Fall 2005 Edition

Edited by Cinda Coggins Mosher

My Favorite Sport -- Tennis

By Gang Cheng

Hometown:  Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China

I am a sportsman and got to love sports when I was a little child. At that time, I was always enjoying running outside with my little friends. We loved to play games together such as chasing each other.

When I became an undergraduate student, I found basketball was an interesting game, and I also had advantages over others for I was taller than most others and could easily seize the ball. So basketball became my favorite sport and became an important part of my life. But unfortunately I was always hurt when playing it, such as breaking bones, twisting ankles, and getting stitches. Finally, I decided to give it up and find another sport which was safer to enjoy. With the recommendation of my classmate, I got to know tennis.

At the beginning of playing tennis, I could always get great fun from it for new things were always interesting and I could improve my skill with each passing day. But after some time, I became a little sad about it for I could not improve my skills anymore. No matter how I tried, I still stood in the same place. Once when I played with my friend who was also a beginner, we hit the ball everywhere but the right place. We just picked up the balls all the time.

Somebody advised me to find a good player to play with so that I could improve my skill quickly. Luckily, I found some good players in my university and they were ready to help me. After some time of practice, I began to improve my skills. Until then, I hadn't ever enjoyed the real fun from tennis. At that time, in order to improve my skills I had to get up early every morning to play with those good players because this was the only common free time for us.

When I became a somewhat good player, I became very proud of myself and was always eager to show my skills to other beginners. Frankly, I was not so good and just a little better than those real beginners. One day, when one friend asked me to play tennis game with him I found I even didn't know how to serve. The match was terrible and it became a practice of serving.

Although I brought some book of teaching tennis and practiced more, I could not go further. This was harder than I had thought. Finally, I found a coach to teach me the right skills and practice methods. I benefited greatly from this process.

Today, I am already a relatively good player and can play tennis matches although I still make many faults when serving. I can help beginners to play and let them enjoy the fun from tennis. I can also get to know many new friends by tennis. All in all, tennis makes my life colorful, interesting and healthy.

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The Tones of my Words

By Yousef Al Yousef

Home countries: USA/Saudi

In my case, the question posed is two fold. I feel a hesitation overcome my pen; in the same manner a pause overcomes my tongue, when others raise this question. The fact that feeds this hesitance is the reality I was born and raised in one country but lived the majority of my life in another. A quite distinct other. I was born in Iowa City, a relatively small university town, located in the midst of the rural Midwest of the United States. My childhood memories are filled with green, corn-filled pastures. A blanket of white overlaying the ground in our backyard. Angels replicating my sisters' tiny stature. I learnt so much just visiting my friends. As an adult I lived in Saudi Arabia, the birth place of my parents and homeland of my entire family. I'm overtaken by thoughts of palm tree farms, with endlessly flowing springs.

The sand surrounds everything. The sand surrounds the oasis of AlHasa, my family's hometown, the lush green palms giving birth to sweet tasting dates, but also surrounded by sand. The sun is ever shining and the people ever smiling. In my words and gestures I sense a freedom of thoughts smothered by the pressures of cultural boundaries and crafted by the poetry of the Arabic language.

The Iowan in me wants to be simple and direct. The Saudiness fills my tone with suave and rhythm.

I have always felt complexity in my tone, in my dialect, even my thoughts. I strive for clarity to prevail. But the clarity seems--sometimes--dull.

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The Letter from the Lower Baltimore

By Amanda Beck

Hometown:  Mundelein, Illinois  USA

The letter from the lower Baltimore red brick crushed in hand, becoming a paper oyster in the dirt where ate his cigarette; his insole wormed and ground out the burp of sparks into spread anonymous pulp. The desert was street and the plastic patio furniture under him was battered yellow from white, brown seen through the bent of his left leg.

His fingers were sticky from the maple syrup coating and run under with nicotine trailings, tripe in his fingernails. It was a renovated row house where the block celebrated the Fourth of July, Bastille Day, Jamaican Independence Day, etc. Around her was "Jazz in the Park", potluck cookout and the smell of the harbor. Next summer, she was looking towards two or three story townhouses with patios or top-roof decks. The mess of her sent boxes was settled, Regards, Annie, and outside she sees Camden Yards.

And he saw: Died at home in her bed, two hours before they came, smashing the gurney into the walls. He was fourteen and staring at his sack of garbage mother hauling to the curb.

The butt of his jeans sagged as he stood, the heavy Ziploc bag filling his left pocket tearing the denim out from skin. He felt up the tabletop, fingers poking through and snagging in the weep holes. He flapped forward, shallow chest in singlet smacking onto the surface, scarecrow arms groping. There was nothing; he smeared his cheek over the knobbles, mouth open and drooling until his breathing evened again and he stood.

A meandering snake crack in the concrete broke to the diner door from his shoe, had at sometime splintered to the knocked-out streetlight. On a clapboard propped in the spattered window, child-handwriting had written "Siren," and beneath it, "Open."  The screen door swung towards the one-way road and he pulled in.

The air was thin, tied-off by strains of stale coffee and grease water. The door clattered to a close behind him, permitting a black-eyed woman to emerge from the kitchen, already sore-looking at him. "Joe," she said, and cancelled his eyes on the nickel tip of a drained saucer. "That ain't loose."

His, Joe's, hand spasmed, moving in, his canvas sneakers squeaked the floor. The elephant of the nickel sweat a line through the sour coat on his hands, but he slid away, dropping into another stool curve. It was happy hour in Maryland, or the crown hour of the neighborhood art fair. His upper lip twitched, which he smoothed over and up his face, feeling a lump above his eye before the brow.

The waitress slopped a rag over the emptied counter and he shifted in his seat, arm reaching back and patting at the plastic bag making metallic complaint. "All you've got in there is pennies," she said, crossed between reminder and scorn. Joe saw behind her in the mirror the rattled up phone booth. "Reach into the cooler and hand me one."

