U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said that “I condemn the action that WikiLeaks has taken. It puts at risk individuals who are serving this country in a variety of capacities, either as diplomats, as intelligence assets – puts relationships we have with important allies around the world.” Some U.S. officials define Assange and Wikileaks as an illegal and even terrorist organization for the leakage has severely jeopardized the national security interests. However, this is considered to distract the public’s attention from misdeeds to the “suspected espionage activity”.

These people would probably think that whether WikiLeaks has violated the U.S. Espionage Act from 1917, in the light of which Assange indeed has “unauthorized possession” of documents that are “relating to the national defense”. However it’s difficult to present the legal proof that he’s indented to harm the national security—he is definitely unlike the normal terrorists who deliberately harm the nation. He even doesn’t make profits in those documents. He just establishes a place where people can freely share and talk.

According to the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, there is need in protecting the international diplomatic communications which shouldn’t be deterred by totalitarian regimes for their unwillingness of the disclosure of their information. From another point, the law or regulations should be made to decide which kind of information can be taken as public concern and disclosed to the public.

Look back the Pentagon case, though people’s trust and confidence about the war and government has largely decreased after the release of the papers, the prior restraint to New York Times was even rejected by the Supreme Court. The case itself exerts great positive impact on the American legal system in people’s mind. For the same reason, people have their right of publishing, demonstration and freedom of speech, which shall never be abridged by any law. After all, WikiLeaks is almost only a cyber based company.

As we can see in the case that the documents are related to the issues in different countries, so there should be an international organization to stipulate some orders about the confidential information. I think the government itself should be responsible enough for its national confidentiality and security. However, to arrest him at first then get him locked until there is enough evidence, even he’s guilty, would let people lose trust on the legal system. I believe Assange is innocent and he won’t get a trial on the court. And, it turns out to be that, for the government, to be on the court of law and lose is better than arrest him with another charge.

WORK CITATED:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20025430-281.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101208/ap_on_re_eu/eu_wikileaks_rape_charges

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/opinionzone/2010/12/11/treason-in-the-wikileaks-case/

“Like the situation in China, many of the world’s lesser-known languages or dialects are perishing as fewer and fewer people speak them. The governments of countries in which these languages are spoken should act to prevent such languages from becoming extinct.”

The continuity of Chinese culture, despite the religious and geographical factors, is because the Chinese language has been ruling China such a large country for thousands of years. After the 1^st emperor of China, Qinshihuang unified China from 7 separated kingdoms, he also unified and reformed the languages which were similar but differed in those kingdoms. After the establishment of People’s Republic of China, Mandarin Chinese as the standard official language has been gradually prevailing all over the country as well as in the elementary education.

By the example of China, we can see that in order to enhance cohesiveness and unity, Mandarin has been widely promoted, which facilitate people to communicate in different areas where the local dialects are greatly varying. But one the other hand, it also leads to the peril of dialects in some areas, along with the loss the folk culture related to the language because dialects, unlike the official language; their abundant vocabulary are developed from vivid daily life. The language indicates an ethic’s unique thinking model and objective knowledge so that its culture and history its dies if the language perishes. Additionally, the Chinese characters were also simplified from traditional characters when Mandarin was promoted in China mainland while they are still in use in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the experts say it’s not good for Chinese.

In the old days people have their distinctive dialects because most people are restricted in a certain area and they only have to talk to the people near that area. If people start to learn, or just pay attention to another language(though the difference is slight), they may be more or less distracted from their own language. That’s the reason of the tendency that dialects are more and more close to mandarin in the most recent generations.

The limitation in transportation and communication did preserve a lot of dialects in the past. However, in the recent 30 years in China, new media, education popularization, and opportunities in the large city attract lots of people from other areas including people from remote villages with low education. As a matter of fact, the elimination of language barriers will increase the share of the knowledge and diminish the social separation and disharmony. On one hand people are adapting themselves to Mandarin but on the other hand some interesting dialects have been widely spread throughout the nation via media especially the Internet.

