, use it, and even advertise it. When belief is no longer the motivation, here comes the domination of money and responsibility. We can buy almost everything with money. Money secured us a life without famine, homelessness and lacking of education. It gives us a guarantee about a bright future, where we don’t have to worry about what to eat tomorrow or our children having a lack of education. We can buy anything we like without worry about how are we going to live tomorrow. With money, we are free from the scare of bills coming at the end of month, from the hesitance when applying for a course because of weak financial ability. No matter how we deny it, money plays a big role in our life and has an extraordinary power that we can hardly resist. Because of that power and benefits money brings, we see it as the main motivation when taking any business task. Why would we sell out to advertise for tobacco? Because we see benefits in that. Because it could bring us more money. We believe nothing in tobacco. We know it’s harmful and killing. We know that there are diseases, death and tragedies behind the coolness, elegance and classiness. But, by advertising it, we have money, and that’s the main thing. Advertising something doesn’t mean killing, it only means that we are getting paid for it. And we are in it, although we don’t believe it, we still have money as our motivation, and that’s enough for us to sell out.
When we apply for a job in any company, we take the responsibility of completing the work and contribute as much as possible to the company. Consequently, when it comes to the time when we have to do something like advertising for tobacco, we can hardly reject. Although we don’t believe in it, we still have to it, part of the reason is our responsibility, and the rest is we don’t want to lose the job. We are employees, when our bosses are employers. They tell us this is a contribution to the company, they force us to do this, telling us this is our chance to getting promoted, to getting paid more. How can we resist such opportunities, moreover when money, as stated above, being almost the biggest motivation. The fear of being fired, the responsibility, the punishment for not completing the work becomes the motivation for us do this, although we have no belief in the task.

In general, besides belief, there are still a lot motivations that can make us sell out for something. Money and responsibly acts as a very strong motivation that could force us to do anything.  We cannot deny that besides personal interests and beliefs, we still have our family, our children who need money for food, healthy and education. Because of that, we sell out for something, although sometimes we have no belief in it.

“How do you do ?”, he asked
“Better without you around”, she answered with cutting voice

They were sitting in a café. It’s late in the night, and their coffee has already turned cold. The rain was falling outside the window, made the whole atmosphere inside the shop colder. Dim light was coming out from little lamps giving the room a sense of old style and sadness, especially when coffee scent was floating around. At this place 2 years ago, she stepped in and met him. When she first met him, she didn’t expect that 2 years later, she would meet him again with another feeling.
“Do you remember, we…”, he started the conversation after a while of silence
“Yes I do, but don’t mention please”, she cut his sentence
“Are you still mad at me ?”
“No, I am never mad at you. I’m just disappointed about you”, she said

 “But there’s a reason…”, he defended weakly
“No, there isn’t any reason for that. I don’t know what people said but I can’t think of anything reason. You left me. You chose her instead of me. Think about it. I was like crying out, begging you to not come to her at that time, but how did you respond to me ? You still left me. Money still has a really strong pulling force on you. You came to her. For what ? Money. Although your working ability is great, you can still make a lot of money, but you chose that way. You defended everything for her. You were the one who said we should break up first. So whose fault now ? When I first met you, I never thought that you were this desperate and pathetic on money, but when everything happened, everything about you in me crashed, like ash”, she said
She looked at him in the eyes, trying to read his thoughts out of them. A little bit of sadness and regret, but yet not any sight of love. “Everything is not the same anymore”, she though. He sat silently, then spoke after a while.
“Look. I know it’s too late now, but I’m sorry. Sorry for everything, sorry for what I’ve hurt you, sorry for everything I did. I’m really sorry”
“Well…fine”, she said after signing, “apology accepted”
He smiled, “thank you, you are still like yesterday, always forgive me”
“When there is love, there is forgiveness”, she said unconsciously
He looked at her surprisingly. She had a same feeling too, just like being regretful because of saying something she shouldn’t say. It was like she has waited for years to tell him that. They looked at each other for a while. Each person followed a different stream of thoughts. “What am I doing?”, “what did she just say ?”, “talking like that just makes he thinks I still love him, but do I ?”.
Fifteen minutes later, they stood up and walked out of the café. They went to the park nearby, where they used to meet after work or school. Old memories suddenly came back, drowned them and brought them back to the day where they had loved each other passionately without regarding about how the future might be. At this park, he first held her hands and promised that he would always be by her side, forever and after. At this park, he said he would wait for her, wait until the day she graduated. They were all part of her sweetest but most hurtful memories. She tried everything to forget and delete them out of her mind, and when she was just about to reach the point of oblivion, he came back and everything collapsed. She signed and looked up to the sky.
Suddenly, there came a series of vibrations. The ground began to crack and everything was revolving and turning upside down. The wind was blowing hard. She felt like something just sucked her in and at some moment, she though she saw some clocks passing by. Then, she was dropped. She stood up and looked around, the place was so familiar. Suddenly, she realized this place. It was the coffee shop where she and him first met. She looked at her watch, it was nearly the time when she stepped in the café and met him. In a moment, she though, what if she didn’t walk in, would everything change. If she didn’t walk in, then she and he wouldn’t meet, and there would be no tears or miseries. She wouldn’t suffer, and they would be like 2 people who had never stopped by each other’s life.
The time has come. She didn’t step in.
She smiled.

