Yuepeng Chen
English 1110.01, MWF 10:20AM-11:15AM
Instructor: Cathy Ryan
Assignment: Christopher Columbus Research
March 10, 2017
1. D’Souza, D. (1995). The “Crimes” of Christopher Columbus. OA (http://www. firstthings. com/ftissues/ft9511/dsouza. html).
Note: “The multiculturalists are equally unanimous that Columbus, as the prototypical Western white male, carried across the Atlantic racist prejudices against the native peoples.” Columbus had discriminate against local Indian people so he leaded the crime of killing Indian people.
2. Schuman, H., Schwartz, B., & d’Arcy, H. (2005). Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(1), 2-29.
Note: “At the same time, the percentage of Americans who reject traditional beliefs about Columbus is also small and is divided between those who simply acknowledge the priority of Indians as the “First Americans” and those who go further to view Columbus as a villain.” Although most of American people see Columbus as a national hero, some of them has started to discover the truth of him without common sense and has some opposite opinion against official view.
3. Larner, J. P. (1993). North American Hero? Christopher Columbus 1702-2002. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 137(1), 46-63.
Note: “As to Columbus’s character, Irving-perhaps anachronistically-found Columbus most guilty in his plan enslave the Carib Indians, yet in the end allots him heroic status.” Columbus noticed his crime in the end of his life. However, the truth that he did harm to Indian people and slaves can not be ignored.
4. Tinker, G. E. & Freeland, M. (2008). Thief, Slave Trader, Murderer: Christopher Columbus and Caribbean Population Decline. Wicazo Sa Review 23(1), 25-50. University of Minnesota Press. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from Project MUSE database.
Note: “If columbus day is a celebration of the european colonization of the Americas, it must just as equally be a celebration of the killing of Indian people through that history.” As a national holiday in the US, the memorable activity should also remind people the crime of Columbus at the same time.
5. Pelta, K. (1991). Discovering Christopher Columbus (1st ed.). Minneapolis: Lerner Publications.
Note: “Earlier writers tended to gloss over this darker side of Columbus. And they all but ignored the feelings of the people who were so shamefully mistreated by Columbus and the Spanish settlers and soldiers who invaded their lands. Modern historians try to tell the whole story-including the point of view of the Indians.” Nowadays, more and more historians stand out and face the truth of Columbus and query the previous writers’ beautify of Columbus.

Yuepeng Chen

English 1110.01, MWF 10:20AM-11:15AM

Instructor: Cathy Ryan

Assignment: The Lost Thing Quiz

February 1, 2017

The short-animated film by Shaun Tan tells us an amazing story about a boy and a lost thing. The boy looks like an ordinary boy in the big city as other people. One day he found a strange thing on the beach but people around never noticed it. He woke up it and made friend with it. Then he realized that it was a lost thing because no one care about it. His most know knowledgable friend had no idea with it and his parents saw it inimically. He found a official department for these strange objects but a worker in the department’s building sent him a tip to find another place to give his friend a better place to live. They followed that tip and reached a place that was full of the strange objects like the lost thing.

I think this boy looks like ordinary boys but he is much different from them. He is unusual because he would like to find something that others ignored in his life. He collects coins as well as bottle top while others are lying on the beach or works in their position with poker faces. Only he noticed “the lost thing” and was willing to playing with it. When all the people left the beach, only he would like to take “the lost thing” to find what exactly it was. He was always concerned about it in the short two days with it. For example, he took a long way trip to city in order to find the home of “the lost thing”. When someone told him that there is a better place for “the lost thing” to live, he was willing to finding that place rather than left it at the cold, official department easily. In the whole story, only him and the stranger at the department building’s hall have cared about the real life of “the lost thing”. Compared with others’ unconcerned faces, they are the few people with warm heart in the cold, industrialized city. I do not know why no one cared about “the lost thing” in their daily life. Maybe they only focus on their personal work and ignore every thing around them. They lower their heads, walk follow others. They do not want anything to disturb their boring life.

I think the name of the strange object, “the lost thing”, represents something that normal modern people lost. That is the ability to find nice things in their daily life. People suffer from busy work, family issues as well as other pressure. They spend all their time and energy on their daily target but forget to explore the nice things in their free time. They become numb. When they see a beautiful flower near the road to office or pass a street busker. They will pass them rather than stop to enjoy the beauty. They work, fight, then become tired. Their life is boring and repetitive. The writer reminds us that please pay more attention to the kind, beautiful and native things out of work. What we need is a signal to the unknown but interesting world. Knock the door, then we will enjoy the brilliant world which is full of the lost things.

Yuepeng Chen

English 1110.01, MWF 10:20AM-11:15AM

Instructor: Cathy Ryan

Assignment: CHARACTER SKETCH/”ETHNOGRAPHY” WRITING

January 30, 2017

Procrastination

“I must finish all my homework this nightly absolutely. I am not supposed to delay anymore.” She told to me and showed me her determination.

It was the fifth time for me to hear her great determination after tonight’s dinner.  She has a great amount of homework and assignments again and again.  Fortunately, her professors also provided enough time for her to finish. However, she has a big weakness, procrastination. Whenever the due day is, she always wants to waste some time before starts her work or postpone her schedule. Then she had to finish her work in limited time with anxiety every time. This week, she was addicted to watching TV series, chatting with her friends and sleeping during the daytime, and then later she found tomorrow would be the due time. She was really worried about the assignments so she invited me to study in the library together tonight as well as supervise her to complete the homework.

