The film Pieces of April describes a wayward girl named April who leaves home because she cannot stand living with her mother, Joy. Even so, they still deeply love each other. After leaving home, April never goes back home and visits her family anymore. However, when finding out that her mother is diagnosed with cancer, April thinks that she should cease being capricious any more. In order to reconcile the broken relationship between her and her mother, April decides to invite her family to New York for a Thanksgiving dinner.
I think Pieces of April is an excellent and meaningful film. The movie shows us how to deal with family problems when we get into trouble with our family, teaches us how to love the people around us and how to express our love. The background in the film is close to our real lives, and even the scenes in the film were taken place in our daily lives. All of the actors performed very well. They mastered in expressing the characters’ emotions. Their control of the characters’ emotion is just at the right place, nothing more and nothing less.
In my view, the other feature which makes the film successful is that the film portrays the different reactions of April’s neighbors when they know that she has trouble getting a stove. In the film, April says: “once there was this one day where everyone seemed to know they needed each other.” It is true that we live in a huge and diverse society with different people coming from different countries. Within this community, we need to learn from each other, respect each other, and help each other. In the film, there is this crazy white woman, who does not show any mercy, fails to help April when she is in trouble. Fortunately, a Chinese family appears and offers help to April when she is in despair. Although the Chinese family cannot communicate well with April and do not understand the historic meaning behind Thanksgiving, they still try to help her. They warm April’s heart by showing compassion and giving out hands when April feels helpless. Living in a big environment and complex society like this, we do not know when we will get into trouble and when we will need someone’s help. There is a saying: “close neighbors are more helpful than close relatives living afar.” God says: “we live because we have love.” We should live with passion and love for love brings us together, and love makes us live harmoniously in the society.
All in all, the message behind Piece of April teaches people an invaluable lesson: people should value and appreciate more of love, understanding, trust, and tolerance that are shared among family members and our community. Because of love, people can turn the impossible into possible; with compassionate understanding of people, we can hold onto our faiths and achieve something great rather than giving up easily; by building trust among people, we will then carry the courage within ourselves to overcome all the difficulties; with tolerance bearing in our heart, we can smile hopefully even in the face of distress.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
About Choice
In my first Sociology class, our professor asked us why we were enrolled at UC Davis and not doing something else. At that time, the first answer came to my mind was that UC Davis was the only college that accepted me. I chose to enroll at UC Davis because I had no more choice. However, is the fact supposed to like that? It sounds ridiculous that I come to UC Davis because I have no more choice. At least I can still make choice between going and not going to UC Davis. If I said that I had no more choice but go to UC Davis, there must be a reason to explain why. I sink into thinking.
Two years ago, when I still was a high school student, I got a chance to have a campus tour in Davis. Very different from the city I lived, San Francisco, Davis seemed to be a quiet but clean city. Moreover, the most fantastic thing I appreciated was that people could bike freely here. I was a bike girl, but I had never had a chance to bike in my home city (everyone should knows that San Francisco is well known for its crooked streets and undulating surface). There was a moment that I heard of a sound – may be UC Davis is the place that I am looking for so long. To be honest, UC Davis is not my first choice on my college application. I am an ambitious girl and I hope I can enroll in the best public university, UC Berkeley. It appears extremely common that human beings tend to prefer stuffs that are the best but not suitable for them rather than stuffs that are suit for them but not the best. In this case, UC Berkeley is the best choice for me, and UC Davis becomes the most suitable choice to me.
It is very hard for me to make choice between these two colleges. Similarly, not only me, but also people in the world make thousands of choices during their whole lives. Some of them are not important, and some of them relatives to humans’ interest and benefit. No matter what kind of choice, it is always accompanied with sacrifice. For this reason, people always make their choices to maximize their interest. In addition, with the “help” of the media world, hedonism deeply embeds in people’s minds. People fall into a trap and believe that they should pursue and enjoy the best things because they have limited lives. They say that they praise their lives and in the next second, they step into the shopping malls, buy the most expensive clothes and sit at the fancy restaurants to have the most luxurious dinners. They spend lots of time and money in pursuing the so called “best interest” but suddenly they find that they are still lonely and not satisfied. In this case, they sacrifice their internal feeling when they choose the external materials. When people pursue the best interest, they will easily ignore their inside desire. In my own view, making choice is like choosing a husband for myself. To me, the best stuff is like a rich man but I do not love, and the suitable stuff is a poor man but I deeply want to engage to. In the real life, it is much easier to meet a rich man than a suitable man. However, most of people still would like to choose the former.
In a sense, I was lucky enough that I got rejected by UC Berkeley. It makes me realize that things turn into the best because they are suitable, and this is the reason that I choose to enroll in UC Davis.
