pictures

This work I made in this thanksgiving is for Carla.
And that was me 3yrs ago in Chicago. Yihong took this pic for me. 3 yrs ago. Where did this time go?

In the break

Letting memory fade by itself without keeping it alive is such a shameful thing. Writing novels is such a good outlet for memory. Why I am still waiting in vain?

Finding

I guess I finally have some time to blog now. Is it a little bit sad to say that after an almost whole semester's trying, the biggest harvest is to realize that I am not really good at linguistics and I'm not going to incorporate any sociolinguistics in my future research? I just can't be as sensitive to the linguistic forms as other people, or native speakers. Is it only I who am feeling that linguistic phenomenon in American English self-privileges native speakers to do research on them? I really hope next semester's art class won't be so discriminating as this one. Well, at least, we all see the art works, and it is legitimized to have different approaches to reach understandings, is it? Don't tell me to be more assertive because I really feel my knowledge are so superficial. Or is it I know too much that I'm lost in my own articulation?

Something Random

We were doing yoga. There was a particular difficult thing that the teacher asked us to do. So hard that the guy beside me couldn't help laughing out a bit. I guess the laughter means that this gesture is really out of his range. Of course everyone heard this laughter. Then the teacher stopped to say : "Laugh is good. Feel free to laugh." Then I started to think why laugh is encouraged; is the teacher saying that our inner emotions should be flown out naturally; but what I really wanted to do at that moment was crying (for reasons other than the difficult yoga); and if I did let tears burst out, am I putting myself in a very awkward situation; is it that in our consciousness, being sad is a shameful thing, whereas being happy is natural; is it that crying in public is a signal of begging for sympathy, even though I don't really need any. And instantly I was occupied by these rational thoughts, and the peak of sadness eventually evaded me.

I found I was subconsciously watching my thoughts and emotions in yoga.

I'm troubled by the question to what extent, one may give up ones opinion to others; and to what extent this compromise would really hurt one's self-esteem. Yes, I am that one.

I've been eating Korean food for a whole day. Korean food is such an interesting thing: if I haven't had it for a while, I would miss that spicyness crazily; and if I had it for two meals in a row, I would think this spicyness is so plain and dominant that the real veggies and meat loses their nature.

I guess I'm getting a little sentimental recently. Maybe because I'm going to be 25 soon. A quarter of a century. Wow.

Bloody Lesson

I was murdered in the ethnography class. The lesson to learn is never say anything that is not for an altruistic purpose about my academic research. It's always about what is right for the research not for myself. Class presentation is never a private space. Any trivial fishy thing maybe exaggerated in the discussion dynamics.

Yoga and things

I was rushing out of Huff, and Carla stopped me: "Hey, where are you going to, Grace?" "I'm going to Yoga." I don't know if I should feel bad or good or proud or guilty at 2:00 pm on Wednesday. Shouldn't I stay in office and do some work? Anyway, my honesty has already blunted any possibility of making up another answer. Carla replied with excitement: "Oh, I'll join in you guys sometime. I need some PEACE."

Why people always associate doing yoga with looking for peace? It seems even my yoga teacher thinks so too. She tells us to empty our thoughts, imagining they are green leaves floating on a clear stream that you can't touch or change them but let freely them flow. But for me, every time after my body is twisted, stretched and "tortured" to a certain extent, at first my mind may turn blank yet soon, endless thoughts would flood in. Those thoughts are quite intuitive, oftentimes bringing me to some remote part of my heart and memory that I wouldn't be able to reach and rationalize in the conscious time. They are not logical and consistent, but the imageries there are so clear and truthful. The library building in my undergraduate school, butterfly on the green grass, friend I've lost contact for a long time, Daddy, my little red skirt,3-year-old me,etc and etc. I am surrounded by those moments of memories, and I'm swimming in there. The past, full of pains and mistakes, is no longer fierce and fearful. In this gentle and perhaps "peaceful" mood, I feel I'm able to embrace and smiling at the history.

Unfortunately at this moment, the teacher would often say "Once your mind catch any thought, imagine the word 'on'in your brain. Let the word swirl." But I just want the thoughts control me and overwhelm me that I'm able to visit feelings and images I will only have in my dream, which however would dissolve once they meet the air of real life. I guess I can never do really well in yoga because my mind is never clear and as a reflection of that, my body is not perfectly balanced.

My Yoga teacher is Jenn Allen. She is a really nice patient lady. Every time after practice, she would tell us to sit and bow, murmuring to the ground, ourselves and everybody: "Shanti,shanti,shanti." (which means "thanks" in Indian, I'm not sure if my spelling is right.) So humble.

