people hate losing more than death

There is a little girl living in a small village with her family. She is six years old. There are five people in her family: her parents, her old brother and her grandmother. Her parents are very busy; they plant, water, haevest in their farm from dawn to dark every day. Her grandmother does some housework.

The little girl goes to kindergarten every morning by herself. The kindergarten is on the other side of the river, so she has to cross the river by boat. Although toys are very old and stories told by her teacher are boring, she likes to go to kindergarten. She never misses her class since she always has a lot of fun in kindergarten. However, when she comes back home, she feels lonely. There are no interesting books or toys in her home. She has nothing to do, but talkes with her grandmother, because her grandmother also feels lonely.

One evening, grandmother tells the little girl about death. This old lady has no religious faith, and she is so scared of death, so sometimes she needs to have someone to talk about death. She expresses that death means people will vanish from the earth. Dead people cannot meet family members and friends any more, and their body will be placed under dark earth, then gradually eaten by worms.

The little girl is terrified by death very much. She run into her room. Her room is in the attic. When she is lying in bed, she thinks life is meaningless and boring, and death is inevitable. The waiting time for death is too long, which makes her feel pain and desperation. She tries to find someway to end her life, but even killing herself is meaningless.

Dinner time is coming. Mother askes her to come downstairs to have dinner with her family members. She refuses, because she does not want to eat anything. Eating dinner cannot save her from the coming death. She is just lying in bed lonley. The room is dark and cold. She even does not want to turn on the light, because brightness cannot help her to escape from death either.

After dinner, her old brother comes into her room. He is ten years old. He wants to play cards with his sister. At the beginning, the little girl is not willing to play cards since she is thinking about death. Playing cards is so meaningless to her! However, her brother is annoying, and insistes on it. She has no choice but chose to play cards. Her brother is very good at playing cards. At the beginning of their game, her brother wins alot, and she loses all the time. The brother is so proud of himself; he laughs at her about her bad luck and terrible technique. The girl becomes angry and starts to play cards seiously. At the end of their game, she eventually wins.

She is satisfied and feels a little tired. She falles into sleep. On the second day, she goes to the kindergarten by boat. She foegets all the dealth thing.

About human compassion

"The problem with human compassion", written by Shankar Vedantam, is retional and logical. According to this article, the reason why people would rather donate money to save an abandoned dog than to save mass scale suffering is because our human brains don't have enough capability to deal with a large number of suffering people. People are more prone to save large proportions of suffering people. Therefore, compared to thousands of homeless or starving people and hungry children, one dog can more activate people's compassion. If the dog was saved, people would be satisfied because they rescued a 100% whole dog whose name and stories were known.

In this event, the media played an important role in transmitting a lot of information to people. From the media, people knew the name and stories about the dog, so they can imagine how poor the dog is and how cute the dog is. In the situation of just one dog, many people feel they have enough money and power to save it. However, when they face thousands of homeless people, they realize they can do onthing.

On 2008.5.12, there was a big earthquake happening in China, which killed 80000 local people, including many children because of the collapse of many schools. As a journalist, my husband went to the earthquake site. Before he went to there, he was excited because it was a good chance for developing his career. To him, thousands of killed people were numbers in his brain. However, when he went there and interviewed some families whose children were killed by the earthquake, he felt pain and desperation. He called me and cried that he even could not stand this tragedy. The interviewed parents told my husband what their chilren liked to do, what games they liked to play, and their favourite colors and pets. When my husband listened to these stories, he started to realize that these killed children are not just numbers published in newspapers, they are sons and daughters; they were human beings.

I believe that the reason why we have no compassion to suffering people partly because we cannot imagine the scene in our brains. If you are on the spot, it is a different story and your heart will be pulled out.

play review about Beauty

When I finished Beauty, I kept thinking that what I would wish If I had the lamp. When I was a little girl, I read a tiny story about a pair of shoes which could take people to wherever they want to go. After reading this story, I could not fall into sleep and I hoped I could gain the shoes. I felt pain and desperate about the fact that the magical shoes could not be mine forever. There were too many miracles in all kinds of stories and books, but Nothing had happened to me. I was born in a boring village where there was no playground for children, and I had never met aliens who might take me to the space freely, or met a fairy who might give me some magical and powerful tools which could make my life easier and more joyful. I was so disappointed about my childhood, no magical shoes, no genie from a lamp, no guests from space.

Let me come bake to the Arabian lamp topic. I can infer that what I would do if I got the lamp when I was a little girl. At that time I definitely did not care whether I was a beauty or not because I even did not know what the beauty was. My heart and brain were full of imagination. My first wish would be the shoes by which I could visit my loved uncle at any time; my second wish would be a white horse with two wings, and I could give it as a gift to my elder brother who ferociously dreamed to keep a horse; third wish was my last wish but I needed more wishes to improve my life, therefore I had to beg more wishes from the genie. Maybe the genie would angry at my greed and then take back all the things given by wishes.

Now I am not a little girl any more. I am thirty years old and I don't believe any magical things. I clearly know myself that neither am I a beauty nor a smart girl, though I am not a fool. For a long time I have realized the fact I am eventually becoming a very common person. If one day I went to beach and picked up an Arabian lamp, how to distribute three omnipotent wishes is a question.

Three years ago I asked my husband a question that what he would do with 10 thousand dollaes. After serious thinking, my husband told me he would send me to South Korea to reshape my face and body. By plastic surgery,I would be a woman whose face looks like a movie star whom he likes very much. We both laughed and knew it was just a joke. But I remembered this joke clearly. To take revenge, I would wish genie to give my husband a plastic surgery making his face look exactly like a movie actor whom I love very much. However,the problem is that I also like my husband’s face. I am not sure whether I would get used to his changed face. Therefore my second wish would let the genie change my husband's face back. I cannot waste my third wish, so I have to wish more wishes from genie. If genie says it is out of rule, I have only one wish left. I would use my third wish to get as much money as Bill Gates has. Money is too important for my life.

a few thought about Oil Spill Disaster

After I came to United States, I listen to radio every night to improve my listening skill, though my understanding is always limited by my poor Enlgish level. By listening to radio, I knew the news about oil spill thing for a while.

The fact that the problem is still not fixed and the situation going worse and worse really surprised me. Since I have seen too many Hollywood movies, I have thought that American government could deal with everything just as it has been portrayed in many Hollywood movies. Whatever disasters, including hurricane, flood, volcanic eruption, and even invasion from space, could be handled perfectly by American government or by American Heroes in those movies. However now, I need to face the reality that American government still has no perfect solution about how to control the oil spill after trying all kinds of methods, and that the Hero who can slove this problem still does not appear. The reality is really a hit at me, maybe at many people all over the world including American citizens. American mass now does not expect the government to save the whole world, but only to save the Gulf of Mexico, and give the balance back to this area where many creatures are living. Will the problem be fixed in a few weeks? Nobody including Obama can make sure that. We have to admit that America government is not omnipotent. This disaster provided a good lecture to both American government and American citizens.

I also thought that if this disaster happed in China, what would the reaction of Chinese government and Chinese people be? China media might report how brave the government was, how the government worried about people living in coast line, or how citizens were grateful to the government, and nobody would blame this problem on Chinese government, because comments concerning negative image of government would not be allowed to report by media which are also controlled by the Chinese government. Unlike American people, Chinese people always forgive their government so easily, because we never have expected government to do much for us. As a Chinese, I could say that Americans really have been spoiled by democracy.