Jaden’s response:
In the essay, ‘‘global digital divide: from Nigeria and the People’s Republic of China” by Cynthia L. Selfe, Gail E. Hawisher, Patrick W. Berry, Oladipupo “Dipo” Lashore, and Pengfei Song, I really enjoyed reading Pengfei’s story growing up and the amount of challenges he had to overcome to become successful. However, the part of the essay I admired was Pengfei also sharing his parents’ stories and the obstacles they also had to overcome to be successful for themselves and for their kids. From reading his parents’ stories then his, I felt in a way that his parents were able to live through them and be able to watch their kids do things that weren’t available to them when they were kids. For example, Pengfei mentioned how his mother wasn’t able to learn how to read or write due to the Land Reform Movement that started in China around the time she could enter elementary school. Pengfei stated, “When she finally got a chance, she was already 14 years old. She said she went to the class once, and she felt stupid since she was so much taller than her classmates and she decided at the time not to go there again. Indeed, she didn’t go, and she is almost illiterate.” This then brought me to think of Pengfei’s story, who as a child was reading novels around the house and even starting to learn English at school. Through this, I think the example I provided was a way to show how Pengfei’s mother is able to live through him and watch him accomplish things she wasn’t able to when she was young due to circumstances.
Although everyone in his family as well as himself had multiple struggles growing up, I admired how Pengfei’s family stayed strong and was able to do anything that they could to provide for themselves and their families. To end off, I want to mention how although I don’t really relate to this essay, I feel like my parents would since I read similar things my parents and Pengfei’s went through.
Activity 1:
-what you see as the key idea from this response: I believe the central idea of her response was to show Jaden’s interest in Pengfei and his family overcoming hardships, love and supporting nature of his mother despite being uneducated due to the Land Reform Movement in China, “Pengfei’s mother is able to live through him and watch him accomplish things she wasn’t able to when she was young due to circumstances.”
-how this idea is similar or different from your own writing: There is a very strong similarity between both our responses mentioning the political factors and hardships affecting Pengfei’s family and specify about her mother’s keen interest in supporting Pengfei’s education.
-what you learned (or not) by reading this post: I learned about a new perspective of how Jaden mentions that Pengfei’s mother lived her life through her kid as she did not want Pengfei to struggle as she did.
-if this reading response follows the guidelines (see Reading Response Guidelines under Week One Module): Jaden thoroughly follows the reading response guidelines
