China's+Son

Presentation By: 乔纳森 加德纳 (Jonathan Gardner), 奎恩 柯克帕特里克 (Quinn Kirkpatrick),马特 甘农 (Matt Gannon), 斯蒂芬 马奎尔 (Stephen Maguire) and 迈尔斯 卡岑 (Miles Katzen)

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CHINA'S SON BY: DA CHEN

1. Jonathan-
 * Setting in Communist China
 * Took place between 1965-1968
 * Cultural Revolution takes place
 * Cultural Revolution- (in China) a mass movement (1965--68), in which the youthful Red Guard played a prominent part. It was initiated by Mao Tse-tung to destroy the power of the bureaucrats and to revolutionize the attitudes and behaviour of the people
 * Landlord's sons, counterrevolutionaries and people who strived with the old system treated unfairly
 * Da Chen treated unfairly
 * Humiliated by teachers and students
 * He was a Landlords Son
 * Chinese New Years important holiday
 * China unites together
 * Whole country happy and enjoys this holiday
 * Lots ofkids smoke in China
 * Some started when they were 4 and 5 years old
 * Kids and even some adults set up ilegal stores to sell ciggarettes and liquor to kids can come and buy ciggarettes and liquor
 * Like modern day drug dealing

media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=51.919438,19.145136&spn=10.58042,28.256836&msid=101405274951642679994.000493223f97e0d511c37&output=embed" width="425" height="315"In the book __China's Son__ the city that Da Chen lives closest to is Putian,China.

2. Matt- DA CHEN: I would describe Da Chen as loyal, hardworking, smart (in the beginning and end), and brave. Da Chen is loyal because he is respectful to his parents and obeys them no matter what task they ask him to do. Also, he is loyal to his friends because he helps them whenever they are in trouble or need help. Da Chen is hardworking because at the end of the book he concentrates solely on his studies. He wakes up at five o'clock in the morning and studies all until ten o'clock at night. Da Chen is smart because he had to take a test to get into a college. He studied a lot and did extremely well on the test. He got a 380 out of 500 possible points. Da Chen is very brave because he was willing to study hard to try to get into college even though many people told him that he shouldn't study and that he should become a farmer like his sisters and brothers. I thought this was brave because it showed his determination to do as well as everybody else and and not just become a farmer. The main conflict is about Da Chen's struggles to go to school and get into college. Many people at his school make fun of him and he has to deal with it. Also, Da Chen has some older friends that he met and he hangs out with them a lot during the book. Da Chen was a great instrumentalist in his childhood. He played the flute and violin.

3.Quinn- There are a lot of connections between China's son and Animal Farm. One of the main ones is that they are both centered around Communism. Also they both had really mean leaders. In China's son there was Mao Tse-tung and in Animal Farm there is Napolean as a leader. They were both really bad leaders but no one tried to stand up against them, because when they did they were punished for it. Some other connections were Mollie in Animal Farm and the main character Da from China's Son because in the book Da gets beat up and punished for not following communism and if Mollie stuck around she would have been punished because she didn't follow animalism which is communism either. Another parallel to Animal Farm was that in Animal Farm all animals except for the pigs and dogs were starving to death. In China's Son, Da's family were farmers and a lot of the time they didn't have enough food. China's Son and Animal Farm definitely have a lot of things in common.


 * communism
 * bad leaders
 * Mollie and Da Chen
 * Not enough food for the lower classes

4. Steven: This is our Symbol. We picked this because Da throughout the book went back and forth. Some days he would go to school and others he wouldn't. When he wouldn't go to school he would hang out and smoke. That is what our symbol represents, Da missing school was ruining his life because he was smoking too much and not studying enough. The cigarette lit the books on fire which was his school and education.



Favorite Passages

Quinn-(pg 208) "My dream had come true. I would be off to Beijing to study english." This is my favorite passage because throughout the book Da, the main character had ups and downs in school. He would have horrible grades one year and then the next year he would have the best grades in the class. Even though he was from a farming family he decided he wanted to go to college. He wanted to major in the english language. He started studying months in advance for the college tests and it paid off. When he got his test back it showed that he got one of the highest scores out of everyone that took it, even the city kids that were supposed to be the smartest. He really showed me that if you work hard and get good grades your dream can come true.

Jonathan-(pg 12) "I'd arrive early with the teacher and hit the books." This is my favorite passage or quote because it really inspired in the student prospective. This is at the beginning of the book when Da was starting school. It made me think about how I as a student should be working. I shouldn't just get grades and just do the expected I should go above the standards and work harder and harder every day and don't become lazy. Also it taught me discpline. Another thing it taught me was even if you do not have the fanciest suff and the newest things out you don't need those things to do well you need to work harder and have great discpline.

Miles- (pg.120) "I cranked along with my rusty pronunciation, more and more unsure the farther I went.I was red-faced at G, sweating at H, Trembling at I, and lightheaded at J." I like this quote because it shows how hard it was for kids in school to learn new material. Da was embarrassed when he did this because his teacher made him say it in front of the class. Despite his trouble with the alphabet, Da wanted to major in english in college. His determination had paid off. Da has four other brothers and sisters, there is a picture of the five of them on the last page of the book.

Stephen- (pg. 3) I Like this quote because I can relate to this because it reminds me, going out and wrestling with my my neighbors.



Matt-(pg 2 ) I liked this quote because I thought this passage painted a vivd picture in my mind of Da Chen's house.

[|Chinese Song]

http://www.clker.com/clipart-26656.html (Cigarette picture) http://www.clipartguide.com/_pages/0060-0807-2502-0325.html (Books on fire) http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Son-Growing-Cultural-Revolution/dp/044022926X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300408626&sr=1-1 (quote for matt) http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Son-Growing-Cultural-Revolution/dp/044022926X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300412382&sr=8-1 ( quote for Stephen) Links-http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Cultural+Revolution?o=102889,http://www.fujiankids.org/swis/putian/putmap.jpg