Performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Urban Bush women displayed African American culture and traditions as well as the struggle that came with African Diaspora, migration of Africans to America and later on to the world, through expressive dance performances. For many members of the audience like me, it was difficult to understand the story of the dance performance.  Only in the end did I realize that there was no plot. Without sufficient introduction in the beginning of the performance, Urban Bush women confused its audience.

Instead of focusing on the theme of the performance, I decided to look at the dancers, persuading myself that it was not as dull as it seemed. Penetrating on the struggle of many Africans, the facial expression of the dancers matched the tension of African descendants, battling to accept the heritage and adjust to the new culture. For the most part of the performance, individual performances weren’t as fluent as group performances. The female dancers were often times too dramatic in their interpretations of the meaning of tension. To show internal conflict, the female dancer did not have to show the contortion of arms and wild movements.

Though I felt I was exposed to a different genre of dancing performance, the Urban Bush Women did not affect me. I would recommend the dance performance to people who wanted to see the dance techniques. But the theme of the performance was no where to be found.

The theme of my collage is childhood. Though I came to America when I was 11 years old, I still have fresh memories of my childhood in China. What I remember the most was the old culture of China that helped to shape the person I am today, especially my elementary school. Separated from my parents, I lived in the city alone for the four years before I came to America.

In my collage, I chose to include the old Chinese reading textbook used for elementary school students. Though the textbooks today have become more standardized, the textbooks I used were artistic and more descriptive of the learning topics. The old textbooks also served as communist propaganda because most of the topics in them were memoirs of soldiers who sacrificed their life during the Chinese revolution. The old textbooks also included a fabricated role model “Lei Fun” who was used to promote philanthropy. I also had a multi-functional pencil box that had a pencil sharpener, erase, mini calculator, and ruler. I remembered that I purchased one of those on the collage for one yuan.

Pledging to be loyal to the party and reciting the little handbook, I was among many of my classmates who were granted the right to wear the red neck scarf. The red scarf symbolized the first time I was labeled as a communist. I hated the red neck scarf because I would always lose it. I bought a hundred of them over the course of three years in elementary school. We also had a bureaucracy in school, where everyone was in the same class until graduation. For every month, a group of ten students were required to present a theme on the blackboard, placed in the back of the classroom. I was assigned to write all the Chinese characters on the blackboard, though later on I was criticized for my rusty penmanship. Though I was timid in class, I would be punished by my teachers and told to write a sentence 100 times after school.

In leisure time, I would play marbles with my classmates. While the students today are more occupied with their electronic devices, my classmates and I never were more involved in physical activities such as badminton. The cotton candy in the collage was worth approximately 5o fen  It was inexpensive and the seller never needed extra customers because it was popular around school.

All these memories from elementary school in China are permanent reminders to me that I lived a life which many people today in America have never experienced.

My cousin (left), her daughter (center), and her husband (right).

May 17, 1988.
On the morning of Xiao Yan Li’s (李小燕) eighteenth birthday, the air, diffusing through the opaque windows, was as hot and suffocating as normal. There were no signs of celebration. Not even a tinge of love did she feel, as she watched her mother, preparing her younger brother and sister for school. She envied their boiled eggs and new school uniforms. Soon, she was bored at the sight of it, for she knew that she would never be treated the same and that going to school was just a dream. For many mornings and nights, she had thought about the same fantasy of going to school, meeting new friends, and reaching above the low ceiling of her potential. But she now quit, for it was no longer a dream of a teenager girl. She had finally become an adult, and her dreams and wishes had now all been shattered and destroyed into millions of pieces. She was angry and hateful, not toward her parents who had lost affection since she was born, but toward herself and the harshness of the reality.

