My reading from my Teacher

janezhu

Everyday, my teacher always gives me  some pieces of paper for learning English. I find it is really good way to study Egnlish if I type them again by my hand.Now I would like share them with you if you hope to study them with me.  

The article as follows is copied from Worldly Wise 300:Book 5
If you have interest, you can listen her story by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n9Pq1LNLwM&feature=fvst


                                                                     A Poet of the People--(1)

Maya Angelou was honoured by William Jefferson Clinton when he invited her to read a poem she has written to celebrate his inauguration as the forty-second president of the United States. This was a fitting tribute to the woman whose early life had seemed so empty of promise when she was born marguerite Johnson in St,Louis, Missouri, sixty-four years before. She sums up that life concisely in these lines from one of her poems"....birthing is hard/and dying is mean/and living's a trial in between."


When she was still a small child, her parents divorced; she and her older brother Bailey were raised by their grandmother, Annie Henderson, affectionately known as Momma. Mrs. Henderson was the proprietor of the only general store in Stamps, Arkansas, owned by an African-American. In her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou evokes Momma's powerful presence as she lovingly describes the way her grandmother coped with the bigotry and racial hatred
that was wide-spread in the country in 1930s.It was this resilience that most impressed Angelou and which she herself tried to emulate throughout her life.

Inaugurate:   v.1.  To install in office with a formal cermoney.2.To begin officially or mark the opening of.
Inauguration: n. The act of installing in office.
tribute 1.A gift, payment, declaration, or other acknowledgment of gratitude, respect, or admiration.  
concise: adj.  Short and to the point
proprietor: n . An owner of a store or other business.
evoke. v. 1. To call forth; to produce.  2. To bring to mind, often by suggestion.
bigotry :countable noun .the actions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., of a bigot
racial:–adjective of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one race or the races of humankind.
resilient. adj
1 Capable of recovering quickly from misfortune 2.Returning quickly to an original shape or condition. 2. The ability to spring back.
Emulate:v.1. to call forth; to produce. 2.To bring to mind, often by suggestion.
Evocative adj. Creating something again, especially through the imagination.

janezhu

One example of such bigotry involved a visit to the dentist,. With Angelou suffering from an excruciating toothache, Momma had no choice but to take her grand-daughter to the town's only dentist, who was white. When she asked him to treat the little girl's toothache, he rebuffed her, using extremely demeaning languages. He told her that he would rather put his hand in a dog's mouth than treat a black person. Momma reminded him that she had helped him in the past by making him interest-free loans; now she was asking a favor in return. But he brusquely asserted that his debts had been paid and ordered her to leave. After taking her grandchild out of the office, Momma returned and stood her ground. She demanded that the dentist pay her a fair rate of interest on the loans she had made him. Finally, he handed over ten dollars, a large sum in those days, and only then did she depart, her dignity intact. She traveled over thirty miles with her granddaughter to Texarkanna, where the nearest African- American dentist practiced.


excruciating adj. Very painful.
rebuff:  v. 1. To reject bluntly. 2. To drive back.
              n.1. A blunt rejection.  2. An abrupt setback in progress.
demeaning: v. To cause a lowering of self-esteem; to lower in reputation or character.
demeaning   adj. Degrading
brusque    adj. Abrupt in manner or speech; gruff.

janezhu

When Angelou was eight years old, she and her brother went to live with their mother in St.Louis. There her mother’s boyfriend abused her and threatened to harm Bailey if she told anyone. When  Angelou became ill, her mother discovered the despicable abuse. The boyfriend was brought to trial and convicted. But the shock of the experience left Angelou unable to speak for a year.

In spite of her troubled and turbulent childhood, a spirit of optimism pervades I know why the Caged Bird Sings. In it, Angelou pays tribute to those who helped and encouraged her, among them a neighbour named Bertha Flowers, who gave helped and encouraged her, among them a neighbour named Bertha Flowers, who gave her books and introduced her to the pleasures of reading poetry, drama, and great novels. As a result of Flowers’s influence, Angelou became an avid reader. This led  later to her dream of becoming a writer. Four more volumes of autobiography and many collections of poetry followed I know Why the Caged Bird Sings. All appeared under her pseudonym, Maya Anelou, a name she began in the 1950s.
It was a long and difficult road that she had traveled, but it led to the presidential platform where she read her poem “ On the Pulse of Morning” to an audience of millions on that cold January day in 1993. Angelou had triumphed over many difficulties, strengthened by the deep faith expressed in these from the poem, “Lift up your hearts/  Each new hour new holds new chance/For a new beginning.”


