921

The wind rose and the windows rattled. I woke up suddenly and stared at the window. The house was shaking violently. Books and my terrestrial globe fell from the shelf. I stood up quickly and dashed to the door. When I tried to turn on the light of my room, it didn’t operate. Then I was stunned at the moment. Only until the earthquake stopped did I moved and rushed out of my room. At the same time my parents came out of their room with pajamas. Overwhelmed and panic-stricken, I threw myself in my mother’s embrace.

It was happened at around two o’clock in the morning and at  21^st September 1999 in Taipei. The earthquake had Richter magnitude scale of about seven, and it was the strongest earthquake that I had ever experienced. 

        The terrible day took away many people’s life. Therefore I considered myself very lucky that I was unhurt. It was really a horrible and unforgettable experience. Thus, I still remember vividly that it was the roaring of the wind that woke me, and it was hard to balance on the shaking earth.

The Joy Luck Club bookreview

“The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan was one of my English textbook. At first, I thought it was a children’s book. After reading it, I realized immediately why it is a best-selling novel. It allows me to explore the tender and tenacious bond between four Chinese women, and their American-born daughters. Furthermore, the writer smartly uses different diction for mothers and the daughters to express the individual characteristic of the generation. I found the story entertaining and can’t stop before I finish reading it.

Suyuan Woo started the original “Joy Luck Club” during the Second Sino-Japanese War to cope with the war and bring luck to the members. The meaning of the club is to bring hope for the future. I admired the attitude they had and their method to pass the hard time. On the day of escaping from Japanese invasion, Suyuan reluctantly leaves her twin daughters under a tree. After coming to America and remarries, she formed a new Club with three other Chinese female immigrants, and gave birth to another daughter. Many years later, Suyuan learned that her abandoned twins were adopted, but died of a brain aneurysm before she could meet them. It was her daughter Jing-mei who fulfilled her long-cherished wish of reuniting with the twins. Besides Suyuan and her daughter’s story, there are stories of the rest of the new Club members and their daughters. All are inspirable and interesting.  

The major concerns of the book are the influences that the mothers gave to their western-educated daughters and the conflicts between the traditional Chinese cultural and Western cultural. The novel also discuss about different generations of women trying to understand each other, and the process of finding one’s own identity.

Although their stories vary in how their growing-up and coming to America, the mothers’ thinking are very similar. They all want daughters to grow up in America and have opportunities. However they also wish daughters to retain the Chinese values and customs. By telling daughters the stories, the mothers prevent daughters from repeating the same mistakes and hence understanding the intention of bringing the best lives for their daughters. Mothers had no freedom to choose their destiny in the past, therefore, hoping daughters can live a free and equal life with men in America. Nevertheless, the children often do not understand their mother. They were Americanized and did not know the significance of the Chinese heritage. It is only possible when they grow up.

                                              

This book shows varies of Chinese culture and belief. In my opinion, if parents wish to retain their children’s Chinese value, they should cultivate it since their childhood. One should never forget his cultural root because no matter how different you may be from your family, you will always be connected to them through your heritage. The book teaches us to think about the sacrifice that our parents made for our better life. It also reminds us to appreciate our parents and we must not take it for granted.

Honesty is the best policy

What Taiwan need most now are honesty and credit. People in Taiwan are losing this kind of virtue in a large extent. This can be easily observed from the news everyday. From the news we can see, the tricks of defrauding are getting more and more innovative and nowadays, when people are finding jobs, they tend to be dishonest. Often, they make fake certificates or resumes in order to cheat a better position in a company. Moreover, famous celebrities, politicians, singers and actors etc, those that are idols or models for us are also losing and breaking their credit. As a result, dishonesty is promoted by those people through television, making people have a thought that it is fine to be dishonest. Thus honest is really a need for Taiwan now.

If Taiwanese are losing the virtue of honesty, company keep using the cheaters as their crew, and celebrities keep setting bad examples, Taiwan may end up losing her competence and credits in the world. Honesty is very important, because nobody will ever believe a man without honesty. On the other hand, if a man has honesty, everyone will be willing to give him a hand when he faces trouble or difficulties. This goes as same as every Taiwanese. Thus, happiness which brought by dishonesty will not last long, status which gain by dishonesty will not be real, and lastly competence won by dishonesty will not success too. honesty is the best policy and that is what Taiwan most need and with this, it certainly can make Taiwan more progress and turn Taiwan  into a much better place.

Furthermore, Therefore

Honesty is very important, because nobody will ever believe a man without honesty. Therefore, dishonest man tends to lose friends, supporters and loved ones, and end up being alone. On the other hand, if a man has honesty, everyone will be willing to give him a hand when he faces trouble or difficulties.

People should adapt a dog instead of buying a new one

There is no doubt that people should adapt a dog instead of buying a new one. This is because it not only helps the world but also brings many advantages to us.

While there are many wonderful reasons to adopt a dog from a dog shelter, the best one is to save a life. By adopting a dog, millions of loving and wonderful dogs can escape from being killed every year.

Secondly, by adopting a dog you will decrease the demands for puppies at pet stores. If the demands were decreased, there would be fewer needs to breed new dogs. As the number of dogs decrease, problems with stray dogs will also decrease. Such as polluting the environment or causing disease like rabies. This indeed helps the society.

The flaw of Pet stores is that they buy puppies from breeders. This isn’t good as dogs that are bred are often the product of inbreeding. In order to keep the pure gene, those dogs often have genetic health problems that may cost you lot of money to cure it. Furthermore it may also have a shorter life span. While adapting dogs have passed through the age they will have less of those problems

In addition, when you adopt a dog you will not need to pay the price that pet stores charge for “pure bred” dogs. This certainly helps you save money.

By adopting, you will save a dog’s life, save yourself money, and help save the dogs held as caged prisoners of breeding. Therefore, people should adapt dogs instead of buying new puppies.