The ever-cahnging story...

In this first story, Suyuan Woo always changes the ending of the stories of the dream because i think she is trying to send her daughters a message.
The message i think she Suyuan Woo is trying to send her daughters is that their lives are not going to be like their dreams. That they have to make their own lives and live them by what is real.
In her dream, everything was happy and peaceful and it was the perfect place for anyone, or at least for her. There were rivers in Kweilin. There were peaks that were white mists, and beds of soft moss and laugh. Nothing could ever go wrong in that place.
The endings of the stories always seem to be bad, as if they are not part of the dream. For example, Suyuan Woo says that since she was so rich, that money was not worth anything after she won it. I am not completely sure if money is one of the things that makes Suyuan Woo happy, but i bet it would be one. If money makes her happy, and now is not worth anything, not even more than toilet paper as she said, then her dream must be collapsing.
I do not think that she herself lived her life as a real situation, she lived it as if it was a dream. Maybe she is trying to tell her daughters to not have the same life that she had. That is what i meant by living life by what is real and not by their dreams.
I guess that is what she tried to do by telling them different stories. And that is what parents do usually. They learn from their mistakes and do not want their children to make the same they made. I think that Suyuan Woo was a different person in her dreams than in real life. This reminds me of inception, because its like there are dreams within a dream which is not exactly what happens here but in a way they are all different dreams that connect.

The best parents

I think that in the article "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" by Amy Chua, she makes too many assumptions about Chinese mothers in comparison with western parents. Amy Chua says:

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

She talks about how Chinese mothers kind of overreact with the actions of their children and western parents do not really mind. I do not completely agrree with that  because i think that not all parents are the same or act the same.
The parent's relationship with their children is strict in the Chinese side. The kid obeys the parents and the kid basically does not have an opinion over what happens, or cannot make important decisions about education or other important stuff. The life of a kid who has a Chinese mother seems much harder than the life of a kid who has a western parent. The Chinese kid has more obligations as described in the article. Kids with Chinese mothers have to really be good in general and seem to have much more pressure than other kids such as American.
American kids on the other hand, who have western parents they are less pressured in almost everything. They do not really have those high expectations that the Chinese kids have. When they get low grades, they are not really pushed by their parents to do better. I know that she is talking about her own family in comparison with the western families, but she kind of make it seem like a comparison of the two general groups.
She makes the point that the two groups are different in the way they teach their children and the relationship they have with their children. I thimk it all depends on culture. There are different views of supporting children in diffeent places and people usually do what they believe is best. If Chinese mothers want to force their children to be successful, i think that is fine, and if a western parent wants their children to try just as hard as they can and not relly support them, then that is fine too.
About the argument about what parents and children owe each other, i think that parents should not really put that much pressure on their children and that the response from the children shlould be respect and efffot.

Rebelling for a reason

Through out history, people have rebelled against their leaders for different reasons. In the last 5 years i have heard about some type of rebellion or revolution in different countries around the world. Right now, the revolution in Egypt is the one that has been most know to people around the world and The United States mainly.
The main connection that i see between what is happening in Egypt and what happened in George Orwell's Animal Farm is that here is only one kind of leader. In Egypt Mubarak has been the leader of the country more than anyone else ever has. He cheats to be the leader over and over and to never be removed out of power. That is not necessarily what happened in Animal Farm but i think that the same idea can be built. Animal Farm had different leaders, but the thing was that they were all pigs and it was never a horse or a donkey, or any other animal that formed part of the farm. I think that having one leader  for a really long time is almost the same as having different leaders that can or could be the same. Even though Major might not have been like Napoleon it was still unfair to have alike leaders having the control. I think that in Animal Farm it was an injustice just to let the pigs be leaders. It would be the same as if a man just like Mubarak became leader after Mubarak and after that man another one like him.
In other cases such as what happened in Honduras in the summer of 2009 also connect to Animal Farm. In Honduras, the ex-president Manuel Zelaya tried changing the constitution of the country so that he could do the same Mubarak did and be reelected  every time. He also took advantage of his power treating the people of the country unfairly. In animal farm, Napoleon and the pigs kept changing the constitution in their favor and also took advantage of their power by making all the animals work so they did not have to do anything.
Changing the rules is unfair, and when someone changes the rules against the people, the people respond by rebelling so that their voices are heard.

The Fianl Chapter

 NOTE: Clover is confused about her gender.

Napoleon went to back to the farm with the rest of the pigs, or the ones that were pigs at some point in their lives after the card game. Napoleon was still furious because Mr. Pilkington had cheated according to him. All the animals that were watching the game ran to back to the farm before Napoleon or one of the pigs came out of there and saw them. Clover could not keep it quiet though; he ran into a fence, broke it and made a lot of noise.

Clover was lying on the ground when Napoleon came out. He did not have any time to get up and run in the farm, but he also thought it would have not been right just to run away and leave the fence broken without taking responsibility for breaking it. Clover had never seen Napoleon looking so angry before. Napoleon screamed, “Clover! Why were you outside?”

