Introduction

My name is Qi Weimin. You can call me Aaron.

I’m a junior student, majoring in finance. I chose finance owning to the strong curiosity for business and the ambition to become an entrepreneur. Therefore, I am very interested in watching program on commercial strategy. The commercial sense from successful entrepreneurs, more or less, inspired me.

What I must say here is that I am CRAZY about heavy metal and death metal. If anyone has the same interest as mine, DO tell me! Metal is anything to me. It’s inspiration, love, anger, goodness, hope, extremeness, exaggeration, distortion, ugliness… It’s anything about life and truth. When I first picked on heavy metal, I was overwhelmed by the power and the format of the music. Later on, as I listern more and more, I was not only shocked by metal, but “touched”. I am touched by the messages it conveys. Studying the lyrics becomes a big hobby for me. Every good song is a poem. It’s implicit but penetrating. This hobby somehow motivates my love for English vocabulary and writing.

One thing I have to admit is that part of the passion I possess comes from the music I listen to. Without metal, I am not what I am.

I am full of passion and ideas, which is reflected on my studies. Passion helps me conquer every difficulty in my work while ideas advise me to draw my own conclusions. I am also easy going and have excellent ability of communicating and cooperating. This gains me trusts from friends, which in my heart matters the most. Besides, I am also an innovative person, always coming up with new ideas. My commercial sense and ideas determined my big success when I promoted sales on campus a few times.
So, this is what I amJ

Dear portfolio reader,

I am currently a junior student at Fudan University, majoring in International Finance and would like to welcome everyone who enters my writing portfolio.

English writing appeals to me because the way I am using it to express myself. The closer I can approach myself by using the language, the more pleasure I get. Thus, this blog offers me a ideal stage to practice and obtain pleasure. English writing motivates me to think in English and express as natively as I can. It is a very good way to practice my logical thinking. Besides, I sometimes enjoy writing English poems. Part of the reason comes from my hobby of studying lyrics. Every good song has very good lyrics, which inspires and touches me. I like those implicit lyrics with certain hidden messages behind the lines, which arouses my experience or alludes to some truth.

The reading log I chose is “A woman like me”. Part of the reason is that the author is from China and the main character, more or less, carries some Chinese traditional characteristics, such as introvert and lack of confidence. Moreover, the story intrigued my curiosity to the main character’s paranoia and abnormal mentality. I like analyzing people’s mind and personality. The more I can know the main character, the more I can understand what the author tried to express. Every time I was able to interpret the character’s thoughts, it felt like I unlocked the door. All the unlocked doors led me get to the thesis. On the other hand, however, I sometimes neglect how I feel about the story because I always try to analyze the story objectively. That is something I need to improve. Therefore, I tried to enclose more my own feelings towards the character and the design of the story in the reading log.

In terms of the essay, I wrote about “swaddling clothes”. I appreciate the author’s writing style very much, implicit yet penetrating. At the first glance of the story, I was not able to understand or hold the thesis. There were many questions coming up, such as why Toshiko’s behavior was so different from others’. Some details in the story aroused my attention. Yet, I found difficult to interpret them. It suddenly occurred to me that I should know more about the background and the author. After reading some information about the background and the author, Mishima, I was able to understand better. Then I learned that literature is never without reality. All the things the author tried to present us stemmed from the society he lived in; all the behaviors and thoughts presented in the story sprung from both the author and people around him; and all the details carefully designed in the story were trying to indicate the time and society.

After I was able to interpret lots of things in the set of the background and understand the thesis, I met another problem, that is, to quote the convincing evidence. Some quotation I cited was not good enough when I read the entire essay afterwards. I tried to tailor the quotations to my arguments and got rid of some that was not substantiated enough. Then the essay turned better. I suppose that these two points are what I learned most from writing such an essay. Compared to draft one, draft two is more precise in interpretation. And the final one is better at quotation.

