The man who really stabbed Dorian

           A blank sheet of paper. Plop. A drop of black ink falls, right on the center of the sheet. The instant it touches the sheet, it spreads like wild fire, consuming every whiteness as it pervades the sheet of paper, leaving behind sheer blackness. This is how Dorian Gray, a white sheet of paper, an epitome of purity and naivety, transforms into evil. It is Lord Henry that drops a drop of ink that consumes Dorian Gray at a frightening speed. It is Lord Henry who, although he may not have the intention to cause what he triggers eventually, is accountable for the devilish, wretched man who lies at the floor, stabbed by a knife, at the end of the book. It is Lord Henry, metaphorically speaking, who stabs Dorian Gray.

            Lord Henry corrupts Dorian Gray’s mind in numerous ways. One of them that cause the pitiful transformation of Dorian is when Lord Henry instills in Dorian’s mind the importance of beauty – not as in inner beauty, but physical beauty. Henry views art, or beauty, as the ultimate goal of life. He thus believes that other values deemed more valuable by the society such as virtue can be sacrificed for art. After conversing with Henry while posing for Basil’s picture, Dorian gets obsessed with beauty, especially eternal beauty. Bewildered but firmly persuaded, he cries out, “I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me…Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day,-mock me horribly!” Such intense desire to maintain eternal beauty of his picture is actualized in this fictitious novel; Dorian never grows old or unsightly, only the picture does. When Basil accuses Lord Henry of his corruptive influence, Henry merely shrugs, saying that he had just helped find the real Dorian Gray.

            Lord Henry’s influence does not stop at merely providing a new perspective on beauty. The ultimate push that drives Dorian plunging down to the abyss of vice is given when Lord Henry talks about the death of Sibyl. Although Dorian Gray is contaminated by his obsessive desire for eternal beauty, he is not completely full of vice yet; he may be dappled with dark spots, but not completely black. This is illustrated by his initial repentance on his ruthless conduct towards Sibyl; he deeply regrets hurting Sibyl, and vows to marry Sibyl. The nobility of this decision stands out in the fact that Dorian Gray, when vowing to marry Sibyl, is still ambivalent about her; his intention is to purely atone for his wrong conduct. This is where Lord Henry untimely comes in, with the news of Sibyl’s death. However, it is not the news of Sibyl’s death that gives the final push. Henry tells Dorian to view Sibyl’s death not as a miserable tragedy, but an artistic sacrifice. Thus, rather than lamenting and repenting, he gets over Sibyl’s death. He compromises his conscience, which is manifest in his thoughts: “Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything, by the sacrifice she had made of her life.” He views Sibyl as having died and accomplishing true and eternal beauty, therefore nothing for him to feel guilty about.

            Most importantly, the yellow book that Henry gives to Dorian, which he describes himself a ‘poisonous book’, devours every bit of goodness left in Dorian. He then embarks on a series of heinous conducts of moral turpitude, represented by his murder of Basil Hallward, whom he regarded as one of his indispensable companions. His end is tragic; he stabs a knife into his portrait, which has bore all the manifestation of his age and vice. As most readers would predict, the destruction of the portrait leads to the ‘real’ Dorian’s death. Ultimately Lord Henry, unaware of his tremendous influence on the young man who couldn’t bear the sudden inrush of the radical philosophy, tugs the strings for Dorian to act beyond corruption.

Short Story of a Nerd, Wang Jing

         Burping, I raised my upper body from the hard, wooden bed. Or more precisely, I awoke from by burp. I slowly opened my eyelids. A huge, self-made poster of Shakespeare on the ceiling came into view. I payed my tribute by reciting my favorite line, “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

         I got out of bed, looked at the clock to check whether it was 6am(it was), and started packing. Mom had already gone to work, so I made myself- or flung into the oven - some jiaozi(ground meat or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough), devoured them quickly, and set out to school.

