Blog for wuj4

Today we had three lectures which covered three forms of art--painting, acting and jazz. I was familiar with the first two, 'cause I had had these kinds of lectures and classes before. But still I was amazed to see a painting demo, during which a professor of VCU drew a portrait of his brother-in-law. He made a sketch before he came to the class so that he could continue drawing with oil and color. He was very funny and told us that he had developed the skill of drawing and painting at the same time. So he kept talking some stories about himself and his career while moving his hands back and forth on the picture. When the class was about to end, the picture was nearly done, too. It was very similar to what his brother-in-law's real image on the photo. If we had looked at the painting first, we would have probably thought that painting was not that difficult. But watching him drawing, I realized how hard it was to make a black color with other colors and make the person's forehead shine a bit. Later in the afternoon, we had a lecture about acting. We toured the theater during the class, so it wasn't boring. The professor was a female and I think she is very good at acting. She taught us the different ranges and types of voices and the mood that was carried out through the varied voices. Then in the evening we had a jazz lecture, or rather to say a live concert. Four gentlemen played the piano, bass, drums and horn. It was my first time to see a live jazz performance and it was quite eye-opening and ear-feasting.

Today we had a lecture about American literature. Before the class I thought that the professor would tell us something very specific about certain books, but on the contrary, he categorized the history of American literature into several phases, which gave us a whole picture of what American literature was like and enlightened me a lot. His way of teaching made me realize that literature was about society and people's life and it had developed with the innovations and changes in a certain country and the whole world.

I've read some great books before, some of which are of original edition and some are simplified ones. Of course the abridged ones can't be compared with the original, but they certainly give me some understanding of what the books are about. About the contemporary author, I like Nicholas Sparks most. I've read his The Notebook twice and during the first reading I fell in love with the style of his writing and his language. I also read the sequel of the Notebook, but I haven't finished it yet. These two books are all about love and family, I believe, and they give readers some insights about marriage. His books can't be easily found in China. But as long as I can find them, I'll definitely read all his works.

After a whole evening's suffering, I finished the draft of my paper finally. Although it's far from satisfactory and I'm still kind of uncomfortable about the whole thing, I decided to try something fun and relax myself a bit. So I went to visit VMFA with another two friends.

We had a great time there. These exhibits are amazing. There are ornaments of the Russian royal families, all kinds of paintings like scenery and animals and most surprisingly they also have the ancient treasures of China, from Xia Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. Some of the treasures were used as weapons, some were tools for farming and some were for decoration. There are also statues of gods, such as Guan Yin and Shou Lao, which are preserved very well.

I had a mixed feeling to see the Chinese things in the museum. On one hand, I feel proud that something wonderful from my own country can be placed in such a good museum and appreciated or even studied by some experts; but on the other hand, I think that these treasure are supposed to be preserved in a Chinese museum. Back in China, we once had a debate about this issue before. At that time, I was assigned to be on the side that "cultural treasure shouldn't be returned to its original countries." One of my strong points was that by exhibiting the cultural treasure in another country, especially in a multicultural one, it would help spread Chinese culture to the whole world.

Anyway, it's good to see so many great things in there. We are going to NY, so I'm gonna go and find some information and maps as a guidebook.