Difference between revisions of "426--Week 9 Questions/Comments--Tuesday"
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(New page: I found the part about the two fathers making the trip to America very interesting. I am not sure which one had it easier, both the legal and illegal father seem to have endured a hard tri...) |
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| + | == In General == | ||
| + | I have to say, in general, this book was confusing at first. However, after reading the synopsis on the back of the book and trying to differentiate between stories it started making a little more sense. Hopefully everything pulls together better at the end. -- Ashley Wilkins | ||
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| + | == On Discovery & On Fathers == | ||
| + | I thought these two vingettes were a very weird and unusual way to start off a book. The first is a myth which strips masculinity and the second a sort of memory of fathers. I have a hard time seeing how this fits in with the topic of the class, though it does deal with family ties and how masculinity is created. There is also no bibliography or any kind of sources mentioned, which makes me think that this is a fictionalization of reality, which is also just weird. -Lacey | ||
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| + | Going off of Lacey's point above, part of the problem with the sources is that they are stories told down in families and eventually recorded from how they sound. The book itself reads on that it is Non-Fiction and Literature. One of the questions to think about for tomorrow's discussion is how does this book fit into the rest of the semester. --Ashley Wilkins | ||
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| + | I read Kingston's ''Woman Warrior'' in high school, and I took most of what is in this book to be written in a similar way to Woman Warrior, in that they are all stories that Kingston was told as a young child. ''Woman Warrior'' was a collection of stories that Kingston remembered from childhood, several with her own experiences mixed in as part of the collection. This is what I believe is the reason for not having source material. -- Kellye Sorber | ||
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| + | I have to agree that the understanding the context of this work is difficult at first. I did not immediately understand that this was a series of narratives told by the author. A brief introduction explaining the format and the origin of the text would have been helpful for readers to understand the intent of the work sooner rather then immediately diving into The On Discovery section. --Sarah Gardner | ||
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| + | Going back to the issue of sources -- if these are stories passed down by family members, we have to wonder how accurate these stories really are. The person telling the story could have left things out which they felt gave the family a poor name or something of the sort. I feel that if there was more context to this book it would be more useful. -- Kari W. | ||
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| + | Kind of going off Kari's comment, there are things that just might have been forgotten over the years. Oral histories are always hard to trust because things are so easily left out either on purpose or accidentally. I think it's an interesting route to take as far as a secondary source is concerned. It's different from what we've been reading which has been documents and letters and journals, essentially. Oral histories, regardless of what was left out, can be just as accurate as a written document. -Kelly W. | ||
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| + | I agree with Sarah's point. I thought this was a novel when I first started reading. A disclaimer would have been nice. But even knowing it's her own stories, what do we make of the sources? How representative are the vignettes? --Amanda | ||
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| + | I was very confused at first with this book, especially since I have a different copy than the one the bookstore sells. I wasn't sure if I was reading the right book. So far, this kind of reminds me of an Amy Tan novel, especially "The Bonesetter's Daughter." I think that this book paints an interesting picture of Chinese families. Though it may not represent a large group of people as a whole, it brings up some subjects that I have seen in other works on Chinese families, inlcuding their fascination with fortune-telling and their deep respect for intelligent people. But again, we have to remember that this is written about one family, and as the others have mentioned, what are her sources and how reliable are they? - Celia | ||
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| + | I am not sure what to make of this book at this point. Like others, I was confused by the author’s approach, and did not really know what I was reading to begin with. I also find myself questioning the authenticity of these stories. Humans are fallible creatures. Whether purposely, or inadvertently, it is possible for stories to be modified. –Andrew B | ||
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| + | Although there was a lot to be said about the two Chinese fathers who immigrated to the United States, I think there was an interesting concept on American cultures and values. The American dream is portrayed as people being honest and able to trust each other with a handshake. But because of the great wealth that is accumulated, "American's are careless and forgetful from one day to the next." Kingston's analysis here can certainly portray future American intellect that in this society, wealth and fortune are easy to achieve and little work is necessary to get there. Unfortunately I find this to be a contagious aspect of American society today. Am I far from the truth? - Joe C. | ||
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| + | == The Father from China == | ||
