The Difference Between Generations

I choose to write about the short story "Who's Irish?" by Gish Jen. The first impression I had comes from the title of the story. It asks a vague question trying to identify a person of a particular nationality - Irish. So I thought the story would be mainly about Irish people and their culture. To my surprised, the story is actually about a Chinese woman and her family.
In the beginning of the story, it is hard to identify what is the purpose of the story. After finishing reading the story, I found out that the story tries to point out the differences between generations within the family of the narrator. This is also the theme for the readings for this week. The story has a somewhat sad ending. The narrator ended up living with her in-law counterpart who is the mother of her daughter's husband.
I felt somewhat angry toward the daughter whose name is Natalie for the fact that she made her mother move out. To Asian culture, this is viewed as unacceptable, and even sinful. Children's duties include taking care of parents when they become old. Even if sometimes problems will arise, they will just have to bear with it. Asian culture believes what parents have done to their children can never be repaid enough. How come Natalie already drove her mother out just because of a small misunderstanding.
This obviously has something to do with the differences in generations as well the differences in the environments they grew up in. I think Natalie was born and grew up in the US. Therefore, her actions are heavily influenced by the US cultures. For instance, when it comes to taking care children, people in the US prefer hiring babysitter, while Chinese parents seek help from the grandparents. Some might argue that asking the grandparents to help is not a good idea because they are already old. However, to Chinese people as well as many Asian countries, grandparents actually feel happy when they are asked to do so.
The other difference which was mentioned in the text is about punishments for children. It is funny to me to even hear that spanking children should not be allowed by laws. Coming from a logical point of view, why would people try to give children more power than their own parents. I dislike it when Natalie told the narrator "I don't like you to touch Sophie..., period." (Jen 181) Considering that the narrator, who is Natalie's mother, has raised Natalie herself for 28 years, should she not deserve some credit? Natalie may be a mother now, but she is also still a child in the eyes of her mother. Then the story ends after Natalie and John drove the narrator out of the house because they think she wronged the child Sophie. The ending is sad. What Natalie told her mother before she moved out was "You are crazy!...Look at what you did! You are crazy!" (Jen 185)

Anyway, to make this subject a little bit happier, I have attached the video on Russell Peters (I believe a lot of you should know him) about the children spanking subject. This is one of my favorite clips of all time. Enjoy !!!

It is good to be a monkey !?!

 

            I am writing about American Born Chinese by Luen Yang. After reading the first part of the story, which is the part about the monkey king, I was confused because the story suddenly changes into another completely different story. In addition, since I had a lot of exposure to Chinese cultures, I also happen to know the entire story about the monkey king. The story about the monkey king does not just end like that. However, everything starts to make sense as I continue to read further. The part where everything comes together is when the monkey king, disguised as Chin-kee, was fighting against Dan-nee/Jin-Wang.  The monkey king told Jin-Wang that he "...realized how good it is to be a monkey" before he left. After that meeting, Jin-Wang started to be more "Asian" than he used to be.

            Although the story appear to have no connections at first, I realize later that the story about the monkey king is just a comparison to the story of Jin-Wang in America. The acts of the monkey king wanting to be at the Heavenly Party and trying to get rid of his monkey sense is similar to Jin-Wang trying to be "American." The part when Jin-Wang moved to his new school talks about a lot of common misconceptions that white people have about Asian people. The first one of all is that every Asian is Chinese and comes from China. This is not true, the Asia continent is huge and consists of many countries, not to mention that in this story Jin-Wang is actually American. I find this misconception very true because it also happens to me all the time. The second misconception is that Asians eat dogs, which is only partially true. The third is that Asian children are arranged for marriage at young age.

            With all the misconceptions about Asians, it is understandable how a lot of American Born Chinese try to remove their true identities and become "real American." Many of them adopted the complete American lifestyle and denied to do anything related to Asian cultures and customs. This is a sad fact but true. I have been in the US for almost 6 years now and I have seen many cases like such. The Asian students who came from Asia often compare the totally Americanized Asian as "bananas" or "Twinkies." These word imply a person that looks Asian yet thinks and does things in a totally American way.

            It is interesting to see how the author compared being Asian as being a monkey. It must be a hard feeling to bear for any American Born Asian in the US. Certainly, no one wants to be a monkey in a human world and it is understandable to see them try to become like human. However, once a person is born Asian, he will remain Asian forever no matter how hard he tries. This is true to anyone and not just Asian. The best way to live is to be who you really are and not trying to become what you are not. That is the message that I learned from the story.





Below is the theme song for the old Chinese series Journey to The West, which has the character monkey king in it. This series is about 15 - 20 years old so the quality is very low. Anyway, enjoy !!!

Next is the video "I Am Asian" that Anthony mentioned:

Something About Me

My name is Quan Khong. I am currently a senior finance major at Miami University. My hometown is Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam.

 

This is a short video about a typical day in Ho Chi Minh city