The spread of language is always brought up by the rising dominance and influence of the relevant culture. Greek was international because of the brilliant Plato and Aristotle’s thoughts; Latin replaced its position because of the overwhelming army or Roman Empire; The Moors bring the Koran along with the Arabic language to Mideast and North Africa; English and Spanish have ever become the widely spoken language because of the colonial expansion; but nowadays more and more people are willing to learn American English rather than British English (which was ever considered to be the authentic English) because the influence of American culture upon the world.

English in China has become a principal subject from elementary education (Russian used to be the second language 60 years ago for “communist brotherhood”.) all the way up to graduation application, in which ironically Chinese test is not required but English is. It focuses on pure testing skills rather than application ability. I bet native English speakers would do worse on grades than those students who can’t even speak English fluently but proficient in testing skills. English are well promoted in education and even in lots of schools bilingual education is required to cultivate an “English model” for young students to keep the pace with international development. Some scholars prefer publishing their papers on foreign academic magazines, which not only represent high level but also pay more money. Surprisingly, their fellows have to buy the papers from the foreign magazines and translate them back to Chinese again hence Chinese academic magazines are always in a low level and hardly get improved.

The funnier and more controversial thing is that Global Chinese Physics Meeting, even held in China, had to be totally in English. Some Chinese scholars couldn’t understand the content and questions, like “Would you please explain in Chinese again” were asked and elicited a fresh burst of applause. Samuel C. C. Ting, the Chinese American physicist who won the Nobel Prize had ever strongly been against pure English communication among the few Chinese scientists who insisted in using Chinese. Some Chinese experts queried unpleasantly: “How can we give presentation about ancient Chinese literature, language and history in English? It’s in China, why don’t we find interpreters for the foreign experts?”

You can’t simply think that these Chinese scientists who use English do not love Chinese. They watch Peking Opera, listen to traditional Chinese music and recite Chinese poetry. Actually they believe that these mentioned above are the areas where Chinese plays an important role. When they talk about science, English is much more important than Chinese because the advanced scientific concepts are always from America and they are previously in English. It’s not hard to imagine that the cost of education will increase if Chinese is excluded. English letters, words and phrases associated with American pop-culture appear on brand tags; they are more welcomed than Chinese because they stand for good quality and life style according to consumer psychology studies.

However French has ever become the language for British upper class during the Norman conquest of England in 11^th century and even today most French words are intelligible to English speaking people. Here it reminds me of the great effort that French people take to protect their language even they are considered to be very proud. After all, there’s a considerable fact that nobody in this modern society can live without Latin letters because of their penetration when symbolizing scientific theory and units, even the Romanization of Chinese otherwise foreigners can’t read Chinese names. We can’t absolutely be narrow-minded patriots, but we should love our language and defend its dignity.  

Like a child given birth by parents from different areas mostly speaks mandarin or the local dialect rather than speaking any of his parents’ dialect, ABC (American born Chinese) children have to go to Chinese school otherwise they can’t master Chinese well especially in the English-speaking Chinese family. Even the Chinese school gives them limited knowledge of Chinese unless they specially pay attention to or love Chinese language. I think the key to master a language is large amount of reading.  And I also would like to ask the presented Italian or Irish descendants, what reason stop you from speaking Italian and Irish and from which generation it has already stopped? Have you felt sorry that you don’t speak your own language?

      We were received education totally in Mandarin and so are our TV programs, though some local TV stations run their shows in their dialect in the purpose to protect it. In American it seems that news anchors are encouraged to broadcast in their own dialect to let people know where they come from, though the English dialects in America is not so big and broadcasting are mostly in a mid-west accent.