        I live in a Chinese town. My house is built on a precipice that faces the ocean;the other 3 sides fall on a straggle of  small, rather filthy houses, set apart by criss-cross of walls. Mom and dad had originally planned to send me to a local Chinese school, but I had strongly insisted to attend an American school that was an hour walk away from my home. Part of it, of course, was because I desperately wanted to learn English from a more natural environment. Part of it, although I had never disclosed this secret to anyone, was because of the girls. Oddly, I am extremely enamored by brown hair of girls in my age. The most intricate jewels pale in comparison to the myriad hues of brown hair, ranging from chocolate, dark brown to light, radiant brown as that of a wild horse’s man. I’m afraid to admit that my hobby is to collect hair that fall out from girls of brown hair. I won’t go far as to elaborate on how I collect them.

         Flipping over cards of SAT words, I followed a series of narrow paths for a while to enter an American town, glad to extricate myself from the Chinese smell. When I got to school and entered the classroom, I was utterly shocked. Amber was already there, before me. She raised her head when I entered the classroom. With a casual look that seemed to be a part of her, following her everywhere in every situation, she curtly said, “Hi”. Then she dropped her head again, and vigorously went on to what she was doing, which I never got to find out for my shock. A mix of emotions swirled inside my head; so strong and tangled the emotions were, that I stood there for a few seconds to overcome them. First, I took great umbrage at myself for not being the first to arrive at class. That I probably had left home earlier than her, considering the hour-long walk, failed to act as solace. Second, I was impressed by her eagerness to study, which I had never regarded as particular. Third, I was overwhelmed by joy that at least from that moment, I wasn’t the only nerd in class - I instantly created an empathy for her. Lastly, and most importantly, I was entranced by her amazingly beautiful, brown hair. The velvety threads of silk shone in the bright morning light the windows let in.

         Gggghfffff!

         Oh, I cursed my habit of burping. Every un-nerdy and unscholarly instinct left inside me desperately told me that this might be the first and last chance to befriend a girl. What’s more, she wasn’t any girl; I had always dreamt of her and had spent time with her(it was either her or Shakespeare) in my fantasies. 

         Gggghfffff!

         This time, she let out a small giggle. Was she laughing at me, or was she genuinely amused? It was no time to entrap myself in pessimistic thoughts. Casually, I walked to my desk, flung down my bag on the desk, deliberately making a loud noise, and glanced to see whether Amber was looking. To my surprise, she was.

         Gggghfffff!

         She giggled again. Activating every cell of confidence inside me, I asked, “Why did you come so early?”

         “My mom got really frustrated with my mid-term score, so she forced me,” she said, with a grimace.

         Without allowing any time to respond, she added, “By the way, isn’t it the first time I’m talking to you?”

         “Yeah, I’m the problem. I’m afraid of talking to girls. Actually, this is the first time I’m talking to any girl in this class.”

         Then, for some reason, I blurted out, “So think of it as an honor.” Immediately, I felt hot blood rushing to my face. Why in the world did I say that? Out of embarrassment, I let out a burp.

         Gggghfffff!         

         This time, she chuckled, making an effort to be polite.

         “I certainly will. Um, is that a habit?” 
     “Yeah, it gets worse when I get nervous.”

         “Oh, so you are nervous. I was quite surprised when you talked to me first,” she said, with a tone of mild amusement.

         “Awfully, to be honest,” I admitted.

         But at the same time, I was quickly gaining composure by the fact that, astonishingly, I was having a normal conversation with a girl, especially a brunette. The conversation went on for a while, until Amber’s friend came in and interrupted. The conversation was nothing of particularly enthralling, but it was probably the most magical moment in my life. After school, I quietly sneaked up on her and asked, “Coming early again tomorrow?”

         She nodded, with a faint smile. I awkwardly waved my right hand, and too embarrassed to converse with her publicly, turned my back before she even waved her hand back.