From this writing portfolio, I am sure that you can see my improvements, as well as my strength as analyzing and interpretation. Besides, what I learned from this class is that writing is a good way to practice logical thinking. Moreover, I enjoy coming up with a wide rang of thoughts.

Sincerely yours,

Aaron Qi

Draft 1

Aaron

November 11th

The story took place twenty years after the World War II, during which huge amounts of western modernization and values fluxed into Japan. Consequently, they brought some sort of friction against the traditional Japanese values. There are many contradictions in the story: Toshiko and her husband, Toshiko’s son and the new born baby, kimono and American-style suit and etc. The author, Mishima, who committed suicide in 1970, was trying to arouse public attention of the invasion of western culture and the diminishing traditional values. In this story, Toshiko’s son is likely to be intenerated as the traditional Japan while the newborn infant can probably be seen as the new Japan influenced by western culture. Therefore, the story is trying to show readers how the new Japan would “kill” the traditional Japan. Take a further look into the main character, Toshiko, we can conclude that her paranoia and her husband’s indifference exactly reflect the contradiction of indigenous values and extraneous ones.

From the beginning of the story, it is easy to find that Toshiko is a traditional woman, dressed in Kimono. She does not like the new “American” ways. She feels uncomfortable when she sees her husband dressed in “American-style suit, puffing as a cigarette”, “gesturing flamboyantly”. There is a sharp contrast in the behavior and dress of Toshiko and her husband. Her husband is extravert, pompous and dandy, very much Americanized while Toshiko is reserved, sentimental and traditional.

Toshiko, like Mishima, feels disgraced about how things are changing and she still maintain the old traditions from her dress to her mind. That is also why she would hope, as every traditional woman, that her husband could spend more time with her rather than his social circle. By contrast, her husband likes being socially active and gradually loses the concept of family. That is the influence by the negative western culture and values, which does not only change the way people dress and talk also erode their mind and make them abandon the value they once cherish, such as family.

Yet, it is somehow surprised to find Toshiko independent of her husband, which is not the traditional image of a Japanese woman who is inferior to her husband. Probably the independence is originated from the values which she finds no one can share with her. She notes that “their life together was in some way too easy, too painless.” It implies that Toshiko and her husband do not have much in common. They cannot talk deep and communicate spiritually. On most of the situations, they live superficially and separately. That is why Toshiko finds “it would have been difficult for her to put her thoughts into words”, since they do not live in the same world. Her traditional thoughts cannot intercept with her husband’s westernized values.

Then there is the incident in the story about Toshiko and their nurse. The nurse was hiding her pregnancy when all of a sudden she gave birth to a baby boy. The doctor wrapped the newborn in newspapers as if it were trash. Toshiko did not think this was right and she went to get the baby a flannel while her husband was rescuing their good rug. When Toshiko’s husband was at a night club with his friends he told his story as if he did not care and Toshiko felt embarrassed and disgraced at her husband’s indifference and callousness and how things are moving farther and farther away from Japanese old traditional values.

Throughout the story Toshiko pictures the newborn baby, wrapped in newspapers, and without a father. She was immersed in her wild thoughts and being paranoid. Toshiko thought of the child three times in the story: when she was at the party, when she was sitting in the taxi and when she was alone in the park. Toshiko feels that because the baby was not treated with respect at birth, so the baby will not lead a successful life. The baby boy will be inferior to everyone else. She could not help thinking of her own child and thought of the horrible encounter of her child and the new born infant in the future, which further leads her willing to sacrifice for her own child. She is over sentimental and paranoid. Yet, on the other hand, it also reflects that she believes in the old traditional values of Japan such as a sense of honor and responsibility.

At the end of the story Toshiko was walking through the park. She saw a homeless man lying in newspapers on a park bench and it suddenly reminds her of the newborn baby. That was the image of the child she pictured in her mind. “She did not feel the least afraid and made no effort to free herself” because she is willing to sacrifice for her own baby and redeem the callousness of the society, which result in the miserable life of the child. The birth of the nurse’s baby boy who was wrapped in newspapers can be interpreted as a birth of a new society, the Japanese society after WWII, the society Mishima depicted, as Toshiko feels that this society is filled with not sense of honor or responsibility, a culture that has lost its morals. Toshiko is the incarnation of Mishima, who sacrificed himself for the depravation of the society in face of the influx of western cultures.