     Like the species in the ecosystem, some linguists think that an endangered language should be preserved and the limited amount of speakers should be cherished but some other linguists there are also bring up “Natural Selection” as well in languages, which means that the development and perishing should adapt to social needs. The evolution of a language is not the language itself but also the reflection of the development of society, economy, culture, politic and technology. Probably different languages or dialects should be encouraged to coexist in a large background as a multicultural society is evolving because the conflicts are usually by rights deprivation, authoritarian regimes and modernization instead of the language itself while the cultural identity should yield to the more practical considerations of day-to-day life in a global society.

          In Chinese philosophy, the Confucianism conveys the immortality based on the life that is continue moving like a long straight line while the Daoism emphasizes its immortality based on the life that is circulating like a circle, and the fundamentals of both two immortalities should be try to be merciful to the other people and diligent and self-disciplined to oneself. Chinese society is undergoing a series of changes after the 1980s as so many debating conflicts between the generations. We are the promising generation, but also somehow corrupted, confused and suspected in so many new things surged in a faster and faster rapid, unlike the monotone way years ago. What I want to say is China can also in a transformation that the artists, no matter in the field of music, literature, film and the folks, who will push forward China to a more liberated and plural epoch.

So, let me talk about sex. I think sex, like many things, the power, the wealth, the vanity, is an inner intrinsic call from our body, which will bring us extreme happiness that we are endowed with. However, it’s definitely a two edged-weapon; on the other hand, it’s described as a vile, corrupted thing even has long been chastised and despised. In the view of Chinese traditional philosophy medicine and ethics, too much sex will lead to the immediate collapse of both body and mind in a tremendously scary rapid. The show remind me of a brutal Chinese tyranny 3000 years ago, who had built a bacchanalian place with meat hung on, wine poured in to a pond, and thousands of naked women conscripted to dance and have sex while the folks suffered starvation, high taxes, bandits and natural disasters. Soon, it was not after 10 years the dynasty was subverted. This king was only left with bad reputations.

Anyway, sex is a part of life but not a very important, a beautiful and happy thing that God gives us. The ability should never be abused or we may get ourselves into trouble. Sometimes, the basic rule is: There’s no free meal in this world. The happiness is always based on you sacrificing something for it. Finally, I want to say, even the gallary is somehow difficult to me or something is against the traditional Chinese values, we should take any chance to absorb as much culture as we can.

My dad used to tell me how he was gloriously designated as the leader of youth “Red Guards” in the region he lived due to the achievements in political realization in Maoism and socialism theories learning, though what he thinks today may be ridiculous and crazy. He set foot into the country side and educate the peasants with some terms end up of “ism”. But I was wondering that the peasants are mostly illiterate at that time so how can they understand the elusive political stuffs, which have been the headache to me? But the answer is simple—-they were trying to explain them in the point of view of the basic needs, to let the illiterate feel the improvements of their life is a manifest result of the government’s policy. In that age usually solve the problem of food clothing and houses. In an ancient Chinese proverb, it goes without say that “Any bitch who has milk is your mum.” In some situations, the government psychologically perceive that if they save the folk at the most crucial stance, the gratitude and feats they received is much more than that, they find the problem and solve before it break out. Assume that if an earth breaks out, but government takes effort to save and rebuild; on the other hand the experts foresighted the danger and the government take step to prevent. In the former situation the folks will feel how the government excellently behaves in the disaster but the casualties will be tremendous, while in the latter situation the folks will not know what government has done.  

Despite this, the text books in that time is laden with the political propagandas that are hilariously presented in today people’s eyes, but sometimes it’s a sense of reminisce to the old people, like how they get through the hardship in the cruel days. A mathematical problem goes like: “’Zhang the poor farmer’ was forced to lend 1 dollar from the brutal landlord ‘Zhou the ripper’, and a high interest 10% per month. Suppose after one year ’Zhang the poor farmer’ can pay back his entire debit, how much in total he has to pay?” The name of the landlord is an artistic exaggeration to show the stereotype associated with “brutality, turpitude, shiftiness and parsimony” and so the name of the peasant is to be sympathized. The problems can always be solved in two or three lines. But the later “critiques” take up half page. It aftermath educates the pupils that “In that capitalized miserable society, people are on the blink of death. However with the guidance of great chairman Mao…….” Here I want to say that Mao was permanently with four successive, peerless and glowing titles—–The Great Commander; The Great Mentor; the Great Helmsman and The Great Leader. These are just the brand of the ages engraved in the hearts of the old generation. They went though tremendous thrills and cried for their leader, like the religious zealots who engaged the crusade, the Samurais who claimed homage to the king.…….in which their belief are deeply controlled by the propaganda. Sometime I have to say that the propaganda is intended of an incendiary purpose, to plant vengeance in people’s heart, to fight for the things irrelevant to them.  

