What's On the Menu in Collaboration Class Today?

Marlinton Middle School in Arabic, Maghribi Calligraphy

There was a bit of a party atmosphere in the 8th grade classroom of Language Arts teacher Mrs. Jonese today as we held our final gathering for the Beyond Pen Pals Collaboration Project. Joining us for the event were Sue Groves, Acting Executive Director from the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace and Jolie Lewis, Vice-President of the Birthplace Foundation Board, who joined us virtually in a Google Hangout.  The students enjoyed egg rolls and fried rice from China Palace in Lewisburg, while drinking Moroccan mint tea and good old fashioned sweet iced tea from right here at home.

Pearl Buck: The Mike Wallace Interview

Though she didn't pass away until 1973, well into the era of television, it's surprisingly difficult to find recordings of interviews with Pearl S. Buck.  This February 8, 1958 interview with Mike Wallace is one of the best known and most enlightening.  It focuses largely on Pearl's view of gender relations and the role of men and women.  She is outspoken and her views are intriguing.  The site includes the video and a transcript.

Almost as intriguing are the shots of Wallace smoking and hawking Parliament cigarettes, as well as the content of the ads themselves, all of which are left in the video.

Symposium on Pearl S. Buck Part of 110 Anniversary Celebrations of Nanjing University

A symposium on Pearl S. Buck and her time in China was recently held as part of a series of events celebrating the 110th anniversary of Nanjing University. According to a short article on the symposium in China Daily, approximately 20 scholars and researchers from around the world attended the symposium, and the prevailing view was that,

Pearl S. Buck was a remarkable cultural envoy who played a pioneering role in demystifying China in the American mind in the early 20th century...

Pearl S. Buck and Marlinton Middle School in Morocco

An interesting comment came through our Facebook page today from Rachid Aadnani who teaches Arabic at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. 

I read Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth, translated into Arabic as الأرض الطيبة when I was in high school in Morocco. Great to see a page devoted to her. It was one of the first texts I read that were set in Asia. Absolutely loved that novel. It actually made me want to read more and more. So, thank you Ms. Buck!!!

Included with the message was the cover of the Arabic translation you see to the right.  Literature can be a really important tool for self-discovery, and understanding, but equally importantly, it can help us understand people who different from us.  It shows us the characteristics and emotions we share, and helps us understand how differences may not necessarily be all the strange after all.  Pearl Buck was a master of that.  She did not hide the exotic nature of the cultures she wrote about, be it her ancestral, the one she was born into but has little experience of until she returned to the United States as an adult, or her adopted culture.  Rather she treated them as matter of fact, and cut straight to the essence of the story.  Maybe this is why Pearl Buck is such a major figure of world literature, as appreciated abroad as she is here.