“A Good Fall”
Nearly 10 years ago, I read the book Waiting by Ha Jin which won the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Based on a true story that took place in China, Waiting is the tragic account of a man who enters an arranged marriage out of a sense of duty, not love. He later falls in love with another woman but is restricted from divorcing his wife without spousal consent so he is left to wait for his true love. Ten years after finishing the book and I can still recall feeling the seemingly endless wait for something desired that the author, Ha Jin so strongly conveys in his award-winning novel. In 2009, Ha Jin published A Good Fall – a collection of 12 short stories that center around a different aspect of the Chinese culture – the Chinese immigrant experience in the United States. Read more 
To Shame or Not To Shame
While driving my daughter to school this past week, we noticed a young teen raking leaves on campus which shouldn’t seem out of the ordinary but to my daughter, it was. The raker had been “deuced” which is another way of saying the student had been caught doing something outside of the honor code. Punishments vary but nearly every “deuced” student has to spend a day or more raking leaves or cleaning up around campus in full sight of everyone – not because the maintenance staff needs help but to shame the student. It’s the equivalent of wearing the Scarlett Letter “A” in full view of the student’s peer community. Read more
Paddock Post 