After the Cultural Revolution, the cult of personality recedes but the political ideas still penetrate everywhere. I ever used language book, English and German in the 1980s, the contents are like the “Workers united and strives to build our country!” “Comrade Zhang and Liu go to Beijing to attend a meeting”. It was after the late of 1990s the foreign language books deals more with the cultures and pop arts instead of political stuffs.

This is an interesting essay talks about the meaning of different types of propaganda images.

http://www.crestock.com/blog/design/vibrant-chinese-propaganda-art–part-1-revolution-revolution-revolution-171.aspx

 These are all the medals of my father in learning Maoism. The Chinese words say: “Mao waves his hands and I follow him to keep going.”

This is a very common people’s house.On the wall it writes”Listen to Mao, follow the Party” Every morning the whole family should report to the portrait what the plan today and in the evening they should tell Mao what they have done today, including the reflections, confess, plead to be forgiven and pray, associated with the political stuffs.

A Chinese soldier and a USSR soldier stand together symbolized unity, the point is to strike the American capitalism, against the invasion and ensure the peace of the world!

After the establishment of PRC, everyone has been forcing to be inculcated with the dogmas from the CCP, which is also veiled the color of patriotism. It’s defined as “moral class” in the primary school, “Ideological politic” in the middle school both for six years’ education and four years in the university but specified as “Maoism”(I just got a C- from this class, as it’s the lowest grade in all my courses) “Chinese Marxism” and “Ideology Revision”, no matter what major you have chosen. Even applying for a graduate school, the politic grade is mandatory. After one has got a job in a comparatively decent position, and required to unconditionally learn and comply the announcements and regulations from the supreme censorship of Chinese government, to write “Political cognition report” to the leadership and pass the quizzes in the name of loyalty with the party. To join the CCP means great chance of being promoted in the later career. The laurel of “advanced member” is credited to those who do well in the quizzes and reports, year after year. Despite the political stuffs, there are also mandatory history and Chinese classes with the story of positive, laudatory side of CCP; even some part of history has been modified by the winners, confirmed the ancient Chinese proverb, “The successful are the kings and the lost are the enemies”.

And these quizzes, reports and teaching materials mostly follow a dull routine, which is bored by the most Chinese people. But, in order to live a good life in a dictated, fierce competed, and one government-dominated country, they have to follow year after year. Though it looks absurd, but I have to say every Chinese intellects loves the country and I think they should love their government because it’s the CCP who supported them a somewhat a steady and prosperous society—–we do have the rights to be proudly say I’m a Chinese citizen; we have no problems of starvation and wars; we have chances of education and job; though some of them are not hopeful about the party. Regardless of the ones who really loves the country call for a free speech, anti-corruption and human rights in front of Tiananmen Square 20 years ago—–they are pitifully not well treated as they should have and after which the ambiance of innovation has been suffocated, some of my friends who has questions about the Chinese government and debated with their teachers, are mostly considered as “a politically heretical guy”, because the teachers just follow the schedule to imbue the doctrines. The folks are easy to be ridiculed and utilized by the provision of basic material sustenance, and easy to lead to a “violent revolution”, which is a common way that the socialist party uses to establish its dictatorship.

