He`s a pirate.

     The song is the theme music of the famous movie: the Pirates of Caribbean.I love this movie very much. So do I love the theme song.

     I love this song because every time when I hear this song, I feel inspired and excited. The song has a very passionate melody.It will make you excited as soon as you hear it. Also, the melody reminds me of the plot of the movie. I will see the imagines that a pirate ship is sailing in the endless ocean. The Captain stands at the top of the mast with his sword in hand, without any fear of the terrible storm, straightly looking at the direction of the treasures.

     Never afraid of the difficulties might be the interpretation of this song. Live your life and make it as wonderful as you can without regret is also the underlying suggestion which the author want to emphasis via the song. As a result, this song has a positive impact on me. I can feel high in spirit and ready for the challenges in my life when I hear this fantastic song.

Chinese Way of Greeting

     In ancient China, the gesture when people greet each other usually depends on the social stratum. The lower class people usually kneel or kowtow to greet higher class people to show their respect. And the higher class people do not have to greet or show respect. This is one of the most remarkable feature of the feudal society: hierarchy depends rights. If you are born an emperor, you do not have need to kneel or kowtow anymore. But if you are born a normal citizen, you have to do such things. People are not equal, and the way people greet others are different. 
     As time goes on and China finally get the rid of imperial rule, such kind of ways like kneeling or kowtowing cease to exist. Even hardly do people nowadays bow. As for nowadays, the most common body expression when greeting is shaking hands. Shaking hand is a normal and formal way to greet people: it shows your respect and shows the equality between the two. As for American, besides shaking hands, they usually hug, which is more intimate and open. 
     Comparing with the American way of greeting people, Chinese way is conservative. Such difference is due to the culture difference. As we all know, China, one of the Asian countries, is famous for its conservation. So in social life, people always avoid body contact. In contrast, American are much more open. So they do not really care about this. 

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett, an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, once remarked:”Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” This is one of my favorite quotations. I first saw this in the American TV show Criminal Minds. When I saw this, I felt like I was suddenly enlightened. I regarded this sentence as one of my life maxim as soon as I saw the quotation on the TV, because I think this sentence has much positive power and profound truth which can inspire me to a greater effort.

I think the quotation has three main meanings. First, according to “Try again” and “Fail again”, it encourages people to try to do things and not to be afraid of making mistakes. The best example to support this quotation is how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Everybody knows that light bulb was not invented in one night. Edison had experienced thousands of times of failures when conducting the experiment. He spent thousands of hours trying to find the right filament in his lab. There is no doubt that he did not dare to make mistakes. Suppose he was afraid of making mistakes and was not able to face the failure, how could the light bulb be invented?

Second, “Fail better” suggests people have to learn from the failures that they have experienced. It is just like another proverb, “Failure is the mother of success”. Although daring to make mistakes and to face the failures are important, to learn from the pass failing experience is also of great importance. If a person only dare to make mistakes but never has thought about why he has made such mistakes, it is hard for him to perform better. Certainly he will “fail again”, but never “fail better”. So, we should look backward to think and learn. This is also a key answer to why the civilization is always making progress. Let`s take a look at the history of our civilization. Mistakes and faults that man had made in their history are often seen. Slavery, superstitions, wars are all kinds of mistakes people have made. However, fortunately, there are lots of people who would look back to the history and said it was wrong and corrected it. Abraham Lincoln abolished the slavery. Most countries abolished the centralization system. It is clear that human are correcting it mistakes and improving its civilization all the time.

And third, what the Samuel did not say is that, after several times of “Fail better”, people will finally achieve success. Maybe another point the Samuel wants to indicate is that, after so many times of failure, people should persist in doing what they are doing and what they love. I would like to connect this with another great saying:“No pains. No gains.” For instance, Steve Jobs, a talent in designing and inventing, delivered a moving speech about “do what we love”. He mentioned in the speech that when we genuinely love what we do, it doesn`t matter that we fail. He came up with his experience after being fired by the Apple: He felt relaxed and light in mind to be a beginner and then he started several companies one of which was bought by Apple for its great technology which is used for apple`s revival. In his case, I see his great persistence in what he loved and what he was doing. He still sacrificed himself in the designing technology after he was fired. How gritty he was! His story can perfectly demonstrate the significance of persistence.

I find these three points very inspiring. After fathom this great sentence, I notice that I have nothing to lose and all I have to do is to face the challenges and difficulties in my life and try my best to overcome them，no matter what the result will be. Also, I have to find out what caused the failure and how to perform better this time without making mistakes. For instance, when I am trying to solve the difficult mathematic problems, I just try to solve the problem using my own understanding of the questions. If the answer is not right, then part of my reasoning or calculating must be wrong. Before I do it for the second time, I have to spend time to figure out where is the mistake. Thus, I will know how to solve the problem myself. And throughout the process of solving the problem, I don`t dare to make mistakes and all I have to do is to one hundred percent concentrate on problems.

