In the distance, a crowd of people walk along the road with heavy footsteps. With the sounds drumming closer, she glances out the window at the wide steel gate and at once realizes that the guests were not the usual friendly neighbors offering food or the kind salespeople trying to sell a product. Instead they were Japanese soldiers wearing green uniforms, carrying a bayonet on one hand and a Japanese flag on the other. They break the wooden door and march into her house, heading towards the stairs to destroy the house from top to bottom. Immediately the caretaker’s baby begins to cry. She runs over to carry her and together they hide under the dinner table. Before long, she beings to cry with her and the screeching cries startle the soldiers. At the foot of the staircase, the soldiers start talking in Japanese and one points to the door. In an instant they leave and the children stop crying, sniffling and gasping for breath. The mothers, unaware of what had happened until they had heard the cries, come downstairs and embrace their children.

“It was life-changing. Looking back on it now, I was really scared I was going to die but I was lucky the baby and I started crying,” my grandmother, Mu Juan Huang, reminisces about her frightening encounter with the soldiers. The soldiers’ intentions were not to kill, but to intimidate the people and destroy the house to obtain firewood to make dinner. There had been rumors, no, facts, that most young men were captured to do strenuous labor and women were captured as a source of entertainment and pleasure. Because of this, women smeared dirt on their faces to make themselves less than appealing. My grandmother’s older sisters and brothers left the area to avoid being captured and tortured by the Japanese, leaving only my grandmother’s mother and her in the house. “The experience was traumatizing”, she adds, smiling at the thought of being uninjured and alive.

“The Japanese were so superstitious,” she chuckles. When the soldiers heard the children crying, they quickly left and tore down the house next door. The Japanese believed that the cries would chase away good luck and fortune and therefore did not persist in ruining my grandmother’s house. The house was grand, unusual for an impoverished family that grew up in a provincial farm village. To my grandmother, the house symbolized everything and nothing. It was the only thing that her family had. The house was evidence of her grandfather’s hard work in America. He had made enough money in America to build a house back in China to shelter his family. Each month he would bring several cans of salmon to his family.

She ate the salmon, savoring and remembering the taste forever. As a child, she had admired her grandfather for coming to America to make a living as an immigrant. She became exposed to what she thought as good food and saw his financial success. After the death of her grandfather and the abandonment of the house, she arrives in America and looks for the same delicious taste of salmon that she had tasted decades ago. After her daughters were employed and money started circulating at home, she bought loads of canned salmon to find and recreate the same taste but never found it. Her daughters say, “Because you were impoverished you thought it was really good but now after coming to America, you are no longer in poverty, so you cannot find the same taste.”

Today she lives with her daughters, son, and grandchildren. When her children went to make money to support the mortgage, food, furniture and family expenses, she took care of her three grandchildren who were born within 13 months. She taught them to be well-mannered and kind, yet aggressive and confident. She never hit them or scolded them when they got in trouble; instead, she made them stand against the wall for what seemed like hours on end to repent for their mistakes. As my sisters, cousins, and I grew up, we constantly heard the story of how my grandmother was directly involved with the Japanese when she was 6 years old, how she treasured the house that her grandfather worked so hard to build and maintain, how she came to America hoping for success and how she disciplined us to be better people. Today, the house still stands in China. After the Japanese left China, the Communists dominated and took control of one-half of the house, leaving the other half for her family. My parents tell me that life was cruel at the time; poverty flourished in my grandmother’s native village of Sun Woi in the Guangdong province of China.

Each week, my grandma would throw in an ancient Chinese proverb that my older sister, cousin and I have never heard. The most recent adage she told me was “A book holds a house of gold.” Another included “Perseverance can reduce an iron rod to a sewing needle.” Over time, these sayings interminably buzzed in my ear and I learned to understand what they meant. “Study hard and get a better future”. “Success is won through long-term commitment and diligent effort sustained over time.” From these proverbs, I strove to do well in school, persevere through life’s strenuous obstacles, apprize and spend time with my loved ones and embrace my identity as part of two cultures. No matter what I do or where I go, I will always keep these Sundays and proverbs in mind, as well as my Grandma. I respect her for the struggles she has gone through and the life she had lived in China. Through her past experiences in China as a young child and her present experiences in America as a parent and grandmother, I have come to realize who she is – a strong woman with multiple roles.