The doctrines are needless to explain but can act as a supreme-delegated weapon against any saboteur the party thinks, sometimes refer to the intellects, which should be educated or extinguished. When the mobs are utilized, the power is tremendous, especially the socialist party stress on the concept of “public ownership of private possession”. In some period, the wealthy person were ravaged by the CCP soldiers in the name of “strike on the avaricious landlords and capitalists who extract the blood from the upper classes”, in fact some of them accumulate the wealth by legal ways but they have to share because of to be rich means to be shameful. This time the abuse of propaganda exert on the illiterate person.

Anyway, the doctrines may not be understandable, may not be convincible and may not be compelling, but they have to be followed, implanted into our brains, and implemented to consolidate the reign.

             Generally speaking, New York is normally considered as the one of largest cities in the world along with the great metropolis like Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Rio de Janeiro on the rank. But, actually the streets on the Time square are just too narrow if I don’t see the skyscrapers beside me made mere slice of sky be seen on the top, which gives me a sense of tininess, I wouldn’t say this is the centre of the world, and neither Time Square would be the crossroad of the world. But, when I set foot on the imposing magnificent Washington Mall, I thought I was at the centre of the word. Stated from Lincoln Memorial, I saw the Vietnam Memorial and Korean War Memorial on the left and right. I walked along the reflecting pool and all the way down to the WWII Memorial then it was Washington Monument and at last I reached the United Stated Capitol. The configuration is somewhat like Beijing, the centre is Tiananmen Square, in which the Tiananmen is the symbol of China and the great Monument to the People’s Heroes erects at the centre of the square. The north is the Forbidden City where the emperor lived and the south is the Mausoleum of Mao. The east is the Great Hall of the People and the west is the Military Museum. Beijing is like a square city and the centre of Washington is very symmetrical. One difference is that the Washington Monument has been in an abeyance for some years for the financial problems so that the upper part and the lower part are in distinguishing colors. On the country, this will be considered as a violation of decency, the building as a national symbol will never allowed to be like this so that the building must be reconstructed to have the mono color, usually the immaculate white as the color of a monument.

            All the way was mostly made up of a giant grass land. Different people gathered there for different reasons, some were doing drills, some were just hanging around some were also travelling from their various languages but the most interesting thing is the demonstrating people because their purpose are far more beyond my imagination. Some are ridiculous or funny, some seemingly proper and some are kind of weird! It reminded me of the situation in China that the demonstration is nominally only allowed after the approval of the supreme government but actually is prohibited after what we called Tiananmen Square accident. Here I genuinely witnessed what the freedom of speech is like. But, like the words on the memorial said: Freedom is not free. There is a witty say is said from the Chinese government that: “We absolutely do have free speech, because those who oppose to that have been already arrested by us”. One day of my trip is accidentally the last day that the health care bill is about to approve. Many people who were in the middle class gathered in the name of private or some associations gathered here by hundreds of vehicles and even caused stuck the main road. So we left the city in a hurry or we must wait till tomorrow. Pitifully I couldn’t spend too much time on the museums in Washington which are run by the federal government and mostly free.

           The most impressive thing to me is the Korean Memorial. Unlike the grandeur statues three soldiers of the Vietnam War, they are at the same height with us. This is an authentic restoration of the soldiers in the battlefield; they went through the heat of the sunshine and the coldness of the shower and snow. From the intensified expression on their faces, we can felt how crucial it was like fifty years ago from these vivid figures. As a Chinese, I knew the result of the war. It has long been narrated like “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, even in a severe dearth of munitions and sustenance but with the devotion, loyalty, valor and will too the country and communism party, had triumphal defeated the well equipped soldiers from criminal American imperialism and capitalism” in the government’s propaganda, even in our text books during our childhood. What I can objectively feel is that the American soldiers even had coffee and gums in WWII but our men fought with the Japs with insufficient millets and rifles. No matter the wars of American is justice or not, which are issues of ideology and the politic, it’s them who ignite the war but the innocent young men die for it, we should solemnly salute to those heroes who have sacrificed their lives to the country buried in the Arlington cemetery. In fact, I ever paid a visit to the sanatorium of demobilized soldiers on the long island as an identity of a camera man in LI news tonight. When being asked about the feelings of being recruited to military force in the WWII, the old man surprisingly left us a tough answer: “The glory is just bullshit, I want boom America! Why the country must spoil my youth, drag me to the pacific for nothing?” Of course, such negative answer couldn’t be shown on the TV but in China, the one who gave such answer may face the danger of going to the jail.

