the second personal literacy

The second personal literacy I have is interprets Chinese words to American students. I am glad to see that Michigan State University provides Chinese classes to students, and so many American students would like to learn Chinese language. A Chinese student created “language exchange club” last semester in Owen Hall, which is to provide an opportunity for American students to practice Chinese language, and an opportunity for Chinese students to practice English speaking. I am the member of this club, and each Wednesday I talk with many American students in basement of Owen Hall. These American students usually are taking Chinese class in MSU; some of them cannot express their thinking, others are doing good job that they understand what I say in Chinese and they can make an excellent Chinese sentence to express their ideas; there are few American geniuses whose Chinese speaking is almost perfect, even though they just learn this foreign language no more than two years. I am very happy to help them by interpreting some Chinese words and sentences. I also teach them some Chinese idioms, introduce lots of Chinese cultures, and provide assistance on their homework. The weekly meeting makes a lot of fun and helps me to make many American friends.

The literacy of understanding on investments

The literacy that is referred to my major is to understand stock data and charts on investments. Every day the first thing I need to do is open my Scottrade account to see stock market, and usually I would like to concentrate on one or two stocks’ quotations. I need to understand the price of Day High, price of Day Low, P/E ratio, and Earning per share ratio. Also, I anticipate stock price trend by analyzing stock chart, using many chart tools such as MACD and Bollinger Bands. However, these are not enough to earn money; the most important understanding on investments is to track stock market’s surroundings to know when the large investment organizations, such as mutual funds companies, decide to “raise” stocks price. What they usually do is attract other investor’s attentions on one stocks (they have many shares on this stock on very low price) by buying large amount of the stock’s shares at very short time, which leads to the price increasing; if successful, more other investors are willing to buy this shares, which pushes the price up; then these large investment organizations start to sell shares to earn money. To track this process, I need to analyze each day’s transaction volume from stock chart to make a decision that predict the period of time these large investment companies start this process, and buy the shares to follow them. I really enjoy doing this because I can obtain amounts of money without hard-work; I also have to take a few risks. Therefore, to earn money, I am not only able to understand data and charts, but also need to pray for luck.

what does literacy mean to you?

I think literacy is the ability of understanding, interpreting, and creating. Literacy can be words, symbols that are wrote down, or music and movie that are not recorded on the paper. Literacy is a method of transmission between abstract, like thought, and substantial, like documents.

GENRE MEMO for part 3

To: Franny Howes
From: [yadong li]
Date: [Feb 27,2009]

Re: Genre Memo for [Blog analysis]

Franny:
Part 3 is a blog analysis. The author is invited by Washington Post to write what is happening in China, and the relationship between China and other countries, typically a comprehensive introduction of China. I use rhetorical analysis to separately analyze purpose, audience, mode, and ethos of this blog.


Sincerely,



[yadong li]

GENRE MEMO for part 2

To: Franny Howes
From: [yadong li]
Date: [Feb 27,2009]

Re: Genre Memo for [photo analysis]

Franny:
Part 2 is a photo analysis. This is a living photo of two children from a poor family that lives in Yunnan province. I took this photo in my journey for recall as purpose, so the audiences are basically me, my family and friends. I describe the feature of these two children and the environment showed in the photo, and I introduce the difficulty of their live and analyze the issue which China is facing that related to this photo

Sincerely,



[yadong li]

GENRE MEMO for part 1

To: Franny Howes
From: [yadong li]
Date: [Feb 27,2009]

Re: Genre Memo for [video analysis]

Franny:
This video is a one piece of horror movie The Ring from YouTube. It is typically the best part scenes of this movie that audience may remember. The audience is the people who forgot this exciting scene and want to recall it. What I analysis is the difference of American horror movie and Asian horror movie, and I think this is due to the difference of Asian and American’s culture and way of thinking so that the ghost that they make is different to another.

Sincerely,



[yadong li]

papper #2 part 3 blog analysis

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/pomfretschina/2009/01/10_million_have_lost_jobs_in_c.html#comments


I would like to analyze a blog which names Pomfret’s China. This blog is under Washington Post website. The whole blog is writing about Chinese politics, economics, cultures… almost everything of China. The author, Pomfret, went to China in 1980 first time, then in 1988 and 1989 he was there covering the student-led protests in Tiananmen Square (this issue is complicated). After that he returned to China in 1998 and bought a house in Beijing as a place for accommodation. At that time he decided to open this blog to introduce China to the western. Most of article he wrote was about politic of China, the latest one is “A New U.S. Policy for China?” which was updated at January 13, 2009 (seems like he has not updated his blog for a long time).

The purpose that he opened this blog, I think, is to introduce a “real” China to the western. I believe before he first came to China he had read many news and articles about this country, but when he arrived at China, what he saw was different from what these western news and articles describe, and he understood that there was misunderstanding between this oriental country and the westerns, and he needed to be the man who stood out that tell people the truth.

The audiences basically are from the entire world (how I know? Check the names in comments, some of names are “weird”, so seems from Asia or South America or…). There are many reasons that people would like to read this blog: some of them may be students majoring Asian politics in colleges and they need citation of others opinion of China from the Internet for his or her research; others may care some hot topic of China like whether pollution happens in Beijing during 2008 Olympic games (the weather was good during that time). Also, there are a small group of Chinese student, like me, want to know how western think of China.

The mode of this text is definitely the blog mode, that is some websites provides spaces for people, let them post whatever they want to write on the Internet; the blog owner can set up if the blog is open to public; other people who have authority can go over the blog and make comment for each article. Currently most of website offers many accessories like able to add picture or music to make more fun of blog. On the Pomfret’s blog the background is blue without music and pictures. The owner is not editing it as a beautiful or cool one because the topic of articles is serious. However, there are too many advertisements on it which is not what the owner like, I think.

About the ethos of this blog, I think Pornfret’s article is unbiased, he is not criticizing or complimenting China; he just gives truth that what China is doing which may affect other countries, and questions that he thinks people should pay attention. Just like what he wrote in his blog:” China is an amazing place; there are many stories to tell. I hope we can tell them together”.