He turned, smearing a view in the dirt and condensed pane to rows of yellow bottles. It wasn't humming, he sank for the handle and stared into the gap between the fridge and the wall, tangled in the cords was a shine. He dropped to his knees, to his belly, his arm would grow and touch it. This quarter. The phone would ring off the empty wall and bring him her canned voice.

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Studying Pain

By Ye Liu

Hometown:  WeHan, China

Last month, I was very depressed. I read several papers on calculating Lyapunov exponents. It took me about a month to read them, but I understood just a little. Since I couldn't understand it clearly, I was really upset. Lyapunov lived a hundred years ago, but I can't understand his idea now. How sad I was. Maybe he was a genius, but I don't think I am stupid.

Sometimes my wife asks me: "Are you sure that you want to get a Ph.D. degree?" Every time I answered: "Of course, I am." Getting a Ph.D. degree is my dream. Since I want to go back to China after graduation, a Ph.D. degree will help me find a good job there, like a faculty position in a university. After I came here, I found that many Chinese students who had been in Ph.D. programs in engineering departments transferred to other departments, got master's degrees, and found jobs in America. Although they are very smart, they all think studying in Ph.D. programs is too hard and it takes too much time. Last winter, when I was at my cousin's home, he and his wife, who had been an assistant professor for a year at a university, both said: "If you want to be a professor in a university in America, you must be extremely smart and work very hard." My advisor, who is from China, works very hard. I often see him working in the Seamans Center at night and during weekends. Another professor is an American, forty years old, and still isn't married, and all his students call him a workaholic. I thought being a professor was too hard and wondered whether being a professor fit me.

Two weeks ago, I read a piece of news about a man in China, who was an advanced researcher in a research institute and killed himself because he was fired from the institute. The man had gone back to China three years before and had transferred his research orientation from microphysics to astronomical physics, which is an extremely less popular subject. Maybe because he was a newcomer to the subject, he had published just one paper per year (his colleagues often published about ten papers per year), so the institute wasn't satisfied with his work and fired him in the end. When I read the news, I was very sad and thought that the academic environment in China was too tough. Since I was a teacher in a university in China before I came here, I knew that the department pushed everyone very hard, but I couldn't understand why the institute fired the man and didn't give him more time, just like in America where an assistant professor can have five years to get a tenured position. However, in China, there isn't a tenured position, so a university or an institute can fire a person in each year. It is too hard for a professor, because if he doesn't publish enough papers or get enough funding in one year, there is a high probability that he will be fired.

Maybe being a professor is too hard either in China or in America, the number of papers and the amount of funding will decide whether a professor can stay in a university. Maybe if a person is a genius and if he can work very hard and put all his energy to the work, then he can choose to be a professor. However, maybe the road is too hard for me, because I want to live like a normal person and under less pressure.

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Controversies on Intelligent Design Theory versus Evolution Theory (excerpts)

By Vivian Ochola

Home Country:  Kenya

Coming from a background where the vocabulary of intelligent design does not exist, it was shocking new knowledge to me that Creationism is referred to as intelligent design. As far as I can remember, I met Charles Darwin in my high school in Kenya. Until then, all I knew was that the universe was created by God the supernatural being. As you can imagine, learning about evolution only left me confused and tortured mentally. I was meant to believe evolution was the only way that the universe came to be, and if I thought otherwise I risked failing my science class. I was glad when I did my high school standardized test and thought how nice, I would never again have to deal with evolution again! I did escape all that, even through my first degree in Bachelor of Commerce which I earned in India.

I find myself back in the same state as I was fifteen years ago on the issue of evolution and intelligent design. This time, I am determined to know what each argument in the controversy is about. I seek a conversation with my best friend Evans, who is also originally from Kenya. Despite our close relationship, we have never sat down to converse on intelligent design or evolution. Now I get him into a conversation about both sides of the argument and it is very interesting how it comes out. It's startling how Evans begins by saying how being in America led him to be informed about the intelligent design argument. He goes further to say if he was asked that question while back in Kenya, he would have required an explanation of the definition of intelligent design. According to Evans, he perceives intelligent design as a creationism argument.

Evans states that intelligent design is the opposing view to evolution theory. He is intrigued with both sides' arguments. Evans says he always asks himself the question, "how do I know what I know?" and answers himself basically through his five senses. There are lots of things which his five senses do not explain to him. He sees patterns all around himself, and that also reinforces his belief that there has to be a designer of all the patterns in the world. Evans seems comfortable when both sides of an issue are explored and then one makes an informed decision. Evans then declares, yes, intelligent design is a theory which cannot be proven through scientific experiment, but even science has not verified all that there is to be demonstrated. I then ask him what he thinks about whether both theories should be taught in the classroom, and he agrees that students should be presented with all sides of an issue, be it intelligent design or evolution; then students can make up their own judgment in terms of which side tends to be factual.

Do not engage Evans in an argument because he will debate it to victory. He goes on to say, there are lots of hostile opinions on each side of this debate and that intelligent design proponents claim that contemporary evolutionary theory is incapable of explaining the origin of the diversity of living organisms. Evans says that, to date, the intelligent design interest group has failed to offer credible scientific evidence to support their claim that intelligent design undermines the current scientifically accepted theory of evolution, and there are those who sit on the fence so as not to offend any one. At this point I wonder where he is heading, because I thought he was for intelligent design, so why does he seem to shift? What rhetorical strategy is he trying now, I ask myself? I gather he is trying to be logical. He has calmed down from being emotional about intelligent design.

I am trying to look at my background and am telling Evans how I was taught about God as the creator of the universe in my Christian religion class that was compulsory and how I was taught about evolution in my science class and no one ever complained about it in terms of whether one way of thinking is the only way to go about discussing the beginning of life.

