The little Seamstress 2

So Four Eyes caught my attention, he makes me think about Squid in Rocket Power. Him and his mom seem to be better of then most, ecspecially since he has the suitcase of treasured books. Also its sort of weird to think about how much these kids valued books and really wanted to learn something when today kids overlook the value of their education. I feel that Luo when he first met the little streamstress was just stereotyping her by thinking that she was unkoweledgble and wasn't for him. Of course she gets entangled as they introduce her to the captivating stories and gains her own wisdom. Also, the poverty during the chinese culture revolution is astounding and I've noticed the narrators growing confidence in his own stories while Luo was the more headstrong of the two

Wild Ginger 2

I cannot even imagine the pain Wild Ginger feels about her mom. The news of her death must have been horrifying. Her new life style waking up super early to go to the market just so she can buy her own food and pay for school sounds very rough. She has enough will power to make it through. I hope that Wild Ginger wins the Mao Quotation-Citing Contest. She has put in a significant amount of effort into preparing for it. I think Evergreen will become an important piece of Wild Ginger and Maple getting out of troube later on in the book. I am still enjoying the read, and am interested by the different life style they have; the ruler is everything.

Son Of the Revolution- thoughts about the beginning of the book

So far, this novel makes me have sympathy for the main character. Overall, he seems easily convinced by the communist party and society about how he should live his life, yet he still questions certain aspects of this such as why he should not be allowed to join certain groups because of his mother. I find it so hard to believe and so mind boggling really that his mother can be shunned from society based on her "crime". In reality, she was only doing what the party asked her to do, and yet her whole family is torn apart by it. Communism, in this light, seems to me like a cult of brainwashing of sorts. How can her husband honestly believe that she acted wrongly? Does he truly believe this, or is it more of a result of the pressures of society? It is scary to me that eventually even the children turn against their mother because of her "rightest actions". Through the beginning the novel and the family's experiences, I see communism as the ultimate way ato mold individuals into a specific ideal to be easily manipulated.

Callie_Wild Ginger

The ideas of Maoism completely form the kids, like Maple and Wild Ginger's, views of society and change their views of their parents. It changes the way they relate to their parents, the kids become the authority, they no longer respect their parents. These ideas that are put in their heads are totally anti-Confucius. Confucius also states the studying the past will define the future. Maoism goes against this idea of Confucius because rather than the children learning the past they are destroying the past in order to define the future.

Little Chinese Seamstress 2 Andrew

at the beginning of this  book things were going very slow but now that im almost done things have really picked up. i find it interesting that the two main characters who are in the mountains for a re-education have taken a interest in western literature after a friend "four eyes" gave them a book in return for help when his glasses were lost. the reason i find it interesting that they have found a liking for these books is because they were banned because of the revolution taking place. these characters now have a suspicion that "four eyes" has a suitcase full of these kind of books hidden in his house. now "four eyes" mother has come up because he is done with his re-education. now because four eyes is leaving the two main characters have devised a plan to steal this suitcase full of books during the parting ceremony for "four eyes". i am curios to find out if they succeed in stealing all of these banned books or even if it really exists. this book is a good way to learn about the revolution because i can relate as the book is written through the eyes of two teenage boys trying to figure out life.

Wild Ginger- Tamed by society?

Hello there, all those hearing this in technicolor from cyberspace. Wild Ginger, the half breed, is not so wild. Truly, she is being tamed by society. Maple, the protagonist, stumbles through an absurd world, that of Mao's communist china. At the heart here we see the highest level of absurdity, that of gender roles and sexuality in communism. With the goal of equality in mind, Mao worked to make his people the same, and Wild Ginger is a criticism of this. The standard Mao set for equality was male, signified by all the indoctrinated youth wearing male clothes. Gender roles have been erased for equality, for example Hot Pepper as a leader of the red guard, but an unexpected consequence of this was the perversion of sexuality. Referenced throughout the beginning both subtly and blatantly are similes or details of female fertility, and the oppression therein. Hot Pepper wears her Mao pins like nipples. The school teacher lactates through her shirt. Maple believes her first menstrual cycle to be "fire" and evil in her body. These details, unnecessary to the plot, speak to the symbolic oppression of sexuality for equality in communism, especially communist China.