Here Mare some pictures I took in the tip:

He dares to across the right light in front of the capitol

These two pictures are in the World in the Window. It’s a theme park in Shenzhen, Guandong Province, south of China. This park collectes the world wide places of interests and minify them into models accroding to some certain proportions. They were taken two years ago and I’m much slender than now! American food fattened me!!!

Here, I believe the changes of the art form, as I saw in the museum, are mostly during the 1960s. In general, the fiasco in the war of Vietnam exasperate the mood of anti-war and the international circumstances of the cold war broke many people’s hope of life, turned them into the negative values. Secondly, the development of the industry led to the side effects on the pollution, nuclear war, and noxious materials. The successful solve of one problem may lead to new problems, thus people begin to distrust some scientific methods. The third point is the conflicts between younger and older generations are always due to the excessive indulgence in abundant material life, the waves of student campaign appeared one after another.

Despite the spirit they contain, the biennial exhibition itself, presents me so many bewildering things along with some strange calls. One thing for sure is the breakthrough of the form of the arts, from the traditional mono style of express to the various kinds, installation art, behavior art, optical art, kinetic art, conceptual art, process art etc. most tend to use new forms to show the world in the artists’ mind in a abstract or surrealistic way, or to explore the subconscious deep in human’s instinct, which gives you impacts in terms of multimedia.

The judgment of a composition is not standardized but more and more plural such as a video clip, some cursive lines and dots, a pipe and a piece of wood. To some parts it depends more on the ideas and how it arouses a specific group of its audience. Everything can make sense but it relies on the environment and time, even more important than the composition itself. Some artists peruse the individual innovation of their originalities even they may be misunderstood or criticized. The process of the art goes back to the natural or spontaneous style, I mean the limitation between the professional and non-professional artists is blurring, someone without special trainings can be an good artist if he really has good ideas to show.

Those above are the general thought after my visit. Then I’ll list some favorite and impressive collections.

The subway                                Sixth Avenue elevated at Third Street

These two pictures are the old look of the New York City. The style of the 1^st one is like the paintings in the medieval times in which people are conservative and cold, but the lady is lost in such a metropolis. The second one is distorted like a wide angle shot, it reminds me think of the film noir, people is busy but the surface of life is vibrant though we don’t know what lies in it.

Fred Tomaselli, Gravity’s Rainbow (Large),

The display is laden with some strings of small stuffs, in my understanding they pretty much look like the digital code sequences, a symbol of advanced technology. But, the black background and the elements on the string, for instance, the birds may be a compelling emphasis of the harmony of men and the natural in a mysterious subtle serenity.

THE WAIT EDWARD KIENHOLZ

This picture is a very beautiful photography. A parachute in the deserted land establishes a very manifest contrast. It looks like a flourishing chrysanthemum that endows with fortitude to live in such a celestial but really tough environment. In a modern society, we have to forsake something and pay for something if we want a good environment.

WOMAN WITH DOG

In this wax sculpture, I think the figure of this old lady is a very classical stereotype. She is at the senility of her life and enjoys peace she should have, and the only companion is the dog, being loyal at her side. She gets to know the news in the through letters, maybe the good news that we can share the happiness with her; somehow may be bad news that we try to feel what she will think. Anyway, it leaves us the space to imagine her mood. She could be lost in the explanation of life, several decades are just fleeting, the memories are like the faded photographs. What it will be like? The answer is endless.