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I found the part about the two fathers making the trip to America very interesting. I am not sure which one had it easier, both the legal and illegal father seem to have endured a hard trip. The illegal father, had to smuggle into a small box to be transported as freight on a cargo ship, while is trip may have been harder once he arrived he was free to go as he pleased. The legal father, however, came as an immigrant, and therefore had to pass through the Immigrant Station on Angel Island and be detained for an indefinite amount of time. While it might be a harder journey, being smuggled on board a ship, it would be nice to be able to go as you please. - Kellye Sorber | I found the part about the two fathers making the trip to America very interesting. I am not sure which one had it easier, both the legal and illegal father seem to have endured a hard trip. The illegal father, had to smuggle into a small box to be transported as freight on a cargo ship, while is trip may have been harder once he arrived he was free to go as he pleased. The legal father, however, came as an immigrant, and therefore had to pass through the Immigrant Station on Angel Island and be detained for an indefinite amount of time. While it might be a harder journey, being smuggled on board a ship, it would be nice to be able to go as you please. - Kellye Sorber | ||
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| + | I thought it was interesting that it seemed like people in China really celebrated the family (with all of their traditions and holidays) and then the young Chinese men in America really celebrated NOT having a family. I liked the line "the Gold Mountain was indeed free: no manners, no traditions, no wives." -- Rebecca | ||
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| + | In reading this section I couldn't help feeling sorry for the father. To be a scholar and study for exams for so hard and so long and ultimately work in a laundry must have felt degrading. I also thought it was interesting that he insisted that his wife get an education before coming to America as he did not want "an ignorant villager for his American wife." (68) Despite his work in a laundry, he still wanted to have the proper appearance of an educated man with a modern wife. --Sarah Gardner | ||
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| + | He didn't seem to have a problem working at the laundry though. I did not get the sense that he found it degrading. You would think that going from scholar to laundry worker would be perceived as a fall, but he seemed really happy with his station there. Maybe he was just so happy to be American. -- Rebecca | ||
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| + | It was probably because he was "born" intelligent. He was built a certain way so his family and tutors expected him to be intelligent. Even if he didn't have a lofty job or position in life, he was still "intelligent", so it made sense to want someone who would uphold that idea that he was genetically inclined to be scholarly. - Celia | ||
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| + | Were the Four Valuable Things a link between American and Chinese education/intellect or was it more based on retaining the values of the Confucian scholar? They seem to be referenced a lot throughout this section and yet this could be a potential topic discussion. --Joe C. | ||
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| + | == On Mortality == | ||
| + | Can we just talk for a moment about how powerful that story about the Taoist and immortality was? It was one of those tales that really showed how strong of an emotion love is and how essential it is to the human race. It's a universal emotion and the story really portrays how important it is to families in a very large scale. We spend so much time talking about New England and Southern families that sometimes, as historians, it's hard to remember that some basic morals are the same for every family type. -Kelly W. | ||
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| + | After reading On Mortality and On Mortality Again, I wonder if silence is culturally significant to the Chinese. Both stories blame failure on noise. –Andrew B | ||
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| + | == The Grandfather of the Sierra Nevada == | ||
| + | I thought this chapter was surreal. It reads a lot like ''Memoirs of a Geisha'' where history and myth are intertwined to make the moral of the story understandable, but the thing that this story is trying to tell is more amorphous and yet more real. I had heard of the legend of the Spinning Girl and the Cowboy and I understand why men fresh from China would feel connected and homesick from it. I also knew about the way that Chinamen were made to work on the railways. But these things combined with the way that he felt he was having sex with the world or the fact that the white men were impish demons just destroyed the credibilty. And I know that makes me seem as if I am contradicting myself because all of these things relate back to the construction of an ethnic masculinity and family relationships, but this really threw me for a loop. -Lacey. | ||
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| + | == The Making of More Americans == | ||
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| + | I thought that this section really illustrated the variety of effects that coming to America could have on Chinese immigrants. For example, Sao puts priority on his daughters instead of his mother back in China. Traditionally he would have been responsible for his mother's welfare and care in her old age. However, he buys into the idea of American materialism and invests in a tv and a car instead of feeding his own mother who starves to death. Oppositely, Uncle Bon is so disgusted by what he sees as wasteful American practices and selfishness that he returns to China with the intent of joining the communists. It seems that while some Chinese Americans became acculturated into American society, others were repulsed by it. --Sarah Gardner | ||
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| + | I also noticed what Sarah points out about Sao not providing for his family in China. His family wrote him many letters complaining about their hunger and health and Sao feels it is more beneficial to take care of his immediate family and life in America, not his extended family in China. This shows the switch to a more nuclear family and individual focus rather than extended/community family focus. In this case the distance of being in America made that process possible, but in order to survive in America and in American culture, Sao had to look out for himself. --Kari W. | ||
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| + | I think that this was the most interesting part of the book. Like Sarah and Kari have pointed out, it really demonstrates how some Chinese Americans are relinquishing their whole extended family support system and are focusing in more on immediate family. It also shows how some families, like Sao's, are placing more value on female children. - Celia | ||