Shanti,shanti,shanti.

Becoming Jane

I went to see the movie while I was sick on a pleasant fall Sunday afternoon. To be honest, I was expecting it to be an easy hollywood love story. I was not completely wrong but there was something in there that touched me. Why did I wanna see it in the first place? Perhaps because I'm addicted to Jane Austin that I wanted to see how they portrayed her. Perhaps because I am a woman and I want to be a writer that I have strong empathy on such a woman and such a life. Perhaps, I don't know, maybe I have read a lot about how Jane writes about others, yet I have no idea how Jane is going to be created by others.

The girl they picked was, however, too beautiful and too shining to be Jane in my mind. As according to my memories of the readings about Jane, she was rather plain and hardly attracted any handsome guy's attention. I think it's perhaps why the female protagonists in her novels are usually not the prettiest,but with a brave, stubborn and passionate heart.

The movie basically told about how a tragic love story happened to Jane actually inspired her to write Pride and Prejudice. And therefore, the character of Jane in the movie holds a lot of similarity with Lizzy. She is playful, intelligent, stubborn, less passionate perhaps, more strongly tied to her family. She doesn't fall in love with rich and plain gentleman; she loves man with a humorous and distinguished character. The story was like a parallel to pride and prejudice; it's just the novel was deeply romanticized and idealized by Jane while interestingly, Jane's life story was romanticized by the movie.

I don't like the ending of the movie. It is too perfect and cliche. After so many years of painful sacrifice, they met each other again occasionally, looking deep into each other with complex feelings. If is as if time didn't really distant them and their hearts have always been together. What if it didn't happen in that way? What if they didn't see each other after she left him forever? What if they, like many real cases in life, forgot each other in the years after?

Lives in Jane's movie is, of course, full of oppression and struggle. Scarce choice as a woman, and perhaps as a man as well. You either choose to live with money without dignity or the vice versa. I'm not sure living in a modern society, if we have more choices or not. Nor do I know about what would people choose in life. It is my feeling that a modern life provides us more coping strategies, such as watching games, playing games, socializing with different people, that we don't have to face such sharp question. And that develops inertia within us - numbness crams into every space of the heart. Those love struggles only happens in Jane Austin's times, doesn't it?

时光

刹那间她想起了复旦东门的那间叫做“左岸”的书店
却又联想到左岸这个她一直喜爱的名字是来自于巴黎的同名的书店
在那个国家有什么东西不是模仿的，剽窃的，进口的
是不是只有记忆呢

那个青色，黄色和蓝色交织的夏天
她发现语言是多么单薄的一种表述方式
她的记忆总是以印象，符号，颜色象征表现的
绿色的梧桐，鹅卵石的墙壁，青色的石板
王家卫说回忆总是潮湿的
她的回忆总是潮湿而绵长的

她看到红色金色组成的印象的时候
总是觉得浮躁而困惑
那个喧嚣的辉煌，遥远的
不是她的中国
可是每每当她解释起她的美的时候
却往往无能为力
泼墨画，石板路，木屋檐，宽松的棉布衣服
她是在形容她自己呢
还是那个国家的痕迹呢

思绪和诗意总是转瞬即逝
灰烬中只留下孤零零的理性
敲出一些拙劣的文字

My Work

At least I've not wasted my time in summer completely;
I enjoy collecting book covers and creating new lives in them.

torn

I was the boring one from RST department, who was not even able to talk about real movies in the Chinese study class. Oh, landscapes, how ridiculous; while Mike was talking about the three dialogues in Wang Kar-Wei's triologies. And I again played the boring role who talked about film effects on personifying landscapes in Bill's class. Who cared about movie; I was the victim of the class since I was trying to avoid too much on social power structure, dominant discourse. I'm really frustrated coz I feel how inadequate I am, in terms of everything.Painfully torn.

I hate meeting for deadlines

One after one. Never feel I'm able to reach the best potential because of this confining restraint. Such an exhausting period.

the other side

Brian asked me of my response towards the Korean killer. I told him that I actually think he is great in standing out breaking down the American sterotype of the "quiet, coward and peaceful" Asian, it's just he used a tragic and bloody way. He looked at me for 5 seconds and didn't know what to say. I knew I was not being very nice. It was not Brian's fault for being a white American male.