Despicable: adj. Deserving contempt or scorn.
Turbulent: adj. 1. Chaotic;  unruly. 2. Stormy; tempestuous.
Pervade: v. To spread throughout.
Avid:  Adj. 1. Having a strong desire for,  to the point of greed.
Pseudonym: n. A fictitious name used by an author; a pen name.

Jessi

"Life is a trial in between......", sure, life also resembles the mirror, which, while you smile at it, it gives you smile in return, and you get cry back while you cry over it.
Angelou succeeded because she held faith and fought, thereby survived over the hardships during her childhood. "God help those who help themselves", she serves as a model for the people in adversities.
But racial discrimination does exist in western societies.

未飘落的雪

follow you

Skywalker

janezhu

4# Jessi

Yes,you have good point. I chouldn't agree with you more

Angelou found a right way through writing to unburden her feelings.Like she said in video" Let's talk, human to human". She went on record as opposing racial discrimination.

janezhu

Confucius Article
Confucius,551 B.C.E.---479 B.C.E.
Michael H.Hart
Mosaic 1 Reading, 4th edition,by Brenda Wegmann and Miki Knezevic

                                               Confucius Article---Paraphrasing

No other philosopher in the world has had more enduring influence than Confucius. For over two thousand years his concept of government, and his ideas about personal conduct and morality, permeated Chinese life and culture.  Even today, his thoughts remain influential.

There was little in his childhood background to predict the remarkable prestige that Confucius eventually achieved. He was born in a small principality in northeastern China, was reared in poverty, and had no formal education. Through diligent study, however, he educated himself and became a learned man. For a while he held a minor government post, but he soon resigned that position and spent most of his life as an instructor. Eventually, his most important teachings were gathered together into a book, the Analects, which was compiled by his disciples.

The two cornerstones of his system of personal conduct were Jen and Li. Jen might be defined as “benevolent concern for one’s fellow men.” Li is a term less easily translated: it combines the notions of etiquette, good manners, and due concern for virtue rather than wealth ( and in his personal life he seems to have acted on that principle). In addition, he was the first major philosopher to state the Golden Rule, which he phrased as” Do not do onto others that which you would not have them do unto you.”  

Confucius believed that respect and obedience are owed by children to their parents, by wives to their husbands, and by subjects to their rulers. But he was never a defender of tyranny. On the contrary, the starting point of his political outlook is that the state exists for the benefit of the people, not the rulers. Another of his key political ideas
Is that a leader should primarily by moral example, rather than by force.

Confucius did not claim to be an innovator, but always said that he was merely urging a return to the moral standards of former times. In fact, however, the reforms which he urged represented a change from---and a great improvement over—the governmental practices of earlier days.

At the time of his death, Confucius was a respected, but not yet greatly influential, instructor and philosopher. Gradually, though, his ideas became widely accepted throughout China. Then, in the third century B.C,. Shih Huang Ti united all of China under his rule, and decided to reform the country entirely and make a complete break with the past. Shih Huang Ti therefore decided to suppress Confucian teachings, and he ordered the burning of all copies of Confucius’ works. ( He also ordered the destruction of most other philosophical works.)

Most Confucian books were indeed destroyed; but some copies survived the holocaust, and a few years later, after the dynasty founded by the “First Emperor” had fallen, Confucianism re-emerged .Under the next dynasty, the Han, Confucianism became the official state philosophy, a position it maintained throughout most of the next two millennia.
Indeed, for much of that period, the civil service examinations in China were based primarily on knowledge of Confucian classics. Since those examinations were the main route by which commoners could enter the administration and achieve political power, the governing class of the largest nation on Earth was largely composed of men had carefully studied the works of Confucius and absorbed his principles.

This enormous influence persisted until the nineteenth century, when the impact of the West created revolutionary change in China. Then, in the twentieth century, the Communist party seized power in China; it was their belief that, in order both to modernize China and to eliminate economic injustice, it was necessary to make radical changes in society. As the ideas of Confucius were highly conservative, the communists made a major effort to eradicate his influence, the first such effort since Shih Huang Ti, twenty-two centuries earlier.

janezhu

My question is how you think about the last paragraph? I haven't much knowledge about this. Nowadays, Confucius' influence is advocated or eradicated?

