Some of the background information for At the Western Palace is as follows: in Communist China in the 1960s-70s, during the terrible "Cultural Revolution'' millions of youth were forcefully deported to the poorest parts of the country and condemned to a life of hard labor and poverty. Many students were denied opportunities such as going to college, whether they were straight A students or not. This is why many Chinese people immigrated to the United States, which further educed the Chinese Exclusion Act passed by congress which put restrictions on immigration limiting the number of Chinese immigrants to very few. This is why in the story, At the Western Palace Brave Orchid thinks to her self about how things have changed since she came to America, it had become a lot more strict and stressful.
Also some words I found in the story that were unfamiliar to me and might be helpful to learn, and might be to others as well are as follows with their definitions:
Wakeful- unable to sleep; not sleeping; indisposed to sleep
Intricacies- complications
Benevolent- characterized by or expressing goodwill or kindly feelings
Exasperated- to irritate or provoke to a high degree; annoy extremely
Proprietress- a woman who owns property or a business
No comments:
Post a Comment