you're the girl who wanted more
tomatoshoes and counterattack, do you guys know what color/style the australian prison jumpsuits are like? are they plain and greeny-blue, or are they orange like the americans use? (or are they striped?)
... come to think about it, i don't actually know the color of the hong kong ones either. :\ american media must be very pervasive. i mean... anyone with any link to media/entertainment whatsoever knows 911, but not necessarily the emergency number for any other country aside from the one they live in.
i joined up with the local library yesterday. SO EXCITED. i used to be a bookworm, but what with high school being a bummer and university making me read piles of history/philosophy/literature papers every week, the number of books i read for enjoyment trickled down to about 1-2 a year. i recently finished anchee min's the last empress and it made me remember how much i love reading when it isn't for the sake of writing a paper. cherry2909, i'm hooked on her stuff now. XD i got the library to bring copies of her other novels over so i could borrow them too.
i heavily recommend anchee min's empress orchid, by the way. it's chinese historical fiction told from the perspective of china's last empress; how she started out as a poor country girl and worked her way up to become a concubine and then the dowager empress of china. it's fascinating reading about all the not-so-ancient rules of the forbidden city, and min's writing... is very colorful? she paints the scene clearly without using pages and pages of description. you actually feel like you're in late 19th century china. it's interesting as well because of all the plotting and backstabbing that goes on in the book, which i suppose comes of any struggle to power, especially that of a poor woman in a heavily patriarchal society still ruled by a monarchy and warlords. it's interesting to read of all the scheming and cleverness that went into the empress' rise to power. you don't need any knowledge of chinese history to be able to enjoy the book because min's writing is so absorbing; she creates the world around you as you read. if you're interested at all in chinese culture/history or feminism, or you just want to read about really clever plots and schemes, pick up empress orchid because it's amazing.