But the frustrating and suffocating thing is the American society's obsession with the superficiality. Everyone sees the cruelness and the cold-bloodness of a Korean-American monster, but no one is trying to see the reasons behind. Everyone is blaming on his mental illness, yet no one is trying to envision the life he has been living - a poor Asian boy growing in the Asian ghetto, eating the humiliation from the white counterparts "go back to China"! No one is ever trying to reflect on the mechanism of American society- how the bloddy racism turned a healthy boy into a psychotic, let alone for anyone to have sympathy on him and his past. It is as if he is not entitled to any right to fight. It is as if he should just go and hide himself in the Asian ghetto, somewhere in Chinatown, washing dishes all his life like his parents. Whatever miserable life he is gonna have, as long as he does not come out and kill white people.

It's not we Asians are by nature quiet and conforming- it's we have to be obedient to the dominant social discourse to be "a good citizen".

By no means I'm trying to justify for him. It's just the other side of the story that help us more than mere hatred and revenge. Mourning for those who were killed. Mourning for the killer. Mourning for our feebleness to change. Mourning for Asian Americans. Mourning for America.

poem and nature

The structure of nature is image;
the structure of image is poem.
Nature never exhausts itself.

定风波

莫听穿林打叶声，
何妨吟啸且徐行。
竹杖芒鞋轻胜马，谁怕？
一蓑湮雨任平生。
料峭春风吹酒醒，微冷，山头斜照却相迎。
回首向来萧瑟处，归去，去无风雨也无晴。

Forms

The furthest distance in the world
is not between life and death
but when i stand in front of you
yet you don't know that
I love you

The furthest distance in the world
is not when i stand in front of you
yet you can't see my love
but when undoubtedly knowing the love from both
yet cannot
be togehter

The furthest distance in the world
is not being apart while being in love
but when plainly can not resist the yearning
yet pretending
you have never been in my heart

The furthest distance in the world
is not
but using one's indifferent heart
to dig an uncrossable river
for the one who loves you

--Ranbindranath Tagore

I've been reading Norweigian Wood by Haruki Murakami in English recently. God knows how many times I've read it in Chinese. When I bump this poem tonight, I suddenly feel nothing is more able to express the feeling that is aimed to be described by Murakami. Love stories are alike. But they just take different forms. Sorry if my definition is too arbitrary.

observing

Watch the flow of your thoughts, your sadness, your emotions. Imagine them as green leaves, floating on a stream. Don't engage and interact. Just stand aside, observing it. You are no longer yourself now. You can see through yourself now. You become a container of emotions and feelings which are too fragile to be touched. Let them go and
be released.
- from my counselor Ann

ambiguity of words

How can we accurately convey our private experience to others - report accurately on what we feel or see?
How can you reduce the complex, ever changing flow of consciousness to a single word like "sadness" or "love"?
How is it that words can correspond to the world as it is?
- Traditions in Trouble

Comrade, Almost a Love Story

My yoga class is the section of "Yoga and Meditation". So in the end of the class, the teacher usually turns off the light, turns on a piece of contemplative ancient Indian music, and have us meditating for 5 minutes. I enjoy this moment of peace so much that everytime I finish the class and come out of the classroom, I am always hit by the strikingly contrasting strong white light and the loud masculine music in the gym. So dazzling. God, America again. It was the exact feeling when chen yuanyuan (how much I hope she is still around)and I came out of the little dark restaurant across the street of our school gate, finishing this movie "Comrade, Almost a Love Story", staring at the sunny sky on a Sunday afternoon in the May - God, it's real life again.

I don't hate the strong light. Nor do I dislike real life (well, maybe I do =)). What really disturbs is the short transition from the meditation, either on myself or on the movie, to the real life. I feel being arbitrarily interrupted. I feel unable to articulate my thoughts and to achieve meanings from my interactions with the movie or the contemplation.

Well, 5, 6 years has passed (God, again). A transition that is long enough. But I could only think of one sentence to say: a love story about how to arduously prevent from falling in love with each other. How self-controversial. This theme is similar to "In the Mood for Love" and "The Bridge of Madison County". A story between two rootless Chinese mainlanders in Hong Kong. All about supressing love.

Seems my version of great love story is always about unfulfilled love. Hopeless yet endles love.

Somehow today I've got this urge to watch it again. But both Amazon and Ebay are out of stock of the DVD.