PUZZLE BOTTLE

It’s really a very exquisite craft. I wish I could have a duplicated one in my study. I believe it has a significant social meaning. We live in the society we can see how the world is like, fantastic, bewildering, affluent, and also some dark sides. But, our behavior are restricted and even fettered by the society, we have to consider our deeds, what should do and what should not. There are so many choices like the crossroad in our way of life, that to make a decision needs courage. Some time we are confused and have no ideas of right and wrong, it’s like a puzzle, though we can even see the world. When can we really break out from the cork and find orient ourselves? This is a big problem.

Firstly, as I’m a Chinese but choose English as my second language, what I learned is totally another different lingual system. According to theories, the essence of language, or its primary purpose may be symbols. After observations and comparisons, Chinese tends to be more compelling than English in this point. Chinese is a kind of ideogram, or to be more accurately, hieroglyph in the ancient ways of recording. See how the demonstration how the word horse evolves: you can see the picture at the end of this essay. But what we use in nowadays is 马，a simplified version in subtitution of the old ones below. The consequence is it gradually becomes more and more simple but abstract; it loses the appearance of a horse but keeps its symbol of a horse.

Unlikely, English is a kind of phonogram; people in ancient time may just record the sound from the mouth which generated the letters in an alphabet to organize words. After long time of experience, these symbols had its meanings. As the language is always varying by time and areas, in which wars, immigrations, religions and commercial activities are ineligible factors, the languages in the common life appears great diversities, especially who are the people that use this language. New words show up and the old perish, or some terms belong to a special group in a special period of time. But, when it reaches the height of academic or religious, we can see that the languages in the countries that use the Latin alphabet are very similar and even same, because the science, for instance, biology, alchemy, medicine, geometry….were developed in a Latin used environment. What’s more, those who engages in religious affairs must have learned Latin since Latin has widely used before the emergence of printing press in the Christianity. When the Norman people conquered England, a great supplement of French words flowed into English language, which led to that, many English words and German words are very similar look like they’re genealogical from a family while many French words are complete same with ones in English. French thus became a language in the upper class when the Latin undergone its recession. English has become a word wide used language because its simpleness in the declension compared to other Latin languages and the colonized reign in the world, which also greatly brought many new words into English.

Because Chinese use a picture instead of the sound to express, so different areas can understand people in thousand miles away and we can partly understand official documents thousand years ago, though the pronunciation changed a lot and an old proverb says “The pronunciations are totally different in ten miles away”. After the New Culture Movement in eighty years ago which advocated using Vernacular Chinese to replace the traditional Chinese, the modern Chinese is phonologically based on the dialect in Beijing area and the simplified characters in writings, though different fonts of the traditional Chinese characters has been kept in calligraphy as a form of art. But in many dialects, the way to express, in which the structure of a sentence, is very similar to the ancient Chinese.

Translation is a very interesting thing. The easy sentences or words can be directly found a corresponding word in another language; especially those symbolize the specific objects in the daily life. But, when I reached an attitude of literature, philosophy and art in the later study, it was not as a piece of cake as it used to be. This time dictionary cannot be totally relied on. Henceforth we began to understand the meaning of the new words according to the fathom of the background or we should explain the new terms in some easy words in English. Gradually, we cultivated a thought of English instead of thinking about the Chinese word. For example, when someone says a cow, it might remind me of a “Nainiu” (cow in Chinese) then I would look up in my mind what a Nainiu looked like. But, later, when cow is heard, a giant and black white milk producing and pasture living animal suddenly came to my mind. But, this needs long time of practicing so that we can be familiar and skillful enough with another language, to directly point the words to the objects without the process of translation. Thus it saves time. Accordingly, when we speak, we do not consider the Chinese words before we start but just to express the objects in English fluently as it synchronizes with our mind.

