Reading Notes of Jade Peony

Stan Chien

April 25, 09

Reading Notes of Jade Peony

The short story which is written by Wayson Choy is a story about a Chinese family lived in chinatown Vancouver and how did the author was influenced by his grandma. The author used a couple of figurative language within the story which made suspense and attracted the readers.

Symbolism is used in this story. The cat mentions at the end of the story is the clue of the whole story. It is the symbol of grandma’s old lover. Grandma said that the cat’s eyes were pink, and the pink was also the color of her spirit. She thought the cat was sent by her old lover to take her back. The cat was also the symbol of death. After grandma saw the cat, she was already prepared to die and refused to go to the hospital, because she was a very traditional person, the cat was to bring her back, so there was no way to stop her from dying. The symbolism also shows that the tradition of grandma. For example, before grandma died, she and the author made a wind chime and grandma told the author that hang it on the window, so the family will know that when she is coming back and visit the family.

Conflict also introduced in this story. External conflict was mainly introduced in this story. When the other family members saw their grandma went to pickup garbages, they felt embarrassing. “what will other white people in Vancouver think about us?”, this sentence shows the felling about the family members. Another external conflict in this story is the conflict between the author which was the youngest child in the family and his sisters and brothers. The author was following grandma all the time and he was on her side. It can also be seen as a foreshowing that tells reader that the author was influenced by grandma’s tradition. Internal conflict was also introduced in this story. Father knew that it was not good for grandma to pick up garbage, but he did not stop her and his youngest son(author). Because grandma was the oldest person in the family and he wanted his son to protect the grandma.

To sum up, this was a very attractive story and I have been attracted. The story was very close to my life, as a person who is going to study in Canada, I can totally understand the situation of this family. They showed the realistic side of the early Chinese-Canadian’s life in the Chinatown of Vancouver. The author used a different way to talk about the tradition. He showed tradition through death and how the tradition influenced him.

People Can Be Influenced By Their Environment

People Can Be Influenced By Their Environment

People are living in the different environment. We are from different country, different city, we go to different school and we live in the different family. As a result, someone did very successful while someone didn’t. That was because they were from different environment.

A good environment can influences people in a positive way, it make them improve. I still remember that when I first stepped in to a international school in Beijing which I was going to study in for 3 years. I was naive, very poor in English and did not play any musical instruments. The first day in school I thought this school was very different from traditional Chinese high school, because people here were all speaking English, even Korean and Russian sometimes. I was extremely nervous that I could not even understand a word from the teacher and some foreigner students. I felt so helpless that I had to start using English everyday instead of Chinese which I had been spoken for 15 years. During that time I was suffering by not understandable English and learning it. This school was like a big machine which forced you to speak English everyday. Till now, I can speak a perfect English which is three years later and my english level so far is already be able to understand and communicate in a Northern American University. A good environment is like a big tool which you can learn and improve from. It is also like a big tool which is pushing you forward.

The influence of environment can also be negative. When people are not moving forward but even moving backward or corrupted, environment is the main reason for that. Now, in China some students who went to colleges can not find a job in China when they came back. Normally, people who went to western University and graduated can easily find a job back in China. The reason is not the companies do not want people who took a better education, but it is the students themselves and their environment. According to a passage from the Beijing Evening Newspaper that half of the students who came back from western university are speaking very low English, even poorer than the local high school students. That is because they did not need to speak English when they were abroad. They lived in the China Town, go to the Chinese Supermarket, go to the university which Chinese students account for 30%. They met only Chinese friends and watched Chinese TV program. They did not even use English there which makes them loss their advantages when they come back. Thus, if we do not use our environment correctly the environment is going to have a some dad influences.

To conclude, the environment in the present day society is so complicated and the point is how can we choose a better environment, because people can be influenced by their environment.