To Read & To Write

Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh" (1982) is a sweet book dedicated to explaining the concepts of Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, to people who don't really get it. By using A.A. Milne's character Winnie-the-Pooh, Hoff elucidates the Tao (translated into English as "the Way") as a concept that encourages the act of non-doing, or doing nothing. Rather than this resulting in failure, Hoff explains - by way of Winnie-the-Pooh anecdotes - how this will result in wisdom, if one has courage enough to really listen to their own personal intuition. Pooh, by keeping his mind empty and on simple things, seems to accidentally come up with solutions to big problems, problems that his friends, such as Wise Owl and Sad Eeyore, can't seem to come up with. Rather than collecting endless amounts of knowledge, or rather than focusing on all the ways one can be clever, Taoism guides us to see and hear and feel what's right here with us, what's right ...

"Bound" is a book that includes descriptions of Chinese history during the Ming times. The book is also a captivating story of a young woman living under the social conditions of that era, where most traditions deemed women as items to be used, sold, bought... and bound. During that time, many Chinese women were forced by their mothers to bind their feet tightly in cloth, as it was said that men were more attracted to tiny feet. The main character's half-sister, Wei Ping, has to undergo this "procedure", and Xing-Xing must witness this brutality happen while serving her step-mother (Wei Ping's mother) day and night.  Xing-Xing is a student of the three perfections of China, which include poetry, calligraphy, and painting. During Ming times, however, a woman was more useful if she wasn't artistic. This cultural belief does not stop Xing-Xing from embracing her talents. She takes pleasure in dreaming up poetic lines and practicing calligraphy durin...