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Reading and Writing in Chinese

By Yiwei Jiang

Hometown:  Changsha, China

I have been writing in English only for a couple of years.  Sometimes I pick up my pen eagerly wanting to write something in Chinese like I used to.  I am not an expert in the language, nor do I really love to write. I simply love Chinese. I guess Chinese may be the only language that has no alphabets. Whether it is ABCD or a Chinese symbol, it has none.  The only rule to associate the sound and character is to memorize them together. I know it probably sounds extremely hard to people who are used to being able to pronounce anything by just looking at the word, but the advantage of Chinese characters is that they are pictures. Reading Chinese characters is like reading small, elegant drawings and ideas.  Before you create the images in your head, they are already there. Unlike reading English, you do not derive a picture from images you associate with the words, but put together the images provided by the words. When you read a poem in Chinese, the images appear in your head one after another. Combined with the sounds, the poem acts out before your eyes. 

Reading in Chinese is enjoyable, but writing is more like a brain-killing, yet addicting activity. The fun thing about writing in Chinese is that not only do you look for the most appropriate words to deliver your idea, you also look for the most beautiful ones. Literally, you look at their "appearances," at least I do so. I tend to pile up all these good-looking words in my essays and sometimes I overdo it, but I can't help it. I'm addicted to all the fancy words in Chinese and this is why I love it.

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Speech to Accompany Showing Personal Website

By Yun Zhou

Hometown:  Shenzhen, China

More than ten thousand miles away, more than 15 hours' flight, 13 hours' time difference from her homeland, she has never been as Chinese as she is now. Since the world is becoming more and more global, society prefers people with an international background. As a result of this, here she is, by herself, in America. She has begun her life of studying abroad.

The purpose for her to build this website is to show the audiences--her family and friends--her life in America. Being a Chinese in an American university, on one hand, she is doing her best to fit in American society. On the other hand, she is trying to maintain her Chinese cultural habits and she is not denying her background as Chinese. On her website, she talks about her experience in America, expresses her feelings about her new life, and shows the audience how she balances between the two identities--Chinese and American.

Like most personal websites, her website has blogs, favorites, and photos. In the entry on September 18th, she talks about the Autumn Festival, which strongly demonstrates her identity as Chinese. She has included a lot of pictures of mooncakes on the website, which appeals to pathos and visual description, to show her missing her homeland more vividly. She says: "On the day of autumn festival, I am looking at the pictures of mooncakes, while eating cookies and chips." It's not easy to imagine the feeling of the loss of cultural habit when you have had it for 17 years. What's more, she can only have cookies and chips, which arouses the audience's sympathies. And she is also showing competing identities here. Mooncakes, which represent China, satisfy her spiritual needs. Cookies and chips, which represent America, satisfy her material needs.

We can also find her identity as American between the lines. The author uses some English words at times, which is because the meaning of the word would be changed if it's translated into Chinese. And there are some pictures of her with her coed professional fraternity. She is using ethos here. There aren't fraternities in China. Her being able to get in one of the most competitive fraternities in the university shows that she is stepping into American society. Although the brothers in the fraternity are not celebrities, pictures of them are more credible than pictures of random Americans.

The author of this website is a 17-year-old young person who has just stepped into American society independently, who is flexible. It's easy for her to absorb the two identities at the same time, she still can feel the battle between them. In China, she had never ever gotten home after 10 pm, while in America, parties usually start at 10 pm. In China, she goes to bed at 10:30 pm every day. While in America, it's impossible to fall asleep before midnight. In China, there won't be anything about sex or even love in textbooks, while in America, she found a whole chapter talking about those topics in her RA's Chinese textbook.

She doesn't use scholarly words, because of the plain and authentic language that makes her experience more believable and makes her entries more effective. And the website is not a business. It's not like selling a book. She need not make up some stories to make money, which makes her feelings more trustworthy. But taking into account the public nature of the medium, it's possible that she may have hidden some of her real feelings, such as unhappiness and difficulties she has encountered in her everyday life, which takes away from the ethos of the website.

Life is hard. Sometimes there are dark sides in life, but as long as you have a positive attitude to face them, life can be gorgeous. That is she, one of more than 2,000 international students at the University of Iowa in pursuit of higher education. She knows she is not alone, and she is continuing to bring out the best part of her.

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The Identical Approach to 28 Days Later

Boram Do

Hometown:  Taegu, South Korea

The piercing screaming, shivering air, or sudden appearance of the ghost is what we can expect in the horror movies which usually focus on the fear from adrenaline rushing. However, there is the other type of the horror movie, 28 Days Later, which spurs humans' fundamental fear. This movie shows how people's identities are reflected and how their identities are changing in the extreme fear. The general identities that the characters have, the extreme fear, and its effect on identities will be dealt with.

The general identities which dominate this movie are gender and race. First, there is the stereotype of the gender. Among the three main characters, Jim, Selena, and Hannah, the person who rescues them from the soldiers is Jim, the only male character, even though he is described as weak and ignorant about the zombie at the beginning of the story. His action can be regarded as the hero, contrasted to Selena's desperate or dependent behavior such as attempting to commit suicide with Hannah or kissing Jim. Jim and Selena are not stereotypical masculine or feminine characters, and actually Selena is very active and courageous. However we can't deny the existence of gender stereotypes, brave man and weak woman. There is a direct statement about gender as well. For the soldiers, the woman is regarded as a sexual tool, like a doll, not a human. This movie shows that in a male dominant group like the army, woman as an identity can be passive, dehumanized, and humiliated.

The other identity in this movie is race. Roughly speaking, the fact that the number of white people is more than black is recognized. It means more white people have survived, uninfected, than black people. The only black people who are not infected are Selena and a few soldiers. Most of the soldiers are white people, and especially people who seem to occupy high statuses are all white, and the infected man who is trapped to be observed is black. The tough and active aspects of Selena as a black woman can be compared to the cold and weak white girl, Hannah. This movie implicates the image of the white man as having more survival power and a higher occupation, and the image of the black woman which is harder than the white one. Both images from the gender and race can act as the mythos in this film.

