Thursday, March 19, 2009
Week 4 Response
In Falling Leaves, the grandma talks about how she had binded her feet to make them look good. In China at the time, small feet on a woman was very attractive apparently. So she had hurt herself to enhance the way she looks. But when she is older she tells her daughter never to bind her feet. Basically, the grandma had hurt herself to be more accepted in society. Do people have to go through pains to be accepted in society? I think that a lot of people do have to go through pains to be accepted in society. Such as immigrants. They have to endure the racial stereotypes people spit at them and they have to deal with learning a new language and all that stuff. Also people who are below average people (as in social class), they are looked down upon and if they don't make more money, society will also look down upon them.
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Hmmm. That's a good question! I agree with you. I think that people have to go through pains to a certain extent. It might not be physical pains like foot binding, but definitely emotional pains. For foreigners, they have to learn a completely different culture, which is obviously very very difficult. The new customs, and ways of life can be very hard to get use to. However even as a native, I think that people also have to deal with pains in order to be accepted in society. Usually if people dress differently than others, or act differently, or don't have the perfect body, they're criticized by the rest of society. If someone doesn't meet the qualifications of "normal" in today's society, they're usually taken as someone who's odd, and not accepted. It's gotten to such an extreme in today's society that girls are starving themselves in order for them to feel accepted. It's really sad how society affects peoples lives. So, to answer your question, yes, I believe that people have to go through pains to be accepted in society. I think the real question is whether they should have go through these pains, which is a no for me. Nobody should have to change themselves in order to fit into society. The pains are completely unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point in that people need to be normal. These days the standard to be normal has risen and it keeps on rising. Sooner or later, all of this will be so bad that everything will fall apart. And yes, these pains are unnecessary but they are a part of life that everyone has to go through at one point unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteAlso to answer your question, should people have to go through these pains. It really depends on the situation I think. If people are made fun of because they are overweight, and the become fit and healthy I think it is alright as long as they get back to a mindset of not caring about others. But yes, I think people shouldn't have to, but it really depends.
ReplyDeleteWell my point of view is that people do hurt themselves to make themselves look expectable to society. I mean look that many surgeries one could do could make themselves look better. Today Surgery might not hurt someone as much, but the same principle is applied
ReplyDeleteBut if society hadn't made these high standards that people felt that they had to live up to in order to be accepted, then none of this would be an issue. The whole issue with body image, and other physical criticisms is completely avoidable. I think that society has just become a very shallow and nosy community of people who believe that they need to criticize other peoples lives.
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