Reported by:
New Zhi Xuan Jr3Z(4)
On the 23th of November 2023, in order to help the Junior Middle Three students to have a preliminary understanding of the new subject, Chinese Literature, they will be taking in Senior Middle One, Kuen Cheng High School held a brief introduction on the subject. The talk was given by both Mr. Liau Jinghang and Ms. Theng Kai Joe.
After the students were seated in the lecture hall, Mr. Liau Jinghang started off by asking the students three questions, what is literature, why should we learn literature and how should we learn literature. He then asked the students to imagine something they like, and what would happen if it were taken away. Ms. Theng Kai Joe then continued to introduce us to a short story named “The Muted Triangle Zither”.
Ms. Theng explained that the main character of the story, Ladislaw, who had great passion towards music, was prohibited from playing music after being put in prison for a homicide charge. Until one day when two musicians visited the prison to collect songs sung by prisoners. Ladislaw was asked to sing a song for them. He then requested a zither for him to play along while singing. After a brief explanation of the story, Ms. Theng then played a video which was made by the Senior Middle students. In the video, the students played the role of the characters in the story to explain the full story plot. After the video ended, Ms.Theng explained the main message this story was meant to bring, was that music represented the kindness, beauty and the soul of Ladislaw’s life. After being put in prison, without music, his world seemed meaningless and unimportant. The same applies to our lives, if something we are deeply passionate about were taken away, we would feel the same.
Mr. Liau added, Ladislaw strongly resisted giving the zither back to the police after singing his song for the musicians. He explained that rebellion often happens when things we are passionate about get taken away. However, there are always other ways of defending ourselves, resisting does not equal direct confrontation. He advised the students, even when defending ourselves, we should always do it the right way.
Mr. Liau then went back to the 3 questions he started off with. He explained, literature is attached to our lives, it presents the difficulties and challenges we face in normal life. Therefore, by studying literature, we are able to seek answers to questions, and understand that we are not alone in facing problems in life. He quoted, the keys to learning literature are to understand the main idea of the story and the image of the characters in the story.
Next, Ms. Theng continued by telling the story of “Kong Yiji”, who was a scholar in olden times. He was often bullied and looked down on by the people in a wine shop because he never passed the imperial examination. Oftentimes he was unable to afford daily life necessities because he does not have enough money. Because of this, he would steal things from people. One day, he was caught stealing from an Imperial Exam High Scorer Official Ding, and was severely beaten up. Even so, the sarcasm from people in the wine shop had never stopped. He was still bullied by them. Ever since, he never returned to the wine shop. Mr. Liau explained, the story was built on the background of a society who paid attention to appearances, but neglected the inside beauty of people. Just like Kong Yiji, people often looked down on him because he never passed the imperial exam, but neglected the knowledge that Kong Yiji had gained through learning. On the other hand, it was sad that the Imperial Exam High Scorer Official Ding was allowed to beat someone up because he had passed the imperial exam.
By looking at these 2 stories, Mr. Liau once again emphasized that literature was closely attached to our lives, it reflects the difficulties we face in daily life. To conclude the talk, he hopes that the Junior Middle Three students will understand and be able to appreciate the values of literature that were presented by the author to us.
