Last month, a traveling theater group called Chamber Theater visited our school and preformed two plays for us. We got to see The Monkey’s Paw and The Necklace. I liked the Monkey’s Paw the most because there was suspense and was dramatic, but The Necklace was also really good.
The Monkey’s Paw was about a family that wished for money and how their son died to get the money. After he died, they wished that their son would be brought back to life, but they realized that their son would not be at peace, so they wished for him to be at peace.
The Necklace is about a woman who is married to a poor shopkeeper and wants a fancy life. She and her husband are invited to a ball and she borrows a necklace, which she loses. She and her husband have to spend all their savings to buy back a replica but it turns out the real necklace was worth much less.
I thought the actors did a great job preforming and setting a story in a short amount of time. They also explained to us the origin of the plays, which was very helpful, and they told us the moral of the story. We also were allowed to ask them questions and I got to learn more about the Chamber Theater group in general.
In LA, we had to retell a story that was once told to us. I chose the story my mom told me about my great grandmother. This story is very special, important, and inspiring to me. I never got to meet my great grandmother so this is my only way I can connect with her. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do.
I first heard this story when my mom told me about my great grandmother in my house back in Michigan. I was reading a book about the Chinese civil war and I asked my mom about it. She told me about her great grandmother and what her life was like. The story made me feel grateful, proud and sad. My feelings were very different from each other, but I realized that I was lucky compared to some people in my family. This story is special to me because if my great grandmother never persevered through tough times, I would never be here today and be this lucky. I chose this story to write because in the Last Cuentista, Petra has to start a new life and face challenges. My great grandmother also had to start a new life and face challenges, so I thought this would be a story that connects to my life and Petra’s.
Can you imagine leaving your family behind and never seeing them again? Most people see their family everyday but the last time my great grandmother saw her family, was in 1936 when she was only 16 years old.
My great grandmother’s name was Tsang Lee-Man and was born in 1920 in the city of Meixian in the Guangdong province in China. My great grandmother came from a prosperous family and was the only girl. Some of her older brothers were officers in the Kuomintang army (Nationalists). Since my great grandmother’s family was prosperous, she got to go to school.
My great grandfather’s name was Sin Chan Ah-Kwon. He was born in 1910 in Mauritius. My great grandfather was the eldest of eleven children. This means he had a big responsibility to look out for his siblings. He decided to get an education to support his family. After high school in Mauritius, my great-grandfather went to China to study Chinese.
While at school, both of my great grandparents met each other and fell in love. I’m sure my great grandmother was a little bit unsure of my great grandfather when they first met. He was 10 years older than her! Nonetheless, they got married in 1936 and left for Mauritius soon after. When she arrived, my great grandmother didn’t know anyone. All of her family and friends were back in China. After a while, she started to build a life in Mauritius and her only contact with her family was through letters. My great grandmother kept in touch until the China civil war.
The China civil war started on August 1, 1927. The war was between the Nationalists and the Communists. The leader of the Kuomintang,finally reached a conclusion on December 7, 1949 after two decades of fighting, with the Communist taking control of China. After the war, most Nationalists fled to Taiwan or were killed.
My great-grandmother never heard from her family again. She never figured out what happened to her family, if they were killed, or if they fled. Sadly, we might never know what happened. Instead of being focused on her family back in China, my great-grandmother focused on her growing family in Mauritius.
With my great-grandfather, my great-grandmother had eight children. They had one big happy family. It may seem like a happy ever after but it wasn’t, the worst was still to come. In 1956, my great-grandfather died of a sudden heart attack. He left behind eight children with the youngest being only a few months old and my great-grandmother at the age of 36. With no source of income, her oldest children had to start working to support their mother and younger siblings. This included my grandmother, who as the eldest daughter, had quit school at the age of 16 and start working as a seamstress.
Her kids grew up and left the tiny island of Mauritius for bigger places. About two decades after my great-grandfather’s death, my great-grandmother moved to Canada in the 1970s to live with her kids and live a happy life. After twenty years she passed away in 1997.
Even though I never met my great-grandmother, I will always look up to her in bad times and tell myself it will get better. She experienced a lot of bad times in her life but never gave up and stopped working hard, and in the end things got better and she lived a happy life.
Last month, Colonel Virts visited our school and talked about his adventures with NASA and in the International Space Station. He talked about his training and how he gained interest in space. We learned a lot about how you train to be an astronaut.
One thing I thought was interesting was how the Earth looks from space. Colonel Virts took a lot of pictures of Earth from space. We also got to see inside the spaceship, the takeoff, and the return of the spaceship.
If you would like to know more about his adventures and how to be an astronaut check out his website (link down below) and check out his book, The Astronaut’s Guide to Leaving the Planet.
https://www.terryvirts.com/ (Link to Terry Virts’ website.)
