A Semester's Worth of Reading

This semester has been a busy one, so there's been very little reading for fun going on around here. For my class, I read pieces of (insert shudder here -- wouldn't a professor know the importance of reading an entire piece, in the right order no less, to know the full context?) of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point as well as Millennials Rising: The Next Generation by Howe and Strauss. The former was interesting but difficult at times to apply to an educational setting; the latter was published in 2001, before we could even imagine how the colossal influences of  September 11 and Facebook would impact our students and the way they learn. Alas, these texts did little to further my understanding of how to best foster learning in my classroom. Thankfully, I was also responsible for reading and implementing ideas on formative assessment, which was helpful and stands to create great change in education if handled well.

With that aside, I did read a bit during what little time I had leftover. First I started with the amazing Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, nonfiction authors who are a major part of the movement for educating women worldwide. I had heard my college friends and former professors talking about it, raving about it, telling how it moved them to action, for quite some time. Then I heard WuDunn speak at The Global Leadership Summit last August, at which she read excerpts of their book. As I sat in the audience, tears streaming down my face as she told us how a fundamental education had changed the lives of women they'd met, I knew I'd need to buy the book to know more about their mission. I'll admit I haven't finished the book yet (I can hear boos and hisses as I type), but I think that's merely because I'm not well trained or self-disciplined when it comes to reading non-fiction. I am sadly addicted to the plot diagram we learned about in middle school, and nonfiction simply doesn't work that way. I'm nearly finished, though, and it has moved me to action -- I've revisited the ways I can promote education in Liberia through much-needed scholarships for students and improving teacher education programs in the country. The authors discuss other ways to "[turn] oppression into opportunity for women worldwide" as well, but being an educator, that part stays with me and is more meaningful. As I read story after story of women whose education changed their lives, I was reminded why I do what I do -- no matter who the students are, where they are, or the social norms they must face, an education can help them create a better future for all of us.

Feeling a bit guilty that I hadn't yet finished Half the Sky, I felt it important that I maintain the theme a bit and moved to A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert. It comes highly acclaimed, and I enjoyed it enough to finish it, but I was sadly never lost in it. The premise is brilliant: the novel follows five generations of women in the Townsend family, beginning with an early feminist Dorothy in England and working through trials and tribulations until the Millennial Dora. The set-up is right up my alley: multiple narrators, a non-linear pacing to help us see how specific events influence later ones. When it came right down to it, though, I continued reading it simply because I thought somehow, eventually, I would truly connect with a character. It never happened. I think Walbert simply took the plight of women in a direction with which I could not align myself -- she did not include a single lasting joy for any of the five women. Having read many feminist pieces in college and after, I am well aware of the plight Walbert was focusing upon; even so, her laser-like focus on how none of these women found meaning, solace, or joy in anything was merely depressing. It's not like, for instance, Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Edna's story is devastating, but telling it has purpose. And when Edna makes her final decision, it made me what to go out and do something, something important, something that would make me feel complete, feel like an important cog in this big mess of a machine. It's ironic, really, that this book did not spark that  kind of drive within me, since Dorothy Townsend Barrett, the third generation of the family, screamed, "DO SOMETHING," from every rooftop she could find. Perhaps the call meant so little to me because none of the women actually did anything, except for maybe the first Dorothy, more than merely talk about how they weren't doing what they truly wanted to do. 

Without even realizing it, I then continued the theme of women's situations with Nancy Horan's Loving Frank, which I completed in a mere four days. Now, Mamah Borthwick (Cheney) -- now she is a character I connected with, one I felt was telling me her story as we sat together on my living room sofa. Mamah was the lover of Frank Lloyd Wright from around 1903 to 1914. I first bought the book after touring Wright's Dana Thomas House and thought I'd like to know more about the architect. Having the Dana Thomas house in mind, I was intrigued by Horan's take on Wright's motivation; I especially liked an early description of how he incorporated the horizon into his pieces -- I yearn to live in a place where I can see a section of horizon from my windows. I am also intrigued by his thoughts that, "what you put into [a] space will affect how you live in it and what you become" (p. 232). Although I do now understand Wright more than before reading the book, it really wasn't about him. It was about Mamah. 

