Chapter twenty-eight develops some insights into the relationship between Bao-yu, Dai-yu, and Bao-chai. There are some discreet hints that Bao-chai should be Bao-yu’s wife, especially when Yuan-chun, the Imperial Consort, sends gifts to the Jia family and the presents for Bao-yu and Bao-chai complement each other perfectly, but Dai-yu’s gift is different from theirs. Even Dai-yu undermines herself saying that “I’m not equal to the honour. You forget, I’m not in the gold and jade class like you and your Cousin Bao. I’m only a common little wall-flower” (65). A part of me wishes that Dai-yu would be more self-confident and accepting of herself because then there would be less arguments between her and Bao-yu and prevent her inevitable, dark fate
However, there is another person who gets punished, Doctor Tang, Mr. Hsu’s teacher. Dr. Tang is the host teacher of the private school, and lives with all his students, taking charge in the supervision of his pupils. During the tribunal, Judge Dee told Doctor Tang, “You, a man of wide learning and many years experience, have failed miserably in your duties as a tutor. The crime of adultery took place in your house, and, as it were, under your very eyes…….you are strictly forbidden ever again to engage in the teaching of students.” [4]The Judge then proclaims to Mrs. Bee(though does not in fact punish her), “You failed in your duty of supervising the conduct of your daughter-in-law, and consequently two heinous crimes were committed in your house.”[5] This relates again to the Confucian theory of right relationships. The elderly should play his/her role as an older person in the Chinese society, or else the society will go without order, and though Mrs. Bee doesn’t get punishment, the words Judge Dee says clearly portray interpersonal relationships in Chinese society.
5) and it was said that it was a man’s world, “Now, this is a grownup’s world for you, and it’s a man’s world.” (Chen pg.5) We can also see women going through some of the same struggles in The Dragons Village as they did in The Death of Woman Wang, such as not getting to choose who they marry and being owned by their husbands. Ling-ling’s uncle married her aunt for her dowry as said by Chen on page 3. Dowry is property or money, which means Ling-lings uncle married her aunt for money, not love like every young girl dreams of when thinking about her future marriage. Ling-ling’s aunt says “Young Bob Lu and you are suited to each other. Isn’t that so? If we combine forces with the Lu family we’ll have more bargaining power with both sides.” (Chen pg.6) It seems that women are perceived as a piece of property, if they marry into a powerful family then their family will gain more power which seems to be the goal in life in this
In Six Records of a Floating Life, Shen Fu writes of his wife, “Yün came to this world a woman, but she had the feelings and abilities of a man.” (Fu: 89) Shen Fu and Yün considered each other to be intellectual equals. However, their relationship was still constrained within the gender roles set by their society. They lived during the Qing dynasty, which was a prosperous time for China (“The Manchus”: 266) but also a time when, as Professor Scarlett states in the lecture Daily Life in Imperial China, “the outside world was for men and the inside world was for women.” Shen Fu and Yün’s relationship was pushing the bounds of their culture, but they still kept (mostly) within the lines of social acceptability.
Hsu, of course, was the young man who committed adultery and was an accessory to the murder of Bee Hsun, the husband of Mrs. Djou. Instead of a severe punishment for Dr. Tang, Judge Dee orders otherwise, saying “But in deference to your great achievements in the field of scholarly researches, I shall free with this public reprimand, enjoining you henceforth to devote all your time to your own literary studies. You are strictly forbidden ever again to engage in the teaching of young students.” (Van Gulik, pg. 208). Judge Dee respected Dr. Tang’s higher learning status, whereas if it were a normal person the punishment would have been far more severe and painful. Respect for the actions of a person’s elders is evident as well. In the same scene, Judge Dee convicts the student Hsu Deh-tai, who is to be executed by strangulation – however, Judge Dee recognizes the “meritorious services rendered to the State by the said Hsu Deh-tai’s father and grandfather” (pg. 214). This is a subtle example of filial piety, albeit indirect filial piety. A social hierarchy is near-impossible to miss in this novel as well– from the very beginning the reader is notified of the position of Judge Dee and his consequent assistants under him, along with the fact that all of his subjects refer to themselves as “this insignificant person” (pg. 10). They all respect Judge Dee, which shows the Confucian idea of social order. Because of these facts,
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
Throughout the book, Yu-I tells of many old Chinese traditions. In China, women were only meant to please men. If a family had a daughter, they were considered guests and were later carted off for marriage by fourteen. Uneducated women were considered more obedient, so parents often did not let their daughters learn anything other than their duty to their state, family, and husband. By the age of four, boys were no longer allowed to play and began to learn. They were given special tutoring and were required to learn and memorize the books they were taught because their father or their tutor would make them recite what they had read. The Chang’s last names were a poem that changed every generation and when the poem ended, it would restart with the next generation. Their poem was “chia kuo pang ming” which translates to “fine kingdom, bright country”
Also, their relationship is shaped by the pressure Suyuan puts on her daughter. When Jing-Mei was growing up, her mother had the need for her daughter to be smart, talented, and a respectful Chinese daughter. This pressure put on Jing-Mei resulted in misunderstanding between mother and daughter. Jing-Mei constantly believed, “that she was disappointing her mother,” because she felt as if she failed at everything her mother wanted her to do. She believed she could never be as perfect as her mother was. Therefore she doesn’t think she is worthy enough to take her mother’s place at the Joy Luck Club “They must wonder now how someone like me can take my mother’s place” (Tan, 27). Jing-Mei does not understand that her mother wanted the best for her; Suyuan wanted Jing-Mei to challenge herself because that is how one builds up character. Suyuan thinks her daughter could do anything she proposed to do but never put enough effort into anything “Lazy to rise to expectations” (Tan 31). Furthermore, Suyuan forced Jing-Mei to learn how to play the piano and then perform at a recital. Jing-Mei rebelled against her mother and refused to learn how to play the piano well. So, at the recital she ends up forgetting the music notes. Jing-Mei blames her embarrassment on her mother and states,
Another conflict that arises from Confucianism is when Jing-mei was told to go back to China and tell her half-sisters about their mother. She said “‘what will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything.’” (Tan 31). In Confucianism, very little of tradition is explicitly told from mothers to daughters in the form of text. Ritual actions are supposed to be observed, absorbed and understood in order to be preserved and handed down for posterity. But Jing-mei, who grew up in America, did not have a sense of following the tradition her mother brought to America, or rather considered the Chinese tradition to be eccentric.
