Home is a Roof over a Pig by Aminta Arrington is a book I picked up while browsing at the library. It tells of an American's Family's Journey in China. Aminta I found out hometown is the nearby town of Lynden WA. Aminta and her husband went to China to teach English at the University Level. They also went to connect their adopted Chinese daughter to her culture. This was a interesting look at Chinese culture and what these American's felt as they integrated into China. Throughout Aminta connects you with the Chinese characters and their meanings. Aminta also discusses in depth the conversations she had with her Chinese students. How they had trouble understanding the concept of self or having opinions of their own. Self is second to the Chinese. She discusses an incident where she saw a church protesting. She asked her student why they could protest that but not the other things the government imposed on them. She asked the student won't there will be repercussions and profoundly the student said "Well, I guess it's because we are God's children that we feel we don't have to be afraid." Amnita also talks a great deal about how her students are obsessed with the test they take to get into the university. This seem to topically key into the discussion of the Common Core and the drill and kill mentality.
Along the same topic of how the Chinese think differently a friend posted an article about why Chinese parents and kids don't say, " I love you."
Lastly in my Library browsing I picked up Hidden Cities - A Memoir of Urban Exploration by Moses Gates. This is a book about urban exploring. It about those who ignore the trespassing signs and go into catacombs in France, climbing bridges, and running the subway tunnels looking for secret abandoned locations. I don't do any of these things myself but I do like reading about their adventures. Along the same lines, I enjoyed the T.V. series called Off Limits especially season 1 and I guess Moses consulted on that. I think Moses made it pretty clear at all the locations they were clearly trespassing. He makes no bones about that. They however didn't deface or destroy any of the locations they went throughout the book except erasing a Nazi swastika in Russia. Moses was arrested several times and admits that the current political environment we live in it probably not a good idea to do or go some of the places that he went. All in all it was great way to hear about the secret corners of the world's great cities especially what lies beneath and above.
