Woman Warrior by Kingston was a great novel that taught me about Chinese culture and how it was for the narrator to grow up in America, but be raised by a Chinese mother. In the beginning chapter, it was really interesting to read about the narrators "dream" or story, about her becoming a warrior woman and avenging her family. She referenced Mulan, which is a great disney movie, and shows so much courage. I think she tells this story to have us believe she wants to protect her family, and when her mother tells her stories of her relatives, the narrator wants to help, but can't because she wasnt there.
In the last chapter, the narrator tells about her school experience. This chapter was definitely an eye opener because I never had a chinese classmate and even though maybe not now, but back then, the narrator made it sound like chinese americans had such a difficult time speaking and mixing in with the other students. When the mother told her that she cut her tongue, but didn't really remember details of it, it made the narrator imagine various ways that it happened to her. This made her obsessed with the idea of violence, but at the same time she said she liked that her mother did it. The narrator also had a bad voice, which her mother critized alot and that I think played into the narrator being sick all the time when she stayed with her mother. I believe the mother was mostly the reasons why she had so much trouble in life. Her mother didn't understand americans really, and never understood her six chinese american children.
Overall, the book makes you realize that things like this happen all the time to people from different cultures. I did some research for the article presentation, and found that many korean and chinese do cut their childrens tongue, if they need it or not, because they believe it will help them speak English. Its crazy, but that is how it is.
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I was wondering if the mother really did cut her tongue or if we was just saying that. It is just so hard to believe and sickens me. After reading that you found that they actually do that to their children, I believe that she really did. I agree with you that she was sick around the mother from lack of love throughout her life, but feel that she still really loved and looked up to her mother. I wrote in my blog how I think the mother being a doctor seems a little like the characteristics of the warrior woman triumphing over problems. I think the mother was a role model for that. I guess we still love our mothers even if they abuse and neglect us. The book does make you think about how much better we have it than other cultures. It is a book that is inspiring that let's you know that nomatter how oppressed, you can still be a woman warrior.
ReplyDeleteI also thought Woman Warrior was a very good novel. I enjoyed learning about Chinese culture and the hardships that Chinese women face on a daily basis. When I was in elementary school, I remember having some Chinese students in my classes. It was difficult for some of them because they were actually born in China, which made their English broken and hard to understand at times. For the others that were raised in the United States, they did just find communicating and getting along with others. But, I do remember the ones that had a harder time communicating did not seem to interact quite as much.
ReplyDeleteI agree very much with your last paragraph. It is sad because bad things do happen to people around the world simply because of their beliefs or because of their cultural up bringing. But, overall I did really enjoy The Woman Warrior.
Growing up, my pastor was Korean. Broken English and fits in Korean when he could not think of a word were an every Sunday occourance for me. I knew he was American, but not that he had moved here in his teens from Korea to start his decipleship in the church.
ReplyDeleteHe once told us of his cousin who was back in the homeland, working the fields and having an arranged marriage. His bride-to-be ran off with a cattle rancher to America before he even met her. His family was shocked and the girls family accually moved in with them to help with the "loss".
My pastor liked the idea of free-will and being able to decide for yourself who to marry, but thought the compassion of the family to move in was even greater. I always thought about this when a loved one died, when the loved ones come together to grieve and take care of one another. Great loss can bring great love, it seems in the case of the No Name Woman, it was just the opposite. I think that is sad.
I also found the last chapter very interesting about the difficulty that Chinese-Americans had with communicating in school. Growing up I'm sure that I had Chinese-American classmates, but I never seemed to notice any difference, but when I was in France last semester I was thrown into a classroom with about 3 North Americans, 3 South Americans, 1 German, 2 English, 8 Japanese, 8 Koreans, and 8 Chinese students. We were all at a very high level of French so of course we were expected to speak nothing but French to one another and to our professors (since, obviously, our professors did not speak all of our languages). At first it was such a struggle for all of the non-Asians to understand the accent of the Asian students, although we were all speaking the same language. But by the end of the semester I think we all got so used to hearing the different accents, and now I think it will be difficult to go back to hearing French spoke with an American accent. That is exactly what the last chapter of this novel made me think of.
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