A service of love

I am almost done with the short story collection of O'Henry, these short stories are compact and interesting. The story called"A service of love", relating to the poem about love by St.  Lucia Derek  Walcott. Authors, poets and singers all like use the theme of love because of its permanence and pure. When I first saw the title of this short story, I expected to see the responsibility and duty for each of the couple supposed to do.Then I realized that the service here meant "sacrament". An aspiring artist, Joe Larrabeen from the Midwest and Delia Caruthers, a young talented musician meet in New York in an atelier where a number of youthful artists have met to discuss composers and painter.  There they are attracted to each other; shortly thereafter, they marry. They have to give up their dreams of art to sustain their lives and earned money.  As O'Henry declared "This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall of China". Actually, there is a famous legend about love relating to Great Wall in China, when emperor Qingshihuang announced to build the Great Wall, lots of men were caught by the official federals, a man named "meng"was one of them. However, it was really difficult and dangerous to do such a heavy work without machine or technique at that time, he finally dead because of exhaustion. After hearing about the death of her husband, Meng immediately arrived to Great Wall to find her husband but she could not even find his body, she suddenly turned around and jumped into nearby sea.

"When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard".

Chinese literature

We mainly discussed and learned about Chinese Literature for this quarter. It is difficult for many of my classmates to understand the meaning of that because there are so many differences between different countries, especially China and America, even with two different languages and totally different backgrounds. I actually enjoy learning about all these stuff because I could get a chance to see how our cultures are understood by other people. Three periods are introduced: early, middle period and Tang poetry. Confucius is the typical literature work for the early time, he acclaimed "wu'chang"and"li"to teach people become gentleman through their actions and minds. Poets in middle age like Tao yuanming talked about countryside life and advocated Taoism, getting a natural life without disturbing of money or addiction. Tang poetry are usually described with magnificent scenery because people were wealth at that time, having lives without worry or sadness. My favorite poet is Li‘po because he is brilliant. He is funny because he could write better poems with drinking. Alcohol brought him more inspiration. I appreciate his poem because they were written with fantastic imagery. There is a strong element of Taoism in his works, both in the sentiments they express and in their spontaneous tone, and "many of his poems deal with mountains, often descriptions of ascents that midway modulate into journeys of the imagination, passing from actual mountain scenery to visions of nature deities, immortals, and 'jade maidens' of Taoist lore. Also, his work was not sad as Dufu did. Lipo wanted to help the country and had social ambition but was shown that much in his work while Dufu's poems made me feel disappointed and desperate. The following poem is the most famous one written by Li'po, even children from kindergarten recite it. It is short but meaningful, talking about his nostalgia and reminds me to think about my home when I am here:

A Quiet Night Thought

Moonlight before my bed

Perhaps frost on the ground.

Lift my head and see the moon

Lower my head and pine for home.

Love

Love after love written by St.  Lucia Derek  Walcott is a lovely short poem talking about love around us. Love yourself is as important as love others. Love means to share the snacks with my friends when I was young; Love means to follow the directions that teachers gave when I grew up in the school; Love means to chat with my parents every week online since I came to America. It is important to share your love with all those around you but you have to realize the importance of loving yourself first. How could a person love others in a right way if she or he even cannot love himself or herself? This poem reminds me the story"Magi's gift" by O'Henry and tales of twin cities by Charles Dickens that I read before. "Magi's gift" talks about a story between a couple.they give up the their favorite things to offer a better gift for the other. Love for them is giving up. Charles and Lucies love each other but cannot be together in the end for many reasons. Love for them means a pity.
Many kinds of love are existed in out life and it is love that makes our lives more colorful. Loving yourself is not that difficult, just shut your cellphone off, lay on the sofa and get away from all the troubles to relax.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a  film talks about Wuxia. The whole movie links with the sword called "Qing Dynasty". People who considered as "Xia"  preferring to a person whose sense of righteousness is so profound that it empowers them to sacrifice themselves and even break the law to help people.  Li Mu Bai is an typical example of this. The values that Wudan masters teach their puplis is in the similar way, to teach them use their fighting skills in a right way and help people. As a disciple of Wudan, Li Mu Bai is knows the value of fighting skills and feels responsible to help Shu Lien. She is talented, but she is too young and does not know what she should do. Li Mu Bai tries to lead her with Wudan rules. For the teaching of Buddhism, everything exists for its reason, nothing worth having. The things that having is depend on yourself, it worth having if you want to, otherwise it does not. There is not a criterion  to judge worth or not, you choose what to do and you are responsible for what you have done. All the fighting scenes makes the whole movie more exciting and push the plot to a climax.The final fight between Li Mu Bai and Jen takes place in a bamboo forest. That fighting is more like a lesson Li Mu Bai gives to Jen instead of a fighting. He teaches her to be a righteous person like the bamboo and uses her skills in a right way. In the end, Li Mu Bai dies to save Jen, Shu Lien does not kill Jen instead but asks her to be true to herself. Actually, Jen does that and chooses to oil herself because she knows that is the best way to get the redemption and get away from regret. The ending is ambiguous but I think it is a good ending because Jen finally knows the importance of responsibility.