The fear which controls the whole story is a unique characteristic of this movie. The main fear in the movie is not merely from the zombies or death. The causes which make the characters truly scary are being alone and distrusting humans. In the beginning part of the movie, when Jim goes out from the hospital, there is no one in the downtown of the London. At the time, no story has unfolded, and we can feel fear without any zombie or blood. Distrusting humans also causes the fear. There are two existences which can be deemed enemies, zombies and the soldiers who were or are human. The fact that my friend or family can be a zombie causes the distrust. The fact that the army that they believed would save them is abnormal and crazy for the woman is the realization of the distrust. It strongly appeals the pathos more than ostensible and superficial fear does.

The peculiarity of this movie, related with this fear, is describing the change of identities. Facing the extreme fear, people lose their identities like the soldiers do. The soldiers, who have easily killed several zombies, are killed by a zombie in spite of being in the same situation with guns. The only difference from before is the fear. Because of the fear, they run away from zombies and can't confront them. They lose the spirit of the soldier.

People also lose their identities as humans. The main factor which characterizes the human identity is morality.  However extreme fear snatches it. Jim who was afraid to just encounter zombies becomes able to hit and kill them casually. In the end part of the movie, he finally kills the uninfected human, showing cruel, brutal aspects. He is in the human identity which opposes the zombies at first, but he pushes himself, Selena, and Hannah in new identities which oppose everything except themselves. The group of soldiers also loses their morality, which keeps their identities as the human. They kill their colleagues and want the women just as a tool of sexual satisfaction. Although we can't see the soldiers before the zombie attack, we can guess that they change because of the fear. By breaking the general mythos of soldiers and humans, it can appeal to the pathos of fright.

In conclusion, this movie has the mythos of gender and race as the identities. On the other hand, it breaks the general mythos of the soldiers and humans to appeal to the pathos of fear from the isolation and the distruster. This movie shows the reflection and the change of the identities.

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Labor Day at Michigan

By Meiyan Jiang

Hometown:  Yantai City, Shandong Province, China

At four o'clock Sept. 3rd I was ready for my trip to Michigan. The suitcase was packed, a camera, a map, a notebook and my translator were in my handbag and money was in my pocket. Nine of us were heading up to Holland Michigan. Maggie and Ju, who were going on this trip with us, were half an hour late in arriving. As we began the trip to Michigan, Maggie suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to bring her suits and Ju's short dress. They were still hanging nicely on the bedroom door. We said, ''Forget them and let's be on our way.'' In the car, we had some hamburgers which we had prepared for supper. We sang some English and Chinese songs and enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the way.

At eleven P.M, we arrived at the large guest house belonging to the parents of our American friend, Ann. The house had two floors; the main floor had four bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. Each bedroom had a double bed, a TV set, an electric fan, and a dresser. The basement had 2 bedrooms, a family room and bathroom, an electric fan, and a dresser. It was very nice .Because we had been sitting in the car for a long time, all of us got very tired. And though the sound of the crickets was very nice to hear, we all soon fell into a deep sleep.

After breakfast, we started out to visit Windmill Island. The 240 year-old windmill, at 12 stories high (total height), is the only authentic Dutch Windmill operating in the U.S. Even though this Wind mill has five floors you can visit, one person could control it to grind the wheat into flour. We watched Dutch dancers and visited a candle shop. The next place we visited was a shoe factory where we bought many crafts that looked like miniature pairs of shoes.

As soon as we went out of the store, all of us were attracted by 2 beautiful wooden boards on the grass. They were special boards, just like a pair of hollowed ''skis'' with 4 pairs of shoes attached to them, 4 shoes on each ''ski''. They were well fitted for 4 people. Each of us wore a pair of the wooden shoes. We put our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us and slid forward with these words, ''One, two, one, two''. The ''skis'' kept going under our control .All of us were sliding along as one, so the skis were glad to go with us.

How happy we felt at that very moment! Next to the ''skis'' there was a shelter. In this shelter you could see a big wooden antique street organ, six feet tall, which one person could play. It made a very loud and sweet sound. Everyone who passed by this place had to stop to have a good look at it. It was really a wonderful sound that I've never heard before.

The next morning, we went to a church. There, we introduced ourselves and sang some Chinese and English songs .After the service, we gathered to have a big lunch with all the dear church people .Before we left they gave us some gifts such as books ,CDs, and other practical things. Then we hurried to the lighthouse called ''Big Red''. What a beautiful sight!

No sooner had it disappeared than we sat around on the lakeshore and studied the Bible. What a meaningful day we had!

The day that we would never forget was the last day .We went swimming in Lake Michigan, which looked like it had no end. It seemed to be connected to the blue sky .It's a pity that I couldn't swim. I had to play with the Frisbee in the water with my other three American friends. We played wonderfully. After getting to the beach, we built a lot of sand castles with the wet sand and went for a long walk along the lakeside. While we were walking along, a group of seagulls were flying toward us and landed on the beach. It seemed that they warmly welcomed us with their double wings. Also occasionally the waves hit our feet. Watching the waves rise was very exciting, and when they washed over our feet we felt relaxed. We could see so many people with sunglasses sitting under beach umbrellas; some people were reading books, some other people were flying kites, and some were sunbathing.

In the lake we could see a large number of motor boats, jet skis, air mattresses, tubes, and sailboats. They kept coming and going. The most interesting thing that happened was that some dogs were swimming in the water and they would catch the fruits which their owners threw to them. Then they buried the fruits in the sand.

On the way back we picked many flowers of peony plants. The time came for us to return home. We took many pictures with Ann's parents on the deck and did a thorough cleaning of the house. We wrote some thank you notes and gave them to our dear folks and said good-bye to the warm-hearted elderly couple. Then we started on our way back. What an exciting trip this was! Ah, Michigan is really beautiful in my heart. I hope I'll have a chance to see it again.

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Race and Gender Social Constructs

By Hulda Karen Gottlieb

Home Country:  Brazil

When we observe throughout society's development the concepts about race and gender we come to understand that they are very constructed ideas. I do believe that these ideas are constructed in our mind when we accept, for instance, what science has to say about gender and race, how the history of race and gender is told, and how those who are part of our social life, family, friends and the church (if we go to a church), see us as man and woman, black and white, Hispanic and American. And these ideas are changed, sometimes very fast, and sometimes very slowly.