            On my way back home,  I savored every minute of the walk; the world suddenly seemed so beautiful. When I finally got home, I jumped on my bed. Looking at Shakespeare, I said, “Oh, Amber, my Juliet”

Power of Communication

Power of Communication 

     

     One of the things I love to do is traveling. I developed my taste for traveling when my family, including me, stayed in Virginia, US for about a year and a half. During that one year and a half, we traveled a lot; we flew west to stand in awe of the Grand Canyon, to be absorbed by the vivacious ambience of Las Vegas, and to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of western cities; we flew North to gape at the sight of Niagara Falls; we drove several days south to drop by Florida to visit Disney World and drove some days more to Key West, where all of us were entranced by the beautiful color of the sea. 

     There are a lot more to talk about, but I will stop here to recall one special trip:Cancun. The trip is special to me not only because I had such a fabulous time, probably the best of all trips, but also because it gave me a lesson about the power of communication. We took a package tour to Cancun, a city in southeastern Mexico that has maintained its fame as a world-renowned tourist destination for its beautiful ocean, neat city layout, and archaeological sites. But for me, Cancun is all about hotels. The hotel my family stayed in for a week was fantastic; the blue ocean stretched from my feet the moment I exited the hotel and numerous amenities like restaurants and pools invited me to a paradise on earth.

     In this trip to paradise, my family came across a remarkable incident. After our package team entered the hotel, the tour guide gave us the keys for our rooms. The rooms were expensive as the hotel was luxurious, so rather than staying in a large family-size room, we decided to use separate rooms two by two. 

     My father and I received the key to our room and took the elevator. But when we opened the door, we were taken aback by what the room held for us. Instead of neatly organized beds, there was a luggage sprawled open on the floor with clothes everywhere. But we noticed that a few seconds later because a woman, apparently shocked, was staring at us. Although I can't recall her appearance well, she seemed to be an American women in her thirties.At that time, I was just a little third-grader and wasn't fluent in English. My dad wasn't so different. I don't know how we did it, but we overcame our shock and managed to communicate. It turned out that she was in her room rightfully - she wasn't a burglar or anything like that - and we had been wrongly assigned to the room by the counter woman. 

     Mom and my sister had been assigned to the right room, thankfully, and we met in the lobby to complain to the counter. At the time, my sister, who was attending middle school then, was quite fluent in speaking English. She was clearly the best speaker in the family, so she took the job of complaining.I was stunned by how confidently she went up to the counter and started speaking. After some exchange of words, she raised her voice; she seemed a bit angry. The women at the counter checked the screen, made a phone call, and said something to my sister.She gave my sister a key, and my sister walked to us with a mark of triumph on her face. She proudly said, "We are staying in the suite room." 

     The rest of us were immediately overwhelmed by surprise and delight at the abrupt news of fortune. It turned out that the woman at the counter had made an apology and assigned another room of the same price, but my sister had complained and demanded compensation, so after noticing that the suite room was empty, the counter woman had given us the room. 

     The hotel comprised thousands of rooms with different sizes and amenities, but there were only two suite rooms. When we entered the room, I found myself in a room that I had never imagined I would ever stay in. Everything in the room is worth talking about, starting from the lights to the room service, but the best part was the balcony that held an unforgettable view of the ocean and a whole spa for our own. That day, we stuffed our luggage in the room my sister and mother had been assigned originally, and spent the evening in the spa, relishing the endless ocean and the starlit night sky. 

     In my bed, I thought about how we wouldn't have stayed in the suite room if my sister hadn't spoken with confidence and fluency. I made a small wish that I, like my sister, would also be able to speak with such confidence and not be afraid to communicate in any situation. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray: Reading Journal - Chapter 1

Lee Changhun 121097

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Reading Journal

            Although chapter one doesn’t include vigorous actions that stir up excitement, it aptly invites the readers into the perspectives of Lord Henry and Basil Hallward. The two engage in a discourse on why Basil would not exhibit his fine painting, which Lord Henry finds surprising, as he believes that men do anything in a world to gain reputation. He also extols the painting, by saying “A portrait like this would set you far above all the men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.” Such a comment has various implications, including the fact that Lord Henry’s perspective puts artistic value over anything else.