There is a circle of American pictures and items placed around the center of my heart. Around the circle of American items, I have another circle of Chinese items. I purposely positioned my collage this way because I feel that I am closer to American culture than to Chinese culture. The shape of my entire collage is of a circle because of the shape of the symbolic ying-yang to represent peace and the unity of both cultures incorporated into my identity.

Although I was born here, the presence and habits of my family remind me of my roots – of where I come from. My family is very traditional and possesses qualities of the stereotypical Asian family. Every weekend, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents gather and wait in crowded and bustling dim sum restaurants to hopefully grab a table big enough to seat everyone, hence the pictures of dim sum, tea, food, and chopsticks. Meanwhile, every Sunday, my family and I make it a habit to eat an American dinner like pizza. Clothes also differ between the cultures. Although as a child I have been forced to wear the traditional bright red clothing, I have only agreed to it once. However, I do admire the beautifully detailed dresses and elaborate ch’ang-p’ao’s that women wore in ancient China. We celebrate holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, holidays that my parents have come to adopt, and Chinese New Year, a holiday I always look forward to.

Despite the differences in holidays, clothes, food, and language, I still embrace both American and Chinese values as en entity. Like the ying-yang, both cultures mesh into one to create my identity and overcome my very own cultural encounter.

The “Magical Wand” may sound like a cheesy attempt to sell the wand that Daniel Radcliffe used in Harry Potter. However, made of hippopotamus ivory in Egypt, this wand incorporates detailed artwork of mythical creatures and deities such as Taweret and Bes. The inscription reads “protection by night and protection by day” to refer to the journey that the sun god makes. Divine kings protect him while he is traveling over the sky by day and through the underworld by night. When placed in a tomb, this wand was also believed to help the deceased adult to be resurrected at sunrise. Not only was the wand used to protect the sun god, it was also believed to protect sleeping infants.

Although we cannot travel through time to experience the artwork and beauty of the era In Babylon, the Met brought the past to the present instead. Through these artifacts, we are able to understand the trade, manufacture, and beliefs of society in Byblos.

Dance is difficult to interpret and is subjective to each viewer. However, it can be interpreted in so many ways and by so many different people that it becomes a visual sensation to watch. At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn’s all-female Urban Bush Woman and Senegal’s all-male Compagnie Jant-Bi performed a thrilling show titled Les écailles de la Mémoire, in other words, The Scales of Memory.

The cast emerges towards the audience to the sound of calm waves slapping against the rocks. Several kneel and bow and others follow. One starts listing the names of past generations and within minutes, other voices of names overlap, creating a confusing jumble of names and words. These names proved to be the least confusing since we later discover that a native form of language is spoken. As each scene of interpretive dance ended, a new one began, like memories that faded and appeared. Although I could not fully understand and grasp the meaning of some scenes, they were still enjoyable in that the movements were graceful and fleeting; their jumps and pivots seemed effortless, especially when a woman lifted a fellow male dancer while portraying a love scene. I do admit however that I could not keep my eyes open at few parts of the show. A group of several men gracefully jump on stage and take off their red shirts. Collectively, they dance in sync to West African music and rhythm making the stage look like a kaleidoscope of the colors black and red. Along with the beat of the tribal music, the men create sounds with the clap of their hands and the stomps of their bare feet. At times, the dances were humorous and flirtatious, playing around the concept of courting and romance, when both sexes coupled with partners and danced to the slow music in their own unique way.

Les écailles de la Mémoire was different from other performances that I have seen throughout my exposure to the arts. It was a show that communicated itself through dance and movements that connected the human body to the mind. Prior to watching the performance, I had assumed the performance to be somewhat like a musical and due to the casts’ style and technique, it proved not to be. Instead it was an unusual but unique style of physical and flexible demonstration of the body.

