journal1

I was born on November, 20, sharing the same birthday with Senator Robert F Kennedy, a rebellious politician who died from assassination. Although I am not sure if I will follow in his step and die in the hands of my enemy, yet one point is clear that I was born to be intractable and iconoclastic. I was brought into this world as the second child of my family by my mother to fulfill her promise to my father that she would give birth to a daughter and a son. That year the notorious Cultural Revolution ended and it is said that my birth brought good luck to my family. I was given a nice Chinese name, Zhaoyu, which means the sun shining over the universe. However, that doe not mean my parents expected much from me. How could they? They are both fortunes’ ill-favored children. My mother had to work in a textile factory at the age of 9 when her mother died of melancholia while my father, who could never remember what his father had looked like, struggled his way from the countryside to the army and finally to the local government. As disqualified parents, they never took the initiative to guide my sister and me towards a brilliant future. I often feel as if I have grown up like a wild grass, competent to survive any challenge but never sure why I am here in the world. There are some dramatic ironies in my life. My father used to fight in Vietnam on the side of North Vietnam against the invasion of the American imperialist army. He was quite proud of that experience and often recited some extracts of Chairman Mao’s greatest works in Vietnamese. My education is mostly anti-American but my father never expected that I would study in USA, the evil imperialist country characteristic of capitalist degradation and imperialist hegemony. He died in 1998, still in the conviction that the red flags of communism would wave in the whole world one day. What a pity it is that he was brainwashed and how lucky it is that he had remained in the realm of fantastic illusions! Another case worth mentioning that I used to be thought unfavorably of by my teachers as a potential loser and misfit of Chinese society but it has turned out that I have outstripped any of my former peers. I was suspected by some of my primary school teachers of being an imbecile because I was slow in warming up for their instructions. In revenge for their misjudgment I paid a visit to these teachers when I was admitted to Peking University (PKU) with my National College Entrance Score ranking No.1 in my hometown. On the other hand, I had my teachers’ low opinion partly because I was said to be too overweening to show regard for teachers: I treated what my teachers taught with phenomenal skepticism and annoyed them with my unorthodoxy opinions. For example, the Chinese history book always attributes China’s backwardness to the corruption of the feudal government and the invasion of the western powers. But I challenged it by saying that the problem lay in the fact that the Chinese gradually became conservative, inward-thinking and narcissistic about its past glory. But the teachers just urged me to memorize the conclusions to cope with the tests without the least concern about my inquiries. My critical mind does not chime with the Chinese educational system, which seems to lay an emphasis on the cultivation of subjects and technical workers to push China’s blindfolded modernization.

Fortunately I benefited substantially from the study in PKU, where I had access to the copious library resources, first-rate instructions and thoughts from elite students. The designed courses were liberal and open for the purpose of initiating students into the world of western culture and cultivating their comprehensive academic abilities. It is worth mentioning that PKU imbued students with its unique spiritual riches of independence, liberty and democracy. Here I got into touch with the works of Freud, Virginia Woolf and George Orwell, who have remained to be my favorite writers and thinkers. I also took delight in learning foreign languages, which I regard as a weapon in the struggle of life and a window to help me escape from benightedness. It gradually dawned on me that I would be an independent writer and a teacher to illuminate others. This career goal is in sharp contrast with my childhood dream: to be a biologist. How a person’s fate is shaped and reshaped by the capricious life!

When it comes to my hobbies, I will try to make a long story short. Swimming: I think swimming is the best way to free myself. By swimming we can get closer to nature and have the sense of Liberty and Relaxation. I grew up on the Yangtze River. Swimming accompanied me in the childhood. Thank goodness, I wasn't drowned! Traveling: One of my ambitions is to travel as far as I can .I have been to a lot of places in China and once to Republic of Korea and Britain. Of all the places I visited, I have a preference for Suzhou, the heaven on earth. Suzhou City has a gorgeous, elegant urban appearance and well-designed parks which present a picturesque panorama. Cuisine: I am a gourmet and tasting as much delicious food as possible is my another ambition. I can memorize a lot of dish names. My favorite food is fish cooked in spicy soup. I was born in Sichuan, a province famous for spicy delicacies. Long live the spicy food! Astrology: I was born in the month of Scorpio and I like exploring mysteries. I have been doing research upon fortune-telling for a long time. Movies and Musicals: I think I am endowed with a talent for directing. Though it is not realistic for me to be a director, yet I still enjoy watching and studying cinemas.

In the syllabus I will develop this semester, I would like to explore into the topic of the Chinese images in the western mind. As I notice that the representation of the Chinese in the western literature and cinema is somehow distorted in a way which seems to me ridiculous. I even doubt that if the western artists or writers deliberately create some Chinese stereotypes to cater to the fantasy of the western people, who are ignorant of Chinese cultures and indulge in the consumption of the fabricated Chinese images, taking it for granted that the Chinese serves as the other of the western people and should be characterized as a signifier in reflection of the oppositeness of the western people. I have read some books and watch some movies in this field, such as the Joy Luck Club, the Travel of Marc Polo, the Year of Dragon, and Madame Butterfly. So I am very interested in going further into the methodical exploration of how Chinese images are created to compensate for the lack of the western knowledge of China and its people, and how these images have an repercussion upon the cross-cultural communication of the west and China.