The Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil War started in 1927 and ended in 1950. it was a war between the nationalist party, Kuomingtang and the Chinese Communist Party. During Apr., 1927, Chiang Kai-shek drove the Communists out of Shanghai and executed many of their political leaders. By July the party went in hiding which began the long conflict between the party and the Kuomintang.
In Sept., 1937, after a two-year effort to promote Chinese unity in the face of further Japanese aggression (see Sino-Japanese War, Second), the Communists obtained a truce from Chiang Kai-shek although they had actual military and political control over areas in the northwest. The truce with the Kuomintang broke down in 1939, but Communist guerillas remained the only really effective force against the Japanese in northern China. From 1945 to 1949 party membership swelled as Communist armies took city after city from the Nationalists.

I think this civil war happened mainly because of politics. Some people wanted to have the Chinese government as Communism while others wanted a Nationalist government. Throughout history, there have been many civil wars that happened because of conflicting govenment ideas and politics. Examples could be the Berlin Wall, which was built by a communist party to prevent the civilians from escaping west toward Democracy. Many people realized that Democracy meant more freedom and that is why communist parties used drastic and unreasonable actions in their attempts to maintain their followers. Civil wars happen because of many different reasons. America even had a civil war of its own. Politics influences wars because people are always looking for power and want to be at the top of the pyramid.

SCARY Ghost Story........

I remember a time when I was 11 in which an unatural and superstitious event happened to me. This same event kept ocurring for a span of two weeks which would become the scariest two weeks of my life. During this span of approximately two weeks, I would wake up at 2:30 AM every morning. And it wouldn't be around 2:30 AM in the morning, it would be exactly. I can still envision the deep red digits glowing in the darkness from my alarm clock. Another scary event that happened along with this strange supernatural occurance was the fact that the door of my room would be wide open everytime I woke up. This part was strange because I ALWAYS remembered to close my door every night before I went to bed. Aside from the door being open with the doorstop holding it firmly in place, the hallway light would be on and pierce the darkness of my room. This was also a strange phenomena because I always turn off the light before I go to bed. Everytime I woke up, I would see a shady outline of a shadow standing at the door. Since the door was open, I could see the figure. It was the figure of a woman and she appeared to wear a dress. After the two weeks, I told my dad what happened and he immedietley called a "Kahuna" or priest type of person. He sprayed a little Hawaiian salt around the inside and outside of the house and told us to plant tea leaf plants around the perimeter of the house. After following his procedures, everything was back to normal again. But what remains in my head is the image of seeing the numbers "2:30" and the image of a lady in a dress.

Free Post #1: 300 (The Movie)

Over spring break I was able to watch the movie 300. It was one of the better movies I had seen in a while. I usually like action movies and this is one of the best. The use of computer drawing and digitalizing every detail is perfect and flawless. The movie is a semi-historical account of the true story of the 300 spartans that were led by King Leonidas. The 300 spartans fought till the last man in an attempt to prevent the Persian army of Xerxes from invading Sparta and placing their women and children into slavery. The 300 spartans fought for three days against a million persians at the "Hot Gates". This battle was called the "Battle of Thermopylae" in historical texts. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the Persians for three days in one of history's most famous last stands. The small force led by King Leonidas of Sparta blocked the only road through which the massive army of Xerxes could pass. The spirit of the Spartans allowed them to deliver many casualties to the Persian army and they were not afraid to die in battle for it was considered glorious.
There are many monsters in the movie and these are merely the physical images that the Greeks had invisioned about the Persians through stories and myths. This shows how stories can influence people and their thoughts. Before the Greeks had even seen the Persians, they thought they were monsters and non-human. The greeks also thought Xerxes to be a giant that stood at 10 feet tall.

Free Post: The Game of Golf

Golf is a sport in which individual players or teams hit a ball into a hole using various clubs, and also is one of the few ball games that does not use a fixed standard playing area. It is defined in the Rules of Golf as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."
It is said that the first ever game of golf may have been played at the Bruntsfield Links in 1456, claimed by the history of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now The Royal Burgess Golfing Society.
Golf has been played on Scotland's Musselburgh Links since at least 1672, while variations of the game had been played throughout the British Isles and the Low Countries of northern Europe for several centuries before that.
Golf is played on an area of land designated as the course. The course consists of a series of holes. A hole means both the hole in the ground into which the ball is played (also called the cup), as well as the total distance from the tee (a pre-determined area from where a ball is first hit) to the green (the low cut area surrounding the actual hole in the ground). Most golf courses consist of eighteen holes.
I thought it would be good for people to know what golf is and how it is played because i believe most people will find it interesting and fun.