Most memoirs and stories of family history may encounter the same problem – the need to invent or manipulate the facts to complete the story. Freedman’s succeeds in what he believes – to be as true as possible and if done accurately and honestly, readers would be able to connect to the story by relating their own experiences and recognizing aspects of themselves. Though his intention was to search for his mother’s life, he hoped to also connect with people who are immigrants or children of immigrants. Writing the book was a form of therapy to heal Freedman’s grief for his mother. In writing and publishing his book, he succeeded in making sense of his and his mother’s past.

When asked about writing biographies, Freedman responded with “ordinary lives are filled with extraordinary drama”. He finds inspecting ordinary lives far more interesting than writing about famous people in the limelight. In exploring his mother’s past, he delved into photographs, newspapers, music, and magazines of the specific time period to soak the ambience and bridge the time gap. Along with these materials, he also contacted people who knew his mother, spending four years compiling information to find his mother’s “drama”. If his mother were alive, she would have been proud and satisfied with her son who had felt remorse and spent time trying to find her past. He had only cherished his mother after her death, and even then he had only grasped her presence and past. This goes to show that we must treasure each moment spent with loved ones so we do not regret what could have been when loved ones are gone.

At first I thought it would be a simple task. How hard could photography be? Little did I know that photography was actually harder than I thought. My biggest problem was that I had difficulty choosing a theme. I have always taken pictures of auspicious occasions, family and friends, landscapes and pretty objects. Therefore, doing this project was actually new to me because I would have to go looking for pictures to match up to my theme. After compiling about 200 pictures that I took and leafing through each one, I realized that most of my pictures related to one theme: people struggling to cope with everyday life for everyday living. With the amount of pictures I took in the subway and in the streets, I came up with the title I have because of the correlation between people trying to make a living on the streets and those doing the same underground but in a different way.

At the beginning, I decided to spend a day walking around New York City looking for random photographs, and hopefully, inspiration. I started in my Bensonhurst neighborhood and came upon graffiti on the wall of a run-down building situated next to the train station. I took a photograph of this, which I used on the first slide of my PowerPoint presentation as an introduction. It is a drawing of a bowl of alphabet soup in which the words “art is significance, not appearance” surfaced signed by MM. I remembered that last year as I was walking past the same place, I saw another drawing on the floor signed by Marcus Motion. I admire the art he draws but wonder what made him think this way. I believe that art is both significance and appearance. Not only is art based on the impression it leaves on its viewers, but it also is significance in that there is always a reason or story behind every piece of artwork. That is why I used this photograph to start off my project.

For my next location, I traveled via the MTA transit system to 34^th street and did not have to pay for transportation thanks to the handy unlimited Metrocard. As I was walking between doors, transferring between trains, and dodging people everywhere, I heard music echoing throughout the station as the trains left. My ears led me to a man playing three different wooden instruments that I cannot name due to my poor knowledge of musical instruments. However, all I knew was that it sounded peaceful and smooth amidst the bustling rush of everything that was happening in the 34^th street subway stop. Besides providing soothing music, he was also trying very hard to earn money at the same time. I took a photograph of this man and used it in my project. This photograph is titled “Three at Once.”

My next destination was Chinatown where I took many of my photos. My favorite photograph from Chinatown is the one titled “Making a Living.” Every time I get out of the train station, I take the same route along Canal Street to get to places, and each time I do, I always see an elderly man selling hair accessories on the corner of a street, rain or shine. I felt bad for the man, who has to suffer even at an old age and try to make some money from his items. Sometimes, I buy items from his because I feel bad.

Another one of my favorite photographs is the one titled “NYU Tuition Fund” which I took on 8^th Street. The man was begging for money, not for hunger or shelter, but for tuition for NYU. Surprisingly, many people approached him while I was watching. In the photograph, a woman was talking to him about her major and two other women approached him to offer him soup. I especially like the lighting that makes the eyes focus more attention on the two people in the photo as opposed to the dark background.