Two years ago, when I still was a high school student, I got a chance to have a campus tour in Davis. Very different from the city I lived, San Francisco, Davis seemed to be a quiet but clean city. Moreover, the most fantastic thing I appreciated was that people could bike freely here. I was a bike girl, but I had never had a chance to bike in my home city (everyone should knows that San Francisco is well known for its crooked streets and undulating surface). There was a moment that I heard of a sound – may be UC Davis is the place that I am looking for so long. To be honest, UC Davis is not my first choice on my college application. I am an ambitious girl and I hope I can enroll in the best public university, UC Berkeley. It appears extremely common that human beings tend to prefer stuffs that are the best but not suitable for them rather than stuffs that are suit for them but not the best. In this case, UC Berkeley is the best choice for me, and UC Davis becomes the most suitable choice to me.
It is very hard for me to make choice between these two colleges. Similarly, not only me, but also people in the world make thousands of choices during their whole lives. Some of them are not important, and some of them relatives to humans’ interest and benefit. No matter what kind of choice, it is always accompanied with sacrifice. For this reason, people always make their choices to maximize their interest. In addition, with the “help” of the media world, hedonism deeply embeds in people’s minds. People fall into a trap and believe that they should pursue and enjoy the best things because they have limited lives. They say that they praise their lives and in the next second, they step into the shopping malls, buy the most expensive clothes and sit at the fancy restaurants to have the most luxurious dinners. They spend lots of time and money in pursuing the so called “best interest” but suddenly they find that they are still lonely and not satisfied. In this case, they sacrifice their internal feeling when they choose the external materials. When people pursue the best interest, they will easily ignore their inside desire. In my own view, making choice is like choosing a husband for myself. To me, the best stuff is like a rich man but I do not love, and the suitable stuff is a poor man but I deeply want to engage to. In the real life, it is much easier to meet a rich man than a suitable man. However, most of people still would like to choose the former.
In a sense, I was lucky enough that I got rejected by UC Berkeley. It makes me realize that things turn into the best because they are suitable, and this is the reason that I choose to enroll in UC Davis.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Who are you as a writer?
I used to watch a movie which named Shinjuku Incident. It describes how the illegal Chinese immigrants live their lives in Japan. The movie is based on the true stories among Chinese immigrants in Japan society. I’m not going to talk about more details of this movie here because my purpose is not to recommend it to everyone, even though personally I think Shinjuku Incident is an excellent movie.
As a hobbit, I wrote down my reflection about this movie since it impressed me to a high extent. I am not a professional writer, but I engage in making critical thinking to every reading and movie I prefer. As an example, when I was writing my reflection of Shinjuku Incident, I would think of every possible factor that affect characters’ behavior and every reason that makes them choose to do things they do not want to do. In my UWP 1 class, my professor asked us “who consider yourself is not an intellectual?” I raised my hand. In my opinion, intellectual is not only a thinker but also a researcher. I am not a researcher of course, but at least I consider myself as a thinker. I question myself a lot in my writing, not only about the issue that relates to me (such as, ask myself what would I do if I was XX ), but more about the society and the human nature (question like, what makes people to behave like that). I do this not for fun, but I think the more questions I ask myself, the more I get close to the truth of life. However, Life is far more complicated than we can imagine because it is not a scantron that we can easily mark TRUE or FALSE.
I don’t write critique all the time. Besides that, I really love to write as a narrator. I still remember what my high school teacher commented in one of my essays. She wrote, “XX, you’re a very good story teller.” I will not discuss whether or not I am a good storyteller. For me, story could be something you can make up, or something that is not true. I don’t mind writing something that I’ve never experienced before, or making up something that is not real, what I really care is that my opinion and my feeling can be understood through a specific story. For me, telling an unreal story is not a big deal, but I have to be true to myself in my writing. What I think and feel cannot lie.
As a hobbit, I wrote down my reflection about this movie since it impressed me to a high extent. I am not a professional writer, but I engage in making critical thinking to every reading and movie I prefer. As an example, when I was writing my reflection of Shinjuku Incident, I would think of every possible factor that affect characters’ behavior and every reason that makes them choose to do things they do not want to do. In my UWP 1 class, my professor asked us “who consider yourself is not an intellectual?” I raised my hand. In my opinion, intellectual is not only a thinker but also a researcher. I am not a researcher of course, but at least I consider myself as a thinker. I question myself a lot in my writing, not only about the issue that relates to me (such as, ask myself what would I do if I was XX ), but more about the society and the human nature (question like, what makes people to behave like that). I do this not for fun, but I think the more questions I ask myself, the more I get close to the truth of life. However, Life is far more complicated than we can imagine because it is not a scantron that we can easily mark TRUE or FALSE.
I don’t write critique all the time. Besides that, I really love to write as a narrator. I still remember what my high school teacher commented in one of my essays. She wrote, “XX, you’re a very good story teller.” I will not discuss whether or not I am a good storyteller. For me, story could be something you can make up, or something that is not true. I don’t mind writing something that I’ve never experienced before, or making up something that is not real, what I really care is that my opinion and my feeling can be understood through a specific story. For me, telling an unreal story is not a big deal, but I have to be true to myself in my writing. What I think and feel cannot lie.
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