Yunnan

After reading countless novels, poems, and plays, I had never truly understood the impact of being an individual in the community. Each literary work has brought to light both the positives and the negatives of being an individual within the community. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress taught me that isolation should be a motivator to rise above those who discourage you. Despite her captivating beauty, Luo and the narrator deem that Seamstress is uncivilized due to her lack of knowledge. Luo describes her as “not civilized, at least not enough for me!” (Dai 27). Living in the mountains has prevented the Seamstress from having access to the modern knowledge of the boys, creating an intellectual barrier between them. However, once she begins to learn about the works of Balzac, the Seamstress develops a newfound desire for learning. She learns that “a woman’s beauty is a treasure beyond price,” (Dai 184) and chooses to leave the mountains behind and head to the city to learn more about life. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes From the Underground focuses on the negative aspects of being an individual in the community. The Underground Man, possessing different views from his community, lives his life as an outcast who yearns for somewhere to belong. He has an unparalleled desire for affection and a very deep level of insecurity. While at the dinner with former classmates, he became very upset because “no one paid any attention to me, and I sat crushed and humiliated,” (Dostoevsky…

All attempts at control, both governmentally and individually, prove to be ineffective. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the narrator illustrated how the governmental re-education turned out to work against its intended purpose, as the most significant things he learned while living in the mountain village was through illegal literature. He and Lou were unable to be controlled by the government in this way, and were also not constrained when Four Eyes withheld his ‘forbidden books’…

Jason Gustafson Mrs. Gauthier ELA2: Pre-AP 17 September 2015 To Stay or to Be Shortly Forgotten? Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress written by Dai Sijie should continue to be included in the tenth grade curriculum since it investigates different cultures, has realistic, well-developed characters, and features real world problems. Looking to expand the horizons of tenth graders, the novel is set in China upon a remote mountain during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and carries an…

In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Seamstress, the story’s theme of the beauty of storytelling, the importance of individualism and the irony of reeducation are formed through the combination of characters and events. In the story, only Luo is named throughout the course of the story. The reason is because he has much greater influence on the people than any of the unnamed character. Luo has a great impact on most people in the countryside by his storytelling talents and his title as a great…

With the honor to serve my country, on August 6, 1942, I Fern Tegrootenhula, left Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, and headed to Camp Grant, Illinois, for my two months basic training. During the training, we completed a 5-day field exercise in which we marched to the maneuver areas, and set up field kitchens, sleeping in pup tents. In addition, we worked with simulated casualties of all types which, helped by providing experience in diagnosis, and, treatment, including the transportation of patients…

In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Luo and the Little Seamstress began a relationship together very quickly after the two met. Despite the pair connecting on a physical level, it would appear that the Little Seamstress may be hiding things from Luo. One obvious example is the snakebite which the Little Seamstress receives when diving for Luo’s keys. The Little Seamstress describes, “when I reached out to grab it I felt a stinging blow to my right hand: a snapping of jaws, fierce, and…

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress thoughtfully and eloquently expresses the power of the written word in the lives of those previously so unconcerned with it. No scene so accurately portrays that theme more than the burning of the books by Luo. In this passage, Sijie reaches the audience and heightens distress caused by the destroyed novels, highlighting the significance of the act. Hypnotizing imagery, commanding diction, and surreal personification all lend to the poignant depiction of…

The transformative power of literature is the central theme of Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. In the novel, the narrator and Luo are sent to a mountain village known as the Pheonix of the Sky to be reeducated in the cultural revolution. The boys have a friend named four eyes, who possesses a suitcase full of forbidden books. These books are forbidden in China at the time because of Chairman Mao's Cultural revolution. When Four Eyes is about to leave the mountain village,…

In both Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Catcher in the Rye, time and place influence societal standards of success and correct behavior, thus, effecting characters’ development of identity through determining their perception of an adequate life style. In Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, it is the 1970’s in China. At this time, Western books are illegal. Nevertheless, the narrator and Luo steal Four-eye’s suitcase. Reflecting on this, the narrator writes, “Following our…

Cross Border Trade Situation of Thailand. The report demonstrates important routes where Thailand use for facilitating goods to the top three trade destinations, Southern China, Vietnam and Singapore. Among these three important destinations, two of them, Southern China and Vietnam, require a passing roads through Lao’s territory which consist of Six routes for cross border trading to Southern China (1) By Northern Khong river - Lao PDR - Myanmar - Yunnan, China ; (2) By R3A route from Chiang…