Sentimental

It is always fun and adventurous to read something in Chinese in office. Maybe it's because I feel I am in U.S more than anywhere else that I have already internalized the subconsciousness - don't intrude the public space by carrying a Chinese hallmark. So when I opened er mao's long e-mail in Chinese, I felt displaced yet excited. She's gonna go to Germany for Ph.d. Great. 12:00 Wensday noon, Brian was saying something to me, but I stared back in a blank face. Across the hallway, Laura was talking loudly over the phone. I was daydreaming, desperately wanting to see, hug and talk to ermao right now, like we once were, in Nanjing, in China. Some unknown feelings crept up on me. How suffocating and annoying. But I could not figure it out.

I was doing Yoga this morning. The teacher asked us to sit still and meditate in the end of the class. Along with the mystic Indian melody, I thought about my friends all over the world. It seems we were once so close, believing our life would always be connected to each other somehow. But now we are parallels, perhaps never gonna have any intersection again. What sways between us is a fragile sentiment called memory. Through this glass window of memory, I could see and relive the past, but never able to touch it and possess it. Unconquerable distance. Why is it like that! If that's the way life it is, I wish I have the power to change it. But I don't. I am feeble. If there is a map of us - me and those who I love and care, and vice versa, then I'm just a little tiny spot in North America. We are essentially disconnected. But we think we are. I got incredibly sentimental in the end of the class, tearing a little.

Last night, me and Lindsey spent 1.5 strenuous hours, sorting out and categorizing those glass containers, paper boxes, plastic bottles that had been piling up in our kitchen. On our trip back from the recycling center, Lindsey and I both felt very relieved. She said: "At least there's something controllable in your life. At least we are able to choose to send things to recycling center instead of throwing them away." How great is that, now I feel. I wish I could choose which piece of memory to go to the recycling center. I wish I could always keep those moments fresh and new, like they are still happening and ongoing, just comming out of the recycling center.

江南忆

江南好，
风景旧曾谙。
日出江花红胜火，
春来江水绿如蓝，
能不忆江南.

江南好，
最忆是杭州.
山寺月中寻桂子,
郡亭枕上看潮头.
何日更重游.

little things

Had cheese and kimchi for dinner. What a combo! One is stinky for westerners (kimchi), and the other one is stinky for Asians (cheese). Anyway, I am fond of this weird mix.

Listened to "someone's daughter" by Orton over and over again. The sad lyric: "I wish I never saw the sunshine, I wouldn't have minded the rain...wouldn't be this pain.." If I didn't know what is happiness, I would not mind being unhappy. If I did not grow up in the southeast China, I would not have minded this chilling Illinois weather!.....How dialectic!

I wish it won't be so awakward and hard for me to balance my body and mind when doing yoga soon. Always admire those who are able to handle their bodies and minds with ease and peace.

runaway individualism

I read this interesting piece today:

I frankly see the root ofour problems today as a crisis of interpersonal relationships due to runaway individualism. Runaway individualismforces men to keep their thought but especially their feelings fromeachother.for fear of rejection they have no except therapists to whom they can unload their worst fears.Worse,to avoid being a victim they often have to draw first.

....Intimacy has become such a scarce commodity that many seek salvation in improved communication or as participants in so-called sensivity training sessions (Hsu, 1981).

How interesting ! Yet how very sadly true! Am I a runaway individualist? Am I not?.......

Iris Chang and Me

The story between Iris and me is rather "dramatic"-dramatic in the way that I've never met her in person but I've kept fantasizing over her life, we are connected by UIUC (how cliche!), and the first time I got to know about her was, actually, from her obituary.

That was a friday in the spring of 2005. I was rushing through the Stuart Hall in Purdue. In the corner of the hall way, I was stopped by an Asian boy who then bowed to me, said something in Korean, and handed me several magazines. I did not have time to explain that I was not Korean nor Korean American. So I just left with his gifts. That afternoon, I read those magazines in the Union. They turned out to be publications from the Korean American community and one article caught my eyes- a talented Chinese American female writer suicided. My first instinct was "Gosh, she was so pretty! Why did she choose to die!" (sorry, but that was the quality of my thoughts). Her face, associated with the red cover of "The Rape of Nanking", was thereafter engraved in my mind. I was also wondering why this was published in a Korean Americans' magazine: because Iris was Asian American, just as themselves? Or because they felt the same painful for the war?

I read two very unhappy books in the summer of 2005. The first one I bought in the bookstore in Pudong airport, when I got off the plane to Shanghai. It was "Life and Death in Shanghai" which was once recommended by Winston. It was about a piece of traumatized history- represented by a mother and a daughter's tragic lives in the Cultural Revolution. So I read it over during the whole summer in Huangshan and suffered enough hedache from the miserable history accounts and the dry narratives. In the year of 2005, looking back to see how China has been going through 40 years ago, I found it to be so ridiculous, heavy, and overwhelmed- why people hated each other? Why there was such strong resentment? Why humans are so easily to be manipulated? Why is the humanity so fragile?