            The reason that Basil refuses to exhibit his painting is certainly intriguing; he finds too much of himself in the painting. He argues that ‘every painting with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter’. Although I myself am not a painter, I totally agree; in fact, this statement holds for all creations that humans make. There are infinite ways a single man can be painted, a character be described by letters, or an invention be molded. The creator’s personality and experience together decide which specific way is chosen. But Basil goes further than this common understanding, as he describes his feeling as a curious instinct of terror, fearing that Dorian Gray’s personality would absorb his whole nature and soul. That a man can feel all this by simply looking at another man(yes, a man) is unrealistic, which plays an important role in making the novel absorbing and sensational.

            Another thing to note is that while the novel makes the readers increasingly curious about Dorian Gray, the least of details are provided. His looks or personality are not depicted except for some abstract characterization as fascinating or ‘simple and beautiful nature’; readers are left imagining. I found this characteristic both damaging and beneficial. It may be damaging, because the readers don’t get a limpid understanding of why the characters are acting in a certain way; but it can also be beneficial as it is probably best that certain characters are left unexplained.

            While the plot of the novel itself is intriguing, the dialogue between Lord Henry and Basil also include several ideas worth thinking about. In chapter one, Lord Henry says, ‘conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.’ He seems to be talking about the true nature of human’s conscience. Afterwards, as he persuades Basil that Basil will grow indifferent to Dorian Gray eventually, he says ‘The worst of having a romance is that it leaves one so unromantic.’ I personally approve of this paradox. A person is most romantic when the subject of his or her love remains abstract and untouched. But when the person familiarizes with the subject of his love, he or she, in many cases, is more inclined to grow indifferent as the dreams and fantasies about the subject dissipate.

              So far, the novel is developing its plot. Although somewhat abstract, the characters are engaging, and I look forward to what the rest of the novel will unfold.

TED: A Tale of Two Political Systems

           Eric X Li, a venture capitalist in Shanghai, challenged the dominant Western perspective towards political systems in his TED lecture. The Western world has given a theory about a society’s political development. It claims that for any society, electoral democracy is the ultimate stage of a linear progression of political reform. This theory has been utilized countless times to justify interventions in developing countries; whenever there was a problem regarding politics, it was because there was no electoral democracy yet. The theory furthermore degrades other political systems like communism, saying that there is no legitimacy behind the society’s leaders. It goes on to say that political corruption will be inevitable in the one-party system and the people’s wants will not be addressed. And most importantly, because of all these problems, communism will inevitably collapse in a period of time.

            When I heard all these arguments, I couldn’t agree more. I was also taught so and I found myself considering this a ‘common sense’. Of course electoral democracy is the best of what we have, like capitalism is the best of economic systems. After the Cold War, communist nations have collapsed one by one like a domino. The richest and most influential nations are all electoral democracies.

            But Eric shattered this with one gigantic example that I was deeply forgetting about: China. China is such a huge exception to every part of this theory. It has maintained communism for decades without any election. Not only has it maintained communism, it has succeeded in actualizing an unprecedented economic growth that has made it the 2^nd economic power. But what was most surprising in Eric’s presentation was that the Chinese people were satisfied with the government, more so than most developed countries with electoral democracy. How can this be true, with all the corruption and tyranny by the big government? Well, the truth is that the Chinese system is meritocratic and highly adaptable, and pragmatic. He says that ‘The Chinese political system ... comes close to the best formula for governing a large country: meritocracy at the top, democracy at the bottom, with room for experimentation in between.”

            The secret to this shocking success was the Organization Department of China. While giving up election, the Chinese chose competency as their driving engine towards political reform. The department is a gigantic structure of government officials in which officials have to endlessly compete with each other to strive to the top, where they could be influential. Surprisingly, the current Chinese president and most of the top officials are from an ordinary background, not from an elite background. It takes an average of 20~30 years for an ordinary official to reach the top in the system, which makes the top officials more competent than those of any other political system. 

            Eric acknowledges the fact that China has a lot of problems, corruption being one. But he maintains that what we should learn from China is that there is no final stage of political progression, like the Western theory claims. We have to admit that different political systems can work.

