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Fresh Off The Boat

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The Antidote to Loneliness Ethnicity is one of the only aspects of life that cannot be physically lost; however, it is very easy to forget an aspect of one’s ethnic identity, a concept described in Dika Lam’s short story Fresh off the Boat, which is in the Hybridity Unit of the course reader. One of Chadwick’s Essential Questions of Hybridity, “How does hybridity liberate?”(Chadwick), is indicated in Lam’s short story which focuses on a main character who struggles to fit into Hong Kong, one of her ethnic countries, due to her non-hybridity. Lam uses her own experiences as a Chinese-American hybrid with the culture of modern Hong Kong to convey the disadvantages of non-hybridity. Lam’s writing style and wistful tone further exposes her statement …show more content…

The character expresses the constraints of her non-hybrid life by regretfully saying,“Damn, I should have learned Chinese. I wouldn’t be left on this pier tonight if I had..and the first mate gesturing from my grandmother’s yacht, shouting something I just don’t understand”(86). The character being left on the pier is both physical and allegorical. The character is isolated in China because of her inability to communicate with other people. The first mate, who represents Chinese culture, is separated from the main character because he is on the boat, and the main character, who represents her Americanized culture, is on the pier; furthermore, his shouting cannot be understood as a result of her lack in Chinese language. The character’s restrictions due to her non-hybridity allow Lam to pinpoint that the inability to speak a cultural language not only affects one’s emotions, but also one’s life in general, and this problem is pertinent to the main character, who is restrained from living the full life that she desires in China; moreover, the problem that non-hybridity constrains an individual’s life exposes one of the Enduring Understandings for the Hybridity unit which states that hybridity can liberate an individual. The character expresses this problem and her desire for a free life in Hong Kong by saying,“I wanted seven million new friends; I wanted to float high above the city on the outdoor commuter escalator;...I wanted tables for twelve, and neon signs trembling in the faces of puddles, and skyscrapers embraced by bamboo scaffolding, which is much stronger than it looks.”(87). The character’s loneliness in China exists because of her inability to speak

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