Feng Menglong

Zheng He was one of the greatest explorers in the Age of Exploration however, his fame is not widely celebrated today. Zheng He was the powerful and wealthy adviser for Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty. The Emperor sent Zheng He on a mission to travel to foreign lands ranging from the tip of India to the eastern parts of Africa to give them gifts to show China’s power and dominance. He started these voyages in 1405 and eventually captained seven of them before retiring. The Chinese felt that the cost of the expeditions outweighed the benefits.

Starting from the common characteristics of the three stories, they all focus on a female protagonist of the upper-middle class of the old family. Yet they differ greatly in dealing with how they face the new world. Ling Shuhua’s two stories serve as an interesting comparison to each other. While “The

In the early 15th century, an explorer named Zheng He started his first of many voyages to India. He was appointed by Emperor Yongle from the Ming Dynasty. He was castrated and taken away from his family at a young age. As he got older, he gained more power and authority. Zheng He's excellent leading skills lead the exploration of new cultures for China, although they did not voyage the Americas, but had an effect on exploration thereafter.

In the third century C.E., the male poet Fu Xuan wrote a poem delineating and illustrating the vicissitudes between men and women, and how women were treated and viewed within the rigid patriarchy of Han China. The poem highlights several differences between the lives of women and men, beginning from birth, and persisting throughout every aspect of a woman’s life.

Classical Athens was an intellectual paradise. Philosophers, playwrights, historians, scientists, mathematicians, and scientists made Athens what we remember it as. Han China was a prosperous and advanced culture. Han China shows that it was an advanced culture through achievements like the Great Wall of China, the Silk Road, and the Civil Service System. Though they were both advanced intellectually and culturally, Classic Athens and Han China were very different.

Although Zheng He was great, Magellan was a better captain overall. Magellan was a Spanish explorer who was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. He set sail on a voyage that was supposed to go around the World, but Magellan was killed before he made it. Although he did not make it around the world, he had the skills to get all the way to the Philippines. Zheng He was a Chinese admiral who led seven voyages. He was also a great captain, but he did not almost make it around the world. Instead, he stayed in the same area and stopped in the same places multiple times.

Qin Shi Huang Di has been making an effort to unite China under his power and legalist ways. The First Emperor should not be supported in his attempts to unite China. Not only is he responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, he also has dangerous legalist ways and spends his time focused on unimportant issues.

According to CareerBuilder.com, a whopping 61% of American households lived paycheck to paycheck in 2009. That number is huge, especially since only 49% lived that way in 2008, and only 41% in 2007. Whether it is due to losing one or both household incomes or simply a reduction in the household incomes, the statistic is staggering. With families not able to adequately save for any unexpected expense that may arise, they are finding that more often than not there is more month than money. So what happens when the rent/mortgage payment is due, groceries need to be purchased, and then the car breaks down? For some, a small personal loan at a local bank is all it takes to get back on track. For many though, this isn’t an option, and they

His insight into this Inner China cultural conflict is just a taste of the reality at the time, but even this small yet detailed taste is quite bitter.

Love. Adventure. Lust. Individuality. Liberty. Influence. Freedom. These are the things that give people the will and desire to live, and most of us cannot imagine a world or life without them. But what if these aspirations were taken away overnight? In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie (戴思杰) illustrates these turn of events with a significant focus on three characters: Luo, the narrator, and the Little Chinese Seamstress. The story takes place during the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China when young intellectuals from the city were forced to be re-educated in the peasant environments. The narrator and Luo are among these people. They are relocated to the mountainous countryside and re-educated by the peasants there. Even though they are stripped away from all outside influences, they experience bits of freedom by reading forbidden foreign books in a suitcase. In addition, they share their findings among those in the countryside, especially with the Little Chinese Seamstress, an ordinary peasant girl as a result of her romance with Luo. Thus, their eyes are opened to new ideas, and their lives are changed with new understandings and perceptions. In his novel, Dai demonstrates the importance of intellectual liberty through the influence of outside cultures and the development of the characters.

“To treat illness without understanding the viscera and bowels is no different from a blind

Furthermore, instead of arranged marriages that only benefited the patriarchal head, intellectuals pushed for marriages based on love which would create happy and productive citizens . In addition, based on her mother’s experience, Bao Qin rejects arranged marriages and intends to only marry for love . After hearing of two concubines who drug Cousin Hu’s mother to feign adultery and gain the favour of her husband, Bao Qin is enraged by the historic “powerlessness of women, [the] barbarity of age-old customs, cloaked in tradition .” With the broad shift from tradition as well as her own personal experience, Bao Qin rejects traditional gender roles and seeks to create her own. Furthermore, as China became divided into separate spheres of influence and opened to international markets, British and American industrialization brought new ideas of opportunities for women, challenging established gender relations . With new economic opportunities and education, women could become self-reliant, broadening their choices and their role in society. Consequently, after disobeying her parents’ command to attend Mr. Liu’s funeral, Bao Qin was able to support herself by enrolling in a new teacher training department . Reducing patriarchal control, industrialization allowed children to head to schools and factories, no longer needing to rely on their parents for education and work . As a result, while foreign

“You ha ha should look at your face, you look ridiculous” Phoenix tried to say through the tears of joy.

Peal Buck, Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan, where all novelists who all rose to fame based on how they depicted a segment of Chinese life. Pearl Buck, was an American writer who after living in China most of her life wrote many novels including the most popular work The Good Earth. The novel highlighted Chinese peasant life, a life she was privy too growing up Chinkiang. Gao Xingjian, a Chinese/ French play writer where his plays were said to have led to the rise of violent polemic on “modernism” and intellectual pollutions”. He garnered the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000 for his work. He was also known to leave the CCP after the Tiananmen Massacre. Mo Yan, similar to both Buck and Yan, produced literally works depicting real China. Yan also won

For the bulk of the mid- to late-20th Century, Eileen Chang’s name and literary prowess fell into obscurity as a result of events related to the Cultural Revolution and her own reclusion. In C.T. Hsia’s A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, he praised Chang for her use of "rich imagery" and "profound exploration of human nature.” In his book, he also claimed Chang to be “the best and most important writer” of mid-twentieth century China. Hsia’s remarks and Ang Lee’s film adaptation of her novella, Lust, Caution, have helped to bring Chang’s name back onto the literary scene.