Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Peony Pavilion



The Peony Pavilion was an actual play, very famous written during the Ming Dynasty by Tang Hsien- Tsu. While reading the novel, I became very interested in this play, so I decided to look it up. Although I get the general story, since my whole novel is based on a maiden's obsession with it, I still wnated to know the story more in depth. Hence, here is a link to a synopsis of the story, because the actual play is a VERY HUGE book with around 50 scenes.

http://www.chinapage.com/peony-pavilion.html

To also get a sense of how it would look like on stage performed in the traditional Chinese style, I found a picture of an actress who's playing Liniang (the main character). The costume and make-up is VERY heavy and detailed in this type of drama. It's nice to admire the pictures, but you would NOT want to see it because they speak in the highest pitched, squeakiest, prolonged voice possible. It's very boring and annoying to watch, hence I didn't post any youtube link, but you can definitely look it up if you're interested. This pictures is from a performance at the University of Beijing.

"Mother Love"


The chinese language is a very complex and intricate. In many ways, it's nt just used for communication, but also saw as a form of art in it's calligraphy and the meanings these characters create. One particular word that come across the story often was the word for motherly love. This love is not the same as the "I love you" kind, but a more caring and nurturing way. This is the love parents and families use, usually an older person towards a younger person. This word is simple, yet the words that make it up have great meaning. It's pronounced "teng ai", with "teng" representing "hurt" and "ai" representing "love". When these two different characters are combined, they form a "caring and nurturing" type of love, usually expressed by families. To some people, it's confusing to comprehend hurt and love as equalling a deep and protective love, but if we think about and look close within our own experineces, we realize that these two opposite words do come to make sense. The pain and hurt our mothers brought us into the world, the pain she watch us grow, the mistakes we make to hurt her, the discipline she unwillingly puts upon us, the tears of pain and joy she sheds for us, and the love we neglect and take for granted; all these represent the pain within loving. I think this is a genius way to portary the type of love we share with our family, especially our dear mothers. We unknowingly put her through so much pain sometimes, but if we stop to think about it, we know what what had neglected. Peony, our main character in the story, didn't notice the motherly love her mother felt towards her until she died and roamed as a ghost. Fianlly she realized the pain her mother suffered in loving her.

On a side note, I am overcome with emotion right now. Although I try to as obedient as possible, and as good to my parents, I've realized I've also caused them pain. I now truly understand this "teng ai" they have for me, and I want to express my love back to them. I LOVE YOU MOM, DAD!


Tuesday, January 22, 2008

"Demonic Child"


The Chinese had a very intricate way of viewing life after death. For them, Heaven is not an easy path to go into, since it's not solely based on whether one was "good" during their living days. When one dies, even the circumstance they died under are taken into consideration of where they will roam in their afterlife. If a married women died while pregnant, she would wander in The Bloody Lake, which would take her 857,000 days for her to cross and having to encounter numerous tortures and demons. However, if the dead women's family did the right rituals, and PAID a hefty sum for it, she would have a easier time crossing this temporary Hell. Also the root of her death is believed to be the fault of her child, for it would have been considered as the demon that caused her death. Before burial and cermonies, this unborn child would be cut from the womb and toshed in the trash to make sure the demon doesn't get reborned into another unfortunate sould again.

This connects with the previous book I read on Adeline, for she was considered as the "black star" (a chinese saying of bad luck) that killed her mother during birth. Adeline in this case would be the demon child that accomplished her goal of killing her mother and surviving herself, and causing misfortune to the family. Yet, this is all just superstitions, because the outcome of Adeline's life was far from this bogus belief.


Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Disillusioned by Love

Ok, the girl in this story is really making me mad. So the story went like this; she met a boy, she falls in love with boy after three encounters, and now she's going to starve herself to death unless she marries him. Isn't this stupid or what? I mean, I can understand her reluctance to be in an arranged marriage, but need she go this far? She makes her mother beg on her knees and cry for her, and yet all she can think about is this boy she only met 3 times. Who knows is its unrequited love, despite the fact that he claims he loves her. How can these people know love at the first sight, and she's at15 years old, I don't think she's mature enough to know what love is in anyway; especially after what she experienced in such a short time and following a fictional love story like its her Bible. This girl doesn't "eat, not even fruit; rarely anything beyond a few sips of juice. " She feeds herself "by ingesting mystic breath, by thinking of love, by remembering my adventure with my poet outside the garden walls". This all started because of a book, a well- known tale about a girl who caused her own death because she was lovesick with a boy she DREAMED of within her sleep! Not even met, but dreamed, and she fell madly in love instantly and starved herself to death. And now, this girl is holding this character as some martyr of love, and is following her path. I just think this is ridiculous.

The Prejudice Against Girls

Alright, so I'm pretty sure we're all informed that this world has been sexist long LONG ago, and in some forms even today. Yet, it still shocks me, or rather interests me, the extent the Chinese went through just for a BOY! In families, a boy was needed to become head of the family and take over everything, but what is wrong with a girl? Why can't she take over the same responsibilities? That's because all girls were to be married off, thus they are no use. They only make their family spend money on them, but only to send them off to become someone else's property. I find this so degrading, because imagine what the world would be like without women! The stubbornness of these people irk me, especially how the story worded it as being "burdened by a single useless daughter".

Men had numerous concubines in hopes of these women would bore them the son that their wife or wives couldn't. It's already bad and unfair to the women that bigamy existed, leaving no happiness for true love and appreciation, but to be thought of a a BABY MACHINE is horrendous! Some women become so disillusioned, that they would trade off their own newborn daughters and STEAL another poor women's newborn son! This was done to secure their status as the wife, or gain favor with their husband. I just can't imagine the trouble people cause just because the father couldn't donate a Y chromosome.

Every ancestral offering and praying just had to revolve around babies too. These people's purpose in life was just to give birth, thus "pomegranates to symbolize fertility, jujubes because the words sounded like having children quickly, and the seven grains, because the Chinese character for kernel was identical in writing and sound to offspring". It's amazing how people can come up with these reasons in food to signify reproduction.

Another thing that made me mad was how women had to obey their men like God. The crazy people even created a book containing the "Four Virtues and Three Obediences". This was like the sacred Bible that every girl must memorize and obey, always bound to remember, "when a daughter, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son. Your husband is Heaven". I'm just appalled at this rule. Whoever invented this stuff seriously had no idea the trouble his mother went into bringing him into this world. How ungrateful!