Draft 2

Aaron Qi

December 9th

“Swaddling Clothes” depicted a traditional Japanese woman, Toshiko, who witnessed the birth of an infant out of marriage. She was the only one who cared about the baby and began to immerse herself in the wild prediction of the baby and her own son that she pictured. The author, Mishima, who committed suicide in 1970, was trying to arouse public attention of the invasion of western culture and the diminishing traditional values. In this story, Toshiko’s son is likely to be intenerated as the traditional Japan while the newborn infant can probably be seen as the new Japan influenced by western culture. Therefore, Mishima is trying to show readers how the new Japan would “kill” the traditional Japan.

The story took place twenty years after the World War II, during which huge amounts of western modernization and values fluxed into Japan. Consequently, they brought some sort of friction against the traditional Japanese values. There are many contradictions alluding to this issue in the story: Toshiko and her husband, Toshiko’s son and the new born baby, kimono and American-style suit and etc.

From the beginning of the story, it is easy to find that Toshiko is a traditional woman, dressed in Kimono. She does not like the new “American” ways. She feels uncomfortable when she sees her husband dressed in “American-style suit, puffing as a cigarettes” (132), “gesturing flamboyantly” (133). She “sat silently thinking back on” the incidence, while “her husband chattered cheerfully with his friends” (133). There is a sharp contrast in the behavior and dress of Toshiko and her husband. Her husband is extravert, pompous and dandy, very much Americanized while Toshiko is reserved, sentimental and traditional. The message behind the contradiction is that a big number of people were transformed to embrace western culture and they were gradually adopting western ways of life, while losing their own traditional traits. Yet, this message is implicit, because it was hidden behind the surface.

Toshiko, like Mishima, feels disgraced about how things are changing and she still maintains the old traditions from her dress to her mind. That is also why “she had been foolish to hope that he would spend the evening with her” (132) rather than his social circle. By contrast, her husband likes being socially active and gradually loses the concept of family. That is also the influence by the negative western culture and values, which does not only change the way people dress and talk but also erode their mind and make them abandon the value they once cherish, such as family.

Yet, it is somehow surprised to find Toshiko independent of her husband, which is not the traditional image of a Japanese woman who is inferior to her husband. Probably the independence is originated from the values which she finds no one can share with her. She notes that “their life together was in some way too easy, too painless.”(134) It implies that Toshiko and her husband do not have much in common. They cannot talk deep and communicate spiritually. On most of the situations, they live superficially and separately. That is why Toshiko finds “it would have been difficult for her to put her thoughts into words”(134), since they do not live in the same world. Her traditional thoughts cannot intercept with her husband’s westernized values.

Then there is the incident in the story about Toshiko and their nurse. The nurse was hiding her pregnancy when all of a sudden she gave birth to a baby boy. People’s behavior at that time does reveal something. Toshiko’s husband was “[rescuing] [their] good rug”(133). The doctor “told his assistant to wrap the baby in some waste newspapers, rather than proper swaddling” (133), showing “his scorn for this mother who had given birth to a bastard under such sordid conditions”.(133)
On the contrast, Toshiko “fetched a brand-new piece of flannel…having swaddled the baby in it, had lain him carefully in an armchair.”(133) Series of actions shows Toshiko’s care and maternity for the new-born life. On the other hand, others’ behavior represents the characteristic of a considerable part of the society, indifference and callousness.

When Toshiko’s husband was at a night club with his friends bragging about the story as if “it were no more than an amusing incident which they chanced to have witnessed”(133), “Toshiko was dumbfounded”(133), feeling embarrassed and disgraced at her husband’s indifference and callousness and how things are moving farther and farther away from Japanese old traditional values towards another direction. Such a change is driven by an exogenous force, that is, some western values.