Personal Story Pt.2 (Magical Realism)

An interesting story that I remember about myself happened when I was a young boy. I was a mere four years-old at the time and it took place on a cold and rainy mid-summer day. My mother planned on taking me to my grandmother's house on that day so I could play with my cousins. I was currently in Hawaii and the temperature was in the range of 30-40 degrees farenheight. The water on the ground froze up and transformed my driveway into an ice skating field. I stepped out onto the driveway floor, and my first step was a doosy. I got back up on my feet and heard the squaking mynabirds that were perched on the high voltage electrical wires. They were pointing their stubby and stocky feathers at my face. I ignored them and pressed the button on my micro universal remote and opened the door of my mother's Nissan Flycar©.
As I flew out of the Valley, I looked at the lanndscape and the greenery of the the images swiftly passing below. I saw waterfalls and tropical trees alongside sharp cliffs. During the trip to my grandmother's house, I thought about many things. I had premonitions about next year as becoming a kindergartener and making many good friends along the way. I also thought about having fun playing on the giant-sized jungle gyms during recess with my new friends. My mother flew us down back to the street like normal cars and drove the rest of the way. When we arrived at the house I got out and walked to the front door. My mother lefet for work soon after.
On this chilly mid-summer day, I was at my grandmother's house and bored, bored, bored out of my mind. Infact, I was so bored, I stared at the still outlines of te shadows on my wall.
It was strange, because grandmother's house had many different toys to play with such as Gameboy, Hot Wheels and my favorite thing to play with, Legos. Somehow, I was bored because all of my cousins were taking a nap on the futon in the living room. Grandma wouldn't let me go outside to play because it was raining and she diddn't want me getting sick. And I diddn't want to play with the "Hot Wheels Launcher" or "Zelda" on the Gameboy by myself, because it simply wasn't the same as having all of my cousins playng with me.
So I went into my grandma's room and as I turned around the door, something that shined like diamonds cuaght the corner of my eye. I beheld in my eyes a magnifcent and intriguing object that looked almost like a telephone. It had a somewhat angelic look and there were gold auroas around it. It spoke through the golden rays and said to me "Play with me. I'm a toy!". It was my perfect toy to play with and it could dissolve all of the boredom away. So I walked up to it and started spinning a dial with the nubers 0-9 on it. The dial kept on spinning back to it's starting position everytime I would roatate it. I then picked up the "golden reciever" and heard some noise blaring out. I put the reciever upon my ear and listened intently as I was dumbfounded about this discovery. All I heard was an unfamiliar-and-extremely-low-pitched voice on the other end of the line. It sounded alot like an adult voice so I immedietly slammed the phone back on the docking ort. I placed the phone back on the docking port and thought of how unordinary my discoverey was.
I raced through the hallway back to the living room and began shaking Craig, one of my cousins. I shook and shook and shook some more, but Craig was in a deep, dreamy sleep and my measures proved unsuccessful. It was like trying to wake up a half-asleep bear! Within the next few minutes, I heard the ringing of the doorbell through my brain and secretly watched my grandmother open the large wooden front door. A police man was waiting at the door and whispered in soft as a pillow voice to my grandmother. I strained to hear what words came out of the officer's mouth. After about ten minutes, which by the way seemed like an eternity, my grandmother finished talking with the police officer and came up to me and asked me a question. "Paul, did you call the Police?" she asked with a half-disappointed composure on her face. "I'm not sure Grandmother. I diddn't do it I promise!" I exclaimed as a few drops of tears began to leave my eyes. My grandmother asked me if I had touched a strange looking phone and I confessed. I felt bad and wanted to cry for the rest of the day because of what I did.
That day I learned a valuable lesson. My curiosity had gotten the best of me and I learned to not touch certain special-looking things without having permission first. I will always remember my grandma's infamous spin-dial phone.