Many people have traditions in their family that they must continue. Cathy Song explains how two Chinese women explore the lives when one is in America, and the other is in China. No matter where the sisters are, China or America, or what they do, there will always be a connection between them and their native country and culture that their current nation cannot supersede. Cathy Song wants to explain that by moving to America, one woman in the poem does not want to continue her Chinese heritage. The narrator wants the reader to understand the struggles of the sister who moved to America over losing her connection to her childhood and the culture she was raised in and were she came from by using symbolism.
The Chinese cultural and traditional traits the “Lost Sister” abandon the culture and did not continue the legacy in another country. Cathy begins the poem by explaining why jade is essential to the Chinese tradition by explaining how one couple honored that tradition by naming their first daughter Jade. Jade is described in line 5-6,8 as “the stone that in the far fields/could moisten the dry season/for the healing green of the inner hills” (Song, 1983). The author is comparing jade to the Chinese values of allegiance and comeliness. Allegiance is valued in China, and this is
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When the speaker explains, that Jade is “slicing of winter melons” (Song,1983,9), slicing the Chinese tradition of Jade when moving to America. Even though the sister who went to America feels lonely she tries to fit in with a certain group and the author explains to the reader that, in America, “women can stride along with men” (Song,1983,36). The author explains that Jade misses her country by stating she thinks about the family that was left behind on the other side of the world, and states, “you find you need China, your one fragile identification, a jade link” (Song, 1983,