She sits there, on a bench in a railway station. She’s waiting for her train in coldness and loneliness. She’s about to get out of the city, the place where she has too much memory to forget. It’s still 15 until the departing time, so she decides to have a walk around the station. She does it with a purpose of keeping the last view of a place she was born and grew up, the place that holds most of her memories she has to force herself to forget now. Silently, she stands up, starts to walk while having a glance at her watch. It’s 9 in the evening, and the weather is getting colder than anytime of the day. The station is quite empty with few people sitting on long benches, waiting for the trains. Some workers are checking the tickets and cleaners are trying to keep the floor shiny with people feet stepping on it every second. With the darkness outside, there’s an absolute contrary inside here in the station, which is formed by several lights hanging up on the top of the ceiling. Between the waiting room and the outside place, there’s a big piece of glass separates and isolates, not only the place but the people also. Outside there, at the ticket selling booths, few people are standing in line, doing the ‘trading’ of money and tickets. They all have sweater and coats and anything that could keep them warm on their bodies. The air-conditioners have been turned off due to weather condition and the heaters have been turned on. From the ticker booths, there’re 7 ways, which formed by 14 barriers and guarded by 7 ticket checkers. These ways lead to the waiting room and the travelers will finally end up on the platform waiting for the train. When looking at the scene, she suddenly thinks “there’re many ways in this life, but in the end, they all lead to the same place where all the people meet and are isolated to the real world”. Up on the wall, there’re 5 electronic timetables with indicates the leaving and departing time of the trains and which platform should passengers go to. She looks up to those boards, feeling they’re just like life and people, coming and leaving at different times. Outside there on platform one, there’s a train coming, people are standing up and rushing to the train. Streetlights share some of their dim, faint light, creates an atmosphere of sadness and regret. The sky is getting darker and the weather is getting colder. She suddenly feels a sense of coldness and loneliness blending together and this makes her want to cry so much. She looks up to the sky and asks herself , “in this place, how many people here who want to run away from memories, from the streets, parks, coffee shops, corners, and more”.

A life without a life by Sumita Datta 

It’s a life with commitment
It’s a life without complement
It’s a life with compromise
It’s a life without appraise
It’s a life with emotion
It’s a life without inspiration
It’s a life with amuse
It’s a life without refuse
It’s a life with tear & grin
It’s a life without dream
It’s a life with touch
It’s a life without trust
It’s a life with pain
It’s a life without importance
It’s a life with a relation
It’s a life without love and affection
Is it a life or only Compromise? 

“A life without a life” is a poem written by Sumita Datta, which listed all “with” and “without” characteristics of life. This essay will focus on the deconstruction of the poem through its content, theme, form, style, context and mood. In the poem, life is used as the main theme. The subject matter of this poem is the characteristics with life contains and doesn’t, through that representing the question about life whether if it’s real or just a compromise between people. The poem is written in free style form and this is a lyrical poem. The poem carries a personal, social and cultural context since life is being discussed based on the author’s personal view about it. There’re some rhyme schemes in the poem, such as 8 first lines (commitment-complement, compromise-appraise, emotion-inspiration, amuse-refuse) and line 15-16 (relation-affection). The rhetorical question in the end stands for the whole idea of the poem. No literary technique is used in this poem.