As soon as we found a place to sit and put down our schoolbags, she took out her mobile phone and saying, “I just need to reply some message to my friends. It will not take a long time.” She said, with eyes focusing on the screen when I urged her to do her tasks. Next, about half of an hour passed and her computer still had not been turned on. She logged in her account on her computer eventually after I urged her several times. To my surprise, there was not a website for her study on her screen, but a shopping website. “Well, today is the last discount day on the website, otherwise I will regret for the whole year,” she said and then she wasted another half hour. She did not have enough time left to do the assignments tonight. Then it was very close to the closing time of the library tonight. “Wow! I have not started my homework today, and it  is already so late,” she shouted out and really attracted others’ attention. The approaching deadline forced her made a great decision. She gave me her mobile phone and started to focus on her assignments.

What did she do in the rest of night? Do you think she finished her homework? That is only our nice personal thought but not true. A few minutes later, I found that she started to feel sleepy and the speed of her clicking the keyboard also became much slower.  When I finished my homework and turned to see her, she was lying on the keyboard and fell asleep. The only content on her screen was three lines topic of the paper and the shining mouse cursor alone. Therefore, one more night was wasted by her without any progress of her homework. I was really worried about her when she told me she had to stay late that night to complete.  It is impossible for her to finish the homework with high quality in such a short time. Just as other people say, delaying for things is a kind of disease for her seriously. If she saves her time every time and does everything ahead of time, I am sure her score will go up within a short time.

Peer comments of Common Sense
Commonsense_Peer comments_Yuepeng Chen(James)-1o0hl8f

Yuepeng Chen

English 1110.01, MWF 10:20AM-11:15AM

Instructor: Cathy Ryan

Assignment: Common sense

February 13, 2017

Common sense of China’s education

As a common sense in China’s education system, passing the college entrance exam is the only measure of success of a student’s life. Gaokao, the Chinese college entrance exam, has become the most important goal of all the Chinese families with children. Many years ago, the college entrance exam was the only way for young Chinese young people who forced to live in the countryside because of the policy to go back to the big cities since 1978. Or they will stay in the countryside all their lives. As far as nowadays, most Chinese talented people in all industries come from the first generation of university students who passed the exam during those special years. Therefore, now parents try to let their children realize the importance of the college entrance exam when their children start to receive education. At the same ages, children are still in kindergarten in other countries. Students compete for the exam since they take exams for the best school in their ages and the final target of all Chinese students, maybe all Chinese teenagers, is to pass the college entrance exam and go to a good university. All the country focus on this exam annually. News reporters begin to follow all the processes of this exam 4 months before the test. Experts express their point of view on television every June after the exam. Tutoring organizations for this exam earn many benefits every year. However, is the college entrance exam the only way of success for all the Chinese teenagers and their families? If they failed the exam, will their future become full of darkness nowadays? I do not think so. This paper will talk about my opinion towards the common sense of China’s education, the college entrance exam.

As the development of China’s economy and the change of ideas in some areas, Chinese young people now have more options to achieve the lives they want. Firstly, I think Chinese families’ economic conditions have become much better than before. Parents are willing to send their children to study abroad. For example, when I was in the last year of my senior high school, the students with the highest scores and the worst scores decided to study abroad at the same time. Good students thought they could achieve better education opportunities out of China because China’s college education level is still not high in the world. But the worst students had realized that they are unable to pass the exam so they chose to pay much more money to enter other normal universities with easy entrance standards. They avoid participating in the college entrance exam, but they also achieved the education experiences they want.

Secondly, in my opinion, young people in China have more personal opinions than before. In the past, they followed the way that their parents, friends, older people of their generation did. However, they have begun to find that lives others described are not the real lives they want. They are unwilling to enter an ordinary university and then become a normal office worker like their parents want them to be. Maybe they hate sitting in classrooms and doing endless homework as well as exams. They have their interests, and they believe they should spend their best time of their life on the things they love. Young author called Hanhan has one million readers. Young e-sports player called Uzi won the world champion twice. Young singer Jay Chou becomes well known all around the world. A famous Chinese writer, Eileen Chang, said that becoming famous must take advantage of early. It is better to do the things they like rather than waste their time on the college entrance exam during their most valuable young ages.

Thirdly, some poor students in China refuse to participate in the college entrance exam but choose to work earlier instead. Nowadays, the tuition fee of universities has increased rapidly. It is not easy for students from poor areas or not wealthy families to afford the tuition fee. Some families borrow money from others with high interests to pay for the fee but it finally causes the financial crisis. In addition, the end of their university graduation is not going to work and feeding their families. They own neither any human resource or social experiences. Except the reasons above, the huge pressure of expensive housing price in big China cities and high cost of living in big cities will push them back to their hometown.  After that they will find that their friends who did not join the college entrance exam has worked for more than 5 years with abundant work experience. Some of their friends have become rich bosses who drive luxurious cars and enjoy their wealthy life. In my point of view, going to work earlier is not a bad choice for this kind of young people above to support their family’s economic condition. They do not need to fight with others in big cities who have rich background and better foundation. They will also be able to learn some useful life skills and knowledge during their work time.

Above all, just like a saying goes, all roads lead to Roma. It is useless for Chinese parents and students to see the college entrance exam as the measure of success. To my way of thinking, doing the jobs they love is the real success of young people’s lives.