读书笔记
读书心得
I read Cp.2–5 of the book The Good Earth. It describes the life of the people at that time,
A) (1) Cp.2
There was this luxury of living. The next morning this woman rising from his bed as though she had risen every day of her life. The old man cough rose and he said to her, “ Take to my father a bowl of hot water for his lungs.” She asked, “ Are there to be tea leaves in it?” This simple question troubled Wang Lung. He would have liked to say, “ Certainly.” But he knew his father would be angry. He replied, “ No- it makes his cough worse.” Then he lay in bed while in the kitchen the woman boiled the water. He desired that she should like him as her husband.
During these next months, in reality he worked as he always had. When he could go to his house and food would be there ready for him to eat, and the dust wiped from the table. The woman in the morning took the bamboo rake countryside, reaping grass and twig, returning with enough to cook the dinner. In the afternoon she picked the droppings from animals and carried it home for fertilizer for the field. And when the end of the day came she did not rest herself until the ox had been fed. She took their ragged clothes and mended. Their bedding she took into the sun, killing the vermin. The old man’s cough grew better.
One day when Wang Lung was hard pressed with the swelling wheat, her shadow fell across the furrow, and there she stood, with a hoe across her shoulder, without speech she took the furrow to the left of him. The sun beat upon them, there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over. this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods.
When the sun had set, she smoothed a last furrow slowly. Then she said, “ I am with child.”
Wang Lung took the hoe from her hand a he said, “ We will tell the old man.” Out of this body of his, out of his own loins , life!
(2) Cp.3.
when the hour for birth drew near he said to the woman, “ I know nothing of these affairs. Is there none in the great house with whom you were friends, who could come?”
“None in the house!” she cried out at him. She said, “ When I return to that house it will be with my son in my arms, I shall have a red coat on him. And I will wear a new coat and I will show myself and my son to all of them.” “I suppose you need some money,” he said. “ If you will gave me three silver pieces....” she said fearfully. He put the three silver dollars upon the table, he had sold a load of reeds from the pond to the town market. Then, after a little hesitation, he added a fourth piece which he had kept by himself on the chance of gamble. She said, “ It is the first time I have had silver money in my hand.” Wang Lung thinking of the silver. It had come out from the earth that he ploughed.
It came one night, early. She was working beside him in the harvest field. She stopped. “ It is come,” she said. “I will go into the house. Bring me a newly peeled reed, that I may cut the child’s life from mine.”
When he reached the house he found his supper hot on the table and the old man eating. The old man said, “ Ah me, to think that out of all the children l begot and your mother born, one after the other, only you have lived!” Wang Lung stood listening at the door, a thin, fierce cry came out. “Is it a man?”he cried importunately. And the voice of the woman answered, “ A man!”
When she called to him to come in and he went in. She was lying neatly covered upon the bed. Beside her, lay his son. His heart rushed out to these two and he said, “Tomorrow I will buy a pound of red sugar for you.”
(3) Cp.4
The next day after the child was born the woman rose as usual and prepared food for them. Wang Lung went to the market and bought fifty eggs and red paper to boil in the water with them to make them red. And he bought a pound of red sugar. He bought four sticks of incense and he went into the small temple. He watched the four sticks well lit and then went homeward, comforted.
And then, the woman was back in the fields beside him. The harvests were past. They beat the grain out with flails. They winnowed it, the chaff blew away with the wind.Then there were the fields to plant for winter wheat again. She worked all day now and the child lay on the ground. When it cried the woman stopped and uncovered her bosom to the child’s mouth.
Winter came on. There had been such harvests as never were before. In their room were filled full of wheat and rice. Much of this would be sold. Wang Lung was frugal, he sold it at the New Year when people will pay well for food at any price. His uncle sell his grain before it was well ripened to get a little cash. His uncle’s wife was a foolish woman, fat and lazy. There was never anything hanging from the rafters in his uncle’s house. But in his own there was even a leg of pork. There were as well two of their own chickens killed and dried.
Soon the child could almost sit alone. They had had a feast of noodles, which mean long life, on his month birthday, and Wang Lung had invited those who came to his wedding feast and to each he had given a round ten of the red eggs.
From the produce, Wang Lung had a handful of silver dollars.Wang Lung was conscious that he had money more than he need spend.
(4) Cp.5 The New Year approached. Wang Lung went into the town and he bought squares of red paper and two red candles. And he bought pork fat and white sugar, the woman took the rice flour, she mixed and kneaded rich New Year’s cakes. When the cakes were laid out upon the table, the woman said, “ Those are not for us to eat. We are not rich enough to eat white sugar and lard.I am preparing them for the Old Mistress, I shall take the child on the second day of the New Year.”
Then on the second day of the New Year, they rose at dawn and the woman dressed the child in his red coat, and she put on her new coat, they set out on the path across the fields. Then Wang Lung had his reward at the great gate of the House of Hwang. The gateman was impressed with all he saw and he said to Wang Lung, “ Do you sit within my room while I announce your wife and son within.”
It seemed a long time before the gateman returned, bringing back again the woman and child. With short bows to the gateman and to his wife he hurried O-lan away and he took into his arms the child. She said in a whisper, “ I believe that they are feeling a pinch this year. I saw no one slave with a new coat like me.” Wang Lung urged his wife.“ Did you find out why they are poorer?” She replied, “ the cook said ‘ This house cannot stand forever with all the young lords spending money like waste water, and the Old Lord adding a concubine or two each year, and the Old Mistress eating enough opium every day.’” She added, “ The Old Mistress herself told me they wished to sell land.”
Suddenly a thought came to him. He cried, “ we will buy the land.” “ It is a good thing to buy land,” she said pacifically. And the slow smile spread over her face, she said, “ Last year this time I was slave in that house.”
B) I think: (1) This passage talked about family poverty and how to change it. Wang Lung’s family was poor, but they were very thrifty. After O-lan came in, she worked hard, their life improved and they bought land. His uncle's family was still poor because they were not industrious and thrifty. The House of Hwang , due to drug abuse and corruption, although originally rich, but gradually poor.
(2) As a country, there are also the problems of poverty and how to eliminate it. At that time, China only had agriculture and handicrafts, without industry, and was very poor and backward. In the era of Mao Zedong, establishing people's communes and state-owned enterprises could not eliminate poverty but even poorer. After the reform and opening up, foreign investment was introduced, industrial production saw significant growth, and people's lives improved.
“Developing production is a hard principle,” but how can we develop production? We must rely on the enthusiasm and creativity of the masses! We need to rely on the progress of technology. These requires a democratic political system and free surrounding.