At noon Xiao Yan was in a room all by herself, the only time without cold supervision and bitter sarcasm from her mother. At the age of eighteen, she became a professional needlewoman and a dispassionate working machine. She was working tirelessly in the house. Though she earned fifteen yuans a day, she never had a penny in her pocket. Her parents would use all the money to provide for their family. An old neighbor came by the door that day, as usual, and brought in more clothes for her to sew. Xiao Yan did not know how long she must have waited for the delivery. Seeing the neighbor at the door comforted her. It became an illusion that for a moment, she was ordinary. Soon the neighbor left the front door, and her life went back to reality. For the next six hours of her life she would only be dedicated to sewing, free of mind, body, and dreams. Xiao Yan looked at the locked refrigerator and front door– tears oozing down her cheeks and penetrating through her rugged clothing. Looking at her scarred hand, she wondered how long she could bear her isolation from the outside world.

Xiao Yan had never left the house for the past few years, partially because she was albino. Her permanent white hair and crossed eyes at the time of birth had humiliated the parents and reminded them of this shameful memory everyday whenever they caught the sight of her. Her mother had even suggested to Xiao Yan’s grandmother to drown Xiao Yan when she was still an infant. Though the grandmother later persuaded the mother to raise the young Xiao Yan herself, she was sent back to her mother once she was capable of babysitting her siblings. For the parents, locking her in the house was the best option for them to hide the fact from the public. Often relatives would come to the house, and Xiao Yan would hide upstairs. She, too, was embarrassed by her frightful physical appearance.

Later that night, the parents came home arguing downstairs. Five more hours and Xiao Yan would become eighteen. She had never expected her parents to buy a cake for her after all these years ignoring her existence. Still, she hoped the mother would allow her to cook herself a noodle soup with red colored egg. She never recaptured that same hope again after the mother ran upstairs. Without explanation, she started beating Xiao Yan. “Because of you, my husband looks down on me,” the mother screamed in anger. What was left of her, after the beating, was a young girl without love and passion.

For the next two days, Xiao Yan had no food, and the parents took away all her remaining allowance, fearing that she would escape. On the third day, a neighbor, who saw what happened, gave her 10 yuans. Xiao Yan saw hope from this money, though she did not where she could escape to.  She feared that if she had escaped to a relative’s house, his parents would eventually find her. But she was determined to escape; with 10 Yuan in her hand, anything was possible for her.

At five o’clock in the morning on May 20th, Xiao Yan was prepared to leave the house and her misery behind her. Though she didn’t have any extra clothes or savings on her, 10 Yuan was enough, especially for a desperate young adult who could no longer endure the oppression of mind and body. As she made for the front door, she heard footsteps from upstairs, in the parents’ bedroom. Each footstep came with rising anxiety. After making sure that her father was going to the bathroom upstairs, Xiao Yan opened the front door. It had been a long time since she had inhaled the fresh air. This would be her first journey, alone, to see the world that had almost closed its door on her.

Xiao Yan ran as fast as she could to the harbor, bare footed. Unsure of what her future might be, she boarded the ship to Tang Xia, a town where no one knew her. For the next four years of her life, she spent her time at the Buddhist convent. She was convinced that the world she lived in was meaningless and cruel. She wondered why the siblings who were also albino received better treatment than her. In reality, Xiao Yan did not have the worst physical appearance among her siblings; she was the only one with the burden of misery and rejection.

I knew my cousin Xiao Yan since I was barely able to walk on my own. Prior to interviewing my mother, I never noticed her disability. Not until a few weeks ago did I learn that Xiao Yan’s parents were first cousins. Because of this marriage, Xiao Yan inherited albinism from her grandfather. Though she would bring me home from Kindergarten, she never discussed her life before she started working for my mother, at the age of 24. This memoir helped me to clarify all the disconnected memories I had about my cousin. I had always known the tension between Xiao Yan and her parents, but never understood why she was never invited to any of my aunt’s family celebrations. For the past few years since my family moved to America, my mother still keeps in close contact with her on telephone and gives her financial support.

In the world we live today, we often ignore what is surrounding us, even if it’s free of charge. I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition Art and Love in the Italian Renaissance, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though the Renaissance occurred hundreds of years ago, the values of marriage and family were preserved through the paintings and jewelries at the exhibition. Though I had limited knowledge of the culture during that time period, the exhibition guided me to learn the culture not from words but with my own eyes.