However, what I learned are mostly formal so that I can understand people with a high education even they use some big words but I have difficulties in communicating with the folk. I still remember that time when a young people said “Hey dude, what’s up” in a fast speed but all I knew is “Hello, how do you do?” The spoken language needs to be familiar with the habitude and the local conventions, as they are always changing. But, I’m confident to say, if I can’t understand an essay, it must be the content itself very opaque, even if they are translated into Chinese I will still don’t understand and the American people have difficulties too unless they are not an expert in that field. Here I’m deliberately point to the book, it almost drove me crazy!!! So, I have to say that, with years and years of learning, the gap between foreign language and mother language can be smaller but not to disappear.

Suddenly I found that I really talked too much, I hope I made no fallacies. If our class come up with the language theories again, I’ll write about the mother language and foreign languages, and also talk about the tough journey I remember many vocabularies.

the develop of Chinese character 马，(horse) throughout the history

I remember that I bought an overcoat last semester. My friends, from different classes, in different age, with different characteristic, had various critics about this controversial overcoat. Some said: “Are you kidding? You look like people 50 years ago.” Some said “You are so cool, Mr. Detective” Some said “Well, just be yourself, and this is a society to show your personality.” Actually it’s a coat frequently seen in the old movies. Part of my intention is to collect because its style is really very classical. And I was aware that I might be too young to wear it, I just might as well let my father wear it but he said it looked too formal and serious. I think it’s a symbol of the people in the upper class of American society, especially in the early years of last century, I like it because the aura or sense it diffuse, this would probably be the my major impulsion of purchasing, not really mean to wear it because I’m not always in the formal occasions.

My family is somewhat like the traditional Chinese family, not only they do trust the ancient morality in which it tells people to be thrifty; but also they’ve undergone misfortunes in the unstable ages of China, where starvation afflicted people as a major predicament due to the bad economic in a large population country after decades of war. Like most Chinese people, we buy things depends on its ratio between its quality and price, in which the former largely depends on its durability. The factors such as fashion and aesthetic are less taken into consideration because we think everyone’s point of view is different and such opinion is always changing as time goes by, sometime we spend money on the tawdry functions is useless, which goes against the law of conspicuous consumption and also a conflict between the young and old generation. But the real classical, or good thing ever devalue even rises its value. A good example can be given about the SLR camera. The appearance of digital is like waves. Each generation’s heyday is easily attained with its large price, but it’s ephemeral with the new generation taking its place then the old ones rapidly devalue. But the lens hardly devalue, especially the luxury lens from Zeiss or Leica. So the essence of conspicuous consumption is people buy for the vanity!

So let me go back to the issue of overcoat. If I buy a cloth, what I’m really buying except it covers me and keeps me warm and comfortable? Everybody will say it’s the look! But who is looking at you? Other people or just yourself? There are two extremes: You have no idea about what you’re going to buy so you might ask other people’s opinions even though that cloth is not suitable for you. Sometime you buy a cloth because you just want it so much while you ignore other people’s idea. In this point, what you buy is beyond its primitive functions but other peoples’ extol or your confidence. This psychological trait has long been taken advantage by the business man to make money.

Fortunately, I never regretted about purchasing that coat though it cost really a large amount of money. I used to buy cloth just for its utility and even simplicity at a comparatively low price. This time I also made a decision, I think the value is at that people buy happiness. If you never regret for what you have bought, it’s absolutely worthwhile! As people’s concept of consumption is different so the eventual goal is happiness! Even a professor, kind of jokingly spoke to me: “You look like you came from Wall Street.!”

One of my friend heard the information of discount in the Black Friday, but he was totally disappointed and frustrated to find the discounted goods are mostly not so good and things he wanted had little discount or the allowed person is very limited as the waiting line is far long. He didn’t want to wait whole night and get back with nothing so he bought an iTouch, but after three days he found he didn’t need it at all, he just bought it for the impulsion. From his unlucky experience we should think over what we want to buy before we buy, don’t let it beyond your consumption capability and be your burden. There’s no free lunch in the world because they always want to make money from you no matter how attractive the advertisement is!