Asian American Cathy Song drew closer to her Korean-Chinese ancestry, and was able to describe in a clear image of the two women she represent, one being the industrial American women and the other one being the Chinese caretaker. Cathy Song was born and raised in Hawaii making her an American by birth right. This fact did not keep her from engulfing her Korean-Chinese heritage. In the poem “Lost Sister”, Song isolates a young girl who struggles to find who she truly is in China, because of all the restrictions. The young girl wants to go to America to seek a needed fulfilment. The analysis of the young girl in “Lost Sister” is no doubt an effort to link Cathy Song’s two worlds together. Cathy Song wanted acceptance of her culture, using it as a release and that freedom is within. Song described life for young girls in China as restricted, disciplined and structured. Jade is the name that Song throughout the poem. It is a known fact that the Chinese culture values jade stone more than gold. Its …show more content…
It requires a reflective and sincere look on life. Many people from different walks of life look to find themselves and do not succeed because they fear being exiled or regarded as being defiant towards their family. “Lost Sisters” although the reader might think there are two separated women represented in this poem, there is a perception that Cathy Song has an alter ego. The first half is her origin and draws close to her Korean-Chinese roots. The second half is distinct from a heritage and closer to her American culture. To be true to herself she feels that she must represent both women and not drift to either side. In lines 53 and 54 Song says, “You find you need China: your one fragile identification.” That explains how delicate of a situation it is not to leave her culture behind. Though emotional freedom brings strength, cultural heritage is a source of freedom, because acceptance of culture is a release and freedom is
This story that Suyuan Woo tells her daughter shows how deeply the Japanese invasion of China affected the identity of many Chinese people. They were forced to flee their homes and their lives with only a few of their valuables, but eventually they had to give up those up too. Those few items were all that they had left to define themselves and remind them who they were so when they lost them they lost a significant part of who they were. Suyuan Woo lost more than just her past identity, she actually had to leave her twin babies on the side of the road in the hopes that someone could save them. This shaped her identity because throughout the remainder of her life she had to wonder if leaving them behind was the right choice and if they were
The collective autobiography edited by Alice Pung “Growing Up Asian in Australia” and the short story collection written by Maxine Beneba Clarke, “Foreign Soil” both illustrate the impact of family and cultural expectations on one’s identity. Both authors emphasise how the personal desires and beliefs of individuals brought about by the expectations imposed by their family, their culture and the society on them can serve as a motivation to change and establish their identity. The desire for acceptance and love can motivate an individual to satisfy a certain expectation. Similarly, pressure brought by individuals around a character may bring them to feel obligated to meet standards.
Brave Orchid’s children are not the only ones who have to bear their mother’s impositions. There is Moon Orchid, Brave Orchid’s sister, who has newly immigrated to the United States. She is the “weaker” character and can be seen as a foil character to her sister (Hunt 9). The difference between these two sisters is that Brave Orchid willingly rejects to assimilate, whereas Moon Orchid tries but fails to assimilate into the Western society. She tries to communicate to her nephews and nieces; nevertheless, the gap between them cannot be bound due to the language barrier.
In the nineteenth and twentieth century, as Europe started to conquer the world, many places became “safe” to the females to travel, inspiring many female traveler writers at this time period. On October 15, 1831, at Borough Bridge Hall, the little baby girl Isabella Lucy, named after her two grandmothers, was born (Stoddart 8). Little did the family knew this girl would someday travel around the world, visit Korea, and write about her journeys. As a female traveler writer, Isabella Bird presents her journey in Korea as an opportunity for discovery, examining her journey carefully and writing everything as true as it is in an opened mind. Isabella Bird seemed destined to travel, even as a woman in the nineteenth century, everything around her, her family and her health, prepared her for her journey of traveling the world later on.
This journey is inscribed in her poetry book Loop of Jade. Howe begins her book with the poem Mother’s Jewellery Box. The poem acts as a gateway to the main topic discussed in later poems: the relationship between her and her Chinese heritage.
Similarly the girl is in that extreme condition that only people pass words but offers no helping hand. Expression of mother The last lines of the poem depict the violation inflicted upon the girl. In those lines it is found out that the violence and miserable condition of the girl is due to the torture done by her mother.
The different key features also plays an important role for example the tone that is being formed by the lyrical voice that can be seen as a nephew or niece. This specific poem is also seen as an exposition of what Judith Butler will call a ‘gender trouble’ and it consist of an ABBA rhyming pattern that makes the reading of the poem better to understand. The poem emphasizes feminist, gender and queer theories that explains the life of the past and modern women and how they are made to see the world they are supposed to live in. The main theories that will be discussed in this poem will be described while analyzing the poem and this will make the poem and the theories clear to the reader. Different principals of the Feminist Theory.
“After losing everything in China…She never looked back with regret. ”(Chunk 1 ¶3). Jing-Mei’s mother is a Chinese immigrant with the typical ‘everything is better in America’ mindset. Jing-Mei, being raised in America, had more of an American mindset. “You want me to be someone i’m not…I’ll never be the daughter you want me to be!”
It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years I can finally be let go” (Tan 159). For the first time in her life of being stuck between two cultures and believing that she does not belong to either, Jing-Mei feels like she belongs. As it was previously stated about the meanings of this family’s poetic names, these names that were given to them by their mother created a meaningful theme.
In Trinh T. Minh-ha’s film, Surname Viet Given Name Nam, Vietnamese women are interviewed about the constant repression they faced during the time of the Vietnam War, yet what is repeated throughout the film, and as the title suggests, is that being Vietnamese, despite what they struggled through, will always remain a part of their identities. The series of interviews given in the film recount hardships experienced by women and show what they had to endure in Vietnam on a daily basis in regards to their gender identity. The expectations for women to marry and have children were unforgiving and provided another means for them to be scrutinized under even more regulations. Minh-ha’s use of song throughout the film gives the viewer a sense that
There 's a subtle wonderfulness to this story. It 's such a relatable story that involves day to day recounts of activities, Kimberly and her mother 's struggles and strives, financially and culturally. Especially from Aunt Paula. Once she said: “You can release your heart, older sister” (148). And another conversation is that “I am too smart to cheat….It
Read this quote from the text. “There I was, a ten-year-old orphan.…six years I lived like this…She told me about American men who wanted Asian wives. If I can cook, clean, and take care of my American husband, he’ll give me a good life. It was the only hope I had. No one understood me, and I understood nothing
As a whole, while the story was very depressing at times, it still has an underlying tone of family ideals, as the relationship between the mother and daughter still remained despite the arguments they had. In my opinion, I think the author’s message that she wished to convey was that despite any event that may occur, family members will always be there support you. This is shown in how, despite Jing Mei’s failures at becoming a prodigy, her mother still supported her and did not give up hope on helping her daughter becoming a successful person. As such, it strengthens the idea that “family will always be there for you”, no matter what hardships come their way. In addition, it helped to add a sense of togetherness in the short story, as it inadvertently revealed how much Jing’s mother actually loved her, despite her tough exterior.
The two important themes that I identified within this extract are beauty and love. Firstly, beauty is conveyed via descriptions of Ling’s wife. This is evident in the line “ une épouse et la prit très belle”. I think that the beauty of the wife mirrors the appreciation for aesthetics that is clearly evident in the text as if the wife herself, was as beautiful as one of Wang-Fô ‘s paintings. The latter theme is evident in the love for his wife as well.