Throughout the story Toshiko pictures the newborn baby, “on the parquet floor the infant lay, and his frail body was wrapped in bloodstained newspaper”(133). She was immersed in her wild thoughts and being paranoid. Toshiko thought of the child three times in the story: when she was at the party, when she was sitting in the taxi and when she was alone in the park. Toshiko feels that because the baby was not treated with respect at birth, so “he can never become a respectable citizen”(134) and thus the baby will not lead a successful life and will be inferior to everyone else. She could not help thinking of her own child and thought of the horrible encounter of her child and the new born infant in the future, when “the other boy, who has been sinned against, savagely stabs him with a knife…”(134). This kind of thoughts indicates her willingness to sacrifice for her own child. What’s more, Toshiko’s son is likely to be intenerated as the Japanese tradition while the newborn infant can be seen as the force of Americanization or westernization. This force is trying to win over the tradition force by “[stabbing] him with a knife”, which is the huge amounts of western culture fluxing into Japan, trying to overwhelm the traditions.

At the end of the story Toshiko was walking through the park. She saw a homeless man lying in newspapers on a park bench and it suddenly reminds her of the newborn baby. That was the image of the child she pictured in her mind. “She did not feel the least afraid and made no effort to free herself”(136) because she is ready to sacrifice for her own baby subconsciously after thousands of paranoia presumptions. Moreover, she is trying to repay the debts and redeem the callousness of the society, which result in the miserable life of the discarded child. On the other hand, she was too insignificant to resist the “[reaching out] powerful hand”(136), which represents the invading foreign cultures.
The birth of the nurse’s baby boy who was wrapped in newspapers can be interpreted as a birth of a new society, the Japanese society after WWII, the society Mishima depicted, as Toshiko feels that this society is filled without sense of honor or responsibility, a culture that has lost its morals. To matters worse, traditional Japanese values was threatened, cornered and even being killed in face of the overwhelming western culture. Toshiko is the incarnation of Mishima, who sacrificed himself for the depravation of the society in face of the influx of western cultures.

Cornered Tradition

Aaron Qi

“Swaddling Clothes” depicted a traditional Japanese woman, Toshiko, who witnessed the birth of an infant out of marriage. She was the only one who cared about the baby and began to immerse herself in the wild prediction of the baby and her own son that she pictured. The author, Yukio Mishima, who committed suicide in 1970, was trying to arouse public attention of the invasion of western culture and the diminishing traditional values. In this story, Toshiko’s son is likely to be intenerated as the traditional Japan while the newborn infant can probably be seen as the new Japan influenced by western culture. Therefore, Mishima is trying to show readers how the new Japan would “kill” the traditional Japan.

The story took place twenty years after the World War II, during which huge amounts of western modernization and values fluxed into Japan. Consequently, they brought some sort of friction against the traditional Japanese values. There are many contradictions alluding to this issue in the story: Toshiko and her husband, Toshiko’s son and the new born baby, kimono and American-style suit and etc.

From the beginning of the story, it is easy to find that Toshiko is a traditional woman, dressed in Kimono. She does not like the new “American” ways. She feels uncomfortable when she sees her husband dressed in “American-style suit, puffing as a cigarette” (132), “gesturing flamboyantly” (133). She “sat silently thinking back on” the incidence, while “her husband chattered cheerfully with his friends” (133). There is a sharp contrast in the behavior and dress of Toshiko and her husband. Her husband is extravert, pompous and dandy, very much Americanized while Toshiko is reserved, sentimental and traditional. The message behind the contradiction is that a big number of people were transformed to embrace western culture and they were gradually adopting western ways of life, while losing their own traditional traits. Yet, this message is implicit, because it was hidden behind the surface.

Toshiko, like Mishima, feels disgraced about how things are changing and she still maintains the old traditions from her dress to her mind. That is also why “she had been foolish to hope that he would spend the evening with her” (132) rather than his social circle. By contrast, her husband likes being socially active and gradually loses the concept of family. That is also the influence by the negative western culture and values, which does not only change the way people dress and talk but also erode their mind and make them abandon the value they once cherish, such as family.

