Summary: Xu Xi’s short story “Famine” shows us the impact of food on one's life and how it can relate to specific memories from the past. The story follows a fifty-one year old cantonese woman who travels to New York for the first time to experience what it is like to live a life of luxury. Shortly after the death of her parents, she leaves her reserved and secluded life in the rural countryside of China to experience new opportunity and a higher quality of life in America. It is here in New York where she guides us through her recollections of her past. Evaluation: Many visual images came to my mind as I read this short story.…
Two Women walked past me, and purchased my mother's white puffy wedding dress, that I thought would one day be endowed to me, for as little as nothing. Watching with teary eyes the now empty living room, I knew that my parents were serious about leaving Persia and moving to an unpopular destination, China. rooted in persian culture and courtesy, with a limited view of the world, at only eight years of age, never could have I imagined the events, and experiences that future had in store for me. Driving from the airport to my new home through the hustling, bustling streets of Beijing, I was filled with excitement as I saw through the window the passing lights, tall buildings, and copious bicycle riders. Nonetheless my excitement soon subsided when I faced a language barrier when trying to play and…
Conversely, Hosseini’s novel demonstrates a reverse journey in which Amir returns to the Afghanistan of his childhood to save his nephew Sohrab. Even though both Amir and Hurley embark on journeys into unknown landscapes, the ramifications of discovery differ for individuals and their worlds. The shock and confrontation of the juxtaposing landscapes is immediately apparent. From his “two storey house in America” and his “books and novels”, Amir returns to a world where “the carcass of an old burned-out Soviet tank,” preface the poverty of “women in burqas” in “a string of mud houses”. The palpable experience immediately changes his sense of naivety, from the romantic, “Afghanistan would always be a part of him”, to the displacement metaphor that, “[he] was always a tourist here”.…
Troost Paper The book, The Sex Lives of Cannibals, covers a couple that moves to an island in the pacific. The wife of Maarten Troost lands a job getting a chance to influence of the poverty in Kiribati. As they arrive they discover that it was not quite the paradise they had imagined before. The couple experiences culture shock as they experience anxiety from the much different culture and norms of the new society.…
Where did all the Las Vegas showgirls go? Jack Sheehan argues in his article “To Honor Las Vegas, Respect the Showgirl” (Las Vegas Review Journal, April 21, 2013) that the incorporation of a showgirl in the Las Vegas culture is crucial and there should not be a loss of respect towards these entertainers in modern time. He uses generalizations and logos to present his argument. Unfortunately, the generalizations assert his opinion more prominently compared to his incorporation of evidence and his logos is not as strong due to his disregard of a younger audience; this in turn makes his overall argument not persuasive.…
Sunday October 1,2017 Las Vegas NV, was one of the most talk about devastating news across the world. Many innocent people had their life’s taking by a heartless man. Many peoples were affected by this senseless crime. Many healthcare provider’s careers will never be the same. I remember being at work at 2:00am in the morning watch live videos of people running/pleading for their lives, children crying, people lying in pools of blood.…
Subject: This novel is a memoir of Hongyong Baek, who grew up in Korea and had to experience the repressed roles assigned to women within the society. It examines the gender, religious, and racially oppressed individual between world war II and the Korean Civil war. She left during the Japanese occupation and again during the korean civil war that now divides her family, but be becomes victorious and continues her successful ch’iryo practice in California. Occasion: Lee is the author of national bestseller Still Life With Rice, and its sequel In The Absence of Sun, memoirs in which she documents her family's experience in war-torn Korea from the 1930s to 1997.…
He opens his travelogue with a defined, personal purpose for traveling the lengths and breadths of America: “I had not felt the country…
After fleeing Kabul due to invasions of the Soviets, Amir and his father realize the struggles of living in America as immigrants. Following many…
T.C. Boyle’s book The Tortilla Curtain, its structure by two stories, one is the views of middle class characters and the other from the immigrant’s perspective. It explores their relationship with issues such as poverty, immigration and of course the American dream. This book was published in 1995, right after California voted against Proposition 187 which would have provided many useful public services/resources to illegal immigrants. The author unfortunately does not provide his personal opposition to either side in this story. The first part of the book tells us of the accounts of the first interaction Candido Rincon, a Mexican illegal immigrant, and Delaney Mossbacher, a middle class citizen, have.…
While at first glance, David Foster Wallace’s “Shipping Out” describes the miserable tale of the author on a cruise ship for a week, however, it is actually a commentary on the underlying insidious nature of cruise ships and vacation services. During this period, the author is treated to a multitude of luxuries, including thorough cleaning services, high-class dining, and constant recreational activities provided by the cruise. However, the author grows increasingly unsettled as he realizes the extent the ship’s crew is willing to do in order to gain the validation and the satisfaction of their customers. Jennifer Volland’s essay “Stay: The Archetypical Space of the Hotel” is another work which describes the nature of similar vacation spots,…
From an award winning novelist Reyna Grande, an eye-opening memoir about life before and after illegally emigrating from Mexico to the United States. After Reyna Grande’s father leaves his wife and three children behind in a village in Mexico to take the dangerous journey to “El Otro Lado” or America the family’s life is turned upside down. He promised to soon return to the village with enough money to build them a dream home. However, the promise became harder and harder to believe after months of being gone turned into years. Another obstacle is thrown at the family as he asked his wife to join him, forcing Reyna and her two older siblings Mago and Carlos into the household of their malicious grandmother.…
The Houston runway was quickly disappearing beneath me, the plane ascending, leaving my stomach dismantled on the tarmac. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was truly on a plane, by myself, headed to Buenos Aires, Argentina. My mother laughed at the thought of me living abroad; consistently making it known my ideas were childish, financially unstable and unattainable. With a slight grin pulling at my lips, I close my eyes and begin to wonder what the world will look like on the other side of that airplane door.…
In this photograph, a young boy wearing a bubbly bright blue shirt shamelessly flashes a rather tooth lacking smile for the camera. His arms and legs are crossed while he sits on a tiled bench under an ominous and cloud speckled sky. Behind this young boy rests a little girl wearing a tomato red complexion. She is adorned with a shiny silver necklace and a shirt that literally screamed summer. Under her resting hand laid cold tiles that would leave an imprint of the frigid shapes that pressed against her soft skin.…
Achraf Bousbaa Kathy Christopher English 1101-20730 Oct 5, 2017 A Trip That I Will Never Forget…