Coming up from the train station and crossing one crossroad, my partner and I glanced at each other with happiness in our eye, because the gate of Chinatown shining under the sunlight appeared in front of us. With the distance of the gate and us becoming shorter and shorter, more and more people with black eyes and black hairs walked around us, and we heard some familiar Chinese words. At that moment, my heart was full of pleasure and surprise. After several weeks of being away from my hometown, it was my first time to see so many Chinese people and words. My partner read every word she saw, and took as many photos as she could to memorize this afternoon. Some restaurants put their menus on the window, and almost all the food we have tried in China. We stood before the window and seemed that we have come back to the previous life in China.

We walked around the roads again and again, and the excitement started to appease. Finally we sat in a Chinese restaurant where all the waiters and waitresses were people with black eyes and hairs. Then we ordered some food in Chinese spontaneously: the Xiao long bao, vegetable fried rice and Jiuniang yuan xiao. To my first surprise, I found the waiter did not write Chinese words on the paper, and he wrote in English. Then the second came: the thick cover of Xiao long bao and the filling of yuan xiao.

A friend recently showed me this article, and I thought to share it with you all. It is a review of the book "Love Italian Style: The Secrets of my Hot and Happy Marriage" written by Melissa Gorge (cast member of The Real Housewives of New Jersey). This review is featured on Jezebel so it has a strong feminist bias, but once you read it, you'll know why I couldn't find any reviews that were neutral. 

http://jezebel.com/real-housewife-melissa-gorgas-new-book-advocates-mar-1371722729

Jezebel's main issue with the book is that Gorge advocates for marital rape, saying that a wife should be available for sex with her husband whenever he wants it, whether she wants to or not. Gorge includes other gems like "You can do just about anything for 10 minutes," and that strict gender rolls should apply within a marriage, the wife busy with housework while the husband works. She says, "When gender roles are confused, sexual roles are, too. If he's at the sink and then changing diapers, then who throws down in the bed?"

It looked a like a bunch of noodles from alphabet soup that had been left overnight in the broth, so they absorbed too much water and became bloated before someone pushed them all together and slapped them on the building.

I honestly couldn’t even tell if I was looking at letters, or if I was just looking at abstract shapes that someone had painstakingly spray-painted onto the wall.

It was a tag, and it’s just one of the many I’d seen around Philly. The walls and bridges I saw on the train ride in were lousy with them. Some pieces looked like they’d been there as long as the walls, while others looked like they could have been put up this morning.

The parts of the city we explored were not as graffiti-rich as I’m sure others are, because they’re tourist destinations, and are most likely scrubbed clean every month or so. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any to be seen, but at the time, I didn’t even pay the small tags much attention.

After making many trips into Philadelphia the past few weeks I can really see how it’s considered a “City of Neighborhoods”.  This concept really struck me on Friday, however, when I visited Philly’s Italian Market, South Street, and the many sections in between.  I prefer these areas to Center City; they seem more honest, raw, and interesting to me while reminding me an awful lot of downtown New York.  The first time I walked through South Street was last Friday when my group and I visited Magic Gardens.  I saw how influenced the blocks were by the “younger generations” through art, music, and style. 

André Cadere was an artist in the 70's who created pieces called "Barres." They were a series of small wooden cylinders painted bright colors, then glued together into long sticks. Cadere carried the sticks around France, Germany, and New York, interacting with people on the streets and subways, and even leaving the pieces in the galleries of other artists. The Barres could be displayed leaning up against a wall, on the floor, and in numerous other ways. His works were very playful in that the colors on his Barres were arranged in a pattern, except for one anomaly. The cylinders were visibly cut and sanded by hand, and some of the glue could still be seen in the borders between them. After Cadere’s death in 1978, his Barres became less playful, because he wasn’t around to interact with them anymore. Part of their appeal came from how he defied the traditional ways of displaying art, and the spontaneity that came with that

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     Immersed in mosaic world established by Zagar, I was amazed. Because painting, drawing and doing art are too orthodox to describe what Zagar has done, I would like to believe that he is not working; he is playing. He is playing with the broken pieces, playing with the colors and playing with the audiences.

    What is playing?

    Playing is a subversive and artistic attitude.

After watching the short clip of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, I started to think about the nature of staring as type of reinforcement of the social norms of our society. People stare what is unfamiliar to them, and those who are considered outside of the what is considered the norm are constantly the objects of staring. While the intention of the starer is probably not to be unkind or rude, the person being stared at can feel that they fall outside of what is considered "normal," thus feeling othered. Through the act of staring (whether it is intentional or not), the norms of society are reinforced through a subtle act. The person being stared at feels as if they do not belong because they do not fit the criteria of what is considered "normal."

Last week we talked about accessibility in regards to literature and if books should be less accessible to be effective. I think that it’s interesting to compare Persepolis with The Doll's House in this regard. For Persepolis I watched the movie and read the book and I found it very accessible in both formats. When I read The Doll's House, it wasn’t until class when we discussed it that I began to understand some of the deeper meaning.  I’m not sure if I agree that feminist literature should be less accessible. I think that it has to have meaning below the surface and it should not be dumbed down but it’s also important that it can reach people. I believe both are feminist works but I’m not sure if having one be less accessible makes it more of a feminist work.  Are there negatives to having a piece of work be too accessible?  Does it somehow make it less powerful? Is accessibility a feminist value? 

Sarah Bartman was an African women taken from Cape Town and brought to London to be put on display for her "freakish" body image. Bartman had a large buttox, genitals and breast, as compared to European women. This made her a spectacle of scientific research which distinguished her and all black women as racially inferior and hyper-sexualized. Even after her death her brain and genitals were put on display. Today, the black female body is still put on display, in music videos, in the political arena, in health care and in daily life. Stared at, pocked and prodded. From our hair to our thighs to our buttox, to skin complexion the black woman is often made a spectale of. The black female body is still devalued.