Mamah struggled with the expectations of women that Walbert addressed; Mamah found her place despite a society of norms that pushed her in another direction. She looked for a way to live out her own identity, to Memento vivere -- remember to live -- on her own terms, and she encouraged others to as well. She was far from popular in having this long-term affair with Frank, with those closest to her as well as the entire Midwest, but after years of searching substance and meaning, she was a better person, and popularity was far from important. The feminist movement -- painted by Horan as primarily for suffrage and equal pay here in the States but also about individual freedom in other countries as well -- was in the forefront of both Mamah's and Frank's minds and of the story. And story it is...it's a fictionalized account of their meeting, their relationship, their life together. Very little documentation on Mamah exists, but Horan did a wonderful job giving what she felt is Mamah's point of view from the few facts we have. I can't say much else, so as not to give anything away, but know that it is a brilliant work that make me wish I wasn't at the end.  

Gatsby and gods; Taylor and Turtle

I'll admit it -- I'm rather proud of  myself for reading three books this summer among the travel, classes, and writing I've been up to.

I began Jane Eyre while in the airports on the China trip, but I just couldn't seem to read it while poolside once I returned home...far too many distractions, and it was simply too hot. One must get to know Jane, I think, when snow is blowing outside.

Gatsby, Nick, Daisy, and the rest, though -- I could read about them on the hottest of days. Their passions, shallow though many of them are, run as hot as passions can. I first read The Great Gatsby in my high school junior English class, and I remember standing in awe of it. After seeing previews of the new Gatsby movie coming out this December, I knew I needed to reread it to prepare myself. To remind myself. To see if I still fell into it the way I remembered I did so many years ago.

I did. I couldn't  put it down.

As I told friends that I was rereading it, a handful threw their hands in the air, rolled their eyes, and exclaimed, "Ugh, I hated Gatsby!" I have no desire to hear about the problems of the rich." I kid you not, every one of them who insisted that Fitzgerald's work is atrocious sited the lack of relevancy in their lives based on financial differences. And yet, when I read it this time, I could see nothing but connections between these people and my generation. They wanted it all, and they thought all of it, together, collectively, would make their lives complete. Happy. Full. But the more they stacked up, the more they accumulated -- money, houses, furniture, clothes, cars, drinks, people -- the faster the significance of it all diminished. As a mathematician, I see it as inversely proportional: as one increases, the other decreases, and vice-verse. All of this could be plucked out of the 1920s and dropped anywhere in 2012, and it would fit in as snugly as if it had always been there. These are not only the distorted dreams of the Roaring Twenty's wealthy; they are the distorted dreams of so many people today, wealthy or not. Money is not a prerequisite of being materialistic or delusional. This theme hasn't left our culture in the last 90+ years -- it's still running rampant through tv, movies, books, and magazines, so it must still resonate with someone. Don't get me wrong; I don't like the Buchanans and their lot. I agree with Nick that they were "a rotten crowd," and I felt he summed them up well toward the end of the book:


"It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

If this doesn't remind you of people in our era, then I'm happy for you. But because we're clearly still seeing signs of this mindset in our society today, regardless of just how much money the people in question have, I maintain that Gatsby is still a relevant read.

Gatsby, I think, was a non-traditional materialist: he didn't think all the riches would bring him happiness, but he did think they'd bring him Daisy and, therefore, happiness. He was right on the money (bu dum ching!) when it came to Daisy's skewed priorities, but he didn't realize that those same priorities also skewed her love for him. He admitted at one point that "[h]er voice is full of money;" he simply didn't know it was so full that there was no longer space for him. Gatsby was certain he could "repeat the past," another theme that still fills our culture, by showing Daisy he was even more grand than when they first met. I think his obsession with the past is stronger than his actual love for Daisy; he's mixed up the two, or somehow identified them as the same. Fitzgerald makes it clear that we can't live as if time moving forward doesn't change the people and the world around us, and yet he ends the book by reminding us that we also can't live without the past affecting us.

 "...tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our our arms farther...And one fine morning -- 
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

And finally: the green light, because that's quintessentially Gatsby for so many readers. For a while -- I don't know how long -- I had forgotten how blatant Fitzgerald was about the connection between the green light and Daisy. I only remembered that we discussed it in class, and I often wondered if that was one of the great symbols of literature pointed out in class discussions that I never actually identified in textual evidence myself...but to my pleasant surprise, Fitzgerald really spelled out the whole idea for us. Now I see why so many teachers use it to foster understanding of symbols and figurative language.