In the article "Social Construction Theory," Carole S. Vance (29-32) introduces how gender is socially constructed, which means how we are defined as woman or man is a concept constructed by society throughout history, "Gender: The assignment of masculine and feminine characteristics to bodies in cultural contexts." (Key terms 8). Nelly Oudshoorn also present us with this "construction" of concepts related to gender on her article "Sex Differences and Changing Ideas of Gender" (6-8), "Women had even the same genitals as men, with one difference: theirs are inside the body and not outside it." And the idea is to perceive how biology once understood the difference between woman and man, and how it does now. Of course, nowadays neither biology nor secular people think that woman and man have the same genitals.

This theory of the construction of concepts also applies to race. Ian F. Haney Lopez, in her work "The Making of Race, Sex, and Empire" (52-56) relies on four points: "First, humans rather than abstract social forces produce races. Second, as human constructs, races constitute an integral part of a whole social fabric that includes gender and class relations. Third, the meaning-system surrounding race changes quickly rather than slowly. Finally, races are constructed relationally, against one another, rather than in isolation." (54).

We absorb those "fabricated" ideas, most of the time, in a very unconscious way. We are taught how to think, we are taught how to behave, and how to presume the capabilities of other people based on their race and their gender. If we take time to identify why and how these concepts are created, we can link them to the very basic characteristics that serve to divide our society and the women/men world, as economy, history, and religion. Lopez provides us with the example of the Mexicans, when in a certain period of history they were considered "indolent", and fifteen years later they were "efficient" (Lopez, 55). All the fabricated things, even concepts, were made to serve a specific purpose, but it is necessary to state that they can be changed and they are changing every day.

Whether they are changing for better or worse, that is another point. Lets take myself as an example. Sex: female. Gender: Woman. Race: Hispanic/Latina. Age: this is not relevant. If we take the whole package and put it in the market (society), what I have found it is that for all my actions and capabilities I am judged through my race and gender. It labels me, or sometimes prevents me from being more, doing more, and might also restrict me to a point where is not my free choice. No human being should be confined to racial or gender characteristics. Although we all are taught to judge others based upon these three components, race, gender, and economic position.

Just two weeks ago, I went to the hospital. When I talked to the person at the front desk to check in, I asked myself how many seconds it would take for that person to confine me to the limitations (which I know that I do not have any) of my race (a fact, which I would not change if I could), social class (which most of the time it is assumed based on my race), and my gender. It is information processed very fast in the clerk's brain. Before I had finished my first sentence, the clerk limited my world to certain characteristics. By then she thinks: Well, she is Hispanic, from a developing country, probably cannot really understand English, so I will just go ahead and speak as if she were mentally retarded and, on top of it, a woman. Which means that I might have a husband, or boyfriend who beats me up, since that is the way in which Hispanic women are treated by their men, the "macho" guys!

Forty minutes later, the clerk is going to apply a whole new concept of who I am based on my social class. My husband called me, and I told him that I had not yet seen the doctor and that I had checked with the front desk for the reason it was taking so long. But I was told to wait! He called the clerk, who insinuated that I did not communicate well, and therefore they did not have my information on the computer yet. My husband got really upset for such presumption based on my accent. He was seeing patients on another floor, but he came down to where I was to talk to the clerk. When she saw that my husband was a doctor, she got so nervous. Now, I was Mrs. Gottlieb, I was probably not poor, because my husband is a doctor. I probably got some good education because a doctor would not dare to marry a dumb woman. I am smart, so she does not talk to me as if I were retarded, and of course my husband does not beat me up, he is an American, he is a doctor--Americans, doctors... they do not do that!

For the record, violence does not chose a race or social class, and neither does ignorance, but that is a subject for another paper! Within, literally, three minutes I got my vaccine shot. I could not have a better example to say that gender and race are very much attached to social class. However, I could say that Lopez knew what would happen to me when she wrote, "Because races are constructed, ideas about race form part of a whole social fabric into which other relations, among them gender and class, are also woven." (Lopez, Ian 55).

It intrigues me how the idea of race can be found so fragile when the social class power comes to the scene. It is paradoxical because the same fragile idea reveals itself so strong when it dictates what people should do and who they should be, based on the race fact alone.

Nelly Oudshoorn, in the article, "Sex and the Body," uses another approach to say that gender concept does change throughout history based on new facts discovered in the scientific field. However, the concepts built upon scientific knowledge might change at a slower pace than in my example above, where my capabilities to communicate (level of education) were attached to my race and my social class. The author also mentions that it was once believed that women were inferior to men because their skull was smaller, "The depiction of the female skull was used to prove that women's intellectual capacities were inferior to those of men" (Schiebinger 1986). It is impossible to change a women's skull size. Therefore, if a change happens in this concept that women are intellectually inferior to men, it is going to be a very slow change. It is going to take much longer for scientists to come up with a new discovery capable to change the knowledge around than it took for the hospital clerk to change her mind about me. The changes intrinsically related to gender are slow, but when race and gender are attached, the change can take just a few seconds.

As you can see, we do not need to go very far or to engage in complicated research to prove that the concepts of gender and race are not essential, but they are constructed and always changeable! Therefore, it is important for Women's Studies to address the race issue. Because we are judged on a scale of race (which race has the power over another), social class (how much money we have), and gender (woman or man). Through the understanding of how the concept of race changes, we can understand how the ideas attached to gender can also be changed. Now is up to us, women, to find a way to be discharged from this image in which society portrays, confines us that we are able to fulfill some, but not all of the roles available out there. When it comes to capacity, we need to lose the connection with gender, but not with sex.

