Monthly Archives: September 2012

CH1 Journey to West

I was very excited to read this interesting story by Wu Cheng. As I was reading I started to enjoy the character of stone monkey and other monkey around him as well as conversation among monkeys.  Funny moment in this … Continue reading

Posted in ReadingResponse | 86 Comments

Heart Sutra

After reading Heart Sutra, I’m left with a quite amount of questions. First of all, what is meant by voidness/emptiness? Avalokiteshvara explains that all phenomena are expressions of emptiness, or empty of natural characteristics. This means that because phenomena are … Continue reading

Posted in ReadingResponse | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Journey to the West, Chapter One

Fantastical stories, especially that of mythical variety, to say the least, are not my favorite. So I didn’t exactly enjoy this read but, I did think the inclusion of poetry was an interesting way to enhance storytelling.  Also, what I … Continue reading

Posted in ReadingResponse | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Journey to the West, Chapter One

Journey to the West. Cpht 1

When I read the introduction to the story, I wasn’t looking forward to reading the poems inside the story. I never understood poetry and could never analyze it deeply; it is basically my least favorite writing style to read. The … Continue reading

Posted in ReadingResponse | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Journey to the West. Cpht 1

The Journey to the West (Chapter 1)

I did not have any background on Chinese Literature, so it was interesting just to see how the story was going to turn out. The style of the novel was what caught my attention. The constant shift from prose to … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

The Journey to the West- Chapter 1

When I first began reading the biography of Wu Cheng’en I was excited to read the Journey to the West. I was thrilled to observe some of the versatile poetry and this interesting “dialect.” When I began to read the … Continue reading

Posted in ReadingResponse | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Voltaire- Candide

  In my opinion, I believe, Candide, for the first half of his journey, dealt with the misfortunes of discovering that men are not equal, and that Pangloss’s philosophical belief, “Everything happens for the best” is not always true, but … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Voltaire and Women’s Rights

We’ve discussed how a push towards women equality has been a major theme of the Enlightenment.  As an Enlightenment writer, how does Voltaire express his views on women’s rights in “Candide”? It seems to me that Voltaire did not give … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Candide: chapters 15-30

It was interesting to watch Candide’s transformation through out the story. He went from blindly following Pangloss’s teaching, to developing his own arguments/views on the ways in which the world operates. He understood from the many misfortunes and adventures he … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Candide, Chapter 15-30

Voltaire took us to great tour of different cultures, philosophic and religious point of view around throughout this oeuvre. We received some description of the characters and the behavior of the people of each places where candid passed by. The … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Candide, Chapter 15-30