Wu Zhao belonged to the Tang Empire, which according to the author which “…was a true empire, encompassing many lands, many peoples, and many ideologies. Multi ethnic and cosmopolitan, Tang China was perfectly suited for the ascent of a historical anomaly like Wu Zhao…” (Rothschild, 2008, p. 11) In a sense, there was a conflict of traditional Confucian values which promoted a patriarchal society and the liberal Steppe culture which gave women more freedom and rights. China at that time was a cocktail of these cultures which led to a significant impact on the lifestyle and values of peoples in that era. Women were bold and tough, and unlike earlier societies, were no longer confined socially and sexually (Rothschild, 2008, p. 12). While did not exist a perfect equality between men and women, women of that era were allowed to live without hiding under the dominance of the male Yang. As the author talks of the Silk Road, it is mentioned that,”…In this free-wheeling milieu, women donned men’s attire and rode horses…” (Rothschild, 2008, p. 15) .This “cosmopolitan” (Rothschild, 2008, p. 16) society was the foundation for the Tang Empire. Another important factor was the prevalence of Buddhism as a religion of the masses. Buddhism, in itself, helped united much of Asia, and was a common platform for men and women, unlike in Confucianism where
In the chapter “Waiting Between the Trees” Ying-ying’s past in China that she has kept from her daughter is revealed. When she was young she believed that she was too good for any man, however eventually she realized she had to settle and married an indecent man, despite her being extremely vain. She had given up herself for this man, only for him to
She was very pretty when she was a young girl. She was educated like every Chinese woman used to be: To be obedient, to honor one's parents, one's husband and to try to please him and his family. Ying-Ying was not taught to use her own digression and make her own way through life.
In this time in China, the role that women and men had were very different from each other. Women were expected to be quite, obedient, and respectful. While men were the provider, the intellectual and the decision maker in the family. In Shen Fu and his wife, Yun marriage it started out like the typical relationship in eightieth century China, each one fulfilling the roles that society had in place for them. But as they became to know each other more, Shen Fu saw Yun real personality and wanted someone to experience life, so he started to encourage her to be herself and told her she didn’t have to live up to this gender stereotypes for women. They both were always
The empires of Rome and China were very great ones, they both had many similarities and differences in the way they ran their empires. One major difference was the way they treated their women. Both Chinese and Roman women were unequal in social status than the men of the empires were, but they were definitely treated different in both empires. Women of China were treated quite harshly and were expected to take orders at all times by their husbands, and were to serve them always. This started to happen especially after Confucius died because he taught people to treat each other the same, “after his death women became less free and lost status,”(Arvind 10). Women of Rome were treated like goddesses; they were to stay at home as housewives
Women in Ancient China during the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty lived in oppressed lives. Society perceived them as inferior to their husbands and parents-in-law. Their role in the family were to be housewives taking care of their family and maintaining the household chores. They were always under the instructions of their husbands and parents-in-law in they were treated like servants. They also had no control in their personal decisions because they were not allowed to decide who they were going to marry and what they wanted to do in their careers. Parents of daughters would also force their daughters to foot-binding because it would attract potential wealthy husbands. This paper argues that although the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty were known as the golden periods for China, nevertheless, it was overlooked by historians that women during the time were victims of gender inequality because they lived with no control over their personal lives and were expected to be submissive to their husbands.
This article is about how a giant panda named Bao Bao, who will be traveling to China. Bao Bao is a 200-pound panda who is 4 years old. She and her keeper and vet are going to bring lots of food because Pandas eat about 13-16 hours a day. The food Bao Bao will eat are 55lbs of bamboo, 5lbs of apples, and 2 lbs of sweet potato. Bao Bao’s mom had given birth to 4 babies, but sadly only 3 babies had survived. Laurie Thompson takes care pandas in the zoo. She thinks that Bao Bao’s trip to China is "definitely bittersweet." But Bao Bao’s keeps says "know she's ready." In conclusion, this text is about how Bao Bao, is a giant panda that is leaving the U.S zoo for China