Cormac McCarthy, possibly the greatest American author of all time.

What authors or genres of writing are cited as influencing McCarthy’s writing style?

Bell perceives McCarthy’s writing style as mainly a combination of the influence of two great authors of the past: James Joyce and William Faulkner. For example, Bell says that McCarthy “has practiced the Joycean virtues of silence, exile and cunning more faithfully than any other contemporary author,” hinting that James Joyce’s writing style could have had a profound impact on McCarthy’s writership. Also, Bell anaylzes and evaluates McCarthy’s writing style as “overwhelmingly seductive,” and his descriptive style as “elaborated and elevated, but also used effectively to frame realistic dialogue.” Bell claims that McCarthy has derived such excellence from Faulkner, but goes on further to put McCarthy before Faulkner as the greatest American author of all time.

How does McCarthy treat human characters in his story as opposed to landscape and animals like horses?

In many of his novels, notable All The Pretty Horses, McCarthy is less focused on describing human characteristics than he is with the nature, such as animals and grand landscapes. For instance, in All The Pretty Horses, McCarthy is extremely economical in using words to describe the protagonist, John Grady Cole. While he uses some descriptive diction to form a general image of Cole’s outfits and demeanor, the detailed image of Cole’s facial features are left unexplained. On the other hand, McCarthy puts much more emphasis in expressing the grandeur of the nature and the beauty of the horses.

What type of dialogue does the article state McCarthy uses? What is notable about his diction?

McCarthy’s dialogue is often very short and straight to the point. It rarely drags on for more than three lines, but nevertheless explains a lot about the character of the person who is speaking the dialogue. Also, his dialogues seem to show a great understanding of McCarthy about the cowboy culture and the whole “Mexican Border” world. For example, many dialogues are characterized by cowboy slangs and profanity, probably to create the whole “country” atmosphere. Furthermore, just as Bell mentioned in his article, McCarthy displays a surprisingly diverse range of diction that are “from all over the evolutionary history of English,” also hinting an influence from the Elizabethan language.

The documentary about the DMZ was particularly moving for me because I am of North Korean descent. My grandmother comes from a North Korea, and during the Korean War, she moved down to Busan and moved back up to Seoul. For many years, I have heard lots of stories about how life in North Korea is like. But unlike the girl in the DMZ, my grandmother always seemed to have a mixed feeling towards her “home country.” For her, what made her sad was the fact that a great nation remains divided in a world like this. What infuriated her was how she was treated by the government. My grandmother was rather lucky because her whole family moved down, and she did not have anyone to miss back in North Korea. It seems like the girl in the documentary was less concerned about matters of dictatorship or tyranny, but more concerned about the beloved ones she left behind.

This made me think about what reunification really means to us, especially to the girl in the DMZ. There are so many reasons to avoid reunification. First, there is the problem of assimilation. Just as West Gremany had an enormous durden to carry when East Germany integrated with them, so too South Korea will have to bear this burden of assimilation. The cultures of the two divided nations are so different that they are incompatible. The people within the two cultures are so unfamiliar with each other that a great social turmoil is inevitable. Furthermore, the political consequence of reunification is vast. Perceiving the threat of the unification of two rather influential powers of the world, many developed countries will try and check the growth of our nation by applying political pressure and regulations. My father always told me that if North Korea’s vast natural resources are combined with South Korea’s advanced technology, Korea will become one of the most powerful nations in the world; this is exactly what the other countries will think as well. Lastly, the economic consequences will also be threatening. Compared to South Korea’s financial status, that of North Korea is much too low. It will take years to recover from helping North Korea reach the same level of status as South Korea; some researchers argue that it will put us back about 10 years worth of economic growth.

However, this documentary made me see that there is one reason that overrides the rest; the reunification of the beloved ones that should have never been separated. Reunification should happen not because Korea will be a strong nation but because we owe to the separated ones to restore them a happy and normal life. Practical measures should not stop us from letting them see their families whenever they want to. The Korean War and the selfishness of the leaders and people from both nations took away a right we should never take.

