Better Luck Tom.

After going back and watching the first part of the movie, I found it to be quite interesting when relating it back to what he have learned. I feel that throughout the entire movie the group of boys were trying to find their true “identity”. It seems as though they are confused about what they what they want to do with their lives so they try to be “tough bad boys” Which in a since I feel is kind of strange seeing how Ben is very smart and didn’t seem to want to be involved with what was going on. What struck me the most was the murder and how they just wanted to “scare” him. So when Ben heres the gun shot I feel as though he thought his friends were in danger, so he runs in and sees the gun in their hand and regardless of what was going on and who had the gun I think Ben combined his rage for steve and took it out as he picked up the bat and bashed his face in. Than they realize that he is alive and they quickly resort to killing him. This is where I’m confused because if they just played on scaring him this would be where they would be relieved because he’s not dead he’s alive. Instead they suffocate him. This results to the boys finding their true identity’s and that this wasn’t what they expected or wanted from their lives. At this point the characters change and I feel their true colors begin to show.

Chow show

After watching the first eposoide I found it to be quiet interesting. Like talking about in class you often are interested in those shows that you can’t quite relate to considering it’s different from you and the life you live. That’s how I feel this show is. I can’t relate to it in any way for example the way she acts in front of her parents, the wealthy life she lives, being a comedian and also being Asian. I think this was a useful when relating to the term “identity” when she paints her whole body to look like a china dress and her mother says something along the lines of thats a “china dress”. What I got from that is, she is accepting the Korean American award and her mother wants people to recognize her identity as a Korean and not as Chinese. Also the letter that the girl read to her at the end of the award ceremony shows that her Korean identity is accepted and that she as an Asian American is changing how they are being viewed around the world. It’s showing other cultures that you can be a doctor, lawyer, teacher and even a comedian and I think it is amazing that she can talk about the racism and discrimination openly through her acts.

Native Speaker- Final thoughts

My final thought on this book is that it wasn’t that interesting to me. Than again maybe if I got to read it while i had 3 other novels to read than maybe i would have been a little more relaxed and into it when i was reading. I just felt that it was read in a fast past so many things seemed to be confusing. Overall I just wish i guess that the novel was structured differently I think the way it was written made it not interesting to me. When my group and I got together to talk about the ending of the book i was quite surprised that our thoughts of how it would end were totally different from the other groups. But in the end it seemed as though we predicted that Lelia and Henry would get back together. Not only did they get back together but they work together!! strange but i honestly thought it was a great ending to seeing the list of what Lelia thought of Henry. Also we predicted that either Henry or Kwang were going to get caught in some way. I guess i just didn’t think that Kwang was going to get caught with a stripper! that’s something that I wasn’t expecting at all!

I’m glad that Lelia and Henry are back together again and working together. I know we talk about how Henry seems to be a material of hers but I see it to be very useful to both Henry and Lelia. Henry also doesn’t seem to be affected by it either!

Native Speaker- Identity

I found the group work to be very useful. Afterwards thinking about the questions asked it helped me to further understand Kwang and Henrys relationship. Which always goes back to identity. The questions explained ones identity by appearance, characteristics, roles and historical events. They all allow an assumption of ones own identity. One quote I found to be interesting was p. 138-139 ” He knew i was Korean, or Korean American……I don’t know exactly what he saw in me. Maybe a someone we Koreans were becoming, the latest brand of an American. That was from the future.” The issues of identity that keep coming up through out the novel make me wonder if something is going to happen to his “identity”. When he had to think of what may happen at the end I was thinking maybe Henry’s or Kwang’s identity becomes exposed. As much as I been here and there in this book I would love to know the ending. So I’m going to finish it now!