The second book I picked was unfortunately "The Rape of Nanking". This time I bought it in the bookstore of Pudong airport on my way back to the States. On the plane, sitting beside me was an American white male. Seeing me reading this book, he said "Don't read this book. It's so unhappy. I'm never able to finish it." I thought he was pathetic-after all, it was just a one-hundred-page-or-so booklet! But it turned out to be my fate too. I felt so hard to just swallow hastily the atrocious facts and to really relate it to the world surrounding me. I guess I could not read it because the fear that crept up on me- the fear to know what the world really is. And how astonishing it was that this incredible courage came from a female-the pretty girl on the cover (sorry for my bloody gendered stereotype)!

Now she is dead,for reasons so obvious yet so unknown.

Uncle Larry just sent me an e-mail, saying Taiwan is abbreviating the acounts of Nanjing Massacre in their school history books because it happened in China - a "foreign" country, thus it's no necessary to elaborate on it. I'm rather speechless. I bet Iris would feel sad, too, if she was still alive, because she herself was, according to the "definition", a Taiwanese American. It cost her a life to dig out the truth. And it cost a night for Taiwanese government to deny the fact (the fact that we were at least the same country at that time). History witnesses the ironies of itself. Not we human beings are manipulated, but even the history cannot avoid to be slaughtered.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.......and Spring

A movie good enough to tear down my stereotype of Korean movies.

Just as it is reflected in the title 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring', the whole movie is thematized of the Buddhist philosophy - the world, including human lives, is constantly on a continuation, passing on and on, cycling, endlessly. There is no death. So that there should be no fear for death, because our lives will continue in different forms after death.

I'm wondering if the inspiration of the movie comes from a dream. The story takes place in an entirely isolated small woody temple floating on a lake that is surrounded by mountains, which is too perfectly ideally Buddhist to be imagined as existed in the real life. The setting is also implicit of the Buddhist ideology: life is self-enclosed, floating around, ungovernable, and the most crucial part is to keep it balanced.

Spring. A little monk and an old monk. Don't know their names. Central theme: kindness and empathy. The little one learns it by a lesson: he plays with a fish, a frog and a snake by tying a small stone to each creature; then he finds them all died because their incapability to move and he cries confronting the scenes. Hereby the Buddhist philosophy that all humans are born kind is illustrated.

Summer. The boy has grown up. Then a girl comes. So innocently, purely sexy. The opposite kind of Tyra Banks. So vulnerable and defenseless and thus, all boys would fall for her. The monk is no exception. He seduces her. They make love on a huge rock and in the boat. Incredibly romantic. However, there is really no love here (to me). Only sex. It is as if he has been blinded ever since and all of a sudden, someone opens his eyes. Now he is able to see. The old monk finds it out. He sends the girl back and gives the boy a choice. The boy chooses to go after the girl, abandoning the temple and life he has always been carring.

Fall. Tragedy. The boy ends up murdering his wife and comes back to the temple. It is no surprise because in their relationship, a possession of each other takes over. So that what matters is the occupation of each other's body. When the boy finds out the girl dates another man, he kills her. The essential belief of Buddhism is the ultimate happiness lies in a balanced, peaceful, and tolerant heart which is strong enough to resist all worldly temptations. All sorts of lusts, such as sex and vanity, are intruding forces that will break the balance, stirring up turmoils. That's why temptations is the source of evilness.

This boy comes back with a heart of hatred, unrestness and agitation. The balance is completely ruined. Seeing that, the old monk holds the tail of a cat, using it as a calligraphy pen, starting calligraphying on the outskirt of the temple ground. Then he asks the boy to carving out the characters on the ground. Buddhist philosohy comes again: concentration cures. Only by meditation people are able to restore the peace in heart. Then the police come. But they let the boy continue carving before arresting him. By the time he finishes it, he has already regained the peace in his heart ,exemplified by the soundness of his last sleep in the temple.

Life or death doesn't matter. What goes beyond them and what really should be counted is the peace and the balance. Losing the balance is even worse than dying. Why worrying, then? Why sad, then? What is more delightful to be contented with whatever you have, then?

Winter. The old monk suicided by burning himself on the boat. He becomes a snake. The life is always continuing, but in different forms. He-the snake-chooses to stay in the temple.

