What You Don’t Know by Lulu Wang is a podcast in which Lulu tells the story of her grandmother who is diagnosed with terminal cancer but is not aware of the diagnosis. Her family makes a decision to not tell her grandmother hoping to protect her from emotional and psychological suffering and to preserve her health. In the beginning of the story I thought the decision seemed wrong and unfair to the grandmother because I felt that it was her right to know about her own health. As I heard more of the story and listened to the family members justification, my opinion began to change. Lulu comes from a traditional Chinese family and her parents, aunts and uncles maintain many customary beliefs and morals from their home country. Lulu’s mother reveals to her that when Lulu's grandfather was sick, the grandmother prevented him from knowing the truth in the same belief. I think it was difficult for Lulu to understand because she has spent most of her life exposed to different ideals living in the United States. Lulu talks about an old Chinese belief called “Chongxi” which means that you can wash away a misfortune with joy. I would loosely translate this concept to mean “out of site, out of mind” in American culture. By keeping the truth from her grandmother, they are protecting and prolonging her health and happiness. The whole family puts a great amount of effort into staging a fake wedding as an excuse for each family member to be with the grandmother one last time. In retrospect these efforts are a testament to the strength of this family and the amount of respect that they feel for their matriarch. I believe that they blocked the emotional burden from the grandmother and instead carried it with themselves in order to protect her. Towards the end of the story, Lulu explains that her grandmother continued to live in good health for three years, unaware of the three-month diagnosis that she had been given. Maybe their actions had indeed had a profound effect? About one month ago I began my workday by driving a company truck to a job location. The truck was new and it was emphasized by management that drivers needed to ensure that the trucks weren’t being recklessly damaged during daily operations as much of our older equipment had been. The truck that I am driving is equipped large side view mirrors designed to give better visibility when towing a trailer. These mirrors extend much further away from the body than a normal passenger car. I proceed to drive under a bridge at the same time as an oncoming truck. Upon passing each other, I hear a loud crash and know immediately what had happened, our mirrors had collided with each other. I exit from under the bridge and look at the driver side mirroring disbeleif to find that the plastic housing and small convex mirror have been shattered but the largest and most important mirror was still intact. The other truck had continued driving until it was out of sight. A feeling of panic set in because I knew that management would be disappointed with the situation. I quickly sorted through my options and came to the conclusion that I could either quietly park the truck at the end of the day without saying anything and no one would know what happened or I could take direct responsibility of the situation and admit to my mistake. I spent the rest of the day contemplating my decision. At the end of the workday when I arrived back the office, I spontaneously decided to explain our fleet maintenance manager what had happened and showed him the damage. He was understanding of the situation and ensured me that it would be repaired easily and that it wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I felt relieved after explaining myself and was freed from a sense of guilt. I believe that deep down I would have revealed the truth about the situation no matter what. It seemed as though my subconscious was telling me to make the right choice the whole time and the final act of confessing felt more like an instinctive reaction than a troublesome task.
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My name is Margaret is short story about a young African American woman named Margaret who works as a servant for a wealthy white woman named Mrs. Cullinan. Mrs. Cullinan has such little regard for her servants that she refuses call them by their real name. After some time Margaret becomes angered and won't tolerate this oppression any longer. She decides to break some of Mrs. Cullinans favorite kitchenware as a way to stand up to her authority. We are examining this story to extract a common theme of challenging authority and breaking the status quo. Margaret had become desperate and frustrated about her situation with Mrs. Cullinan. Margaret couldn’t quit the job because her mother wouldn’t allow her to. She needed to find a way to be fired from her job so she could escape the oppressive environment. She soon found a way to do so while also tormenting this insensitive woman at the same time. Margaret intentionally dropped and shattered a casserole dish and two green glass coffee mugs, all of which were Mrs. Cullinans prized family heirlooms from her mother. Margaret’s decision and subsequent actions were fueled by anger and frustration. While not the most mature course of action I believe it was the best thing she could have done at the time. I don’t think there was a way for her to reason with Mrs. Cullinan or to handle the situation diplomatically so she chose the next best thing and it was ultimately very effective. The moral of the story is that Margaret was in a very oppressive environment and she made a courageous decision to incite change and to establish the fact that she too is powerful. When I was 14 my friend Rob and I agreed to clean up leaves for a family friend and he would pay us for the work. We went on a Saturday morning and began the simple but somewhat large task of moving many fallen leaves from the driveway, patio and lawn into the surrounding wooded area at the back of the house. The neighboring property on the opposite side of the house was only separated by a split rail fence and was also littered with fallen leaves. Halfway through our day, we were encountered by a man on the other side of the fence claiming that we had pushed some leaves onto his property. He demanded that we come onto his side of the fence to remove them. The leaves had obviously been there for some time and the man was attempting to persuade us into cleaning up a portion of his property so he wouldn’t have to. Rob and I became immediately aware of the man’s dishonesty and lack of respect. Again he insisted, pointing at the debris strewn across his lawn. We argued for a few moments and indicated our awareness of his deceptive behavior. The man realized that we weren’t dumb enough to be swindled. He immediately began to withdraw and even commended us for standing up to him. His change in tone was laughable. Rob and I felt a small sense of victory and scoffed at the man as he retreated back to his house and we continued our work. |
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