Jessi

Don't know where you got this article from, presumbaly not from chinese media, since eradication was not and will not be our policy towards Confucianism, neither by the goverment nor by commoners.
As a philosopher, Confucious' idea has been widely & influentially speaded and accepted by not just ancient china but many of the western societies, proved by the foundation of Confucious Faculty in a few of British universities. Confucious was deemed as pioneer of philosophy, respected & advocated by the succeeding fellows, and his contribution to this area is equally important to that of Darwin to biological evolution. Confucianism, along with Budism, is believed to be chinese religion, same as Christian or Catholic to other countries. Can not image a country or person live without faith!
Do you live in canada? So, you might not have seen a program in CCTV 10 called Lecture Room <百家讲坛> , which presented to us the ancient time famous events, classical verses & poems and the prominent people, one of which frequently quoted was Confucious and his ideas, besides, this program has been popular and successful. Therefor, as you can conclude that the influence of Confucious will undoubtedly be going on and on, which will never, ever be abandoned by chinese nation!

Jessi

As you point in the above, that some might say Confucianism is too conservative for china's modernization and economic development, which i don't agree with, because from a broad point of view, Confucianism concerns more of from a moral level, the virtue as a human being and how to perfect oneself, which does not contradict to the progress of our society, instead, it guides the progression in a healty way for both a person and a nation. "修身，齐家，治国，平天下"， the fundamental is "修身".
Just my person view.

janezhu

10# Jessi

Yes, I am in Canada now. I got this article from textbook which my teacher copied for us. Sigh, I often read this kind articles about China such as Chinese dietary culture, Chinese's ancient coin. Personal experience, more of articles's tone held a little derogatory sense. For instance, when the article describes Chinese dietary culture, it mentions one kind egg"preserved egg " is keeped for "one hundred" years. However,  Chinese eat them with pleasure; When the article mentions Chinese ancient culture, it would like to say" the coin was made by cheap Brass, copper ,  they are very heavy and gewgaw. "Some words like this sense......One day, I show  an Chinese ancient coin ,which was from my grandmother's gift and it was made by heavy silver and little brass, to my teacher and classmates to let they know Chinese ancient coin was not  made only by cheap Brass,copper.

Anyway, I agree with your personal view. One year ago, when I was in China, I saw lots of my friends learned Confucian Analects"论语”，and a plenty of classes about Confucian Analects  opened in universities.

I believe they are still in there and even they are becoming more and more.

Jessi

Back to ancient time, China was once one of the most prosperous & civilized contries in the world, and the prosperity lasted for thousands years which was envied by all the rest and provoked jealousy around some greedy countries. It was not untill late 19s cenctry's Opium War and the invasion of western empire allince which jeopardized china's economy seriously that our suffered country as a whole began decling. Of course, the deterioretion was resulted from mutiple factors.
However, our ancestors had  contributed extraordinarily to the human civilizatin and world evolution, exemplified by the invention of print, compass, seismograph, and noticeably  the navigator Zhenghe who was arguably to be the first one discovering north ameria continent and accomplish voyage circling earth, but not Columbus and Maggellen, but this still remains a controversial issue (i saw from a TV program) .
Some western societies are very willing to report the negative events of china and deny its positive influence to the world, perhaps for the fear of it becoming stronger and stronger, but we can always open our eyes and keep a clear mind to discover the truth behind it. Some aspects in china are indeed not agreeable, but not all is bad.
(怎么觉得自己这么啰嗦)

zhangyl

The influence from Confucianism is so deeply that many ordinary people cannot recognize the objective truth as Jessi said. Only those people who have the  knowledge of philosophy, may they understand Confucianism really. While in current China many people work on the money making, the own knowledge improvement had been put aside. Then the essence of Confucianism go away gradually. Sigh......

Jessi

14# zhangyl
You are right, that Confucian is little obstract and philosophic for ordinary people to fully grasp, but fortunately there are always materials concerning such area for its fans to explore.

Presently, the dominant criteria to estimate success are wealth and power, which is why people are so eager in money making instead of knowledge seeking.

janezhu

People often say China has a habit of changing its conquerors much more than it was changed by them. I think the main reasons are from Confucius' great idea. Sometimes I call my friends who are in China now, they told me more and more people would like to spend time and money in pursuing their psychic power by taking some classes about culture. I cann't sure these appearance are really become more popular or not. Also I love “百家讲坛". I often learned something from it when I was in China.

I really hope Chinese can set great store on the cultural heritage of the past.

未飘落的雪

People often say China has a habit of changing its conquerors much more than it was changed by them. I think the main reasons are from Confucius' great idea. Sometimes I call my friends who are in Chi ...
janezhu 发表于 2009-9-23 09:58

                               
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I agree with you.