Film Literacy

As one of my favorite movie, I learn a lot from the movie “National Treasure”. The story centers on Benjamin Franklin Gates, an amateur cryptologist with a mechanical engineering degree from MIT and an American history degree from Georgetown who comes from a long line of treasure hunters that believe in the legend of a fantastic treasure trove of artifacts and gold, hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and forgotten to all but a few. The first clue was given to Ben's great-great-great-great grandfather Thomas Gates by Charles Carroll, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, saying simply, "The secret lies with Charlotte". Using sophisticated computer arctic weather models, Ben, with his friend Riley Poole and financier Ian Howe, finds the wreckage of a Colonial ship, the Charlotte, containing a meerschaum pipe engraved with a riddle. After examining the riddle, Ben deduces that the next clue is on the back of the Declaration of Independence. While Ben sees gaining access to such a highly guarded artifact as an obstacle, Ian finds no problem in stealing it. In the standoff, Ian escapes and the Charlotte explodes with Ben and Riley inside, nearly killing them. With all the clues, they finally find the treasure, and all the bad guys were caught by the FBI. In the movie, I learn a lot of things. The most important thing is --- no matter how bad the situation is, never up. I think that can go through my whole life to make sure I will never give up all the time.

Arts Literacy

During the spring break, I went to New York with my friends. Of course, we wouldn’t miss the MET. MET is one of the largest art museums in the world, it shows arts from all over the world. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply as "the Met," is one of the world's largest art galleries, and has a much smaller second location in Upper Manhattan, at "The Cloisters," which features medieval art. Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. In the museum, we can even see the arts drawn by Picasso. This tour makes back to my high school life, when I was still learning about arts. I learned art more than two years. From all the arts by famous artist, we can see the magic of arts. At first, it was hardly to understand what the arts represent, or what the artists want to tell us. Like the paint “Guernica” by Pablo Picasso. Hardly we can understand what the painting what to tell us if we don’t know the history. Learning arts is learning history too. Since the history is all in the arts. I used to like make some copies of some famous painting. I believe that can makes to know the feeling of the artist, and I did got a lot of feelings, and also a lot of fun.

By the way, here is one of my painting. Check it out.

Imitating Literacy

Besides learning second language and music, I also like to imitate other’s songs, actions, or even words. I do this just for fun, and it always make people laugh. The singer I imitate the most is Jay Chou, he is one of my favorite. He is not so famous in United States, but in Asia, he is the super star. I like to imitate him because he has a special way to speak. He likes to talk unclear, that makes no body can understand what he says. Though it is a bad characteristic, it is easy to imitate, since it is very special and specific way to speak. Because he is so well-known, every time I imitate his style for speaking, people will know what I am doing, that feels great. However, imitating others is just a fun game for me, to make all my friends happy, and it makes my life better also. How life would be if your friends and you are happy everyday!

Music Literacy

I like music, and I am crazy about NU Metal. Linkin Park is one of my favorites, but actually, at first I just cannot totally understand their songs, because it is not my first language. People might say that there is no boundary for music, but that is not true. Like the song “crowing” by Linkin Park, if someone cannot understand the lyrics, they may think it is just a normal song. However, when you understand the lyric, you might find that this song is for world peace. That can explain well the reason they sing this song. Sometimes, you cannot understand the song even you understand all the lyrics. That is an opposite side to what I said at the first, this happens not so often. The reason for you cannot understand the music is because the song is like an art. You need to listen it deeply with heart. Like the song “tears in heaven”, we both know that it is a sad song. However, one day I missed my passed grandfather, I open my iTunes, and started listen this song. I finally found how sad this song is. I even cried for my grandfather for few minutes which I never did because I am such a strong person, and I never cry. The song touches the deeply things in my mind, and that is the magic of the music.

Language Literacy

I can speak both Chinese and English. Chinese is my mother tongue, I learn it everywhere. However, as a second language, to learn English is harder than Chinese, since they have different type of writing; different style; even different grammar, and we only can learn it in the class. Even though learning English is very hard, I never complain about it. Because when we learning English, we are not only the language itself, but also another culture. After I learned English as a second for a while, I started to try to read some novels with English version. Even we have Chinese version for the same book, I still rather to read the English version, because it can show the story better, and there are always some tiny mistakes for Chinese version. As I said, when we learning and keeping practicing English, we are learning another culture as the same time. My father used to want read a lot of English novels when he was young, but at that time, China was doing the culture revolution, all the English storybooks, fiction, or even dictionaries are “bad things” which makes him to lose a great interest. “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for our future” said by the one of the most successful presidents in United State, Franklin Roosevelt. My father did exactly the same thing like Roosevelt said, so he let me read more English books to know more about the world. Since now we can find English books in all the bookstores, and that helps me a lot when I was in China for learning another culture.
To learn both the language itself and the culture, that is what I learn from learning another language.

