Dignity and the Ability to Survive
The book and the poems we had to read for our first Chinese paper were interesting to read. The book was The True Story of Ah Q, by Lu Hsun. The poems were The Lady of Wen-chi; Recruiting Officer at Shih-hao Village by Du Fu; To His Old Friend Hsin by Li Gai; Fighting South of the Ramparts; A Song of War Chariots by Du Fu; Anonymous Woman Poet (10th Century); Shu Shih and L Ts'un-hsu. The book and the poems all told of a society that is very different than the society we know in America. They all show how different their culture is from our own. So many things are different; from the way they talk, events in their daily lives, their politics, their values and beliefs, their coping skills, their resiliency, and the way they hold dignity and power as their most important aspects of life.
I will start by discussing the book, The True Story of Ah Q. In this book, Lu Hsun, strongly shows how the Chinese survive by holding on to their dignity, no matter what happens to them. Their dignity is what keeps them going. Their dignity is critical to succeed in life. They win every fight they have, simply by retaining their dignity even if they lose the physical fight. Whatever happens to them in life, they can move on because they know they are good people. They know they can survive as long as they have pride in themselves.
I felt as though this book made China look like a country consisting of a society full of angry people. It certainly didn't seem like a time and place that I would ever want to live or even visit. Constantly throughout the...