He sure is into whatever he is doing...

This post is a response to the documentary “Growing Up Online” from Frontline:

#1 In what ways would you need to change your routine in order to disconnect yourself from all media (i.e. no TV, no Internet, etc.) What problems would you encounter if you unplugged for one day? One week? One month?

In order to unplug myself completely, I would have to basically lock myself in a room full of books and foods. Since media is used to satisfy and supplement a person’s social life, as long as the person is entertained to the level where the person no longer needs social activities, I think it is possible to shun the media from a person’s life completely. But I also believe that there will be consequences in doing so. To take myself as an example, there are hardly any pictures I took with my friends where I am not holding the cellphone in my hands. It is hard for me to be without my cell phone even for a day because that is basically the primary way i keep in contact with my close friends and my parents. To do so for a week or a month would be virtually impossible, but doable. If such occasion is to be encountered, I would go through problems such as anxiety, insecurity, and psychological isolation, since mass media and communication has become such a big portion in everyone’s daily lives.

#2 How many hours per week do you estimate you spend on Facebook or similar personal networking sites? What are the benefits and disadvantages of using these sites?

I spend basically an hour overall on Facebook. (I stay online almost 24/7 on msn messengers, though) Some benefits of Facebook are that the site allows me to meet my old friends back in the states. The server is designed to easily navigate through and access profile information about people, so it was easy for me to find some of the friends I wanted to re-establish contact with. However, the disadvantage of Facebook is that it becomes habitual. Even for me, I automatically reach for the “F” key when I boot the internet. And I end up spending worthless minutes on facebook doing nothing but skimming through pictures and news feeds that basically mean nothing to me. Also, some people tend to be overdependent on these sites, and rely on such media to engage in social lives. This in turn inhibits and deteriorates the person’s actual, real-life social skills, which are far more crucial.

#3 To what extent are you aware of viral marketing, the use of “advertorials” (presenting advertisements as editorial content), or direct marketing on Facebook and other social networking sites?

I am not at all aware of such phenomenon. I come by a few “advertorials” by chance on Facebook, but I rarely set my eyes on it for more than a second. The only reason I enjoy Facebook is that it allows me to establish connections with friends that are too far to actually keep close contact with. But I am well aware of the complaints I hear about advertorials. My friends tell me how annoying and transparent the messages are, and how the subtleties make the message less appealing at times.

#4 Personal response based on your individual viewing of “Growing Up Online”.

I viewed the documentary half with shock and half with skepticism. The part about the kid who committed suicide because of cyber-bullying disturbed me a lot, because such issue was a big scandal in Korea as well. The fact that a person can be hurt so much by a communication method so indirect as internet was sad. But moreover it was amazing how a child can access “suicide sites” so easily and share such horrible information was even more shocking. Such processing of his death clearly showed the extent to which internet is being misused. Still, I could not help but to think that internet is not the only source of blame. The vulnerability of the children is the core issue. When I watched the documentary, I knew that the cyber-bullying had its source in real-life teasing. If the teachers and the friends around him were a little more careful and approachable to such personal issues, I do not think cyber-bullying would have been sever enough to make the boy kill himself. So I thought that online problems can be solved by offline solutions. The schools and the parents should form a closer companionship, not simply a ruling hirerachy with the kids, to make the children more open and social with their parents. In that perspective, I think the mom who told on other parents about the drinking of the friends was highly inappropriate, when looked at a bigger picture. Such action resulted in permanent disconnection with the children, which is even more dangerous than letting the child go around and drink a couple bottle of beers.

Overall, although the documentary contained some exaggerated, leaned updates on current internet issues, I believe the documentary painstakingly depicted the core problems of the quiet murderer of our generation. It is time for me and you to determine whether we are digital natives or cyber addicts. Trust me, there is a big difference.