By reading the poem, a feeling of confusing comes with a question asking if we have really live our lives or not. There’s commitment in life but in the end nothing comes to a complement. We people just make compromises between each other but we don’t look back and appraise the real ability in each one. We might live with our emotion cause that’s the basic, but we have no inspiration to try. Amusement in life has both positive and negative sides, and there’s a lot of them exists. The problem is we cannot refuse to join. With compromise and no inspiration, we receive nothing but tears and grin, and because of that, “dream” is a concept that will never happen to exist. We make contacts between each other, but we make no trust. While there’s no trust, it makes no importance because people just look at everything with a suspicious eye. Since there’s contact and no trust, we people connect to each other through a concept called “relation”, but actually having no “love” or “affection”. Without love, trust, affection, inspiration, life is being questioned again whether if it’s real of just a compromise between people.

Life



What is our life? A play of passion, 

Our mirth the music of division, 

Our mother’s wombs the tiring-houses be, 

Where we are dressed for this short comedy. 

Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, 

That sits and marks still who doth act amiss. 

Our graves that hide us from the setting sun 

Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. 

Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest, 

Only we die in earnest, that’s no jest. 



Sir Walter Raleigh

Life, a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh, is mainly about life and how we are in this life. The poem demonstrates all the identities of life; combine with comparison as the main technique. This essay will focus on analyzing the poem through its content, theme, form, style, context and mood.

In the poem, life is being compared to a play of passion, where we are the actor and Heaven is the spectator. The main idea of this poem is about how life goes since the beginning ‘til the end, being compare with a play. The poem is written in sonnet form, following the form of AABBCC. The poem is written in narrative form since it’s trying to tell us the story of life. The context of the poem is cultural and social context since it’s about life and how the writer views it as a play. In the poem, two consecutive sentences pair up and rhyme with each other in the last words (passion-division, be-comedy, is-amiss, sun-done, rest-jest). In the poem, comparison is used as the main technique to help the reader figuring out everything easier and moreover, to feel the meaning of the poem deeper. For example:
“Our mother’s wombs the tiring-houses be”
“Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is”
“Out graves that hide us from the setting sun

are like drawn curtains when the play is done”

By reading the poem, we are having a feeling of life being nothing but a play where people are the actor and actresses themselves. They play until the last scene, they act right, and even they have to die in earnest. We act the play with a right attitude but when we die, what will we receive, except a grave being a drawn curtain, is nothing. We play passionately, but no one will remember us or even remember anything about us.

IN THE MORNING OF LIFE by THOMAS MOORE

In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown,

And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin,

When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own,

And the light that surrounds us is all from within;

Oh ’tis not, believe me, in that happy time

We can love, as in hours of less transport we may; –

Of our smiles, of our hopes, ’tis the gay sunny prime,

But affection is truest when these fade away.

When we see the first glory of youth pass us by,

Like a leaf on the stream that will never return,

When our cup, which had sparkled with pleasure so high,

First tastes of the other, the dark-flowing urn;            

Then, then in the time when affection holds sway

With a depth and a tenderness joy never knew;

Love, nursed among pleasures, is faithless as they,

But the love born of Sorrow, like Sorrow, is true.

In climes full of sunshine, though splendid the flowers,

Their sighs have no freshness, their odour no worth;

‘Tis the cloud and the mist of our own Isle of showers

That call the rich spirit of fragrancy forth.

So it is not ‘mid splendour, prosperity, mirth,

That the depth of Love’s generous spirit appears;

To the sunshine of smiles it may first owe its birth,

But the soul of its sweetness is drawn out by tears.

The poem “In the morning of life”, written by Thomas Moore, explores life and how it’s going to change through time. The poem represents life from the time of childhood to adulthood, with the happiness it brings and exchanges we take in order to have it. This essay will deconstruct the poem through its content, theme, form, context, style, and mood. 

In this poem, childhood is described as the morning of life when “cares are unknown”, with light shining everywhere and happiness surrounded. But when time pass by and adulthood comes, these things fade away, “like a leaf on the stream that will never return”. Love is no longer nursed among pleasure but the love born of sorrow, and the sweetness of smile is just drawn by our tears. The main idea of this poem is that, life changes through times. As we get older, we have to face with more sorrows and no longer can be carefree like when we were kids. As we grow older, sorrows will come and happiness can just only belong to us when we exchange with our tears. The poem is written in Sonnet, follows the rule of ABAB. The type of this poem is narrative. It tells us a story of life, since the beginning with glories and happiness to the time when they are replaced by sorrows. This poem contains cultural context, represent through the way the author looks at life.