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Lost in Interpretation

By Si-Chi Chin

Hometown : Taipei, Taiwan

When I first met an American, he greeted me by saying: "How are you?" I felt so warm. I replied to him: "Well, you know, it's my first time in Iowa. Things here are quite different from Taiwan. It's a mixed feeling of excitement and anxiety. I had some uneasy dreams for the first couple of days. But it is okay, everything is settling down and I've started to find my way in this city..."  The one I spoke with seemed surprised. Later on, I realized the answers for "How are you" are quite limited. The answers seem confined to "fine!", "good!" and "great!".

I started reading the Daily Iowan. Since I am living in Iowa now, I would like to increase my knowledge of this place, and practice English at the same time.

In the Daily Iowan, a corner on the second page drew my attention. It was a corner filled with people's names, their ages, and addresses. Then I found something quite peculiar. I asked an American friend: "Who is the girl PAULA? Her name is everywhere!"

The corner was the Police Blotter. You can image how I made my friend laugh for a minute.

"It is Possession of Alcohol Under Legal Age," explained the friend.

Being a non-native English speaker, learning English is like programming. It is artificial rather than natural. Still, unfortunately, my language program is comparatively stupid. It is primitive, slow, and fragile. When a variable is not well defined, it turns out unexpected results. Cases such as "How are you?" and "PAULA" are examples of ill-defined variables.

My language program performs poorly in voice recognition. It accepts only the standard American accent. When international students speak with a peculiar accent, it would become an illegal input. When American students jabber with each other, it would be illegal input as well.

When dealing with complex data, it would pop up error messages even more frequently. The algorithm error in my program would easily lead to infinite looping or crash. Many factors could be involved in the operation failure, such as bad weather, early morning, fatigue, depression, and sickness greatly affect the performance. To stabilize the program, I should work on updating and debugging.

In programming, an algorithm serves as a logical strategy to approach a problem. It determines how a question could be solved. For example, if you need to find a person's name in an address book, you may either search for it from the beginning to the end, or split the address book in the middle, to see whether the name is before or after the current page, then repeat the process until the name is found.

To upgrade my language system, I have developed my own updating algorithm. I called it "Bold Algorithm". The name comes from a saying of Dr. Hu Shi, a famous scholar in Taiwan. He said: "Make a bold assumption, and then verify it prudently."

"Bold Algorithm" aims to terminate the infinite loop and prevent the unexpected crash in my language system. Usually, when an illegal input occurs, my system will be pending for further instructions, since the input cannot be identified. While the system is searching its database or waiting for another command, piles of information keep flowing in and quickly drown the operation and paralyze the whole system. This flaw would easily clog daily conversation. In the worst case, it could stagnate your life, estrange you from this lovely country and leave you lost, lonely, and miserable. Hence, this flaw cannot be allowed, and "Bold Algorithm" must be applied.

Here is how the "Bold Algorithm" works. Once the system detects an illegal input from the conversation, "Bold Algorithm" will immediately assign it a value. The strategy is to find the related keyword, and produce a meaningful sentence that is acceptable to the current system. That is, whenever I receive any message I am not quite familiar with, I assume I get the point and try to believe I understand what others are talking about. Therefore, no more infinite loop or crash, the operation can carry on.

But, cheating on oneself is only a temporary tactic. It is neither a moral behavior nor a final solution. So, it is not yet the end. The assumption needs to be verified by the following commands: "Does it mean that a cat jumped on the dog?" or "Are you saying that the cat fell on a dog?" Then you might get the truth that a cat fell in love with the dog but dumped the dog in the end. Verification plays an important role in the "Bold Algorithm". It allows you to know what others are laughing at when they say "A cat fell hard for a dog".

My "Bold Algorithm" works well so far. I seldom feel lonely and miserable in this country, and now I know what PAULA is about. But my "Bold Algorithm" is still limited under certain circumstances, such as in the case of "How are you?" It might not be a good idea to pose a question like: "When you say ‘how are you', do you really want to know what I have been through?" However, verification like this is no longer necessary for me, since "How are you" has now become a well defined domain. Now, whenever people greet me with a light "how are you", I answer them: "I'm fine, thank you!"

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My Life, My Card

By Jea-Hong Ahn

Hometown: Seoul, Republic of Korea

Credit card use has now become an inseparable part of our daily lives. There are numerous credit card companies competing for more customers, and very naturally, credit card companies have adopted different kinds of advertisement methods to more effectively reach their potential users. Currently, two different types of advertisements seem to be most widely used in the credit card industry.

The first type is called direct mail (DM) advertisement which is shown on figure 1. If you are an adult with an income, you will probably receivethese DM credit card advertisements in your post box almost every day.  A typical credit card DM contains a bunch of written and numerical information, time-limited (so called special) offers, and prepaid return envelope to urge receivers to sign an application form immediately.

Figure 1: Credit Card Direct Mails

The other type is called mass media advertisement which is using popular mass media (e.g., magazines, TVs). They more heavily rely on images and concepts in soliciting their users rather than plain written information. For the purpose of this writing, I would like to compare these two different types of credit card advertisements, and more specifically compare them using the American Express Card magazine advertisement as an example. What are the differences between the regular DMs and the magazine ad? What are the messages and how those are conveyed by these two different types of advertisements? Who are the target audiences? And how are these ads contributing to the company's marketing strategies? By comparing these two ads and answering these questions, we can discover what the advertiser wants to achieve.

I ran into the American Express Card advertisement shown below in figure 2 in the Newsweek magazine. All it has is a black-and-white image of a famous actress and a simple phrase saying "My Life. My Card."   I could notice that this magazine ad is quite different from the regular DMs that I receive from the same company beyond their difference in media.

Figure 2 : American Express Magazine Advertisement

First, the DMs and this magazine ad differ in "what" they deliver to the viewers. While the DMs mainly advertise the product (i.e., the credit card services), this magazine ad depicts the image of the users of this credit card. The magazine ad shows an actress (Kate Winslet, in this case) and her signature on the credit card, and therefore very naturally leads the viewers to identify this celebrity as one of the users of this specific credit card. Moreover, the advertiser tries not only to describe the images of a current customer of the American Express Card, but also to suggest the images that you can acquire by joining membership of this card.