Don't Look at this picture. Look at the BIGGER picture

I am so glad that these two articles–Hagwon in U.S. cash in on Korean undergrads & American teens lie, steal, and cheat–brought up some points that we, students heading off to college in months, need to seriously consider: we have to learn to be creative scholars who love learning, and we have to learn to see the bigger picture of education.

Growing up in Korea, where even kindergarten students struggle over college preparation studies, teenagers have the wrong idea of what the whole purpose of education is. When students should learn for the sake of learning,  avidness and obsession with gaining acceptance to prestigious colleges took over. College is the ultimate goal and motivation that drives us everyday. We fail to see the larger picture, the life after college or the development of our character. We simply think that we are allowed to do whatever it takes to get into a good American college. Such parochial thinking leads us to the problems mentioned in the two articles.

The following quotes are from the article Hagwon in US cash in on Korean undergrads:

Another student, “B,” graduated from a foreign-language high school in Seoul and entered a reputable university in the eastern United States. However, he recently decided to withdraw from school temporarily after having a hard time keeping up with his classes.

“Most Korean students accustomed to a cramming style of education are generally weak in logical reasoning on their own. Therefore, apart from poor English skills, they find it particularly difficult to write an essay in the ‘Western’ way, which calls for creative thinking,” said the chief of an institute for Korean students in Flushing, who gave the last name Sohn.

Like the student B, we, Korean students attending international schools, are prone to such predicament. The problem with college-oriented education is that students receiving such education are good at only studying, not learning. There is a big difference between studying and learning. Studying is simply passively absorbing academic knowledge, while learning comes from experience in a variety of sources that extend beyond our normal classroom settings. Being limited to intense but narrow academic experience, and not being exposed to an environment that allows them to understand the culture and language of America, students like student B are bound to suffer. In other words,  most western education in Korea, even within some international/foreign schools, cannot nurture students well enough to actually become part of Western education; the schools inefficiently pump in overwhelming knowledge without telling the students how to utilize those knowledge. I don’t mean to say that the this tragedy rampant in America is not solely the fault of the schools in Korea. The students are responsible for disciplining themselves to challenge themselves to become a truly creative scholar, which is exactly what the top colleges in America are looking for.

Another issue that the other article brings up is the issue of cheating. As I have mentioned above, such phenomenon results from students failing to see the bigger picture. Of course, cheating can allow you to get better grades. Perhaps, if you cheat enough you might earn an acceptance letter to Harvard. If that is possible, who would not choose to cheat? WRONG. If that person cheats his or her way into Harvard, will that person actually become the person who we think is fit to goto a school like Harvard? Think of all the moral values that person had to violate…Think of all the oppourtunities that the person lost by choosing to cheat when he can challenge himself.

“Cheating in school continues to be rampant and it’s getting worse,” the study found. Amongst those surveyed, 64 percent said they had cheated on a test, compared to 60 percent in 2006. And 38 percent said they had done so two or more times.

“Despite these high levels of dishonesty, these same kids have a high self-image when it comes to ethics.”

Some 93 percent of students indicated satisfaction with their own character and ethics, with 77 percent saying that “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”

"Hey, are you sure about that?"

Can you believe this? 64%? That means about 6 people out of 10 you talk to in school committed the “crime” of our generation. But what is worse about this situation is that the students do not notice the detrimental effect of cheating. They do not understand that cheating, stealing, and lying will ultimately transform them into future criminals. Of course this is mostly the students’ fault, but again, the school and the society is responsible for not being able to effectively and thoroughly reacting to this swarming disaster at hand.

When we come into high school, it seems like it will all be over in four years, when in fact, we have tens of years more to go on. Don’t focus on the problem, but focus on what is beyond it. Don’t torture yourself with college admission, but learn to love learning, learn to see the bigger picture, and learn for the right reason.