Yet, it is somehow surprised to find Toshiko independent of her husband, which is not the traditional image of a Japanese woman who is inferior to her husband. Probably the independence is originated from the values which she finds no one can share with her. She notes that “their life together was in some way too easy, too painless.”(134) It implies that Toshiko and her husband do not have much in common. They cannot talk deep and communicate spiritually. On most of the situations, they live superficially and separately. That is why Toshiko finds “it would have been difficult for her to put her thoughts into words” (134), since they do not live in the same world. Her traditional thoughts cannot intersect with her husband’s westernized values.

Then there is the incident in the story about Toshiko and their nurse. The nurse was hiding her pregnancy when all of a sudden she gave birth to a baby boy. People’s behavior at that time does reveal something. Toshiko’s husband was “[rescuing] [their] good rug”(133). The doctor “told his assistant to wrap the baby in some newspaper, rather than proper swaddling” (133), showing “his scorn for this mother who had given birth to a bastard under such sordid conditions”.(133)
On the contrast, Toshiko “fetched a brand-new piece of flannel…having swaddled the baby in it, had lain him carefully in an armchair.”(133) Series of actions shows Toshiko’s care and maternity for the new-born life. On the other hand, others’ behavior represents the characteristic of a considerable part of the society, indifference and callousness.

When Toshiko’s husband was at a night club with his friends bragging about the story as if “it were no more than an amusing incident which they chanced to have witnessed” (133), “Toshiko was dumbfounded”(133), feeling embarrassed and disgraced at her husband’s indifference and callousness and how things are moving farther and farther away from Japanese old traditional values towards another direction. Such a change is driven by an exogenous force, that is, some western values.

Throughout the story Toshiko pictures the newborn baby, “on the parquet floor the infant lay, and his frail body was wrapped in bloodstained newspaper”(133). She was immersed in her wild thoughts and being paranoid. Toshiko thought of the child three times in the story: when she was at the party, when she was sitting in the taxi and when she was alone in the park. Toshiko feels that because the baby was not treated with respect at birth, so “he can never become a respectable citizen”(134) and thus the baby will not lead a successful life and will be inferior to everyone else. She could not help thinking of her own child and thought of the horrible encounter of her child and the new born infant in the future, when “the other boy, who has been sinned against, savagely stabs him with a knife…”(134). This kind of thoughts indicates her willingness to sacrifice for her own child. What’s more, Toshiko’s son is likely to be intenerated as the Japanese tradition while the newborn infant can be seen as the force of Americanization or westernization. This force is trying to win over the tradition force by “[stabbing] him with a knife”, which is the huge amounts of western culture fluxing into Japan, trying to overwhelm the traditions.

At the end of the story Toshiko was walking through the park. She saw a homeless man lying in newspapers on a park bench and it suddenly reminds her of the newborn baby. That was the image of the child she pictured in her mind. “She did not feel the least afraid and made no effort to free herself” (136) because she is ready to sacrifice for her own baby subconsciously after thousands of paranoia presumptions. Moreover, she is trying to repay the debts and redeem the callousness of the society, which result in the miserable life of the discarded child. On the other hand, she was too insignificant to resist the “[reaching out] powerful hand” (136), which represents the invading foreign cultures.

The birth of the nurse’s baby boy who was wrapped in newspapers can be interpreted as a birth of a new society, the Japanese society after WWII, the society Mishima depicted, as Toshiko feels that this society is filled without sense of honor or responsibility, a culture that has lost its morals. To matters worse, traditional Japanese values was threatened, cornered and even being killed in face of the overwhelming western culture. Toshiko is the incarnation of Mishima, who sacrificed himself for the depravation of the society in face of the influx of western cultures.

