Thoughts about Tour 3

 The Truth Project lesson three was about Anthropology: Who is Man?  I guess this lesson was interesting and less confusing compared to the previous lesson that we watched.  When I heard who is man? I thought I knew the answer because it is quite obvious.　However it wasn't as simple as I thought it would be.  The Bible teaches that man consists of both Body and Spirit and is created in the image of God. The Bible also says that man has rebelled against God and fallen from his original state of innocence.  He mentioned two types of MAN by two perspectives. One from the Biblical view which is His essence – made in the image of God; dualistic: both flesh and spirit. His moral state – a fallen nature. His need – redemption. And another one is from the evolution theory which was No free will. No life after death. No ultimate meaning in life. The evolutionary theory of man sounds sad. No meaning in life is quite depressing.       One of the first things that were mentioned in this tour was EVIL. What is evil? When I hear evil I think it is anything morally bad or wrong. It is maybe something unjust. Some obvious examples might be murder, stealing, lying, and cheating.  And if this is the definition of evil then it is happening every single day in the world.  In the Bible I guess evil is defined as sin and sin is evil.  Hg everyday however a question that comes up is if evil is sin and it is happening every day in the world. Why doesn’t he stop it? I know he has the power to. Does this come to freewill where he gave us the freedom to think for your self and act for what each think is right? Or do we not sin by choice because we were born sinful with a sin nature?

complex images of the ghost

Usually in Asia when we hear the word Ghost. We think of someone who is dead that is still surrounding in this world either not being happy in this world or had something left to do in the world. Lena's mother describes her as if ghost's disappear, which I think it sounds like she is dead and does not exist anymore, but still surround the world. However I think ghosts in this book symbolizes a more complex image rather than just meaning a dead being. People would often refer to someone as a ghost when they are not accepted as a family member. When they are forbidden to talk about that certain person. For example in the story of Scar, Popo the grandmother hated An-Mei for becoming a concubine and marrying another man after her husband died and leaving the house and the children behind. The grandmother hated her so much So she always called her a ghost and never let her grandchildren talk about "the ghost". The whole point was to make them forget their mother easily. 

An-Mei Hsu

AnMei Hsu's vertues are that she is very strong. She has a very strong faith in her. She has the ability to make things right and learned to have faith in herself, and to stand up for herself from her mother. She believes that motherdaughter relationship is very important, because she has learned so much from her mum and her grandmother. She still respects her mother even though people don't like to talk about her mother. She has a very strong personality trait in which once she has a goal she tries to accomplish it no matter how hard. 

The weakness about her is that she feels like she is influenced easily by other people. 

She is very open to other people's opinions and consider them. Her weakness in a way would be her mother. Her mother left for another man and became a concubine after her husband died. She was forbidden to talk about her mother in her family, and people talk about her mother badly. When she thinks that her mother is not a type of person that should be hated by others.  

The Joy Luck Club

So far We have read four chapters of the book Joy Luck Club and all of these four chapters are written by four different people. They are all written by women, one daughter and 3 wives. Jing-mei Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St.Clair. All these 4 different women talk about different situations and stories of what they have gone through, they all talk about true life stories. They all talk in first perspective. Their stories are connected in a sense that they all talk about relationships between people, especially about mother and daughter relationships. They all come from China which makes them have a connection to the story. The stories are about their childhood in China to where they are now in America. An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying all tell of how they learned of the expectation that they would sacrifice themselves for their husbands. The stories they tell are usually very sad and emotional because they are stories something to do with something that they didn't want to do. Like leaving the country, leaving their family/kids back e.t.c. They also all talk about how hard their life is with strict rules and hardships. They had a connection in where they talk about women's role in social life in their culture and how respect came before anything. All four women who wrote this were very strong emotionally, even after they went trough a lot, they never gave up and lived very strong.

The house thats left alone

The house sits empty. No body's home

Quiet, with no laughter

But flowers still bloom and birds sing

It was once filled with love and laughter

Now no one is left but the house 

Looking dark and gloomy 

The roof now leaks as if its crying.

People move on yet the house stays getting older and older.

Why do people always want new things?