So if you haven't read it since high school, or heaven forbid you never read it at all, pick it up immediately. It's short, but it holds a massive impact. Then join me when the movie comes out in December. 

***

Next, I jumped into a more modern book, with far more ancient characters. I read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which follows the story of Shadow and his journey and battles with the gods who traveled to America as immigrants along with their immigrant believers. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about different culture's religions, myths, and heroes -- which, according to Gaiman, aren't all the same -- and it always makes me feel intelligent when I understand references to other pieces of literature and art speckled throughout. I feel like I can't share with you much about the plot for fear that I will give too much away; the most minute of details could give you a hint that would ruin the many surprises that unfold as the story moves forward. It wasn't the easiest of reads, though, because of the tangents the story took through certain sections and chapters. I think Gaiman wanted to flesh out the whole idea of multiple gods making their way here, staying with their people as long as they believed in them, but I have a hard time caring about characters who aren't really a part of the plot line. I did enjoy the tangents, though, that described rural Illinois as Shadow drove from Chicago to Cairo ("they call that one Kayro") -- the Culver's fast food restaurant, each tiny town's population sign standing right next to their high school athletic claim to fame. And I liked the rants that Sam, an unexpected friend of Shadow's, provided on all the stuff that we believe in this society, both good and bad, both reasonable and illogical. I recommend it if you like stories with twists, and especially if you like mythology (even if it's just what you've learned from Marvel comics and movies).

***

Most recently, I read Barbra Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, which is unlike any book I've ever read. I choose it for a couple reasons -- I loved her novel The Poisonwood Bible (which I read in high school and was my introduction to literature with multiple narrators), the main character changes her name after traveling through my corner of the world, and a friend of mine from work is also reading it right now. Kingsolver didn't let me down.

The novel follows Taylor in the 1980s as she strikes out on her own, moving from her hometown in Kentucky across the Great Plains and the dessert and finally settling in Tuscon. On her journey, she unexpectedly becomes the guardian of a special little girl named Turtle, and the story focuses on how Taylor grows into this new role.

Taylor is a force to be reckoned with. She leads by example and convinces her new friends in Tuscon that if the world is to improve, we cannot be complacent. "What I'm saying is," she says, "you can't just sit there, you got to get pissed off." She doesn't face the evils of the world as a some super hero, though; she battles frustration and hopelessness just like the rest of us. "Sadness," she says, "is more or less like a head cold -- with patience it passes. Depression is like cancer." But in the end, Taylor's determination to do what she can to improve the lives of those she loves breaks through, and she does remarkable deeds in the face of great risk. 

Woven in among the plot and inspiration, Kingsolver made me smile to myself as I connected with some of Taylor's experiences. Not only did she pass through towns I know early on in her journey, but she also spoke in a dialect that made me feel right at home. She even quoted little sayings that I've heard a million times in my parents' and grandparents' homes but had never seen in print before. Like some of my friends who'd rather not live in a place where you can see the horizon countless miles away (which my friends know is something I love), Taylor also developed an intense distaste for the Great Plains and all flat ground:

"The sight of it filled me with despair...I had never imagined that any part of a round earth could be so flat. In Kentucky you could never see too far, since there were always mountains blocking the other side of your view, and it left you the chance to think something good might be just over the next hill. But out there on the plain it was all laid out right in front of you, and no matter how far you looked it didn't get any better."

"I believe that flat places are quieter than hilly ones. The sounds of the cars on the highway seemed to get sucked straight out over the empty fields where there was nothing, not even a silo, to stop them from barreling on forever into the night."

Taylor and Turtle even live with a roommate and her son, which is somewhat similar to my situation. Some of their escapades sounded all too familiar, and the friendship that develops between them undoubtedly did.

Without hesitation, I recommend The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible as well. Kingsolver is an excellent story teller and has a wonderfully unique way with words.

Chinese Adventure! Final Installment: Shanghai

Our last city on our tour of China was Shanghai, and we spent about a day and a half there. Driving into the city was awesome -- even the poorest areas didn't appear very poor at all. Everywhere more skyscrapers were popping up before our eyes, and Yoko told us that wasn't much of an exaggeration; most of the city was built up from rice patties in the last twenty years.

Bottle Opener from the ground

Our first stop was the World Financial Center, also known as the Bottle Opener. It's the second tallest building in the world, measuring an impressive 492 meters high, and we traveled to the 100th floor (out of 101) for a bird's eye view of Shanghai. We began in a room with 5 or 6 feet tall digital numbers on the ceiling, counting down something that we were never informed of.

