I Would Like to Be a Dot in a Painting by Miro

I would like to be a dot in a painting by Miro.

Barely distinguishable from other dots,

it's true, but quite uniquely placed.

And from my dark centre

I'd survey the beauty of the linescape

and wonder -- would it be worthwhile

to roll myself towards the lemon stripe,

Centrally poised, and push my curves

against its edge, to give myself

a little attention?

But it's fine where I am.

I'll never make out what's going on

around me, and that's the joy of it.

The fact that I'm not a perfect circle

makes me more interesting in this world.                               

People will stare forever --

Even the most unemotional get excited.

So here I am, on the edge of animation,

a dream, a dance,a fantastic construction,

A child's adventure.

And nothing in this tawny sky

can get too close, or move too far away.

Moniza Alvi 

Dr. Jung Chang

"I remember when my mother pointed to a stone, and she said this was the kind of stone people used to place on the feet of the baby girls to stop them trying to climb away and unbind their feet." This is one of the famous quotes by Dr. Jung Chang born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China in 1952, now a British woman writer.

Dr. Jung Chang is the author of the best-selling books:

1. Wild Swans 2003 - 562 pages - Three Daughters of China, which has been said to be the most read book about China.

Chang paints a vivid portrait of the political and military turmoil of China in this period, from the marriage of her grandmother to a warlord, to her mother's experience of Japanese-occupied Jinzhou during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and her own experience of the effects of Mao's policies of the 1950s and 1960s.

2. Mao: The Unknown Story (co-written with husband Jon Halliday) 2005 - 814 pages

3. Romance of the Three Kingdoms: San Guo Yan Yi – 1995 – 174 pages

All the books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and together sold some 15 million copies.

She is inspired by her father who was deeply interested in literature. She quickly developed a love of reading and writing, composing poetry as a child. Mao’s extremist policies and projects eventually lead her parents who were working as high-ranking officers, to oppose him. They were targeted during the Cultural Revolution and were publicly humiliated as ink was poured over their heads and they were forced to wear placards denouncing them around their necks, kneel in gravel and to stand outside in the rain, followed by imprisonment, her father's treatment leading to lasting physical and mental illness. Their careers were destroyed, and her family was forced to leave their home.

The disruption of the university system in China lead Chang to spend several years as a peasant, a barefoot doctor, a steelworker and an electrician, though she received no formal training because of Mao's policy, which did not require formal instruction as a prerequisite for such work.

The universities were eventually re-opened and she gained a place at Sichuan University to study English, later becoming an assistant lecturer there. After Mao's death, she passed an exam that allowed her to study in the West, and her application to leave China was approved once her father was politically rehabilitated. She left China for Britain in 1978 and was awarded a scholarship by York University, where she obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 - the first person from the People's Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British University. She has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Buckingham, York, Warwick and the Open University and Bowdoin College, USA.

Dr Jung Chang maintained her faith in Mao’s policies for a long time until she heard the news of her father’s death. His death in a way liberated her.

On the occasion of Mao’s death she wrote in her book that,

 “The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings. Weeping for Mao was perhaps just another programmed act in their programmed lives.”

Dr Jung Chang gives lectures and presentation in various events and Universities on China’s Cultural Revolution. A gifted storyteller, her presentations stimulate emotions and leave audiences reflecting upon her powerful and moving messages, taking them on a thoughtful and, at times, emotional journey. Kaz Ross of the University of Tasmania deemed Wild Swans to have been a forerunner of a new genre: "'faction' – history told by fictional narrative means." 

New Year Wishes!!

Here is wishing you A VERY VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

Lets start the new year with firm resolutions and lots of laughter. Here are a few funny quotes for you to enjoy.

Mark Twain
New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.



Brooks Atkinson
Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.



Bill Vaughan
Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.



P. J. O'Rourke
The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to.



Jay Leno
Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year's resolution.



James Agate
New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.



Eric Zorn
Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.



Bill Vaughan
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.



Charles Lamb
New Year's Day is every man's birthday.



Oprah Winfrey
Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.



Mark Twain
New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.



Judith Crist
Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let's just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that.



Anonymous
Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.



Joey Adams
May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions!



Anais Nin
I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.



Oscar Wilde
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Robert Paul
I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser.



Anonymous
A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.



Leonard Bernstein
From New Year's on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.



G. K. Chesterton
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Lots of love and best wishes

Vaani