The Good Earth Trailer

GE Writing II

A major theme of the book is wealth. At the beginning, Wang Lung was just a poor farmer that only had little land, an ox, and his old father to care for. He was only able a arranged marriage with a servant unlike today where you actually meet the one through God’s plan. However, because of his marriage to the servant O-lan, Wang Lung life began to get better and his wealth slowly increased later on. With this increase in wealth, his property expanded and his life became easier.

The significance to this theme of wealth is that although Wang Lung worked hard for his wealth, it wasn’t always a good thing. Because of his wealth, a lot of issues occurred. One of the major issues was the issue of lust. Because of his wealth, Wang Lung was able to buy more land from the family of Hwang. With all this land came more wealth and the ability to hire workers. Since he had workers to do everything, Wang Lung had nothing to do and pretty much was bored and went out to find pleasure. This pleasure came in the form of a woman. Wang Lung lusted after this woman and pretty much bought her to serve him as a sex slave. Because of this he was constantly spending money to please her desires. Also another issue was family. With all his wealth, his uncle took advantage of him and Wang Lung could do nothing to get rid of him since he was afraid of losing all his earthly wealth. Also his oldest son didn’t finance the money well and just spent it a lot of it on looking good.

Really this theme of wealth is teaching people that sometimes being wealthy isn’t always a good thing. It is great to have money and property, although it would probably take a lot of work to obtain, but how you use it greatly affects your life. We have to be aware of what we do and control ourselves to prevent any lust or foolish spending by yourself or by family. Also, from a Christian perspective, we shouldn’t desire earthly riches that rot away, but rather desire to have heavenly riches that are eternal.

GE Writing I

Once again, this is another topic that I really have not put much thought into before. I guess I never actually really cared much about what was really my culture and just went on with my life. I guess my culture is like any typical Asian culture where respect is strongly emphasized. Everyone is to be respected no matter what age or nationality they are. Yet at times, I fall away from this cultural belief with the feeling of apathy. It’s the same with education. I’m constantly pushed to get good grades by my parents. Sure at times I push myself to get good grades, but I am extremely lazy. Overall, my culture is greatly influenced by Asian culture but at the same time I think there is a laid back American culture that just mellows everything out.

My culture influences my decisions by what Scripture says. My parents are constantly telling me that whatever decisions I make should follow what Scripture says and at times if it has their approval. However, this entire constant reminder about making decisions that follow God has also develop independence in decision making. I think that following Scripture and what family says is good and is the basis for every decision, but at the same time I feel like I just want to do my own thing. I at times put aside Scripture and family and solely decide based on what I want to do. However, this is definitely not the best way to make decisions, but it is sometimes hard not to do so. Having it my way is so much easier and quicker than having to go through Scripture and family. But as I have decisions to make, I do try to turn more to them rather than myself.

I really don’t know how my culture shaped my past. I guess I actually developed a small hate to my culture other the years because of the constant stress about education and respect. However I still followed it and it really has influenced my knowledge of good and bad. Yet at the same time, since it was being constantly emphasized, I have become lazier and instead just go and do my own thing without much care. I honestly live more for myself rather than God at times, unlike how my culture really emphasized. However, although I live for myself more, I still value the fact that my culture really emphasizes following God. I have the understanding that God is in control and what is right and wrong. I guess I would want to have a similar culture for my family. Yet, instead of being independent with apathy, I would rather have them independent with a stronger concern in following God. I would want them to strive to give it their best in everything but I wouldn’t really expect good results all the time. I just want them to please God and have enjoyment in life.