The Young and Restless Silhouettes of China

The following discussion questions were based on a clip called “Young and Restless in China” from FRONTLINE, which is about various profiled characters from China during its booming era.

Discussion Questions
1.    Why do you think Miranda Hong describes her generation of Chinese as “confused”?
Miranda Hong describes her generation of Chinese as “confused” because the generation is bombarded by change of its surrounding environments-society, economy, and religion. The young generation of Chinese, to which Miranda Hong belongs to, is a generation that is breaking away from tradition set by the older generation. Her generation has to adapt to a society that is changing faster than ever. As Lu Dong mentions, the skyscrapers that go up “one floor every week” seem to represent the rate of change in Chinese society. Moreover, Miranda also talks about how in earlier years, people received ration tickets to get foods, while today is nothing like that. This probably refers to how people of older generation were told what they were to do; their lifestyles were systematic and stable. On the other hand, the younger, current generation of China is subject to the restless change economically, socially, and even religiously. Lu Dong mentions about how Chinese people were rooted to a solid, unified belief such as Maoism or Taoism in the past days. These unified ideals anchored the lives of Chinese spiritually. But people today go through extreme change in religious beliefs, which results in confusion. Amidst these currents of change, the younger generation of Chinese loses its identity that once was clear and simple.

2.    Why do you think the Chinese government has nicknamed the young people coming home from abroad “returning turtles?”
o    How do you think their work or educational experiences abroad have affected their ambitions in China?
o    Why do you think these young people have returned to China?

When turtles hatch from their eggs, they crawl towards the ocean and live out their lives in distant locations. But when they mature enough and mate with others, they come back to their birth sites to lay their eggs. Just as turtles bring their life experience back to their home and lay eggs, so too does the younger generation of Chinese that received foreign education come back to their home and “lay” their education to practice. In the documentary piece, Ben Wu and Lu Dong are representative individuals of such “returning turtles.” Ben Wu received education in a business school in New York. He returned to China to create a new franchise of “Internet Café” in China. Lu Dong, likely, came back to his hometown to start a new business of tailoring Chinese clothes and selling them online. Such ambitious goals would not have been possible for either individual if it was not for their educational experiences abroad. Because they learned from a different, possibly more developed, environments, they were able to adapt new ideas and implant it in Chinese society. Ben Wu probably witnessed the success of franchises like Internet Café in New York, and saw potential of such franchise in China as well. Furthermore, in most Asian countries, education in America is considered superior to that of their own country. The fact that Ben Wu received a “higher” education abroad could have factored into his ambition, because people usually believe better education equals economic success. As Lu Dong mentions, these young people may have returned to their home, China, because they wanted to grab the opportunity in China. They saw in their hometown the endless potential, the monstrous growth of economy. Returning to China and establishing a business would have meant realization of their goal: earn as much money as possible at young age and spend them all.

"Here I come, China"

3.    Who do you think is the happiest of the young people profiled in this documentary and why?

I think the happiest individual in the documentary is the rapper, Wang Xiao Lei. One of the narrator said that the standard of happiness in China is that of practical happiness; they measure happiness by ability to buy what they want, live in a big house, and live doing what they like to do. Although Wang Xiao Lei’s life does not fulfill the financial aspect of this practical happiness, he certainly lives doing what he wants to do. The fact that he chose to live as a rapper in a country like China, where popular music is not widely spread, attests to his sense of independence and individuality. Also, throughout the documentary, he repeatedly talks about how although life is not “good,” he is satisfied at what he does, and how he lives his life. Towards the end of the film, the rapper is performing on stage in front of many people, just as he wished. His narration of predicting that he will be an owner of a record company soon in the future is filled with confidence. Such confidence proves that the determination with which Wang Xiao Lei pursued his goal triumphed in the end. So when compared to Lu Dong, who has to find escape in religion while living in the world of corrupt businessmen; Ben Wu, who is financially successful but unable to pursue his dream; or Wei Zhan Yen, who lives in a poverty-stricken world and earning merely 40 cents an hour in doing what she does not want to do, I believe the rapper is happier. He is satisfied with his life, though not material-wise.

