Women Writing Worldwide Spring 2023 Blog

Times and Places / Emily Hahn By- Ava Daniels Emily Hahn was a very intelligent and bright woman who graduated from the University of Wisconsin as a mining engineer. She made history as being the first woman to do so and then went on to live in Africa and China between the years of 1930 through 1935. Later in the years, her life seemed to take a turn when she became addicted to smoking opium. Opium was a very heavily used drug in China and Hahn had known that before moving there with her sister, Helen. "Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can't claim that as the reason I went to China" (344). This was the first sentence from the Times and Places excerpt and it definitely caught me off guard at first. I could never wrap my head around why anyone would want to be an addict to any drug because throughout my life, I've only been told that drugs and addiction cause horrible problems. I would like to point out that the first time Hahn describes her experienc...

Journey into the whirlwind / Eugenia Semyonova Ginzburg By- Ava Daniels

The War / Marguerite Duras By- Ava Daniels "'Listen carefully. Robert is alive. Stay calm'" (237) The War by Marguerite Duras is about her life during World War 2 and what she had to go through during the search of her husband who was sent to a concentration camp. I wanted to highlight the quote above because I feel as if it is one of the many climaxes throughout this excerpt. In the quote, Marguerite is informed that her husband, Robert, is alive after giving up the search for him. Although he was alive, his condition was far from OK. Later in the passage, she goes into detail to describe his condition. This also can be considered a climax in this excerpt because the detail Duras goes into is very descriptive and the imagery used is detailed enough so the readers can paint the picture of the condition that Robert was in after being sent home post-war. "Six or seven times a day we gave him gruel. Just a teaspoon nearly choked him...the skin was raw..." (241)...

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places/ Le Ly Hayslip By- Ava Daniels Le Ly Hayslip was from the village in Quang Nam Province who came from a traditional Buddhist family. Throughout this excerpt, a lot of things happen and take place having to do with war, troops, honor, and more. I think that an important turning point was when Le Ly Hayship risked her life and showed extreme levels of bravery after "crossing through the enemy column to find a place to give her signal" (364). Because of this, Hayshlip was honored with a song called Song For Sister Ly that was to be taught to the children in the village. She was also assigned to teach the children how to serve the fighters that protect them. Shortly after this, another event takes place that is nowhere near as positive as the first. Le Ly Hayslipand her family were forced to go into hiding in their bunker after the village was under attack by troops. When the troops had left, half of the village was in flames and the peopl...

Gifts of Passage / Santha Rama Rau By- Ava Daniels This excerpt from Gifts of Passage by Santha Rama Rau sounded fairly familiar to me as I was reading it. It starts out with Rau saying how her and her older sister were starting a new school together. Not only 10 minutes into introductions, a faculty at the school had already changed their traditional Indian names to english names saying " Suppose we give you pretty English names" (672). What stood out to me about this part of the reading was that often times in history, the English or European way, whether it is dialect, fashion, or beauty standards, are considered the more acceptable version of things. Without even trying to pronounce the girls given names, which also did not seem that complicated to me personally, the teacher had already changed them commenting that their Indian names were too hard to say. I remember watching a film about young Native Australian children that were taken away from their families and sent to...

A Daughter of Han / Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI By- Ava Daniels This short excerpt was personally very hard for me to read just like some of the other ones in the past. This excerpt starts by Ning describing how her and her husband beg for food and money just to get by and live. That alone was already a lot because that is in no way, shape, or form a steady way of income. This introduction to this reading highlights just how poor the family is, this is why when Ning hears rumors of her husband trying to sell their kids, I was not surprised. Money can often be more important than family when people are in a rough situation or part in their life. "He is trying to sell your child" He tells people his wife died at the end of the Seventh month" (631). This comes from a man at the gruel station where the couple used to eat after seeing the husband give Ning her baby. This must've been very hard for her to hear seeing as she asked him about it once and he claimed it had been...