From the Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement, painted by Fra Filippo Lippi, I noticed a common trend among all the paintings. They were not only about the artificial life of the upper class; instead the Italian Renaissance focused on the private life as well the customs of marriage. The portrait of a couple was one of the earliest surviving double portraits, and it emphasized the details of the  clothing of the newlyweds as well as the element of the unknown.  The woman was covered in gold accessories, with the word loyalty placed on her flowing drapery.  Contrasted to the clear usage of the clothing to symbolize the importance of marriage, the portrait left many questions that continued to puzzle me. While the painter placed the woman in the middle of the portrait, he intentionally placed the man in the left corner, with his head sticking out of the window. Though I did not what the painter intended to achieve by placing the woman in the middle, I believed that it represented the fidelity of the wife to the husband. With the wife occupying more space than the husband, I believed that the painter was trying to show that the husband, on the contrary, was unfaithful to the wife. While the wife looked at the husband, he looked away at something else.

With keen observation, I found the paintings at the exhibition to be engaging. For most of my time at the exhibition, I focused on a few paintings and tried to interpret the real essence behind them. I think what makes history special is that we can always have a different interpretation on of it.

How do we find the truth of the past? Visiting the class to share his experience of writing a memoir of his mother, Samuel Freedman was the author of Who She Was. What separated Freedman apart from other guests Professor Bernstein had invited before was the sharpness in his language. He could quickly convert his thoughts into proper language that I began to write down everything he mentioned because they were all clear and useful for my Who She Was project.

With a brief introduction, Freedman shared about why he chose to write a memoir of his mother and, subsequently, learned from it. Freedman knew the struggle of his mother, as someone battling her own health, but he wanted to explore his mother’s past to understand why she had became the person she was and what she had expected herself to be. Though his mother went to college, she eventually had to give up her “ambition to have a profession” to support her family. This piece of information helped Freedman to realize the tremendous disappointment of her mother of “not making those goals.” I think this was what he meant by “universal doesn’t mean writing universal. If you do it right, people will connect to the story.” Though the story he unveiled was his mother’s, people could still connect to the importance of family and financial burden of ordinary people.

According to Freedman, there could never be truth in writing memoir. Different family members had their own view of his mother’s life. What I found unexpected was how the different events we had gone to connected with each other in some shape or form. The director of Waltz with Bashir also commented that memories were not always the truth, but the truth was we wanted to remember.

What I got out of the meeting with Freedman was that through memoir I might discover something that I never expected. In Freedman’s case, he began to realize his misconception of the role his father played in the family and how he struggled from his mother’s suffering. For my own Who She Was memoir, I might just follow his advice to let “the subject choose me.”

Once we make a decision, it’s often too late to change. For Frances Richey, however, she was able to repair her relationship with her son, Ben. I chanced to meet her at the Macaulay Honors event, hosted on the Veterans Day. Though I did not know much about her background, prior to the event, her poems reflected her internal struggle with her son. In a divided family with separate views on politics, Richey struggled to compromise with Ben. After He was deployed to serve at Iraq, Richey began to realize how selfish she was. In her published book, The Warrior, Richey attempted to reconstruct her fractured relationship with her son.

Though I could not recognize her appearance in the basement, I could sense her misery and her disconnection to his son from her subdued voice. She was one of the first few people, I have encountered in life, who was optimistic about her future yet regretful of what she had done. After she recited few of her poems, what gripped my attention was her style of poetry. It was one of those that didn’t rhyme. “The way you did when you were twelve and I was afraid to open the door I’d forgotten to lock. You went in ahead of me.” In her poem “To My Son In Iraq” Richey expressed the bravery of his son to fight the war and how she lacked the confidence. For most of her poems, thought they mainly were addressed to her concerns for Ben, the theme was universal. For families, with someone serving the country, they put their views aside and supported the soldiers.

