Monday, June 11, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Documentary Movie Mulberry Child Screening On Campus
今天我们请芝加哥的女导演和她的女儿来中北大学。她的电影是关于中国的历史。它让我知道中国的很多事情，我也知道更多中国人是什么样子。
The members of the Naperville Community, students, and faculty of North Central College gathered in Smith Hall for a showing of Mulberry Child. The guests of Honor, the producer and her daughter, sat in the front row, greeting people who recognized them, smiling and looking around at the growing crowd. There were not enough seats in the hall, so many audience members stole some chairs from outside of the room, and others began to stand in a crowd in the back. There was bewilderment on some of the student’s faces who came, not sure what they had just stepped into. Some students came as an extra credit assignment from their teachers, some with little knowledge of what would be shown that night. Members of the Chinese community made up the largest percent of audience members, most probably more aware of what a great honor it was to get to be in the same room as the author of the book Mulberry Child, the same woman who produced the movie rendition of it.
The evening commenced with a word from my Chinese teacher, welcoming the guests of honor. Then, the lights went out, the screen turned on, and the movie began, still with a large crowd standing in the back of the room. The movie portrayed two lives affected by the Cultural Revolution in China. One was the life of the author’s mother, showing the Chinese cultures of marriage and foot binding, how communism became popular, and how Mao’s plans destroyed their family for many years. The other life was the life of the author and her daughter in Chicago. The dissonance between the mother and daughter was apparent, and maybe even only slightly changed by the daughter’s reactions to the book her mother wrote about her life growing up, knowing the hardships of her grandmother, who she had only seen a few times.
After the movie was done, the author of the book and her daughter addressed the audience and answered questions.
I feel it was one of the most important things I have done all year. I have always been very confused and not very well informed on what happened with this Mao character I had always heard about. I have always been very ignorant about the goings-on in China; politics, culture, anything. This documentary and meeting the author and her daughter really changed a lot of things for me. For one, it inspired me to learn more about the Cultural Revolution, and Mao’s dictatorship, as there was so much that went into it, and I am still very confused on many things.
I’m very excited to buy Mulberry Child, the book, and get reading!
I feel very honored to have been able to meet the woman who wrote the book and produced the movie. When they first arrived in the room, I had no idea who they were, and I could only guess that they were the guests of honor. I really had no idea what to expect. When I looked up the book online, the summary truly did not do what I saw any justice, and only scratched the surface of all that the book, and the movie, has within it. They had so much to share, and the bond they grew, that I saw only in person, not so much in the movie, inspired me too to try and be closer with my mother.
The members of the Naperville Community, students, and faculty of North Central College gathered in Smith Hall for a showing of Mulberry Child. The guests of Honor, the producer and her daughter, sat in the front row, greeting people who recognized them, smiling and looking around at the growing crowd. There were not enough seats in the hall, so many audience members stole some chairs from outside of the room, and others began to stand in a crowd in the back. There was bewilderment on some of the student’s faces who came, not sure what they had just stepped into. Some students came as an extra credit assignment from their teachers, some with little knowledge of what would be shown that night. Members of the Chinese community made up the largest percent of audience members, most probably more aware of what a great honor it was to get to be in the same room as the author of the book Mulberry Child, the same woman who produced the movie rendition of it.
The evening commenced with a word from my Chinese teacher, welcoming the guests of honor. Then, the lights went out, the screen turned on, and the movie began, still with a large crowd standing in the back of the room. The movie portrayed two lives affected by the Cultural Revolution in China. One was the life of the author’s mother, showing the Chinese cultures of marriage and foot binding, how communism became popular, and how Mao’s plans destroyed their family for many years. The other life was the life of the author and her daughter in Chicago. The dissonance between the mother and daughter was apparent, and maybe even only slightly changed by the daughter’s reactions to the book her mother wrote about her life growing up, knowing the hardships of her grandmother, who she had only seen a few times.
After the movie was done, the author of the book and her daughter addressed the audience and answered questions.
I feel it was one of the most important things I have done all year. I have always been very confused and not very well informed on what happened with this Mao character I had always heard about. I have always been very ignorant about the goings-on in China; politics, culture, anything. This documentary and meeting the author and her daughter really changed a lot of things for me. For one, it inspired me to learn more about the Cultural Revolution, and Mao’s dictatorship, as there was so much that went into it, and I am still very confused on many things.
I’m very excited to buy Mulberry Child, the book, and get reading!
I feel very honored to have been able to meet the woman who wrote the book and produced the movie. When they first arrived in the room, I had no idea who they were, and I could only guess that they were the guests of honor. I really had no idea what to expect. When I looked up the book online, the summary truly did not do what I saw any justice, and only scratched the surface of all that the book, and the movie, has within it. They had so much to share, and the bond they grew, that I saw only in person, not so much in the movie, inspired me too to try and be closer with my mother.