            I was strongly moved by the speech, not only because of his effective attack towards the Western theory, but also because of the beautiful conclusion he drew. There should be no forcing of political reforms by other countries; the definition of political reform itself is different in terms of what system you are talking about. Instead, we should embrace the diversity of the methods a society is run by, like we should embrace the diversity of the methods an individual lives.

Basketball Diplomacy

           Basketball Diplomacy - Hope in North Korea

            Sports are more than excitement. The pure surge of exhilaration when a NBA player slams a basketball exists everywhere, not only in the court but also across oceans.  This illustrates the power of sports: the power to unify strangers. Dennis Rodman just proved this point when he visited North Korea and had fun time with the lunatic dictator Kim Jeong Eun. Now, there are a lot of suprising elements in this one trip. Let’s put aside who he met for a second. The fact that he entered one of the most censored, secretive, and dangerous places on Earth and came back alive is unusual. But the fact that Kim Jeong Eun was the one who invited Rodman is outright shocking. It turned out that he was an avid fan of basketball.

            Rodman, in his interviews, talked about how Kim Jeong Eun is a ‘good guy’. When asked about how he has sent 20000 people to prisoner camps, he responded that that was politics, and U.S. is no different in essence. He furthermore trivialized the atrocities of the lunatic. Now Rodman’s interview stroke many people as a blasphemous, and a lot of the public opinion seemed to lose interest in the event.

            However, Rodman’s meeting with the dictator holds vast meanings and possibilities that might even be the key to the futile attempts the world had made towards North Korea. Many NBA stars are not just sports celebrities anymore, they have become exemplars of role models, contributing to community problems, traveling around the globe, and representing the sports of basketball of U.S. which far dominates that of any other country. In this sense, basketball has a tremendous potential to reopen communication with North Korea, through methods of trading culture. Inviting North Korean basketball players to the U.S. to teach them play will also be possible. One noticeable fact is that Obama is also an avid fan of basketball, as the visit of Miami Heat players to the White House illustrates.

            Sports have already succeeded in stopping a war for a day in WW1. Why can’t it work in North Korea?

Metafiction: a bottle

I opened the door. Fourteen white faces in the small office instantly turned toward me. Not one of them had the slightest mark of welcome or even warmth. One of them expressed exceptional disgust towards my appearance. He let out a huge sigh.

           “Late again, huh? What you doing there? You can’t even move now?”

           “Boss, it was my…”

 I started explaining.

           “Not interested. Take. Your. Seat.”

I ground my teeth. I held my rage inside.

           ‘Not now, Malcolm. Not now.’

I sat down and opened my laptop. I opened a file named ‘Project X’.

The day my life of beauty began when I encountered the following on Facebook: Try the "Wonderful Face Cream" for FREE!!!

'For Free? Then, why not?' I thought. I clicked on the advertisement for more specific details. The "Wonderful Face Cream" was a new product made by the famous cosmetics company "Amorae Oceanic." The advertisement poster had some fancy pictures and major scientific effects of the product. I was satisfied and excited to get that product. 

My boss spoke.

           “So, did everyone come up with a plot of the advertisement?”

Luke, a guy who was always late on things, spoke in a flurry.

           “What? What plot? What advertisement?”

           “Luke? Do you have another job in mind? I told you yesterday. Our crew has to submit a plot of the advertisement of our company’s new project. Stupid black cream.”
           ‘He would have screamed at me if I had not known that.” I thought.

“A black cream? Who would buy a black cream?” Luke questioned.

           “That’s the whole point. The advertisement has to persuade people that this black cream is somehow going to make them beautiful.”
           “Damn. That’s stupid.”
I spoke up.

           “Boss, I actually submitted the plot for crew.”
           “What?”

The boss looked at me as if I were drunken or drugged. I told him.

           “I wrote the plot and sent the file to the head office already.”
           “Are you out of mind? Who are you to do that? Can you even grasp what this project means to our crew?”