If we look carefully at this magazine ad, we can also find some clue information along with these powerful images. The website information regarding the credit card is shown at the lower left part of this ad. Interestingly, the provided website information is ‘mylifemycard.com', rather than ‘americanexpress.com'. While the ‘americanexpress.com' provides product information, ‘mylifemycard.com' focuses on displaying several famous card members and their diverse aspects of life. Undoubtedly they are all sophisticatedly selected ad models. Because the credit card market is fully saturated it has become very difficult for the companies to make the product differentiation amongst hundreds of credit cards. Therefore, it seems like advertising via appealing user images, especially the ones that the potential customers would want to directly identify with, is a more effective way of communicating with the mass media viewers, rather than bombarding them with product information like in the DMs.

Secondly, this magazine ad is different from the DMs in "how" they deliver their messages. While the DMs appeal to the logical side of the viewers by providing detailed information, this magazine ad appeals to the viewer's emotion by resorting to the American values on professionalism. It seems obvious that the advertiser wants to make the image of a ‘hard working professional woman', by featuring a famous actress, who is immersed in her work with a rather disturbed hair style and a casual look. She is barefooted, and baby bottles and lots of notes are scattered on her desk. Modern American society puts high value on professional women, and more particularly on professional moms. There are increasing numbers of career women and continuing interests in success stories of working moms in American society. By utilizing the image of a working mom, and successfully concentrating it with a message that is in accord with the lifestyle as well as the value system of the society, this ad tries to appeal to the emotional aspect of the viewers and ultimately to create favorable image of the American Express Card and its users.

Because the speakers of DMs are credit card companies themselves, the DMs messages are clear and delivered directly – fill in the form and post it right now. The magazine ad's message, however, is not delivered directly from the credit card company, the rhetor, to the viewer. By featuring a famous person as its speaker - the copy is not HER life, but MY life – this ad delivers the message using the voice of a third party. The message of this ad is also not straightforward. Through the picture of a working professional mom and its copy "My Life, My Card," we could figure that the implied message is "make your own life." To the Americans, the pursuit of independent life is their distinct traits and their history itself. Naturally the independence is undeniable social value to the American. So this message could strike the chord of the deepest emotion of most Americans. In my opinion, this message is not only delivered indirectly but also this may not be the real exact message that the advertisers want to deliver. By showing the company's logo and mentioning the card, the advertiser tries to link this undeniable message and its company, American Express Card. So I would say the real message of this ad is "make your own life with American Express Card, as I do," although the advertiser is very cautious to reveal its real intensions. Usually, people are more reluctant to accept the message if it is directly given to them. This is also why this magazine ad appeals to viewer's emotions and delivers its message indirectly.

It goes without saying that the core target of this ad is the professional moms, the group in which the model belongs. However, this ad does not exclude other groups. Any adults who have incomes and can respond with emotion to this ad could be its target audience. According to the Newsweek magazine, its audiences are comprised of 47% women and 68.9% employees. Therefore, it indicates that over half of the audience members are men. This data shows us why the advertiser chose this news magazine.

The credit card companies adopt various kinds of marketing tools to increase the number of their customers. In the current competitive market, raising brand preference is one of the most important steps to achieve this goal. The magazine ad plays its role in increasing the brand preference. The brand preference, however, does not always directly lead to actual membership application. Therefore, the DM is inevitably used in conjunction with the magazine ads to evoke purchasing behaviors in a more direct manner. I would say that the two different types of advertisements are inseparable in the current credit card market, and they each fulfill different intentions of the credit card companies.

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Elite Education and Enlightenment

By Allison Page

Hometown:  Iowa City, Iowa

During the middle of this past summer, my boss at the University Honors Program called me into her office and asked me if I had thought about applying for a Rhodes Scholarship. Endowed by the will of Cecil Rhodes—a self-proclaimed imperialist—the extremely selective scholarships (93 awarded annually, with 32 given to the U.S.) provide 2-3 years of study at Oxford University, with funds to return to the U.S. and a stipend for travel. My first response was laughter, and then incredulity that she would a) think I'd be competitive and b) think that they'd even take "my kind"—that is, someone who has radical feminist politics from a lower-middle class background. After my initial surprise, she explained that the ideal Rhodes applicant is not necessarily a conservative, athletic male interested in studying public policy, but rather, someone who is, above all, committed to making change in the world. I had my doubts, but after finding the one-year M. St. degree in Women's Studies at Oxford, I decided to go ahead with the application process.

It was a rigorous undertaking that included an essay, resume, and eight letters of recommendation, and it raised its own questions related to elitism and education. The fact that I had my own scholarship advisor to guide me through each step—that I knew her well because of my cushy job at the Honors Program—was yet another privilege I had been given. But my overarching discomfort arose from the seemingly contradictory position in which I had placed myself—how could I possibly justify studying at one of the most elite good ol' boys' clubs while simultaneously seeking to dismantle such institutions? And, although the chances of even getting a Rhodes were very slim, the fact that I was applying—and wanted to apply—revealed my ambivalent relationship with enlightenment.

The thought of becoming a Rhodes Scholar appealed to me on multiple levels: I'd have a free master's degree in Women's Studies from an institution that carries huge academic weight, and, as I joked throughout the process, I'd be given the key to the ivory tower. I would spend a year doing in-depth work on feminist theory in the company of creative and motivated students. And the accompanying cultural capital and academic prestige would afford me an "easier" place from which to raise activist concerns and use the tools that I had mastered to dismantle the master's house. Moreover, doors would open, people would be impressed, and I would enjoy a (more) privileged life.

But these same advantages were also laden with problems and a colonialist discourse that I didn't want to swallow in order to be chosen for the award. The fact that the funding for the two or three years at Oxford came from Cecil Rhodes' extensive colonization of much of Africa, combined with the knowledge that the original impulse of the scholarship was to further the British empire, left me feeling both disgusted and guilty.