Aaron Qi
11/30/06
Time Writing 2

Talking about teachers, students usually think of those teachers in front of the blackboard, holding textbooks or explaining some sort of diagrams. Those are the traditional figures of teachers, especially in China. When asked about the qualities teachers should hold, students would expect easygoing, humor, kindness, patience and etc. I do agree that these are points that a good teacher should possess. Yet, there should be more. In many situations, what I learn is not from school and whom I learned something from were not those conventional “teachers”. As for me, the quality I expect most of a teacher is the enlightenment of life he shares with his students.

All the subjects we have learned and we are learning in schools lead to one same purpose, that is, to inspire us and help to find our life purpose. Thus, all the subjects are related to philosophy. Yet, what I mean is not that the teacher should combine his course with philosophy, but a teacher should inspire his students to discover more about the subject and try to associate it with our life. For example, when talking about the relativity, we might think of the swiftness and insignificance of human beings in the infinite universe, which may motivate ourselves to orient our coordinate in such a big and multi-dimension.

Moreover, revealing the truth is as important as inspiration. Students in China, more or less, have one feature, that is, confining themselves to one field and keeping their eyes blind to the other angles of life. Thus, an ideal teacher is the one who can broaden our views of the society and the world, letting students know that the world is far less than peaceful and perfect. In Iraq, people are suffering everyday without stability. In the southwest of China, Children are still encountering famine. Certainly, all these can not be achieved by one teacher, but if every teacher can give us a little inspiration and truth, students can see more and further.

I had such a teacher. He is not those who teach at school. He has a guitar store and learns people who buy his instruments how to play guitars. He taught me guitar at that time. The exciting thing about learning guitar from him was not his perfect skills , but his interpretation of music. Every time he taught me a song, he would explain me the background of the composing of such works and the situation of the artist during the composition. What’s more, he would tell me his own interpretation of them. The pieces he chose for me were always things about life, miserable, suffering but true. Sometimes I cannot even sense anything at the first glance, but he would give me hint and lead me into the music. Meanwhile, I pick on heavy metal and death metal at that time, so we always discuss a lot on those issues, like what those thesis are and what those artists are trying to tell us. From talking, I could always learn something I never thought of before. He enlightened me much.

Reading Log of "A Woman like Me"

Struggling with fate is the theme of the story. I suppose the author wrote the story in order to arouse our attention to whether to submit to the supposed fate or try to take it in our own hands. And that’s actually the problem of the main character.

Living in the shadow of her Aunt, whose lover left her without saying a word when he found out her occupation, she convinced herself that she would attain the same result. From many aspects, we can see that the main character is full of contradictions. Although complaining that her profession keeps her from having a life and close relationships, she states that she “became content with things the way they were, and got used to loneliness.” It’s quite obvious that she is distressed by her career. Yet, she hardly does anything to make some change, only immersed in the assumptions. Gradually, she became subject to the situation she set for herself and bent to the “fate”.

What is more ironical is that she refused to make up for a dead couple, because she thought they had succumbed to their fate. However, we only see that she was on the same boat, doing nothing but accepting “her fate”. She seemed like she was always sad and had no real emotions. She always dwelled upon the fact that her job will never find her friendship or love. She confined herself to her own hypotheses simply due to her auntie’s experience and other external facts while ignoring her intrinsic motivation. She could have done something about this, either find a new job, or be more straight to people from the beginning.

The story ends ironically with her seeing Xia walking up to her with a bouquet of flowers, smiling. All she could think of was how in her line of work, flowers were a last good bye. In a way she was just setting herself up for disappointment, she could have told him what she did instead of leading him to believe today he was going to be surrounded by happy beautiful brides full of life and love, all he was in for was death and silence. She seemed like she knew he was going to leave her after he saw her office, but didn't do anything about it, using fate as her excuse for him leaving her.The ending is quite cunning I think. We are left confused, not knowing what happens to her and Xia in the end. Does he truly love her and stay with her despite her work? Or does he too, run like her Aunt's "true love"? The whole story is built up on what happens between them, and we are left to guess. Mostly, it depends on what kind of person you are.