Name : Cheang Hui Ji
Class : Accountancy
Title : Desert Flower


Desert Flower follows Waris through her childhood under the nomadic culture of the Somali desert. It is this strength that enabled Dirie to survive from female genital mutilation, her flight across the desert to avoid an arranged marriage, living as a servant in England, and finally achieving success as a model. She is able to tell the remarkable story of her life and about the struggles that women still face in many other cultures today. Waris Dirie now works with the United Nations to stop the practice of female genital mutilation and if her story can help to achieve this goal in any small way, then this book has achieved its theme of her journey.


This book raises main issues such as the tough life that females have in Somalia, female circumcision and arranged marriages. It also draws attention to the abominable practice of female genital mutilation that leads to the death of many girls as they bleed to death, are infected by bacteria (tetanus) or don't survive the psychological shock and to constant pain and suffering for those who survive it.


I admire Waris for her courage and her spirit to struggle for survive under what given condition was. This can be proved when Waris runs away from her family in Somalia to avoid an arranged marriage, walking by herself across the desert to Mogadishu, where her family finds her work as a maid at the Somalian embassy in London. Waris then meets famous photographer Donaldson while working as a cleaner at a fast food restaurant, finds a modeling agent in Lucinda and becomes an international success. But with no papers, she is forced to enter into an unhappy marriage with odd-job man Neil or be sent back to war-torn Somalia. And now she joins the United Nations to enlighten the people about the female circumcision and stop that sort of practice.


The book has developed my understanding that FGM is not ubiquitous in Africa, in fact, most Africans don't even know that it's there. It is just concentrated mainly in East African countries like Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Djibouti, and some areas in West Africa like Mali for example. Besides, the practice of female circumcision or FGM is not well-understood by Europeans and Americans. Through Waris’s experiences , women are the backbone of Africa; they do most of the work but they are powerless to make decisions and have no say, sometimes not even in whom they will marry. This fact helps me as a woman to be thankful of the rights and freedoms I have today. Perhaps my life would be different if I was born in a different country with different cultures.

Name: Cheang HUI Ji
Class: ACCOUNTANCY
Title: Gulliver’s Travel

How does the text relate to the theme of a journey?

Gulliver’s travel is an amazing commentary on society as a whole, human nature, and the universal political animal. The theme of this book is about individual and society. As the matter of fact, most of the time during Gulliver’s travels, he felt isolated from the societies he visited. He did not fit in anywhere, and even during his brief returns to England, he expressed no wish to stay and left as quickly as he could. This has led to some critics calling Gulliver's Travels the first novel of modern alienation. For instance, the country of the Houyhnhnms was unique among the nations Gulliver visited because of its subjugation of the individual to the good of society as a whole, which led to an orderly and well-run nation. The price was that there was little room for human-style individuality. Nobody can become attached to their children because they may be assigned to another family that has a shortage of children; mates are chosen not by individual preference. Only during his stay with the Houyhnhnms did Gulliver wish to assimilate into society. More seriously, the Houyhnhnms decided that he was not one of them and wanted to expel him. The only society to which Gulliver wished to belong would not have him. Swift raised questions about the conflict between the individual and society, but did not resolve them.

What is the main issue in the text?

The main issue of Gulliver’s Travel are love and kindness which are absent in many of the lands that Gulliver visited. However, Glumdalclitch, the nine-year-old daughter of the Brobdingnagian farmer, was a major exception. She took care of Gulliver all the time while he stayed in Brobdingnag. For example, when Gulliver went to town with the farmer's family, "She carried me on her lap, in a box tied about her waist," Gulliver said. "The girl had lined it on all sides with the softest cloth she could get, well quilted underneath, furnished it with a bed, provided me with linen and other necessaries, and made everything as convenient as she could." Her treatment of Gulliver was not the same with the way of people in both Gulliver's fictional world and the real world in England and other European countries treated him.

What quality do you admire or dislike in a character?

The character that I like is Houyhnhnms who were the horses in the land of Houyhnhnm. They were the noble, beautiful, clean, and honest species, and looked to the yahoos as inferior slaves. They loved all Houyhnhnms equally, enabling them to choose their partners not according to love or passion but according to genetics — that was, which pairings would produce the healthiest offspring. They gave their children education communally and governed themselves democratically. Gulliver learned all about their culture and how it was ruled by reason. He even began to act like them, and when he was forced to leave the land, he was brokenhearted.

How does the text develop your understanding of the world?

Through this novel, I have learned that there is no point to fight over some small things in this society. For instance, I have learned the lesson which showed the stupidity in the war between England and France and also every war which starts over a stupid reason, I also want to point out the meaningless incourtlife were they do nothing but waste the states money. Besides, it also made the people suffer from that war. I also understand that the human race often takes things for granted, not considering that there could be some one or something getting hurt. In addition, I have learned that never-ending live is not as good as we think since the immortals suffered not only all the problems of old age, and they were depressed, vain and incapable of friendship. There is nothing sick about the death as it is a part of life.