Spring again. A new monk comes. Then a small boy. The story, the life, and the cycle continues. What will be the story for this summer, then?

Turn Me On

...........I am just sitting here....waiting for you......come on.....to turn me on, turn me on.... (Norah Jones)

People Who We Should Not Forget (I)

I bumped into this from Willblog:

It's difficult to understand why someone would take their own life. It's even more difficult when that life has been so well-spent, with so much more promise to come. Similar tragedies in the past month make me pause and try to appreciate this moment, every moment, before it's gone forever.

Iris Chang, an extraordinary writer and alumnus of the University of Illinois College of Communications, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on November 9th. Her first book was Thread of the Silkworm, which told the remarkable story of the Chinese scientist Tsien Hsue-shen, founder of the Chinese rocket program who emigrated to the United States only to be isolated in America. Her second book, The Rape of Nanking, earned international acclaim and served to announce Iris Chang as a ground-breaking scholar and human rights advocate. He third book, The Chinese in America, told the extraordinary narritive of her own ancestors in a way that revealed America's own identity.

I had a chance to interview Iris Chang in 1995, and was immediately struck by her intelligence and humanity. Apparently she had a similar impact on everyone she met. About 100 people attended a recent event in her honor at the University of Illinois, where her former professors, friends, and colleagues spoke movingly about her life, her work, and our loss. A scholarship in honor of Iris has been established by her family, with information available at the University of Illinois College of Communications, 217-333-2350.

Iris' description of the recent genocide of Chinese in Indonesia:
It is important in all these cases to tell the truth, to refute the denials. .......In fact, the denial in Indonesia are considered as a part of the last stage of genocide. First the victim is killed, then the memory of killing itself is killed.

Starbuck's

A Grande Latte never fails to awake my otherwise retarded and dull brain. But of course, you don't have to get a Latte in the Starbuck's. A Starbuck's and a Royal Cafe's tastes not much different to me. Hey, don't get me wrong, this article is not intended to be an eulogy for either Latte or the Starbuck's.

Liping threw a question at us: how soon do you think Starbuck's will go out of business? What a question! I was stunned for we just watched a brief video about how Starbuck's created a business model and a wave of coffee culture awareness globally! The class went quiet and nobody dared to give an answer. Seeing this, he asked another question: how often do you go to the Starbuck's? Carol, Grace? (We were two sitting closest to him.) How could I tell him that I go there almost everyday that an alarming amount of money of mine went to the Starbuck's yet I am addicted to it? Still, nobody answered. "I believe it would go downhill shortly,within at most 5 years. After all, who would like to pay a coffee at $3-$4 dollars? I would prefer a coffee at $1.00 in a gas station", he commented. Only me and Carol protested his prediction (maybe because others were international students who didn't go to the Starbuck's often or maybe they agreed with it). I was shocked by how much Liping did not know about American's coffee culture and coffee prices. Yes, a Grande Latte is $3.4, but a Grande expresso is only $1.5! Besides, they are only a few cents more expensive than those sold in other cafes!

Abruptly, a lot of words and sentences all came into my mind, suffocating me to death. I didn't want to argue with him in class. On the other hand, how was I able to verbaliz my experiences and let him feel the same experiences in the same way! To me, a cup of Latte in the Starbuck's was a refreshing, cozy and hearty moment, keeping me wondering my life could be lead in such an easy and light way in the voice of Norah Jone's. Just as what was revealed by the video, a lot of people working in the Starbuck's were graphic desingers. Graphic designers in a corporation selling coffee! Apparently, what the Starbuck's strived for was the creation of an experience-aromatic, invigorating, lively,cultural, etc. I was always so eager to read"the way I see the world" on the back side of the cup. All ingredients combined integratedly to create an experience with an esentially middle-class taste. I'm not defending this taste nor do I allow myself blinded by this superficiality of middle-class life. But I still treasure the feeling sipping a Green Tea Frappuccino, looking at designed coffee cups and pots with pretty graphs, browsing CDs, in a Starbuck's.

The class I took with Dr.Liping Cai was in the fall of 2005. It seems that the Starbuck's is still doing well. Liping might be right - it will go downhill in a short period. Or he might be wrong. Who cares? The event simply illustrated too much obssesive concerns on business/money issues and too little on human dimension- a big part of the reason that I left Purdue.

Words

"It doesn't matter how much you are in love with someone. What matters is who you are when you are with the one."- The Accidental Tourists

"It only takes one generation to lose Chineseness.How many does it take to gain America?"- Le Ann Schreiber