“I was watching the game…” said Clover scared.

The rest of the animals made it to the farm without getting caught. They were looking at Clover and Napoleon talking through the holes in the wooden walls of the barn. They thought Napoleon was going to send Clover away from the farm and never come back.

“Well, go back inside and tomorrow you will fix this fence and you will not get any food and water for breaking it!” were Napoleon’s last words that day. He walked around the farm and then into the house. The pigs followed him in and closed the door.

The next morning the pigs came out of the house, except for Napoleon. They called all the animals of the farm and told them they needed to tell them something important. Once all the animals were gathered together in the barn, the pigs asked them to be quiet. Squealer started talking and said, “We have something important to tell you. Napoleon has decided that we will not continue having human connections. He recently had problems with them and he thinks we should just keep our distance and the farm away from them. They are as you all know dangerous.”

The news was such a surprise to all the animals that they were happy.

“Since Napoleon made that decision, he now has full power over what goes on here. The humans were a great advantage to us, and now that they will be gone, Napoleon wants you working much harder than you usually do. You will be assigned more jobs to do and if you refuse to do something, you will be punished. Napoleon will keep giving all of you orders, and we will keep supervising your work. If you do something wrong, there will be big consequences. You are not allowed to go out of the farm and you cannot talk to any other animal out of this farm. Oh! And Napoleon is sick. He said he does not feel good and he will probably stay in the house for a few more days resting “ said Squealer.

After Squealer said that, all the animals looked angry. They knew it was better not to argue so they did what they were told and when they were released, they went straight to do their jobs. Clover obeyed and fixed the fence as Napoleon ordered him.

That night, Clover and Benjamin started talking about what they should do while everyone else was asleep. They both agreed that a rebellion against Napoleon and the pigs was much easier than before since they didn’t have human help anymore. They talked all night about what they’d do and came up with a plan. The next morning they spread the news about the plan and by the evening all the animals knew that there was a plan and that they all had to be up at midnight to hear Clover and Benjamin tell them the plan.

They all waited until the lights of the house were off to be sure that the Pigs and Napoleon were sleeping. Clover began, “Thank you for being here tonight, my comrades. As we all know, Napoleon is taking advantage of his power and taking advantage of us as well. We have to stand up to him and the pigs, just like most of our ancestors rose to overthrow the humans of the farm. We are all brave and strong, and we cannot let this keep happening. We are all animals, therefore we are all equal. Napoleon does not have the right to think he is better than any of us. My plan, my comrades is to get rid of Napoleon and the pigs and to establish justice and equality. We cannot change the pigs; they are always going to be the way they are. What I suggest is for us to burn the house tomorrow night with Napoleon and the pigs in it. That is the only solution we have.”

“I agree with Clover and I think we need to do this before things get out of control.” Said Benjamin.

There was a moment of silence, until Benjamin asked, “so who is with us?”

Moses was the first to answer, “I am”.

Then one after another started answering, “me too”, “I am”, “I am”, “I am too” until everyone said yes.

“Alright comrades, tomorrow we will prepare everything for our plan. We will work as we normally do, but we will be taking dried grass and leafs and we will secretly put them around the house without making it obvious. We will need you, Moses to fly in the house through the chimney and get the matches. Maybe you or someone else can light them. Clover, I will need you to make sure the doors cannot be opened, you are strong, so you and with the help of other can move bales of hay to the possible exists. Is everyone understood?” said Benjamin. They all nodded.

“Thank you for your time comrades, this is and will be for our own good.” Then they all went to sleep.

The following morning, they all started working as usual and putting the dried grass around the house. Neither the pigs nor Napoleon noticed as the animals placed grass around the house. It was finally time to go to sleep and they patiently waited for the lights of the house to be off. They waited about an hour after the lights went off to make sure they were asleep. Then all the animals quietly got out of the barn and starting helping move bales of hay and setting them in front of doors, and any kind of exit. The house was surrounded by grass and dried leafs. Moses, with its beak held a math and lighted it and dropped it on the grass. Fire started. Moses did the same thing all around the house. The fire started getting big. The house was burning and the sky looked black from all the fire smoke. The animals moved away from the fire but still in the farm watching as the house was burned down and everything inside it being destroyed.

The fire continued until the morning, and luckily it did not move from the house to the farm. About an hour after the sun came out, the farmers from other farms close by started coming and trying to stop the fire with buckets of water and hoses. They managed to stop it before it got dark. It didn’t seem like they found anything in the house. That afternoon, the farmers moved the animals to their own farms. Animal farm was completely empty and no one controlled it anymore. The house was totally destroyed, and that gave the farm a feeling of peace, which was of course because there was no one there.

At the end, it was like nothing happened because the humans took the animals over again. Animals then realized that they could never be free. Another attempt on rebelling would be in vein. Clover knew that he could not do anything else to try to be free, so all he and the other animals did was work and do as the humans said for the rest of their lives.