Author Archives: JIAYANG LI

The one I’m most closely associated with is COVID-19. Especially when it first broke out in China, it caught everyone off guard. Because my family was all in China, I was very worried about their health. Thanks to the strong quarantine measures taken by the Chinese government, my family is all right and not infected. It wasn’t until the outbreak reached New York that I began to realize the danger was around me. At that time, the situation was reversed. My family called me every day to check on me. Everything is fine for me, but the situation around me is getting worse. The first thing to get up every day is to turn on the phone to check the number of new infections and deaths today. But only rising numbers. When I started wearing a mask, the media and people around me felt that I was making a fuss. COVID-19 was just the flu. I wanted to refute but no one believed me. Until New York announced to lock down the city, my roommate’s bubble milk tea shop in Chinatown was also forced to shut down. I’m also lost my part-time job which is work in a restaurant. Throughout 2020, I feel like I can’t do anything. I can only watch the disaster happen but I can’t do much.

“Are we good people?” asks our narrator. What is this exchange about? What do you think?
I think they want to say if we are good people, why should we treat like animals? We must do something to worry so we deserve that.

Explain the significance of the story’s title, “This Way for the Gas, Ladies, and Gentlemen.” What seems strange about it?
It seems like the Gestapo says to the victims to go this way. But that is not the exit but the death. In the concentration camps, death means to release and freedom for the captures.

Ultimately, what do you think Gregor’s metamorphosis means?  What does it mean to be transformed into a giant bug?

I think Gregor’s metamorphosis means a breadwinner who has lost the capacity to earn money by accident. Transformed into a giant bug means Gregor lost his job and lost the dignity and love from his family. A bug represents disgusting, awful, and terrible.

Explain your understanding of Gregor’s death.  How/why does he ultimately die?

Gregor’s death is suicide because he doesn’t want to be the burden of his family. He feels guilty and shame for transforming a bug after hearing his sister said: “We must get rid of it. He would have left of his own will.” For his family, they are tired to take care of this giant bug. Gregor is not a member of his family but a burden that couldn’t benefit the family. Also, Gregor might doesn’t think he could be transformed be into a human again, so he decided to die to release his family.

In “Punishment”, Rabindranath Tagore tells a story about women’s resistance to patriarchy. Chandara being asked to be a scapegoat to exonerated for her hunsband’s brother Dukhiram Rui. Chandara’s hunsband Chidam Rui promiss he will save her after she confess her murder. However, Chandara stated categorically that she killed her sister-in-law. Even though the real murderor, Dukhiram admit his crime, but Chandara still insis her confession. At the end she was condemned to be hanged. I think it has similar idea with Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger. Du Tenth and Chandara are betrayed by their lovers, they are all choose death to show their disappointed. Both of the authors are feel sympathy for the fact that women can’t escape the control of men. Women are nothing but men’s accessories. The only way to get rid of the men’s power is death.

Actually, I’m not surprised by Harriet Jacobs’ experience of slavery. As a woman who is a vulnerable group, she couldn’t fight with her owner like Frederick Douglass, she would also take more damage than a male slave. In “Life of a Slave Girl“, she was not only beaten and sexually assaulted by Dr. Flint but also envied by the mistress. To run away from Dr. Flint, she lived in a loophole for 7 years. Ironically, after she escaped and living in New York which is a Free State, she finally got freedom was sold herself. “A human being sold in the free city of New York”! “But much as I love freedom, I do not like to look upon it”. So I think Jacobs suffered more than Douglass physically. Jacobs modeled her narrative on the sentimental or domestic novel, her narrative very details, it didn’t use too many adjectives to shared her experience living in the little loophole.

I had read an essay “‘Sea Slaves’ Catch Dinner for America’s Pets” in New York Times. The first thing I learned is contemporary slavery still existed today, and it’s not that far away from us. The second thing is contemporary slavery is normal in many developing countries because it can bring so many benefits and save a lot of the salaries. The third thing is freedom is not given, it is won.

The most impression sentences of me are “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master–to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy”. “I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty–to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom”. Douglass realized that how to get rid of slavery and being freedom. The most important way is to improve slaver’s social status, and the best way to raise their position is to be educated. If a slave understands how to read and write, he or she can propagandize by writing books or public how slavery inhuman such as Douglass himself. Or when they have enough knowledge of technology, their social status will be increase, and get more respect because they are more valuable than illiterate slaves. Douglass understands “the white man’s power to enslave the black man” because white man monopoly of knowledge and education, the black man doesn’t have the opportunity to study, which means the black people will not have a weapon to break their chains. I quite agree with this view. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, my country and people also suffering from famine, plague, war, and the imperialist invasion. Many people were trying to save themselves, they all chose to be international students. Once they finished their study, they came back to China and used their knowledge to construct our land. Because of that, I chose the same way with the revolutionaries. Knowledge is a weapon.