Next we traveled 435 meters high in a large elevator with a light show that made me wonder if we were being brainwashed.  

 We then took a very steep escalator up to a stark white floor (where I expected to see a mad scientist walk out in an equally-white lab coat) whose only apparent purpose was to hold tourists waiting to take the next elevator, smaller this time, to our final destination. The 100th floor is 474 meters high and is made completely of glass, giving an excellent view of the city and miles (and miles) beyond.

Looking out at the city made me feel like we were playing Monopoly -- huge sections of building, what appeared to me like apartment complexes, looked identical from the sky, and it felt like we should be able to pick them up and move them to Boardwalk to win the whole game. We could see how the city has grown up around the rivers, and how the skyscrapers have taken over a large portion of the riverbank. Because the floor is made of glass, we could also see straight down; the 100th floor sits right on top of the "bottle opener" opening, so we had an excellent view of the streets and buildings right below us.

Click for full view

Looking through the floor

Click for full view

My favorite picture from the Bottle Opener

Monopoly Time!

 My favorite picture was one I took as a reflection. The ceiling had an excellent reflection, so I was able to get a picture of me (taking the picture, at the bottom of the frame) and the buildings behind/below us.

A TV Station

Click for full view

 


Shanghai seemed much more influenced by Western countries, which makes sense considering its history with both import and export trade. We saw many more signs of home, including 7 Eleven and the YMCA.

 As the daughter of a retired Department of Transportation employee, I was very impressed with their highway system. In some places, there were 5 levels of highway stacked on top of each other.

 

Karaoke!

That afternoon, we spent a bit of time at a local karaoke; it was very different than karaoke here at home. We rented the entire room, complete with the microphones and TV showing the music videos and lyrics. We had quite the time, and my kids were quite surprised by the number of songs I knew, too.
















After another traditional dinner on the lazy susan, we attended the Shanghai Acrobatics Performance. The acrobats were amazing -- some balanced items, others balanced themselves; some threw items, others were thrown. Some were even contortionists, and they were able to create images that none of us could believe were actually happening.

The next day -- our final day in China -- held only a few sites for us but much shopping. First we visited the Jade Buddha Temple, where we took in the beautiful art and witnessed more people practicing their faith.

View from the Temple

One of the Temple buildings

Silkworms

 We then took a tour of a silk factory, where we watched women carefully separating silkworm cocoons and weaving them together to create strands and, in the end, beautiful pillows, blankets, handkerchiefs, and more.

Nan Jing Road

Seafood bowl & "Green" Tea

 We then traveled to Nan Jing Road, which made me think of Chicago's Magnificent Mile. For blocks, expensive brand-name stores lined the streets, and every now and then a cheaper store would fill a nook or cranny. Paul and I chose our lunch restaurant because it offered a seafood bowl, which we sought out since we were on the river's delta. I thought I ordered a milk tea, but something tells me that the green drink that tasted like vegetables (very spinach-like) wasn't really what I had wanted. The seafood, though, was amazing -- excellent flavor and incredibly tender, not like the chewy type we get here in the Midwest.







Our next stop was the Yuyuan Garden, created by a government official for his parents over 450 years ago. The architecture is beautiful; the fish ponds and landscaping are absolutely tranquil. Once inside, one might never guess she is smack dab in the middle of one of the most populated cities in the world.  

Dragon Statue

The Yuyuan Market

Just outside the garden wall is the Yuyuan Bazaar, which is a market with countless shops and an unbelievable spectrum of types of goods for sale. Jackie, our tour guide, made sure that we understood that we would get what we paid for -- if an item's price seemed too good to be true, the item probably had very little value to begin with. He encouraged us to bargain (haggle, if you will) for everything in the market, beginning at no more than half the original price. My students had a ball with this; my two girls especially loved working the price down and bragging about their wonderful skills. I was able to purchase single tea cups from a reputiable tea house for an excellent price because they were extras left over from sets already sold. As our sales clerk wrapped them for me, Paul and I realized the paper she was using had math problems on it, so we stopped her for a moment to see what she was using. We were astonished to see that she was ripping out pages from an American SAT prep book, and she'd simply reached the math section of the text. Paul and I, in true math-teacher fashion, calculated the answers on one page while she finished ringing me up, and thankfully our answers were correct when we checked them with the answer key. The sales clerk thought we were rather humorous, and she gave me an extra sheet from the book as a keepsake. Paul, one of our students, and I then continued to meander throughout the Bazaar, walking within crowds of people and fending off sales clerks who were always ready to convince you that the item you just picked up -- even the item you merely glanced at -- would make all of your dreams come true. I was able to purchase two beautiful bracelets, bargained down to just less than half of their original price simply by repeatedly insisting that I didn't really need or want the piece. While it was true that I didn't need the pieces, I did in fact want them because I'd seen many Chinese women wearing ones just like them, so I apparently have a better poker face than I once thought.

