Post # 10

The TED Talk :Stories, Repositories and Folklore: Aghan Odero Agan was very interesting. Hard to understand the first few 

times but you start to hear what he is trying to say.  He relates to his home country and how we got to the place he is right now and how his traditions has shaped the man he has become today.  He connects the the audience, which makes them more comfortable I guess.   The "land" is what keeps the people alive, and if the land fails to give back then people die and the people fail.  But  the ancestors do not give up, they kept trying.  I did not get how this relates to folklores besides the fishing/net story.  To be honest this is just one big story where a man never gave up on living life.  A folklore something that represents the people. I still couldnt understand him after a while. Im sorry, well to me this ted talk, he explains his own cultural folktale and explains how important it relates to him. How the folktale has a deeper meaning to it.  These folktales might be the reason why we live by and follow certain rules and etc.

Post #9

This version of the sandman is very interesting.  It was much longer and unexpected.  the graphic details are great! The color sets the mood of the scenes, but some of these drawings are very scary.  If I'm not mistaken there are stories inside of this story of the Sandman, this is the origin story of how he has came the way he is? There is so much going on in just a few pages that I'm honestly confused. I usually like graphic novels but i don't really fancy this graphic novel.  There's a lot of back and forth, into different stories.  Also I feel like this story is different, but I never really looked into the original Sandman stories, I just remember watching the story in the Spiderman, that sandman story is not the same, completely difference actually.  So coming from a person with no knowledge of this story, I'm lost.

Post #8

This Spanish/pop art piece was different. I liked how the author of the pop art explains his reason and what this pop art means to him.  Also in his introduction you can really feel how passionate he is to his work and how much it means to him as a Hispanic fitting into the American society. I also felt in the actual pop art piece included spanish which gave you a feel to the author's heritage. But i also felt it was bias, because of all the spanish and this is his Latino USA history.  Of course if your a die hard american you will feel strongly to the United States but if you also support a different culture you will infuse that into your actions, work, and your reasons for anything would just be different.  I didn't like the pop art part because I dont really get some of the spanish sayings and it's just confusing. But the illustrations did help and they were fun to look at, but this just isnt my type of genre.  I much rather read about the monkey king myth. See this is what i mean by bias, I am Chinese American so I would enjoy more Chinese/Asian cultured readings more and I feel like I would understand them more. I feel like as equal as anyone tries to be its almost impossible but I dont blame the author.

Post # 7

In this article "Graphic Memoirs Come of Age" by William Bradley he talks about how we establish the term "graphic novels." I feel like Bradley had some very interesting points and a bit funny as well.  In the beginning of the article he talks about how comic books later turn into playing cards and how all these authors just want the attention and they will do anything to draw the attention to their work, and if you think about it that is so true. Comic books/ graphic novels start off as a novel then it becomes a television series and then you start to see games based on the story then you start to see dolls and action figures.  I feel like things can't just be a comic book or graphic novel now a days, the industry wants more and they want to make money and by expanding beyond just the story, they will make that money. Bradley also mentions a lot of popular graphic novels, mostly the super hero series, he says how some graphic novels if they were just novels because some aren't illustrated that well and in some cases just a big disappointment.  I feel like either a graphic novel can be done very well or they are just bad.  There arent descriptive words to describe the story line, there are only pictures and illustrations to describe the story line and when you mess that up the whole book just isnt good. Anyways I liked this article although it confused me at time when Bradley mentions all these authors that i never heard of because im not familiar with comic books.

Post #6

In the "Empowerment Through Mythological Imaginings in Woman Warrior" by Sue Ann Johnston, Johnston is really explaining how woman warriors are portrayed in different Chinese-American mythologies.  The used of direct quoting of different authors to compare and contrast is really helpful.  This lets the reader know where the information is from and it also gives the readers an opinion from the different authors, opens up how the reader might feel, agreeing or disagreeing to the idea.  Also this piece discusses a lot about the roles of a female and how females are basically the "woman warriors" because for a few hundred of year woman are looked down on, they are only slaves/prisoners to the males.  Chinese traditions support this idea that woman are only useful to marry off and are treated like slaves, they never have a say on things, the men were more superior and that women couldn't break free of these roles unless you are the few with enough courage and bravery.  The story of the white tigers, which was also mentioned in the reading piece, out of the man million females. Fa Mu Lan was able to break free from the traditional role of a woman and she learned to be cunning and strong, most importantly she became independent.  She broke free from the repetitive acts of tradition, and found herself along the journey.  The "White Tiger" is just one of the few myths that touch on this topic and help you visual the arguments on gentrification of Chinese or Chinese-American females.

Post #5

This article is well written, a lot of research put into this piece of writing.  I feel like it was a lot to take in with all the different authors and writers.  But anyways i liked how the author od this pice focuses a lot on the aspect of oral traditions of myths.  How basically where myths start off from and how different writers found different ways to see the importance of these myths and the oral tradition.  Also what i got from reading this piece was the structure of these myth and how they are catergories as images.  Another important aspect to mythology is all about language, like how Kenneth Burke said it changed over the years.  Burke also touched on the iideas how "verbal acts to be symbolic" and i agree. In myths theres a lot of symbolism, even the characters/ animals you choose have a meaning behind it and the type of animals(mostly are featured in myths and folktales) have a symbolic importance to each story.  This article wasnt my favorite, i felt like there was a lot going on, it was rather long and a lot of authors and writers all thrown into this piece that it was hard to keep up.  However this is a educating piece, i really like the intake of wat each author and writer thought about myths/folktales.  This artiel basically broke down each adn every part that makes up myths and things i didnt even know as that important, like language.  Each country or origin of a myth has a different laungue but how we use the language, and the tone.  Well over all i thought this article was helpful, just too long to read. 

Post #3

The reading "Three Wishes" was enjoyable and different.  These three folktales are different from any folktale we've readin class or what I've read independently.  After reading these short stories, thinking that i was just another short tale, but after reading thr article I now know it was about Puerto Rician nationality.  In the article it says now in the puertoican culture likes to use Mimas a certain way and how each animal has a different spiritual meaning.  Out of the three stories of the "Three Wishes" I liked the most was the witch one. I personally never believed in witches but I believe I heard of a version on how to get rid of a wicked witch before. It was smart of the husband to foil her human skin with salt and cooking ingredients, if I were him I would have tried to melt her with some boiling water.  The ant storie was a bit confusing to follow, I got that he kept asking and he got another answer to another answer and th final answer he got last was confusing. If his little foot was stuck then how does god king give him the answer of something like when you leave home you will have your foot again. How will he have his little foot if it was stuck the whole time and he was asking for someone to help him get unstuck? But also I found it interesting in how it all lead to god as the answer, shows how most stories and cultures will always relate it to religion.  The one with the boy, the sow and the chicks was funny. Little kids don't know any better I remember how I was younger and I took instructions from my parnts and grandparents too literal, thinking I was doing everything right but in the emd I got yelled t just like the boy. I think it wasn't the nosy fault at all, he's young and he doesn't know any better. Kids have a great imagination so you would have to give a kid literal directions or don't let them in charge of such important task. To me I don't find puertoican stories and folktales any different from th American or Chinese folktales I hear about, they just need an origin to come from. Some stories might have a specific origin from only on culture because of how the culture is. I liked reading the three short stories, some we're confusing but still interesting .