“When we see the first glory of youth pass us by,

Like a leaf on the stream that will never return, “
Simile is use in these lines to emphasize the loss of youth. Youth only comes once, and when it gone, it will never return again, just like a leaf flows on the stream and then will be long gone. It also accentuates the author’s feeling of sorry when seeing his youth gone.

When we live in a bright-beaming world of our own,

In this sentence, alliteration is use to show the reader how bright is life at the beginning.

This poem carries mood of regretful and missing. The author shares his feeling of missing the early days of his life, missing his childhood, and the ruthless truth about the happiness being replaced by sorrows. By reading poem, we understand how life’s going to be, how it’s going to change through times, and the hurtful truth that everything good in life can only be exchanged with tears.

The passage describes a specific area of Nepal, which is Kathmandu, and the personal experience of the writer when he visited the place. In the passage, the place and the writer’s feelings are retold again in the genre of traveling writing. This commentary will focus on deconstructing the passage through its style and language. 

The style of this text is non-fiction, more precisely, it’s a introduction about a tourist place, and is written in first person. The genre of this passage is traveling, as it tells us about the journey of they writer. In the passage, tourism places of Kathmandu are listed ad decribed in details, with a purpose of showing the beauty and unique characteristics of the area. The passage is written in the descriptive style, conbine with feeling exploration.
The main theme of this passage is the beauty of Kathmandu and the experience of the writer. The tone of the text changes from exciting in the beginning to the exhausted and impatient, then finally ends in nostalgic tone. Travelers, especially people who have never been there, are the main target of the passage. The subject matter of this text covers the description of the heritages, including their beauty and uniqueness. Social and cultural context are the two main contexts of the text, as it’s all about introducing a specific place of Nepal. The  text is written is narrative and descriptive form. In the passage, simile is used as the main literary device, explored in the paragraph about the Buddhist shrine of Kathmandu. For example:
“The Buddhist shrine of Kathmandu, there is, in contrast, a sense of stillness”
Or in the paragraph about the flute sellers on the square, simile is used to expressed the author’s feeling. For example:
“To hear any flute is, it seems to me…sentences to the human voice”
By using these literary device, the writer has drawn a clear picture for the audience, therefor they can find it easier to figure out what the place is like.

In conclusion, the passage highlights some information for tourism. The text also helps the reader to get some basic ideas abut the characteristics of a specific place, especially in a mountainous area. BY using simile as the main literary device, the passage has successfully brought us a basic image about the place. This is an informative piece of tourism guide as it includes both the characteristics pf the place and the feeling of the author, so the audiences could get a clearer and more precise idea about the place.

“Owen’s imagery is as strong as his anti-war feelings.”  With reference to any

three poems, discuss the poet’s use of imagery confirming Owen’s belief that

war is disenchantment, obscenity, and torture.

Wilfred Owen is considered one of the greatest writers in English poetry, famous for his body of work about war.  Owen’s imagery strongly implies his belief that war is disenchantment, obscenity and torture. His poems are fulfilled with anti-war attitude, with the miseries and sorrows that war causes for humanity. Owen’s use of imagery describes the horrific consequences of war, and a deep down feeling of desperation, sympathy and empathy with the physical and mental pain of the soldiers. Along with figurative language, Owen’s imagery of the soldiers living through a series of hardship and torment in war is evident. In Owen’s poems, imagery is used to describe and express the author’s ideas of war being disenchantment, torture and obscenity.