I enjoyed walking around and clicking my camera away because I was able to catch some interesting photos. However, I admit I did have some problems with photography. After I chose a subject for my photos, I was afraid to take them head-on because it would seem as if I was invading their privacy. Furthermore if the subject of my photos was a crowd as compared to a single person, I would not ask because to me, single subjects seemed more intimidating. Therefore, for most of my photographs, I asked the subjects if I could photograph them. All of them gave me their consent and only then would I feel unburdened. I had difficulty approaching them at times, but after many trials, I became accustomed to it.  I also realized that having a camera at hand all the time is actually very convenient because I can capture those special moments in time that will never happen again as time passes. To me, photography is capturing a paused moment in life and in this project, I felt like a real photographer.

Frances Richey seems like the typical mother. She is the mother of a Green Beret and feels like most mothers would feel – concerned and distressed because her son’s life constantly faces perilous situations, especially during war time. After her son, Ben, decided to be a soldier and serve in Iraq, she filled the void in her life by writing a collection of poems that portrayed her feelings to his being a soldier in an attempt to reestablish the mother-son relationship.
The reading started off with a poem in which she made a comparison between her son in Iraq and the Aztec Empire exhibit of the Guggenheim in 2004. She praises her son in that even though Ben was a soldier, he was also very much like a warrior during the Aztec civilization. In each poem she read from her book called “The Warrior”, Richey expressed the consistent emotion of worry that she might never be able to see her son again. According to her, writing poems was her way of coping with the physical absence of her son. My favorite poem was “Waiting”, in which the mother and son had a brief connection despite the physical boundary. When she was praying here at home, he thought he had seen her in Iraq with him. Richey even claims that she “would know even if he died” at the other end of the world. Richey’s brief comparisons and juxtapositions of the different time zones here and in Iraq goes to show that although they are separated physically, they are still connected spiritually.  As her son was being deployed in Iraq, writing was her way of praying.
Richey’s philosophy is “poetry is really rhythm and sound”. What matters to Richey is not what others think but that Ben can understand her feelings and thoughts. To Richey, reading her words aloud was like “getting in touch with [her] own music”. Not only did Richey’s musical collection of poems bridge the distance between her and Ben, but it also reached out to other military moms who is still currently feeling the same way while waiting for a loved one to return.

“Come inside, open up your ears up wide” to hear the story of a derelict 17-year old boy named Clifford who flees from his dysfunctional “family” and finds a home in the arms of Sir John and hip-hop. “Clay”, the one-man hip-hop musical held at the Duke on 42nd Street, certainly broke the traditional and ordinary mindset of a classic musical. Written and performed by Matt Sax, “Clay” opened its curtains with the night that Clifford is performing his major debut as a hip-hop performer. At once, we can see that this play twists time as it is loaded with flashbacks.

Although the storyline is rather predictable, it is also relevant in some cases. Children do experience the psychological effects of parental divorces as Clifford did at the tender age of 7. When his father remarries and Clifford gets a stepmother, he runs in the streets of Brooklyn to find a sanctuary. Somewhat expectantly, he runs into a bookstore where Sir John is performing. With hip-hop as his saving grace, Clifford learns to deal with his residential problems but realizes he cannot escape his past.

Matt Sax is certainly talented, even though young, as he successfully takes on the role of 5 different people. He is Clifford, the timid and nervous boy who stammers as he speaks and is the father, a sarcastic businessman who only uses Clifford as a pawn in his fight against his wife. At the same time, he is also the mother, who is a smoke addict and commits suicide, and Sir John, Clifford’s mentor and hip-hop teacher. The fact that he acted these different personalities without a change in costume or makeup is already an impressive feat. All he needs is a hooded sweater, his voice, and his face. Mr. Sax’s mouth as a musical instrument is another talent to praise. His catchy rhythms and admirable beat boxing stir the audience into laughter as he provides a humorous remix of Britney Spears or Michael Jackson. Not only is his costume simple, but the stage is unadorned as well. All the stage provides is a backdrop of stacks of books and curtains to reveal each act.

