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Hi John,
Although the themes of Dead Poets Society and Mona Lisa Smile are similar, the ending of Dead Poets Society is more heartbreaking. One of leading characters had to kill himself due to the pressure from his father. And the teacher was fired. Compared to Mona Lisa, Dead Poets Society is darker and the rules in the movie were more conventional and inviolate. In a way, I think the girls in Mona Lisa Smile were much luckier.

Thank you again for your opinions. It’s a fresh experience for me to have such a chance to exchange ideas.

Yuanping Lu

Yuanping and Yuping,

I would like to end of my discussion by thanking you for interacting with me this past week and for this exchange of ideas. Your comments have truly helped my paper and expanded my viewpoint on different cultural topics. I hope you all the best and thank you again for all of your positive comments.

John Faeth

Culture, no matter where in the world, has played a principal role in creating the inaccurate conventional images that plague society even to the modern day. These stereotypes are essentially only recognized through the negative attributes that are sometimes portrayed from a select few people within that group. One class of people that have had the odds stacked against them from the beginning of humankind would undoubtedly be the female population. Shown in both And the Spring Comes and Mona Lisa Smile, the female lead characters are depicted as cast outs from society because they go against the social norms of their cultures. Ultimately by being shunned by certain characters it molds the two females to become seen as independent individuals.

Throughout the film And the Spring Comes, the expectation placed upon women in China is seen through Wang Cailing’s contrasting expected persona. When Cailing’s goal is not meet, society assumes she is in opposition to the cultural assumption that women need to get married and bring about children in order to live a fulfilled life, thus she is perceived as abnormal. In the beginning she strives to become a famous opera singer so that she could sing at the National Opera House, but continuously gets impeded along the way by different obstacles that she faces. These hindrances cause disappointment and sorrow for Cailing, to the point that she must eventually conform to what society expects so that she no longer has to experience the constant unhappiness inflicted upon her. The visual progression of her facing reality ultimately shows the audience of the social inequality that women undergo in a conservative culture due to the lack of support from the ones close to them.

While in And the Spring Comes the social expectations of bringing about a family are brought up from time to time, the film Mona Lisa Smile’s central theme is solely based on the perceived expected behavior for women in America during the 1950’s. A summary of the conservative thoughts during this era could be seen in one scene during which the students were taught proper etiquette so that they could host dinners to help please their husbands. These social restrictions do not allow for the growth of individuality or knowledge, but instead, place women inside a gilded cage. So, when the main character, Katherine Watson, is brought into the movie she is recognized as the embodiment of change by her progressive thinking and maverick spirit. Her personality clearly challenges the societal expectations of the 1950’s. In a further analyze of this, her thinking more corallines with modern terms of equality than those of the standards that were set in the 1950’s. This revelation expresses to the audience that while social norms will forever be present, there is certainly a need to keep updating them so that the expectations allow for growth of every individual, no matter the class of people.

Even though each film takes place in a different country and era, there certainly is a constant theme in which people need to explore and learn upon so that they can gain the knowledge to better prepare themselves for change. These cultural representations show that we as humans must never stagnate in terms of societal progression, unless if we want to widen the gap between social inequalities among different ethnicities, genders, and sexualities.

Reflection:

1)What were your expectations for the border-crossing activity? Are your expectations met? Why or why not?
When first hearing about the border-crossing activity, I had no expectations about it because I did not want to get to stressed over the assignment. Although upon looking over and commenting on others’ papers, I have to say that there are distinct differences between our cultures because through participating it opened up new ways for me to see common day topics that are in our society.

2) Please name three things that struck you most when you interacted with the Chinese peers, and explain why. (You may comment on the differences and/or similarities in lexical choice, writing style, idea presentation, rhetorical preference, cultural convention etc.)
The first thing that struck me when I was originally interacting with them was their in-depth knowledge of both the U.S. and China. This seemed unusual to me because in a general sense many U.S. students don’t know as much about other cultures, so see to their observations made me realize I should learn more about other places’ history and culture. Second, I was very impressed by their English. Their papers were set up and explained very well, which was unexpected to me because it is their second or third language. Thinking about it, I am not able to write a paragraph in Chinese, so for them to write a well put together essay was impressive. Lastly, I was struck by how respectful their comments were, while at the same time being constructive and encouraging.

3) Did you incorporate what had been discussed into the revised draft? If so, please elaborate on how the discussion had led to the revisions you made. If not, please explain why.
I was able to moderately revise my draft based on the discussed topics that we talked over. The first was the grammatical structure of some sentences throughout my paper. These few sentences were abstractly worded and with the help of Yuanping and Yuping I was able to revise them so that they could be better understood. The main revision that was suggested to me was based through the idea that Wang wasn’t trying to be independent, but just couldn’t find the proper husband. This idea was hard to transition into my paper because the topic was based around the independence of women, so I changed the wording in some paragraphs to better portray this.

4) Do you think the activity is beneficial to you in terms of knowledge gains or skill enhancement? If so, please elaborate. If not, please explain why.
I believe this activity was beneficial to me in terms of knowledge gains and skill enhancement. I think this because throughout the exchange I was presented with new engaging viewpoints on topics that I would have never actively thought about before. So, there definitely was the presence of knowledge gains in this activity.

7) Could you provide three adjectives to describe your feelings about the activity? Please explain your choice.
First: Pleasant – the free exchange of ideas, with the presence of respectfulness, made the activity interesting and enjoyable to do
Second: Thought-provoking – it allowed me to learn new ways about how people from other cultures view different topics
Third: Unique – I’ve never heard about an exchange like this, on a college level, so to do doing something that scholars would do is quite fun

8) Any additional comments, suggestions, and observations you would like to make to better help us assess your performance in this activity?
Thinking from my own mistakes, I think there needs to be actual deadlines for each round. I never checked the forum that often and I started it only a week before it was due, so there definitely could have been more interaction if I set aside some time before other work to do this activity.