In “Dulce et decorum est”, Owen has emphasized his idea of war being disenchantment, obscenity and torture by showing his sarcastic attitude towards the statement. The idea is expressed through using a combination of imagery and simile together. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks. Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge”. These sentences give us a picture of these soldiers torturing themselves, trying to live through days “like old beggars under sacks”. Imagery and simile has accentuated the fact of war being torture. The cold weather and the life under war trenches have made them “coughing like hags” and everyday, they have to go through life in wetness and dirt, described as “cursed through sludge”. War has never been a pleasant place for them but a place of torment, hardness, horrification and self-torturing. Not only when the soldiers are on the battlefield but marching also. “Many had lost their boots” describes their real situation they have to face, marching with bare feet. “All went lame, all blind, drunk with fatigue” demonstrates how exhausted, despondent and discouraged they are from being in the war, showing how torturous war is. War brings hopeless and sucks out the life in those soldiers and takes out all their hopes in life, expressing through the sentence “I saw him drowning, in all my dreams, before my helpless sight”. Even his comrades couldn’t save him from the misery because he was devastated. The war has made them hopeless, devastated, stressed, despondence, drowned them down to the bottom of forlornness and take away all the happiness in their life. Through the images of the soldiers being tormented in war, Owen has accentuated his anti-war feeling and his belief that was is disenchantment, obscenity and torture.

Another poem of his, “Disabled”, uses the image of a disabled soldier to indicate how disenchantment war was. War has made him “shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, legless, sewn short at elbow”, turned him to a man whose body is no longer whole anymore. “Now he is old, his back will never brace” tells us the truth that war has taken away his youth and altered him from a handsome man with pride to a man which has nothing to proud of. War has brought away his life’s, of youth, brings him away from a good old time, expressed through the sentence “he’s lost his colour very far from here”. That detail about his life after war emphasizes the truth that war is disenchantment and torture. At first, he thought war is a wonderful place with “jewelled hilts”, “daggers in plaid socks”, “smart salutes”, “pay arrears”, “drum and cheers” and respect. But the truth has proved that this is all disenchantment. He would never “feel again how slim girls’ waists are”, people would “touch him like some queer diseases”. His dream of coming back like a respectful hero would never come true and instead of that, he has to spend the rest of his life in mental institute due to post-dramatic stress. He would no longer be able to do whatever he likes to do but to obey the rules and has people to do everything for him pitifully. Despite coming back from the war, women wouldn’t look at him as a hero but an old and disable man and would pass by him without notice because he isn’t whole anymore. His dream of coming back like a hero has been shattered by the obscenity and torture of war, turning it into disenchantment.

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” uses a combination of imagery and other techniques to continuously express the author’s belief of war being disenchantment and torturous. The rhetorical question of “what passing bells for these who die as cattle” refers to his wonder about how the soldiers are treated after they died. Owen has combined simile with imagery to emphasize how ruthless war can be to those soldiers. These soldiers died “as cattle”. They aren’t even treated as humans although they fight and die for their country. This rhetorical question acts as an emphasis to Owen’s belief that war is disenchantment, torture and obscenity. The answer comes in the next sentence “only the monstrous anger of the gun”, using imagery and personification together to describe the gun as a monster. Moreover, this also points out that war is disenchantment by stating that only the sound of gunfire being the choirs for the dead soldiers. “What candle maybe held to speed them all?” again asks the question of how these soldiers will be treated after death. Candles are often used in funeral to light up the darkness, escort the death person to heaven and chase away sorrows and pains. In war, the only thing they receive is the candle in the eyes of their comrade as their mourning, designated through the sentences “Not in the hand of boys, but in their eyes. Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes”. Again, the disenchantment of war is emphasized through the fact that these soldiers will never have a proper funeral. The image of the pallor of girls’ brow is also used to prove that war is torture. Not only with the soldiers, war tortured their families with uncertainties about these soldiers’ life, with worries if they’re safe or not at the moment, expressed through the detail “the pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall”.  War torments them with the idea that their boys could die anytime and anywhere. Through imagery, Owen has accentuated his belief of war being disenchantment, torture and obscenity through the death of soldiers and the worries from their families, and moreover, proved that his anti-war sentiment is also as strong as his belief about war.

In general, imagery plays a big part in Owen’s poem. The concept of the soldiers sacrificed themselves for their country has been build with lively figurative language and imagery, giving the reader empathy with the pain of the soldiers and transferring the author’s belief to them. Through imagery, Owen has reviewed the truth about war being disenchantment, torture and obscenity through the aftermaths of war on the soldier, the worries of their families, and the facts that these soldiers would end up their life somewhere outside the battlefield without a proper funeral. Owen has successfully proved his belief of war being disenchantment, obscenity and torture through the use of imagery and his anti-war sentiment.