Some parts were rather graphic however. For instance, Mr. Sax went into much detail by reenacting the sexual tension between Clifford and his stepmother. In addition to this, Sax unnecessarily jumps off the stage to rap to women in the front row of the audience, startling a young woman such as myself. Despite these dispensable and unnecessary actions, “Clay” proved to be a captivating performance as it stole my attention the entire time, more so because of Sax’s skill in beat-boxing. Matt Sax is a compelling young talent and is definitely someone to look out for.

The photography of Susan Meiselas captures the political conflicts and struggles in Central America during the 1970s and 80s. What is so great about her collections is her portrayal of the struggles of her subjects. Her images seem to reconstruct history and trigger the memory of those who feel connected to the time period of the subjects.
Meiselas traveled to many places to photograph her subjects. At the age of 24, Meiselas traveled throughout New England and was extremely interested in photographing women who earned their living by performing in girl shows for carnivals hence naming her first book, Carnival Strippers, in 1976. Later in 1981, she published Nicaragua in which she captured the escalating civil war that was erupting in Nicaragua. In 2004, she returned to Nicaragua to follow-up on the aftermath of the political disruption and display mural-sized photographs to reestablish history.
One of her photos from this collection that particularly caught my attention was the photograph with a young female child in pink who stands atop the rubble that was once her home. Titled “Returning Home,” this photo was taken in Masaya in 1978 when she returns home to find it destroyed. Debris is scattered around her as she holds dusty pans and stares into the camera with a torn and disturbed visage.
Separated from her collection of political conflicts, a photo titled “End of the Road” caught my attention because of it’s solace and loneliness from the world around it. From the series called “Porch Portraits” in 1974, the photo captures in the vast distance a desolate house with one tree at each side. The house sits seemingly in the middle of nowhere and is isolated from life. Moreover, the despondent and cloudy atmosphere amplifies the melancholy and dismal feeling of loneliness.

As you walk across the glistening White Sands desert in central New Mexico, you would never have imagined that a historic event had happened there 63 years ago. You pick up a green, glassy substance. What lies on your hand is trinitite, evidence of the first atomic explosion. What happened here, the events that lead to the detonation, and the psychological fear and stress of those involved in the Manhattan Project is the subject of the opera “Doctor Atomic” with dramatic music by John Adams and a libretto by Peter Sellars. Doctor Atomic brilliantly revived the historic yet modern event that marked mankind’s highest ambitions and deepest fears.

The opening scenes take place at Los Alamos, the headquarters of the Manhattan Project, two weeks before the test. The following scenes take place on the night of July 15^th and 16^th, in the hours leading up to the detonation. One major leading character was Robert J. Oppenheimer, the American physicist who oversaw and directed the project to create the world’s first nuclear weapon, a weapon that even struck fear in its creators. “I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” Oppenheimer once said when the bomb went off.

As the curtains unfolded, the stage and props were cleverly positioned and not what I expected. Each character occupied a cubical area that had shades on which portraits were revealed – the faces and names of the thousands of experts who were involved in the project. Behind those shades were the actual actors. The concept of a small cubicle certainly pertained to how each scientist felt at the time of the bomb’s creation. Each was assigned a job and worked day and night. At times, they threw their papers to the floor below them, creating a chaotic and turbulent atmosphere that I could imagine.

I admit that at some parts I was a bit confused, especially when the characters in each cubicle made interesting acrobatic positions. What really puzzled me was the finale, which basically was a prolonged moment before the bomb detonated. On stage, the entire cast crowded together while crouching on one knee, wearing tinted glasses, and staring into the audience. Although I anticipated an extraordinary explosion on the stage, I disappointedly realized that the audience was the actual bomb. The visual effect of the explosion of the bomb was literally blinding. The backdrop of a white sheet reflected the blazing light and illuminated the entire theater. This light signified the actual occurrence of the bomb’s explosion, a historic moment that stirred 20^th century science and proved the advancement of the United States’ scientific power.