I choose this picture because it tells me very directly about the Chimney Sweeper. A child walking alone on the street in the rain(or the ash?). The picture corresponds to the poem “When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue”. The boy doesn’t have parents and without a guardian but needs to sweep the chimney to survive. However, “That thousands of sweepers were all of them locked up in coffins of black”. His friends are dead because of the brutal work environment. But he still hopes that the angels would take them to heaven. Children in 8 to 10 ages should stay in school and protected from their parents and all society. Children suppose to be the future, but Chimney Sweeper can only choose to be a “tool”. I feel very sad about this poem because the brutal reality happened before.

That was the longest English poem I have ever read in my life. I never heard about the author, still less his poem. Also, I’m not a Christian so I don’t know much about the Bible. Therefore, the most difficult part for me is he used many quotes from the Bible I don’t understand.  After that, I search for his life then I knew he was a revolutionary. The purpose he wrote this poem was against the Catholic church, and break the chain of thought. Due to the Catholic church had a monopoly on the exegesis of the Bible, the common people had to accept their explanation and buy indulgences to redeem themselves. On the surface, the Catholic Church is an agent of God, but in reality, it is just a predatory organization. Base on this background, popular discontent with the Catholic Church eventually led to the Reformation and the Renaissance to strive for the right of everyone to read the Bible for themselves. During the Scientific Revolution and  Enlightenment, thanks to the increase in literacy, everyone is able to understand the Bible for themselves. In Pope’s poem, he mentions the universe is God’s masterwork, the human should study and explore as much as we can to get closer and closer to God. The most impressed me are “See worlds on worlds compose one universe” and “Then say not Man’s imperfect, Heaven in fault.” Before the Enlightenment, I think nobody can say human is perfect because this is too arrogant, only God is perfect in the world. Now we have more and more confidence to learn more science. I think scientific exploration is a double-edged sword which is could benefit people or hurt. The boundaries of science is we should’t cross the line between life and death. For example Cloning technology, immortality research, DNA reshape and so on. I believe death is treasure of the nature world.

This image is present the beauty of a woman in the Edo period of Japan, with good costumes and luxurious headwear. “Her features, the way she wore her hair, her colorful robe, the perfume she exuded–all this, Toyo-o noted, made her bewitchingly voluptuous.” “He had never heard of such a beautiful, refined-looking woman living in this neighborhood.” I can understand why Toyo-o bewitched by Manago who with beautiful appearance and interested in Toyo-o. Every hero fails to pull through beauty pass, as the Chinese saying goes. If I were Toyo-o, I can’t grantee seduce by such a beauty like Manago.

Actually, this fiction was referred to as Legend of White Snake, a very famous romantic tale spreading out among folks in ancient China. The difference between Bewitched is in “Legend of White Snake,” the hero and the heroine are fell in love with each other, even though he knew his wife is a monster. After the priest, Hokai Osho, catches the heroine and locked her in the tower, the hero tried his best to rescue her and defeated Hokai Osho, and they have a happy ending in the story. These two fictions, all have a similar setting and story but have the total opposite ending. I think the Edo period of Japan was more feudal than ancient China. Women were less valuable than men, and women could be the demon that seduces men. Even though Toyo-o bewitched, but he didn’t get any punishment. Base on this reason, I prefer the Legend of White Snake rather than Bewitched.

Hi everyone, my name is Jiayang Li. I graduated from BMCC as a business administration student, and I’m taking a financial mathematics major at Baruch College. I born and grow up in China for my last 25 years and I made the decision to take college once again in the U.S. to make up for my regrets. I already have a business management degree, but it wasn’t really helpful for me because I was having no clue about my future. After graduation, I got a job as a store manager in a furniture store. It seems to me on the right path, very safe and stable. Without competition, my advantages, and working skills were less and less. Finally, there wasn’t any surprise, I got fired. Then, I realized that I have no idea what can I write on my resume. I have no idea to defeat the fresh graduate in the interview. I began to fear being left out of society, I need to change myself. What helped me make that decision was the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.” I felt like Andy Dufresne, who was innocent but sentenced to life in prison, tried to overturn his case but failed. Frustrated Andy did not despair, in the stormy night of lightning and thunder, hidden decades of an escape plan to let him redeem himself, regain freedom. I also need to get out of my comfort zone, challenge myself to gain my redemption. I hope I make the right choice.