Though Richey repaired her relationship with her son after he came back from war, I felt that she had given up part of who she was. In my perspective, she accepted defeat. Richey noted that she never argued about their difference in political view after he was home. This was one aspect that continued to puzzle me. I had come to the conclusion that her defeat was what essential all mothers would do. They sacrificed themselves for the children.

Irena’s Vow was based on the true story of Irena, hiding twelve Jews in the house of a Nazi major Rugemer during the Holocaust. After witnessing the Holocaust herself, Irena was determined to save a life if she was capable of. This will to save a life foreshadowed her decision on the fate of the baby that was about to be born by one of the hiding Jews. The play also involved the internal conflict within the people of Nazis. Rokita, ruthless commander who believed suppression of the Jews was genius, contrasted with Major Rugemer, someone who concerned only about himself. In reality, the average German during the Holocaust sympathized with Jews.

The transformation from text to play for Irena’s Vow was successful in many aspects. From the text’s dark mood to the play’s dark comedy, the play felt more emotional and easier to digest for the audience. Scultz, the old house keeper for major Rugemer, was consistent in the transformation from text to play. The actor for Scultz resembled that in the text because of his gestures, voice, and physical appearance. Ms. Feldshuh, near her sixties, was exceptional for portraying Irena, who was in her youth during the Holocaust.
The stagecraft, however, could have been better. Frequently lighting would not focus on the actors; actors would have to walk to the spotlight while talking. Nonetheless, the sound from the machine gun was very realistic.

Though Irena’s Vow was not close to perfection, it certainly changed my perception on holocaust. For a decent price, Irena’s Vow is a must see.

My theme for the street photography project is American dream. I want to express my feeling towards American dream that doesn’t exist anymore. Throughout my photographs, I try to tell the viewer the hardship of immigrants, came to find a better life, in the New York City. With the ideology of American dream, these immigrants, who were doctors and businessmen in their old country, came to America only to find themselves washing dishes and selling fake merchandise off the street. I also connected to the new immigrants because my parent went through the same struggle. Living in a Chinese community myself, I want my photographs to be dark and serious.

For me, I separate my photography into two sections, each with a different purpose and meaning. For the black and white photographs, I take photographs of only hard working immigrants in New York. I believe with black and white style I can best portray the daily life of immigrants. For my colored photographs, they represent hope, and some of the colored photographs will be used to illustrate some of my feelings not relating to immigration. I think by categorizing my photography this way, I can find a better balance that will be clean and direct.

I have never done street photography before, thus this is my first experience. I was surprised that I was nervous. Shooting photographs in crowded locations such as Chinatown and Flushing made me uncomfortable, I was always afraid of the stares from the crowd. In the beginning, I would hesitate to shoot photography up close of people, fearing they would be offended. I think my biggest accomplishment during the street photography is having the courage to ask people if I can photograph them.

For my first photograph of Manhattan, I was bothered by the frame. I did not want to include the whole view, yet unable to decide which part of Manhattan I should photography. In the end, I decided to use this frame because it allowed me to include the trees, which showed how far away I was from the building. Without much experience with the camera, the focus of the photograph represented precisely what I wanted the skyscrapers in Manhattan to be like. I wanted the building to be there yet blurring.

It was also difficult to take picture of street vendors as well as the workers in the supermarket in Chinatown because the crowd was in constant motion. I had to wait for the right moment. Since I took these photographs at afternoon, I had to battle with the diminishing brightness from the sun. Using the black and white style, I was able to convey my ideas at the same time avoiding the empty darkness in these photographs. The black and white style created depth to my photographs.

I took all of my photographs in Flushing while walking home. The photograph with the chef, preparing food, was the first one I took. I could have only included the chef, but I decided to include the food at the left as well. I wanted to frame this way was because I want to show the viewer the job of the chef, chopping the same type of food over and over again for days. I want to point out that new immigrants came to America to make a living; they didn’t care about their interest in the job as long as they are getting paid.