Oxford University and the Rhodes Scholarships are deeply entrenched in modern ideals and the promise of emancipation through enlightenment. According to the Rhodes Scholar website, "The Rhodes Scholarships owe their origin to the remarkable vision expressed in the Will of Cecil J. Rhodes, the British colonial pioneer and statesman who died on March 26, 1902. He dreamed of improving the world through the diffusion of leaders motivated to serve their contemporaries, trained in the contemplative life of the mind, and broadened by their acquaintance with one another and by their exposure to cultures different from their own." As a "colonial pioneer," Cecil Rhodes took it upon himself to further the project of modernity—shedding light on the "dark continent" and then leaving a massive amount of wealth to perpetuate his "legacy" (read: his empire).

The "contemplative life of the mind" is an image rich with Enlightenment discourse, and Cecil Rhodes' vision of "progress"--(i.e., bringing scholars from certain parts of the world to participate in English culture as if it is the norm). Although the website emphasizes "exposure to cultures different from their own," in the case of Cecil Rhodes, that "exposure" meant colonial conquest—one that eventually translated into enormous amounts of money. As Rhodes' life exemplifies, Enlightenment narratives nicely shore up capitalism.

Although I am critical of these discourses, I am also aware that I am simultaneously produced by them. In some ways, I believe in the promise of Enlightenment—I wouldn't be in an academic setting if I didn't. And it is an enlightened moment when one identifies a racist comment or a sexist joke. This conundrum surfaced again and again throughout the application process and reflected the different positions I occupied vis-à-vis the Rhodes. Part of the appeal of the scholarship was that I would acquire all of this "new light"—but to what end? To have control and mastery over "reality," even though I believe that reality is discursively produced. As Jane Flax writes, "one of the great promises of Enlightenment is that truth will set us free" (133). The "truth" I would obtain, I told myself, would be feminist truth, and therefore, it was justifiable.

But as Flax argues in "The End of Innocence," "postmodernism calls into question the belief (or hope) that there is some form of innocent knowledge available... while many feminists have been critical of the content of such dreams, many have also been unable to abandon them" (133). Flax goes on to describe "innocent knowledge" as "the discovery of some sort of truth" that prescribes ways to act in the world that "benefit or are for the (at least ultimate) good of all" (133). My desire for emancipatory truth reflects this belief and operates on the assumption that there is a truth to be discovered or that "good" is easily defined.

Although the idea that I could inhabit a "pure position" by studying feminist theory helped me justify my application, it was also an attempt to assuage my potential guilt (if at Oxford), as each encounter with the Rhodes website left me feeling worse. On the website's "Frequently Asked Questions" page (entitled "A Q and A with the American Secretary of the Rhodes Trust), a concern about the Rhodes Scholarships' recent admission of women to the application process (the first was in 1976) was raised. The potential applicant wrote, "I hear feminism is far less advanced in England than here. Will I be comfortable there?" In response, the secretary replied that "... [m]ore than 40% of all Oxford students are women today, this only approximately 30 years after most of Oxford's colleges began to admit women. Oxford is very proud of its traditions and history, and for hundreds of years, those were traditions and histories defined and celebrated by men." 

By ignoring the gendered (and raced, classed, sexualized) components of modernity and the Enlightenment project, the Rhodes/Oxford tradition also remains unexamined. The website goes on to say that this "tradition" of exclusion "may lend a certain ‘maleness' to aspects of the institutional spirit. However, that does not necessarily translate into discrimination or ill-treatment." This description of the Oxford campus atmosphere ignores the constant re-inscribing of history and, instead, takes a teleological view. Whereas Oxford once did not admit women and Rhodes Scholarships were only available to men until 30 years ago, things have now "improved," even though there may still be leftover "maleness." Not to worry though, because it does not necessarily translate into discrimination. 

But despite of all this, I continued with the application process. And despite my awareness of the lack of "pure" positions, I clung to the idea that my discourse was better, more pure, and less dominating than the discourses of the other applicants. This is a promise of Enlightenment—that one can overcome conflict between truth and power by basing authority in reason (Flax, 133).  If I got a Rhodes Scholarship, I would study feminist theory, and my discourse would enlighten me to an awareness of racist, sexist, imperialist, homophobic hegemony, and I would be transcendent. My feminist truth would only bring about emancipation.  

In the end, I didn't get a Rhodes. From the sixteen of us in district 14, two were chosen; both were women, one who was from the Naval Academy (which scored 4 Rhodes Scholars out of the 32 in the U.S.). During the formal interview, I was asked questions that required me to provide easy, 5-7 sentence answers. Similar to the two mock interviews at the University of Iowa, I interrogated the questions, and instead of providing answers that fit the interviewers' narratives, I questioned the narratives themselves. When asked (by a venture capitalist no less) how one might improve the economic disparity I referenced in my Rhodes essay, I responded that the situation I discussed was about much more than just difference in wealth. I argued that class reflects cultural capital and is necessarily layered with race and gender. He then asked how--if I could do anything--I would change the situation. I suggested that capitalism and poverty go hand in hand, and that I would end racism.

This shifting ground of how I could answer questions that relied on certain assumptions was something I tried to negotiate throughout the application process, and it became a question of what part of this suspended position I was going to be at during the interview. As I realized during the cocktail hour and dinner (the night before the interviews), I would most likely be unintelligible to the committee members, and this was evident in the ways they responded to me. As I was advised to think about before leaving for the interview, it was my discourse interacting with their discourse. 

Ultimately, the experience left me with many questions about how to negotiate elite education and radical politics. My reliance on the Enlightenment narrative of emancipation through Reason was complicated by the realization that there is no pure position. As Flax writes, "[t]here is no way to test whether one story is closer to the truth than another because there is no transcendental standpoint or mind unencumbered by its own language and stories" (139).

As I now await the results of my Fulbright application, similar doubts about elite education, privilege, and enlightenment arise; as I continue on with graduate school and increase my participation in academia, I will remain in this open-ended, ongoing process of negotiating a feminist position with the awareness that a feminist life is one of deep ambivalence.