He picked up a water bottle and threw it to me with full strength. I watched it spinning towards me. I flung out my arm and grabbed it midair. My boss panicked and looked for another object in rage. Luke rushed to him and held his arm. .

           “Boss, let’s hear it first. It might be good.”

“He writes like a kindergarten kid”

           “Absolutely.”

 I answered calmly.

           “Read it.”

Below that sentence, the advertisement said, "We will send you the product by email if you give us your privacy."

"What exactly was that supposed to mean?' I wondered. However, as I badly wanted the product, I just ignored the sentence. I sent an email to the developers of the product. A week later, to my surprise, I became one of the hundred people to receive the product! I was eagerly anticipating the results. Who knew what else could come along with the cream?

I stopped reading here. I raised my head and looked at my boss. He looked like I’d thrown up on him.

           “What?”

I challenged him.

           “Read on.”

           ‘Oh this is going to get fun. He hasn’t heard anything yet.’

I let out a black, mocking laughter silently.

I opened the "Wonderful Face Cream" container. Inside the container, there was a cream tube like any other I had bought. I was disappointed. I opened the white tube to find some black cream. What??? I recalled my sister using green cream, saying that colorful creams are the new trend. So, I put some black cream on my cheeks. It was smooth and I soon covered my whole face with the cream. I went to the bathroom to wash off the cream, yet I could not. I had become black.

I screamed, moaned, and shouted in terror. This was the worst experience of my life! My skin color had changed, and there was nothing I could do. A few days later, an agent with silver sunglasses broke into my house and kidnapped me to a secret island. I was joined by a few other "blacks", put on a fishing boat. A strong looking man forced us to work as fishermen of their boats. Instinctively, I realized the sale of the "Wonderful Face Cream" was a great scheme related to racism and world domination.

I stopped once again. My boss was holding his neck, just like old men do in TV shows when they want are just about to explode.

The other guys also looked surprised. But they didn’t matter. Only my boss, the man who had tortured me from our first encounter, mattered.

I drank a cup of water. My boss was speechless.

The "Wonderful Face Cream" was intended to create a new world order that whites rule blacks again. Temporarily, racial freedom between whites and blacks were guaranteed, at least by law. However, the "new blacks", created by using the "Wonderful Face Cream", possessed lower intelligence than the average human being because the cream not only changed the face to black but also degraded the mind. The new blacks were similar to animals that look like black humans. Blacks and whites were discriminated again. The blacks who had the average human intelligence were forced to use the "Wonderful Face Cream". Soon, all blacks had low intelligence.

“This is the end, boss.”

His face was all red, ready to explode at any moment. Normally, he would throw things at me when he was mad. But this time, he seemed to mad to do anything physically, as if he would cross the safety line if he started letting out his condensed rage.

           “Get the fuck out of here.”
           “Why are mad about, boss?”

           “I don’t want to see your face anymore, pack your things and leave.”

           “I don’t understand, boss. Isn’t this exactly what you would like the world to believe? That a darker face means less intelligence? That a negro is inferior to a white man? Isn’t that strong looking man who exploits negroes you? Huh? ”

I could see him panicking. He had lost his words.

            “Don’t look at me like that, boss? Throw a bottle at me! Call me a negro and holler at me.”

He had never seen me in such courage and rage before.

           “You told me to leave, right? Here’s my resignation letter.”

I crippled the letter into a ball and threw it into his nose. He was too dumbfounded to react now.

“Don’t be too sad. I’ll see you in court. Let the law speak for the thousands of bottles you threw at my head”

I coolly walked towards the door. Yeah! This was exactly what I’d planned. What a drama! As I turned the door knob, something hit me hard. It was a familiar feeling. The world shattered. I opened my eyes. I faintly recognized a water bottle. It was still spinning; it must have been thrown real hard.

           “Get up Malcolm!”

Out of my instinct that lingered from my dream, I grabbed the bottle and got ready to smash it into his face. I sighed, and put it down.

           “Yeah boss.”