Look at him go, look at that happy man, look at Wang Xiao Lei

The legendary Mulan from Disney Animations...Raise your hand if you don't know her

Who wouldn't love this chubby, cute, and unexpectedly dangerous warrior

As you can see above, through mass media, we have been bombarded by “warriors” of all kinds. Often, the image of a warrior matched our stereotypical image of a warrior, such as the image of a Native Indian warrior, showing their bulky muscles and masculinity, like in this clip. But sometimes we are introduced with images that don’t usually remind us of this archetype of warrior. The most noticeable twist in the image of a warrior is the image of a female as a warrior (this does not mean that I ruled out animals as normal). When I first saw the movie Mulan, I asked myself, ‘Does she have what it takes to be a warrior? She is so frail and naive. AND she is a woman!’ But over the years I have come to see that the image of a woman warrior is not at all foreign. In that sense, the story of Fa Mu Lan in the Woman Warrior is a special case in which the typical warrior tradition is redefined.

One of the most dominant elements of the warrior “tradition” is that the figure has to be a male. Similarly, when I think of a warrior, I automatically set the character as a male figure. But the clip I watched in class (House of Flying Daggers & Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon) shows that women exhibit the same kind of “warrior-ness.” I still remember how awkward it felt when I first saw Zhang Zhi Yi flying around and stabbing men twice her size. Not only so, but also the story of Fa Mu Lan in chapter 2 of the Woman Warrrior has a female main character. In the story, Fa Mu Lan is a typical filial daughter who serves her mother and father quietly. Then she is led to the mountain by a bird and is trained to become a leader to overthrow the tyranny of the Emperor. She shatters the gender roles imposed by the Chinese society. Normally a woman should always stay home, do chores, and grow kids. In chapter 3 of the same novel, it is evident that Chinese women in society were so cruelly ignored and debased as to make them less worthy than even a duck. Outside business, not to mention only fighting, belonged to men. They were responsible for basically every social roles in a Chinese society. But Fa Mu Lan is different. She chooses to disguise as a man and lead an army to revolutionize the entire nation.

Zhang Zi Yi and Michelle Yeoh duelling in blockbuster film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Notice the difference between the image above and the tyical image of a warrior I had:

A typical image of a Turkish-Indian warrior

Another important aspect of a warrior tradition is the fact that the warrior should be “one” with nature. Although the extraordinary acts of the warrior often defies law of nature, the warrior gains its powers from nature itself. Even in the Woman Warrior, Fa Mu Lan learns to become a “female avenger” by learning from two masters in a deep mountain. She communicates with animals, and learns skills from them (Here, Mu Lan is so close with nature, that a stranger rabbit willingly jumps into the fire to provide its flesh for food). Also in the film House of Flying Daggers, we see that Zhang Zi Yi is part of the clan that lives in the woods, trains in the woods. Even when she dances with “blind” eyes for the general, she emphasizes the smoothness of her motion, which she later explains as moving like the wind and the river. So again, we can see that becoming one with nature is an integral part of being a warrior, both men and women.

A scene from the movie House of Flying Dagger

Woman Warrior at 30..? Perhaps a little more..

Yet the most remarkable, and often overlooked, quality of The Woman Warrior is that it is a book without a genre. At various times it has been described as a memoir, an autobiography, a novel, a manifesto; yet anyone who spends 10 minutes with it understands that none of these labels really apply.

This article, in many ways, describes the feelings I got from reading the novel. I have never read a book anything like this. Most of the time, when I read a novel, I was able to instantly pinpoint the genre of the novel. But The Woman Warrior is special in that, as Jess Row of Slate said, “it is a book without genre.”