Assignment 2 -- part 3

Perfect pictures for an imperfect world

In this short video, the main idea is Perfect pictures for an imperfect world, which means this world is not perfect. Sometimes, people only use some perfect pictures to cheat themselves, in all the imperfect things, discrimination is the most serious problem in this world.

Discrimination is an unacceptable crime all around the world, no matter what country you come from, discrimination is such a common thing. Although discrimination is against the law in most countries, it is still widespread. One could easily find a news report on TV or the newspaper about racial crimes. Moreover sometimes it might just happen around us. Discrimination comes in many forms, all of which negatively judge a person’s character. They are: racism; discrimination against sexism; religious preference; and even the disabled. It is what makes us unique that is the source of discrimination.

Discrimination of person’s race is unfortunately very common in the U.S, since the U.S is a mixed country. There are lots of African-America, Asians and Europeans in this big country. They possess different mannerisms and different appearances. The most drastic conflict would be between the African-American and the whites. This discrimination began hundreds of years ago. As one can see, they have different skin color, which makes this conflict more obvious as different appearances and customs may cause fear in other populations who view them as “improper” or “weird”. Some whites even think that the blacks are not even humans. Although it sounds ridiculous, it still happens. In some countries, one can always see from the news that some whites shot the blacks or blacks shot the whites, the reasoning behind these actions is usually convoluted and hard to understand. Some people might say that they are just racists (Wikipedia: Making Life Easier); however, no one is a racist at birth. The society changed them, they move to adverse side because they only see the difference between two kinds of people.

Discrimination of sexual orientation is a problem happening all over the world. Now people around the world are all advocating freedom, and sexual orientation should be one of the rights of freedom (Sadimasochists, Push for sexual –orientation right; Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow). Those who choose to be homosexual are still humans, and they need respect as a normal people. Moreover, discrimination also happens against different genders, in the form of misogyny and misandry. Sexual abuse and domestic violence are always happens. They are talked about by people every year, but they are still a problem. For this case, people might say that they abuse their wives because their ancestor did the same thing in the old time, and that is a kind of tradition in some specific area. Although it is true, in this society one still cannot do this for the control of both moralities and laws. Those two kinds of discrimination are sadly picturesque examples to show that discrimination is based on the differences of different people also.

Religious preference is the most serious discrimination, because if people do not stop it, it might cause war (Ferguson, J. (1977) War and peace in the world’s religious). The most famous war that caused by the discrimination of religious preference would be the war between Israel and Palestine. One might know that Jerusalem is the capital city for both Israel and Palestine, since the city of Jerusalem is the saint city for both Christianity and Islam that both sides believe where the religion came from. For this reason, two countries started the war long time ago, because the different religion, both sides want to control the city of Jerusalem. This shows one case of discrimination that based on religious preference. Different ideologies lead people to different ways, which would be a right allegation for the discrimination for religious preference. However, it is still based on the difference, and this time is the different religions.

These main characters in this short video will all be discriminatorily in the real world: women with no breast; deformity; violence. These are all the things around us in our life. No one would like to be the old women in this video – lonely, her husband probably died because of wars, bad diseases. However, nobody cares about these all kinds of things. Government for each country are all put focus on armies; money; gas; oil and hi – tech sometimes. We are all living in this imperfect world, after I saw this video, I really want to say: stop discrimination, stop the war, please, please look all these things. One may say that is something ineluctable, however, nothing is impossible. If everyone tries one’s best, they would have a better life in the future.