The three of us ended our trip to the Bazaar with a purchase at the Dairy Queen; I had a chocolate dipped ice cream cone. Now, I've found that telling some people back here at home this detail just produces a look that says, "You went all the way to Shanghai and ate at a DQ?" My response is this: YES! You see, having grown up in SmallTown, USA, Dairy Queen was the only fast food restaurant in my hometown until about the year 2000. To be able to go from that SmallTown and travel to the other side of the world and have the same chocolate dipped cone that I once had as a 7 year old -- it represents so much. On one hand, it was a cheesy connection, a way of saying that some things transcend cultural boundaries and the Pacific. But on the other, it was a sign of how far I've come; the 7-year-old me would have never dreamed of going to China, of standing -- no, hiking -- the Great Wall, had never even heard of the Terra Cotta Warriors, and had no idea fortune cookies were an American construct. But twenty years later, there I stood, eating the same ice cream cone, and doing all those wonderfully not-so-impossible things. I can think of no better way to celebrate our last day in China.

Seeing Pudong

We ended our afternoon with a trip to the Bund to take in the beautiful Shanghai skyline along the river. On the east side, the most recent skyscrapers, including the Bottle Opener, dominated the horizon; on the west stood buildings created by Western foreigners as a result of the Opium Wars in the late nineteenth century. Yet again, an unbelievable juxtaposition -- old versus new, modern versus traditional. We stood on the west side, known as Puxi (literally, "West of the Huangpu River" and pronounced Pooshi), looking across the water to Pudong ("East of the Huangpu River"), next to the Monument to the People's Heroes. (Yes, it's the same name as a monument in Tiananmen Square.)

Monument

The Puxi side -- clear Western influence

After our final dinner in China -- crusted beef, scrambled eggs, noodles, a fish that was wholly in tact, and many other standard dishes of meat in sauce, rice, and veggies -- we prepared for our final excursion: a night cruise along the Huangpu River. While Jackie collected our tickets, we stood on the sidewalk, huddled together as more and more street vendors literally circled around us, shouting not-so-persuasive calls to buy their goods. Paul dubbed these vendors the piranhas, but we were glad to see these piranhas had an attention problem; once they realized none of us were buying, they quickly dispersed. Then it was onto the cruise boat, to see the city all lit up. Jackie told us several times that day that the view would be, "red hot," and it was exactly that. All of the buildings, in both Pudong and Puxi, gave a spectacular lights display of all colors and designs. I stood on the second story of the cruise ship to take pictures as we traveled toward the ocean before moving inside to the sitting room as we traveled back up the river.

Pudong

A bit of home...

Puxi

Puxi

Old Puxi (left) & new Pudong (right)

The Staircase of the Cruise Ship

The ship's sitting room

Click to see full panoramic

 The cruise was a fantastic way to finish the trip -- calm, beautiful, and yet another excellent juxtaposition of all the facets of China, its culture, and its people.

And with that, our tour of China was over. We packed up, left our beautiful hotel early the next morning, and caught our 14 hour flight back to Detroit. The five of us sat in Detroit for over six hours waiting for our flight to Chicago, over two hours longer than we'd originally anticipated. It felt ironic that we were so very close to home compared to where we'd been, and yet we had no way of just going home. We slept off and on at the gate, and our first meal back in the States was a huge cheeseburger at Fudruckers. It seemed apropos at the time. By the time we finally made it to my doorstep at 11:30 that night, we'd had a 36-hour day. The next day I spent hours telling my family all about the trip and showing them the 1300+ pictures, and it took me more days that I'd like to admit to get over the jet lag.

All in all, it was an amazing, fantastic trip, one I will never forget and one that I love telling people about.