For the colored photograph of a street in Chinatown, I had the option to shoot it from the closer street corner or the farther one. I decided to shoot from the farther street corner because I wanted the photograph to have a shape, with the street narrowing in the end. I regretted that I took the photograph in the afternoon, there wasn’t any detail about the building in the photographed that I wished I included. Every time I walked in Chinatown, I would always compare it to cities in China, the familiar Chinese signs and traditional Chinese stores. The street photography project gave me an opportunity to share about my opinions that could only be explained by photography.

With my last photograph of sunset, there is still hope that American dream still exists for someone. But the truth is that, gradually, the window of opportunity is closing, like the sunset.

A war veteran smiled about her patriotism while paralyzed from losing her limbs, another war veteran traumatized by the killing of innocence, and another left in agony from losing his older brother during the war. I was among the many who watched the play In Conflict and was deeply touched by the ruthlessness of war. Opened at the Barrow street theatre, In conflict, was a series of interviews of war veterans expressing their views on war and their adjustments after exiting the war. Adapted from the book by Yvonne Latty, In conflict captured its audience with ambivalent feeling of bitterness and appreciation for soldiers whose life were in turmoil after the war.

To my disbelief all the cast members were students from Temple University instead of professional actors. I think that was why the play succeeded. The students, with their acting techniques not yet polished, introduced originality to the play because they were inexperienced, so were the soldiers, unprepared about their life after they come back home realizing that war wasn’t what they expected. Suyeon Kim recreated her role as Tammy Duckworth, who lost her limbs yet remained hopeful. It was her cheerful manner throughout her conversation that broke the stereotypical notion of injured war veterans feeling ostracized.

Yvonne Latty’s appearances through the television screen would have been much more compelling if her role as an interviewer could be acted. It was difficult for me to shift my attention to the screen as well as for audiences from the back while watching the play since the most important aspect of watching a play is to see it in action. The unnecessary addition of the screen not only took away the closeness between the interviewer and the war veterans but also suggested that the interviewer was superior to the war veterans.

Though I find the television screen as extremely inconvenient, the lighting was magnificent and the transitions between the sets were eccentric; the spinning of plastic walls and soldiers running around the stage dressed in heavy combat armors and AK47 as if they were under attack. The talkback after the play with Ty Simmons, a Vietnam war veteran, and Yvonne Latty was definitely worth the time and effort because they did not only answer the audience questions, they also gave examples from their personal experience.

Struggling to concentrate on the tedious, lengthy aria, I lost my focus. Brightness of the stage diminished; soon I won’t be able to see the stage anymore as I began to close my eyes only to hear the soprano vibrating in my ear. This is not what I expected of Dr. Atomic, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Oct. 06, 2008. Directed by Penny Woolcock, Dr. Atomic failed to capture its young audiences as well as the majority of wealthy people who left the opera during the intermission. Even the last fifteen minutes of anticipation ended in a single flash of light that has no resemblance to the devastation of the atomic bomb.

Dr. Atomic revealed the tension between scientists during the testing of the atomic bomb, questioned by the necessity of using the bomb. Dr. Atomic, instead of reenacting the testing of the bomb itself, used the personal relationship between Robert Oppenheimer, leading scientist in the Manhattan project, and his wife, Kitty Oppenheimer, to explore what the bomb meant to people who were involved in the testing. The book shelve like building structure was successful in creating a sense of isolation between the scientists, used to illustrate the fear of the government that the scientists would be able to develop the bomb for other countries. The costumes also were chosen for purpose. The color of the costumes blended in to the general mood of the story, gray and haunting.

Though the staging was a success, the opera singing failed to spark any sense of excitement. Lines would be repeated with a pessimistic tone. Comparing to the play South Pacific, another work depicting the struggles of soldiers in the pacific island during the World War II, Dr. Atomic failed to translate the reality of war. While South Pacific brought in the tension of racial and social class struggle, Dr. Atomic lacked the element of surprise.

The opera’s lack of appeal to my hearing sense with the dropping of the bomb overshadowed the brilliant execution in the end of the opera with the Japanese women, asking for help. A shattering noise in the end would have changed the whole atmosphere of the opera, but the director wanted us to be the bomb. And he bombed it.