Rosalie's blog

  I was indeed only three years old when my beloved father announced to our family that we had a half-sister living in China. Kwan was her name. It was a lot to digest, and at first, I thought greeting a new member of the family would make me feel neglected and Mom would somehow forget about me since she has a brand-new daughter and a new boyfriend named Jaime Jofré.  I’m now addressing this today, talking from my present self. I cohabited long enough with Kwan, my half-crazy half-sister, to know that she can be sweet, gentle, and caring, as much as naive, noisy, and sometimes dumb. She can’t even say my name properly, she calls me Libby-ah (my name is Olivia by the way). In addition to that, Kwan always sticks her nose in my things, particularly my and Simon’s business. I won’t lie, it gets on my nerves. She insists that we are meant to be together and that, even if we broke up, our paths are supposed to meet again, but it’s not her business. Do not get me wrong, I still real...

Out of all the English novels that I have read, which are very few, unfortunately for me, The Hundred Secret Senses especially caught my eye straightaway within the first pages. In the setting, everything takes place in The United States, in the twentieth-century. Olivia Bishop, a commercial photographer, narrates the beginning of the story, in which she let the readers know that her Chinese half-sister is coming all the way from China to come live with her family. Olivia also explains with rigour the atmosphere in her household. Her father died when she was only four years-old, and she is now scared that Kwan, who is twelve years older than the protagonist, is going to take her place in her mother’s heart. However, Kwan is a sweet, most of the time naive and usually very oddball girl. Additionally, she claims that she can interact with ghosts and always tells otherworldly, imaginary and supernatural stories, which everyone is fascinated with. In the first chapter, Kwan and Olivia have...

New words in the novel to enlarge my vocabulary The Hundred Secret Senses Word / Term French equivalent Definition 1. Worship Adorer, vénérer, rendre grâce Reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred 2. Foreigner Étranger A person or a thing from outside one’s community 3. Opium Opium   A narcotic substance, poisonous in large doses, that causes dullness or inaction 4. Sorrow   Peine, chagrin, tristesse The distress caused by loss, affliction, disappointment 5. Gangplank Passerelle   A flat plank or small, movable, bridge-like structure for use by persons boarding or leaving a ship at a pier 6. Hoarsely   D’une voix rauque Spoken with a husky voice 7. Chink Chinetoque, chintok Ethnic slur usually referring to a person of Chinese descent 8. Wacko Cinglé   Pejorative slang referring to a crazy person 9. Impoverish   Appauvrir   Make poor or diminish the quality of something 10. Vow Voeu, serment A sole...

\\The aftermath of WWII// To begin, as many of us may know, World War II first hit Europe and opposed the Axis powers, including Germany, Italy, and Japan, and the Allies, France, Great Britain, United States, the Soviet Union, and more. This hard and distressing period spanned almost six years long, from 1939 to 1945. In fact, it was the deadliest military conflict since forever. Authorities counted 60 to 70 million deaths in total, which was approximately 3% of the world population back in the 1940s. War-related deaths rose to 53 million, while an estimation of 20 million additional deaths was gathered, caused by many diseases, famine, starvation and cold-blooded massacres. The number of Jewish victims only go up to 6 million deaths, which was represented as the Holocaust. People, including civilians, Jews, children, and military members from numerous countries came to a sticky end, and sadly, some of them were declared lost and still never found to this day. In addition, World War I...

\\Amy Tan// Maybe you have already heard of the movie titled “The Joy Luck Club”. However, did you know that before becoming a film, the storyline was originally inspired by the famous book written by the asian author Amy Ruth Tan? As a matter of fact, born in California on February 19th 1952, Amy Tan is currently 69 years old. Nonetheless, she didn’t always reside in California. Both of her parents are Chinese immigrants. Her father, John Tan, immigrated to America in order to escape the Chinese Civil War. On another hand, Amy’s mother Daisy Li left China before the Communist took over the country in 1949. Years later, John and Daisy became parents of three wonderful children, Amy and her two brothers. In 1966, Tan, her mother and her younger brother moved to Switzerland , directly after the tragic death of her beloved older brother and father which was caused by a brain tumour. Several years later, she made the decision to settle back to California in order to study English and lingu...