Tuesday, December 12, 2006

san pek eng tay


I got the book from Yayasan Obor Indonesia stall in Indonesia Book Fair last Friday. I paid for 40% less. Hmm...lucky me. hope I would find women liberation from woman character in it after I read the sub title of the book. I was not completely right.

At the beginning, i showed clearly that Eng Tay tried very hard to convince her parents to send her to study to very famous and well-known teacher Ciu Su Ciang in Hang-ciu. She pretended to be very ill until she paid a fortune teller to talk to her parents to make her wish come true. Finally she got her parents permission to go for study.

The problem was teacher Ciu Su Chiang only welcomed male students. It meant that Eng Tay should be turn out to be male student.

After that, the story fell into the romance story between Eng Tay and San Pek that happened to meet each other on the way to Hang-ciu and they were put in one room by their teacher during their staying.

Having had three years of study, it was Eng Tay's time to go back to her parents. She told her teacher's wife, Ho-si or usually called by Su bo about her secret for three years, and asked her to pass the truth on to San Pek.

Their love story was an 'unhappy-ending' one. San Pek was dead. Eng Tay was meant to marry a man from a well-known, rich and powerful family. Of course she refused it. On the way to visit her groom, she stopped by to San Pek's gravestone. Suddenly, the gravestone opened and pulled in Eng Tay. People there just saw pair of beautiful butterflies around the gravestone.

At those time, women were very strickly treated to be at home, not for study. At this point, we could learn from Eng Tay how she broke through the society values to be treated the same with male, especially in education.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Valuing life through Morrie's death


(tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson. New York:Doubleday, 1997)www.amazon.com

Many of us are reluctant to talk about death, really. None of us could tell one's experience in what death world like. Some people prefer to avoid the reality to face the fact that anytime the death could happen to anyone of us.

It's difference to Morrie Schwartz, a professor in Brandeis University , Massachusetts.
He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a brutal disease, unforgiving illness of the neurological system.

Having known that his death is nearing, Morrie invited some close friends to come at his in lieu funeral. He would like to hear what their friends saying about him when he was still alive.

Later, Morrie and Mitch, one of his favourite students, always had Tuesdays as their days to meet and Morrie would lecture him about life. Mitch, a famous journalist who has been voted America's No 1 sports columnist, recorded his lectures during those Tuesdays in the book. Some of the topics which were discusssed in this book were about world, feeling sorry for yourself, regrets, death, family, emotions, how love goes on and forgiveness.

Morrie died piecefully. The way of death he wanted to.
He left priceless lectures of life not only for Mitch Albom, but also for us who
are still alive....till today.

"the most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love,
and let it come in" (talk about world)

"without love, we are birds with broken wings" (talk about family)