Native Speaker

As I continue to read the novel it becomes more clear what we discussed in class. More information is given on their son, father and mother. It begins to detail his life and how we grew up. What really interests me is the way his wife reacts to the fact that he doesn’t call the woman who is basically the maid of the house by name. This comes up during the night and they begin to argue about it  trying not to wake up their son. What i got out of it was that he respect his culture and her wishes. He knew her role in the household and she knew his. But his wife is very disturbed by this ad continues to ramble on about it. Lelia could not understand this cultural belief because Americans live on a first name basis. The conflict over the womans name eventually ends because they don’t want to wake Mitt up. The next morning Lelia is determined to talk to the woman. The woman says “She has nothing to say to his american woman” Lelia is persistent and will not give up. This than starts an argument between the two and the woman calls Lelia a “nasty American cat” I think I’m starting to understand the list more. The fact they she doesn’t understand her husbands culture nor respect their culture at all may seem like he’s a stranger. Lelia seems to not want to understand their Korean culture. That’s why I think the letter at first is vague and eventually each word will have a fuller and clearer definition of his Korean and American life.

Native Speaker

I found the book to be very interesting when reading, but even more intriging when we discussed it indepth in class. Each time I think about the book , I still think of the list that was given in the beginning of the book. We suggested that being married to someone yet be considered a “stranger”do not clash together. Unless his identity as an Asian American is an issue. Or is it because of the secretive job he has that seems to be such a mystery. As for him he at first thought the list was a love poem. But as we continued to read it seemed as though it wasn’t what he would have never expected. I guess right now I just want to know what the letter intended. Whether it was a good-bye letter or something more meaningful. I just felt that the letter is a very powerful part to understanding the meaning of the book, than again i could be wrong and could be something he learns to appreciate and change about himself. Which also bring me to the idea that maybe the only reason why they stayed together in the first place was because of there son. Now that there son no longer with them it seems that everything is starting to come out in the open. Really just want to know what happened to their son!

Zia ch. 10

I choose to write about chapter 10 Reinventing Our Culture because while reading the chapter it said “Hip Hop is the universal language of the youth.” which kinda tied into my interest of using lyrics of a song on wiki as a source of research. It made me think, how do you inform the youth about the discrimination that is going on in the world today if they aren’t interested in picking up a book and reading about it. It was simple through music, the youth may not notice they are learning about the wold around them because it’s a celebrity and it’s the type of music they love to listen to. But like it stated in the book they want to be like a rapper they will start wearing baggy pants and backward caps. So they talk about using hip hop but just changing the words so that the children well learn to respect themselves and one another. I think its a great way to connect with one another while reinventing different cultures. As I continued to read and realize that “Asian sightings” weren’t common at all, I myself was oblivious to this. Who would have thought that Asians weren’t allowd to be artists, whether it was playwrights, musicians, poets, filmmakers, writers, etc.. Which still disturbes me that , that kind of segregation was happpening in “America, the country of dreams”. Also to think that Asian Americans weren’t allowd to play in professional sports up until an “Asian sighting” in the 1990’s. And such common things as Asian food, religion and the way Asians were brought up was not respected. But now their has been sightings in the music realm and extending in every art form.

All I can hope for is that their continue to be significant advances  in establishing respect for cultural diversity of Asian Americans. 

“It is predicted by the year 2050, every ethnic group, including the formerly dominant Caucasian ethnic group, will be a minority.” which relates to one of the first articles I read in this class. So it’s hard to understand why there is so much disrespect towards one another beliefs and values considering soon we will all be considering one.

What I learned form the Wikis

From the researching and planning done for the wiki’ I learned an extremely alot about presentations and researching. Many of the groups had their pages set up differently which made it more interesting for the viewer. The use of pictures, font styles/color, videos and song lyrics researching for once could be fun! It’s nice to explore the various pages of the other groups. And really I would never have thought to but song lyrics on my wiki page as a form of research! It’s interesting and I through the presentations I found various different ideas.

Update on the Wiki

Well, Presentations are today and i finally understand most if not all of the functions of the wiki. I find it very interesting how easy it is to plug in just about anything from the internet! I believe that are page looks pretty good considering there wasn’t to much we found on the Red Apple Boycotts! Now for future reference ill be able to work with wiki’s with no problems!

wiki

For the wiki project I have choosen to research about the Apple Boycott. My job in my group is to look for viedos and some journal articles on that topic. When just searching therough google i wasn’t able to find a whole lot about the topic so let’s hope with the help of the libaraian i can fidn some more resources!!!