The Great Gatsby - will be my next reading material :)
"The novel takes place following the First World War. American society enjoyed prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers..."
"After its republishing in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is today widely regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel, and a literary classic. The Great Gatsby has become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world and is ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century..." Source :Wikipedia
I like spending time reading classics when I am bored. Literature stimulates the mind and prevent (hopefully) deterioration of language proficiency. It's funny how sometimes I am into english literature but when it comes to Korean books, I am reading kindy books. Hehe.
I still have my Korean kindy books with me. It tells a tale about few farm animals, the small little chicks as the main characters while the wolf is the naughty character. There's a pig character too.
My next Korean kindy book was about young kids deciding what to wear. This is mostly about conversation. For me, the book is easy but I really like knowing about Korean grammers. I used to have a hard time stringing sentences together.
The only fully "matured" Korean book I ever read was 생활속의 통계 (statistic), this was a really nice book because every pages, there were translation to english. I mean my OWN translation. Cool huh?
What disappoints me is that to participate in intellectual conversation, I am only able to do it fluently in English or Malay. I would rather be so-so in all languages than to be fluent in one or two language but not all :(
**
Recent Japanese Earthquake and tsunami tragedy
These days there are so many national disasters and unrests. If you did notice it, the frequency of natural disasters really increases these past few years. Well, is it gonna be the end of the world as stated in holy books? I hope not. Hope Japan gonna be alright after the disaster.
In every countries, when a significant event, be it disaster or crisis struck the nation. The nation will come back stronger than before. Before World War II, America was under Great Depression, the economy was slumping and people were unsatisfied with their lives. During the entry of America in WWII, the economy started to again boom due to the robust increase of demand for ammunition and weapons.
Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" (During Great Depression)
Factories operated full time and people were hired to operate them. In Japan, the country lacks domestic consumption but has high rate of savings. The Japanese government runs on deficit but is able to survive because it borrows money domestically. This means borrowing from the citizens. Unlike Greece or Ireland, they do not have strong saving culture so the banks (Ireland) and government (Greece) borrowed money overseas. And they defaulted the loans.
With disaster like in Japan, the cost to rebuild the country will definately be high but in the long run, if Japan recovers, due to the spending in reconstruction of the disaster torn area, the economy will gradually recovers.
This is just my observation. All the best Japan.
"The novel takes place following the First World War. American society enjoyed prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers..."
"After its republishing in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is today widely regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel, and a literary classic. The Great Gatsby has become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world and is ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century..." Source :Wikipedia
I like spending time reading classics when I am bored. Literature stimulates the mind and prevent (hopefully) deterioration of language proficiency. It's funny how sometimes I am into english literature but when it comes to Korean books, I am reading kindy books. Hehe.
I still have my Korean kindy books with me. It tells a tale about few farm animals, the small little chicks as the main characters while the wolf is the naughty character. There's a pig character too.
My next Korean kindy book was about young kids deciding what to wear. This is mostly about conversation. For me, the book is easy but I really like knowing about Korean grammers. I used to have a hard time stringing sentences together.
The only fully "matured" Korean book I ever read was 생활속의 통계 (statistic), this was a really nice book because every pages, there were translation to english. I mean my OWN translation. Cool huh?
What disappoints me is that to participate in intellectual conversation, I am only able to do it fluently in English or Malay. I would rather be so-so in all languages than to be fluent in one or two language but not all :(
**
Recent Japanese Earthquake and tsunami tragedy
These days there are so many national disasters and unrests. If you did notice it, the frequency of natural disasters really increases these past few years. Well, is it gonna be the end of the world as stated in holy books? I hope not. Hope Japan gonna be alright after the disaster.
In every countries, when a significant event, be it disaster or crisis struck the nation. The nation will come back stronger than before. Before World War II, America was under Great Depression, the economy was slumping and people were unsatisfied with their lives. During the entry of America in WWII, the economy started to again boom due to the robust increase of demand for ammunition and weapons.
Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" (During Great Depression)
Factories operated full time and people were hired to operate them. In Japan, the country lacks domestic consumption but has high rate of savings. The Japanese government runs on deficit but is able to survive because it borrows money domestically. This means borrowing from the citizens. Unlike Greece or Ireland, they do not have strong saving culture so the banks (Ireland) and government (Greece) borrowed money overseas. And they defaulted the loans.
With disaster like in Japan, the cost to rebuild the country will definately be high but in the long run, if Japan recovers, due to the spending in reconstruction of the disaster torn area, the economy will gradually recovers.
This is just my observation. All the best Japan.
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