In the book, the author Maxine Hong Kingston displays an amazing diversity of writing style. The first chapter “No Name Woman” explores the “myth” of the aunt of Kingston who drowned herself after bearing an illegitimate child out of wedlock. It is obvious in the scene that Kingston is trying to be creative in “investigating” in what really happened. Throughout the chapter she uses words like “perhaps” to show that what she says is a hypothetical scenario. She assumes, with what she knows about the aunt, that she might have been raped, or that she might have looked for romance as an outlet of expressing her individuality. Through this creative approach, Kingston reveals the set of cultural values, oftentimes cruel ones, that dominated Chinese society a few years ago.

In the next chapter, Kingston talks about the celebrated figure, Fa Mu Lan. What is interesting is that she does not present this topic with a storytelling approach, but rather talks about Fa Mu Lan as if she was the hero. By doing so, Kingston again adds that air of imagination and tones down the fictitious, stereotyped elements of a hero story. To me, this approach was very interesting, and it made me read the book faster, anticipating what Kingston will reveal about herself by recounting the story in such manner.

Perhaps the nature of the novel is most clearly depicted in the next chapter, where Kingston talks about the past of her mother, Brave Orchid. According to the story, Brave Orchid was not only an accomplished scholar, but also a ghost hunter; she was a Shaman. But the heroic accounts of Brave Orchid and the meager current life that Brave Orchid leads today draws such a contrast that it is inevitable for the readers to question the truthfulness of the heroic past of Kingston’s mother. But again, this imaginary biography of her mother reveals to us more than a proper biography can. It shows us how Chinese live and think.

Overall, the ambiguity of the novel in terms of its genre made it an interesting read for me. Because the story was unfamiliar, I felt like I was exploring a new genre. Trying to fit certain parts of the book to certain genre also revealed new perspectives.

This is what transcends the book as simply being categorized as a biography. It has an extra element that enables readers to see not only the personal life of the author but also the lifestyle of Chinese in general.

Korean Students are the "leaders" in dropout rates among top American collges and universities

1. What does Kim say is the most likely explanation for the high dropout rate among Koreans?

The students who attend the ivy-league fail to abandon the ideas that drived them through their lives in Korea. They are too concentrated on academics, and fail to expand their scope of knowledge and enthusiasm to extracurricular activities, upon which the American education places a great emphasis. Also, in Korea, individuality is not much of an issue, as parents’ decisions and views play a more important role in the lives of students than their own views.

2. How does the dropout rate among Koreans compare to the dropout rate among other groups?

The dropout rate of Koreans are much higher than those of other ethnic groups, such as Americans with a 34%, Chinese with a 25%, and Indians with a 21% dropout rate.

3. What are you currently doing to increase your own college readiness? Is there anything you think you should do before you graduate from high school to be better prepared for university?

One of the things that make college life so significant in my life is that it marks the beginning of a new lifestyle. In college, I would have to do everything on my own, without depending others to take care of me. I grew up in a close-knit family, with a caring mother and father. So one of the things I try to do before going on to college is to learn to live on my own. I learned to cook foods that I love to eat, such as bulgogi, gimchi-jjigae, and miyuk-gook. I learned to do laundries, and to clean my own clothes. This way, when I move to America, I will feel a lesser part of my life has changed. No one likes change, especially when it involves you losing somethings that matter in you life.

I also try to be more proactive in activities outside of just academics. I am playing tennis every week, so that I have a hobby that I can do when I goto America, and meet other individuals that are totally different from me. One of the things I learned from living in America is that people there like to do something “sport-y.” They like to interact by motion. And I am willing to follow their rules, because after all, it is their homeland! This does not mean I am going to willingly give up my Korean identity, and the cultural tendencies I have. I will never, because I respect them. For the past four years in SIS, I practiced how to balance my Korean disposition and American influences. I am quite confident that I will be able to do so even if the setting changes to America.