Assignment 2 -- part 2

Another way to show what people’s thinking is to through films, and sometimes it can even change one’s life. The Shawshank Redemption is always my favorite. The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American prison drama film, written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the Stephen King novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The film talk about a young banker named Andy Dufresne is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover based on strong circumstantial evidence and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at "Shawshank" State Penitentiary in Maine. After several weeks’ prison’s life, Andy gradually becomes acquainted with Red's circle of friends, and Red himself, who is known for cleverly smuggling in contraband. “Red” is a very funny character in this film, only because he can get whatever you want, but also he has been rejected for parole for so many times, no matter what he says to the parole officers. After a month of adjusting to his new life, Andy approaches Red and asks him to get a rock hammer, originally intending to pursue a hobby of rock collecting and some big posters. No one knows what Andy wants to do, since it is impossible to escape the prison by using only a small hammer. Years after years, Andy’s life in prison changed a lot, but he still can prove he is innocent for he did not kill his wife, until a young prisoner named Tommy Williams enters Shawshank. Tommy tells Andy that he knows a crazy guy that kills Andy’s wife, which gives Andy some hopes, so Andy went to see the warden to get some help. However, because Andy helps the warden to wash bribe money, the warden does not want Andy go out, so the warden kills Tommy. That makes Andy feel hopeless, he does not want to stay in prison anymore for other’s guilt, and he asks one of his friends for a long string. Everyone in Shawshank feel sorry about Andy, because they think Andy will probably kill himself. Andy disappears after that night; because he digs a hole years by years in his wall and use a big poster to hide the hole, when the warden finds the hole, everything is too late. Finally, Andy does not want to stay after Tommy’s death, so he chooses to leave. The movie strongly tells us, everything is possible if we keep doing it. “Red” in the film said that dig a hole to prison break will take two hundred years, but Andy only uses eighteen years.

I used to be a very cowardly man. I can hardly make some decisions, I even do not have any idea for staying in China or going aboard after I graduate from high school. There are a lot of students who were forced to study at Michigan State University, because their parents sent them here. However, they actually want to stay at home because there is no place like home. I chose this school by myself. At first, I just chose some universities all over the world, and never thought that it would be very hard to be an international student. However, in the last month that I have been here, I felt panic. I felt badly about the choice I made. I wanted to move back to china, and study there, but it was too late. My father noticed I had a problem. My father pointed at a small stalactite and asked me; “Do you know why this stalactite is very small?” I looked up at the top of the cave and noticed that there was some water that kept dropping on the rock. The rock became small because the water dropped on it every day. I told my father this guess. My father nodded and said; “Small drips can even destroy a big rock, why you do not think you can beat the problems in your life? If you have already made the decision, be a man, keep going on. Like the drips, you will finally destroy a big rock!” After that talk with my father, I went back to watch The Shawshank Redemption one more time, I think it totally matches what my father talks to me. Few days after, I made the diction to come to U.S, and now I still believe, no matter what hard problems make me want to change my original idea, I will still definitely keep moving forward, like Andy in Shawshank Redemption and the water drips, never give up. This changed my life recently, because Andy’s sprit. It is like a compass, it leads the way for my life. When we see a thing deeply, it will teach us something useful, like this movie, The Shawshank Redemption.

Assignment 2 -- part 1

It is very easy to find some American or sometimes is world values from some pictures; films or short videos on YouTube. These three kinds of things are both always in one’s life; however, sometimes one might hardly find what deeply in these kinds of things, even people see them every day.
Advertisements would be a good example for seeing the value of people. Because the ads catch the value of customers, they can make people buy their products. Almost ninety percent customers buy thing because they see the ads on TV, as seen by a survey by Times ( How people choose the cloth, anonymous ), that means ads actually change the customers’ opinion for the products. People like to wear cloths with brands, since they see some famous people are wearing the same clothes with the same brand in the ads. There is no one do not want to be successful, so they try to imitate some famous people. I used to be crazy about Jordan’s basketball shoes, because I wondered t play basketball as well as him. In the ads, air Jordan flies through air and dunks from the free throw line, a feat a lot of normal people cannot d. that catches the attention of the customers, it makes people dream to have the same pair of shoes in the ads, and do the same thing like Jordan. This is an example of values -- it shows the “success”. However, not all the ads are using the products’ abilities to attract customers’ eyes. Another way to capture a customers’ interest would be using physical passions, like the human body. From the ads of Calvin Klein perfume, one could see a naked muscle man, and beside him is a black Calvin Klein perfume. That is all one sees from the ad, it is very simple, but it is attractive to the male customers. Almost every man wants to have a wonder body shape like the man in the ad, which is the common value of all the people. The ad suggests to customers that if the customers use the same perfume in the ad, they could have the same appeal as the man in the advertisement. However, not all people like to see this kind of advertisement. Like Jean Kilbourne, she is an example of one of them. In her film Killing Us Softly, she strongly disagrees with the idea about these kinds of ads, using human body to attract people to buy the products. In her opinion, ads should tell people the truth. However, physical passion is the only way for this company to encourage people to buy their good, one may think that this is not a big problem like Jean said in her film. One may think a human body could represent beauty, not only sex appeal. This ad is a great representation of the American and world dream or ideal to be beautiful and sexy.