I feel that, when someone watches the movie, there will be
something for everyone to get out of the movie. For girls, it is something to
be watched with your mother. For everyone and anyone else, this is a movie to be
watched at all in general. It will give you an understanding into a culture
that is growing in their relationships in America, and a history that should
not be forgotten.(He Jing)
Thursday, June 7, 2012
International Students' Festival (2012-Feb 13 )
In February, North Central College hosted a Multi-Cultural
festival to bring together all the diverse groups in the community to share in
everyone’s different cultures. There would be performances by local dance
groups that practiced traditional dances for certain cultures, food to sample
from all over the world, and even quick language classes for children. It would
be about a half hour lesson, enough time to teach the most basic of all basic
words from that language.
I was given an opportunity to teach the Chinese class! I
worked side by side with my own Chinese teacher to teach the children numbers
in Chinese, and a few greetings and sayings. When I taught them the numbers, we
acted out the sounds we were making. For instance, er4, which you say like
‘Arr,’ while falling in tone, sounded like a pirate, so whenever we said two in
Chinese, everyone had to be like a pirate and sport their hook! When we said
three, san1, we all looked up to the sun and said it in a high, flat tone. We
also taught them I love you in Chinese, wo3 ai2 ni3, and a couple greetings.
Then, we had them practice by saying I love you in Chinese to their parents.
One of the boys was very shy, and I couldn’t quite figure
out how to get him out of his shell. I’m sure if this was a more frequent class
than once, and then never again, I could have a better rapport with him, enough
to get him talking and participating. It’s tough in just one half hour session.
Another regret I have is that I wasn’t better prepared. I was ready to get all the materials together and everything to have pictures and colors and more exciting things than we had, but then I was told I wouldn’t be doing it by the people who ran the festival. They wanted someone with more experience with the culture festival to do it, and wanted someone who also had never attended to do it. Thankfully, my teacher saw my talent, my interest, and my ability to do it and made sure it was me doing it. It was a great experience, and it was nice to hang around with adorable kids and be able to teach them things and hear them getting it. I’m excited for next year for another chance to do it.
Another regret I have is that I wasn’t better prepared. I was ready to get all the materials together and everything to have pictures and colors and more exciting things than we had, but then I was told I wouldn’t be doing it by the people who ran the festival. They wanted someone with more experience with the culture festival to do it, and wanted someone who also had never attended to do it. Thankfully, my teacher saw my talent, my interest, and my ability to do it and made sure it was me doing it. It was a great experience, and it was nice to hang around with adorable kids and be able to teach them things and hear them getting it. I’m excited for next year for another chance to do it.
Xilin Community Center (2011-November)
Xilin Chinese Community Center is a place for retired
Chinese members of the community to come and hang out with people who speak
their language, understand their culture, and share in their retirement status.
They offer various activities for the people who come, like Mahjong, ping pong,
and English classes!
I have been helping the head English tutor with the class
since February. Me and two other girls from my Chinese class would prepare
English scripts to practice with the students. We help them with pronunciation
and understanding, and have a little Chinese, English exchange in the process.
It was a very rewarding experience, especially when the teacher presented me
with a great opportunity. The volunteer organization she had gotten involved
with the Community Center through is called Literacy Dupage. It is a non-profit
organization of very dedicated people that helps ESL and English speakers reach
higher with their grasp on the English language. She insisted I take the
training, which was 18 spread-out hours of training, all were very fun, I met a
lot of great people, and the instructor was very insightful and entertaining.
Now that I have completed the training, I have taken over for the head
instructor while she is on vacation.
The first class teaching them on my own was a disaster. I
had thought they were prepared for much more than they actually were. Because
the head instructor told me she wanted them to work on their understandings of
instructional material, I decided to aim big. I printed out a recipe, an
instructional sheet on how to assemble a chair, and a map. I thought they could
separate into groups and read it together. Then, they would tell me: 1. Words
they didn’t understand, 2. What they thought the instructional material was
about (because I omitted the titles for each one) and 3. What the steps were.
The one copy I had handed out to each group was apprehended and whisked off to
have copies made of it by one of the students. This gave us nothing to work
with, and awkward moments of looking around at each other in a chaotic mess of
what-the-hell-is-going-on until this sweetheart, who only wanted to help me out
and do well, came back with the copies. I decided to work on them one by one
because the group thing was obviously not going to happen. The entire day went
very awkwardly, we lost the chair assembly sheet, the map went well, but the
recipe was an absolute disaster. The whole day was an absolute disaster. It was
a true miracle that anybody showed up to the second day of me teaching!
I will talk more about that, though, once I make sure people come to this week’s class, because a lot of people were missing from the third class, so I fear that I may have chased them away with my second lesson. I’ll wait to get their feedback to tell all about that!
I will talk more about that, though, once I make sure people come to this week’s class, because a lot of people were missing from the third class, so I fear that I may have chased them away with my second lesson. I’ll wait to get their feedback to tell all about that!
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