Follow these instructions to POST responses and prose passage analyses for Independent Reading #2. For those of you who decided to blog, make sure you post your responses and analyses following this format.
1. Start a POST. In the title, indicate author's name, title of the book, and Response ___ of 4 OR Passage Analysis __ of 2.
2. Make sure you copy and paste your responses and analyses on a Word document and submit them to me through edmodo. Deadlines are posted there and will be given to you on Monday in class.
3. For now, submit a post with a photo of the cover of your book, create a new label for it, and tell us what you expect from reading your book. All your posts related to this book MUST include the label for your chosen piece as well as all other labels that apply.
4. Don't forget to COMMENT on your classmates posts. There should be no posts without comments.
3. For now, submit a post with a photo of the cover of your book, create a new label for it, and tell us what you expect from reading your book. All your posts related to this book MUST include the label for your chosen piece as well as all other labels that apply.
4. Don't forget to COMMENT on your classmates posts. There should be no posts without comments.
Happy Reading!
Pg. 171; Paragraph 3
ReplyDeleteMy mouth went permanently crooked with effort, turned down on the left side and straight on the right. How strange that the emigrant villagers are shouters, hollering face to face. My father asks, "Why is it I can hear Chinese from blocks away? Is it that I understand the language? Or is it they talk loud?" They turn the radio up full blast to hear the operas, which do not seem to hurt their ears. And they yell over the singers that wail over the drums, everybody talking at once, big arm gestures, spit flying. You can see the disgust on American faces looking at women like that. It isn't just the loudness. It is the way Chinese sounds, chingchong ugly, to American ears, not beautiful like Japanese sayonara words with the consonants and vowels as regular as Italian.
Analysis:
This piece of passage firstly helps us see the symbolism of how a Chinese emigrant is portrayed through American eyes. The presented diction plays the imagery very well, especially where it repeats about the Chinese shouting being able to be heard blocks away, the big arm gestures, and the spitting. I myself see this in movies, as well and (with no offense intended) I can agree with what this passage is implying. But because these emigrated individuals are different, there is no reason for us to discriminate, nor for them to alter themselves because of discrimination. I gained this idea in my readings, and must I say, society has changed and acceptance is here.
Secondly, in America, this is the perceived Chinese. But, back at their home, the Chinese are strict and skilled. There shall be no reason for chaos. There is order and expectations. Why now in America are they depicted as these types of human beings? The passage reads, "It isn't just the loudness. It is the way the Chinese sounds, chingchong ugly, to American ears, not beautiful like Japanese sayonara words with the consonants and vowels as regular as Italian." It seems as if coming to America has changed the Chinese point of view-from ordered to chaotic, from traditional to optional, from directed to wanting to feel "American-feminine." Describing your own people as "chingchong ugly" is another hint that Kingston was probably not as proud being a Chinese in America as she would be if she were back in China.
In conclusion, this passage vaguely, but surely presses into the Chinese's image in America and adds another puzzle piece to the idea of Chinese emigrants' struggles and changes in direction to the American way.