Try again. Fail again. Fail better. This great sentence reveals the truth in our lives. It tells us to be bold in exploring, to be brave in making mistakes, to be profound in rethinking, and to be persistent in practicing. 

(Sorry I did not attend the Monday class which is about the articles, so I do not know whether my usage is right or wrong. If it is wrong, please point it out. Thank you.) 

Just Laws and Bad Citizens

Just Laws and Bad Citizens

Personally, I think it is true that the countries and states can create “just laws” but cannot create “just citizens”.

First, the reason why laws are not able to make citizens good and just is that laws only work as the criterions of crime rather than the code of justice. “Just laws” are used to regulate people`s behavior, rather than to build justice in people. In other words, laws tell people not to do something instead of telling people should do something. Therefore, what in the a citizen`s mind is: what I am not supposed to do is…, rather than what I should do is… It is clear that law is a tool to correct people`s wrongdoings. At the same time, it does not have any help in promoting people`s justice. A citizen never commits a crime is a citizen who obey laws. It does not mean that he is good and just. Among thousands and millions of people who obey the laws, how many of them are good and just? Some of them are even still doing the unethical things which are not judged by the laws, like downloading and sharing music on Internet.

Second, I believe that people are born in bad nature. Suppose the “just laws” could make citizens “good and just”, so why the “just laws” had been used all the time? The “just laws” should be no longer useful since the citizens were all good and just. I think the reason is that people are born bad and selfish, so the government uses laws to punish people and correct people`s behavior. Human are profit motivated animal, so what they do is to seek the profit maximized. People obey the laws because if they do not do so, they will be punished. Everybody knows the traffic rule that passengers should stop when crossing the road if the traffic light is red. However, in Manhattan, thousands of people ignore the traffic light when there is no car on the street. What they behave does not match what good and just citizens should behave. Why do so many people ignore the most basic traffic rule? Not only because waiting for the traffic light goes against their profit but also because there is no need to be afraid of being charged by the policeman.

In conclusion, the “just laws” force citizens to behave well but never contribute to make citizens “good and just”, because the laws is designed to prevent crime and the citizens are not good in nature. 

My interpretation of Independence

Independent, an adjective form of independence, can be used to describe a lot things like people, nation. In my opinion, independence can be interpreted differently when combine with different kinds of nouns.

      Different from what it means in Declaration of Independence, the same word, independence, when used to describe animals, means that young animals are capable of living on their own without any support from their parents. For instance, after a baby tigher is born, it needs to depend on its parents to survive, because the baby tiger is too young to hunt for food. Later on, as the tiger gradually grows up, it learns how to hunt food and how to survive in the nature. Finally, it becomes a adult tiger and no longer needs its parent`s feed any more. I would like to view such process as independence. This kind of independence is more like a physical one, which means that the young has the ability to satisfy itself physically without any help from others.

       The same as animal, human also have the same process of gaining physical independence. Besides, since human is an intellectual animal, mental independence of people is unique and more complicated. First, it is the mental thought that controls the physical behavior. Therefore, the meaning of mental independence is that try to live independently. For example, I am now living myself in U.S. apart from my parents. This is not only because that I can take care of myself, but also because I am mature enough and I try to live an independent life. I am physically independent so I can take good care of myself. I decided to leave my parents because I am well mentally prepared to live an independent life. Second, mental independence of a man can also be described as to have one`s unique opinions towards things. In the article “Critical Thinking and the Problem of Plagiarism” (R.Saalbach), which was delivered last time at the end of class, the author says that some students who are too young to have their own object thoughts always use others` opinion unconsciously. In this case, the students lack of mental independence due to their failing to recognize both the advantages and disadvantages of things. In short, individual and critical thinking can be one of the features of achieving mental independent.

Independence of nation is somewhat different from what are mentioned before. When using independence of nation, the word is used to modify a big group of people, a big community, rather than individuals. Thus, the meaning of independence, to me, in this case, is of great difference. To some degree, what this word means is in a higher level than the other meanings. Independence of a nation means all the citizens in the nation have rights to live their own lives without ruled by the emperor or other government. That is, people choose the representatives they are consent with to govern the nation for them. Just like what was stated in the “Declaration of Independence”: “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness”. It is more likely the independence here means gaining all kinds of humanity rights like rights of living, rights of freedom and rights of pursuing happiness, and no longer needs other emperor to give them such rights.

         In conclusion, to me, the word “independence” has various meanings towards various kinds of things. Nevertheless, these interpretations of “independence” have something in common. The common meaning of independence is being capable to behave and think without depending on others.