The so-called.... "The Camp".........What if I am the one.....???

First of all, I think those poems are very interesting, they are really different from the poems that I had read before. Not only that I think they are different, but also I can somehow see the connections between these poems and our previous readings. Today, I wanted to play around with some specific poems, either discusses further using my “Asian mind”, or plays a role incorporate with the poems. Moreover, I would also like to link some of the poems to our previous reading, so feel free to join me or criticize them.

I really like Mrs. Yamada’s “Camp notes”, as it vividly describes, explains and criticizes the life and feeling of real Japanese that lives in United States during the World War II. She started with the poem of describing the “evacuation” (Yamada, p.13) scenario. From here, I wanted to put myself in the situation too by supporting the protagonist in the poem. You said “I never packed two bags before” (Yamada, p.13), Me too! I never even expect I would have to package and leave in a rush, I didn’t even have chance to bring all my stuffs, the only picture of my grandmother. I don’t like these reporters, they don’t know exactly how we feel and see, and still asked us to “Smile” (Yamada, p.13), it sounds very sarcastic and I feel disgusted.

I also like “in the Outhouse” (Yamada, p.17) poem, she described a place which everyone would almost use it daily into a cruel place like hell, I really like the part that says “burns my eyes” (Yamada, p.17), we always think that only fire can burns us; however, after reading that part, I realized that a “bloody” place can also burns us, not physically, but at least mentally.

The “Desert Storm” (Yamada, p.20) also attracts me a lot. I can vividly feel the situation that time, just like some parts of “Homebase” which really brought me to that specific period of time. “This was not imprisonment. This was relocation.” (Yamada, p.20), I am part of this land, same as any American here, striving hard to survive, I obey to the law and why should I be treated this way. This is not a place to live, we could have gotten killed at any minute……in this room, under this unstable table, we hide ourselves, we embraced each other tightly and prayed when this severe storm stops, the war could also ends……Yes, we pray from the bottom of our heart and that is the only thing we can do at this time, and that is the only thing that keeps us alive…

One major part that attracts me in the poem of “Cincinnati” is these two lines “No one knew me” and “Everyone knew me” (Yamada, p.33). Personally I think it must be the major concept of this poem, especially, when the author mentioned it again in the last sentence. Here I wanted to create another thinking from the protagonist’ point of view. No one knew me, and this rude American came here and spilled right in front of my face, I was shocked and angry…… I want to curse him, hit him, or at least do something back to him…… but I didn’t…… my conscious stops me from doing such “revenge”…… Isn’t these revenges are the ones causing war? Enough, I am one of the victims of this war and I know how it feels. Enough, I need to stop the cycle from going around. One day, if the world started to unite as one…… I know that it was started from me, I sacrificed my dignity and respects, but I earn the long lasting story that I am worth tell to my future generations and people around the world that I started the peace between USA and Japan. Then I looked at this American again, I know he is not rude, he just full of anger, who else doesn’t, I forgive him and I smile back at him, clean the dirt on my face and left. It looks like I didn’t do anything….. Wrong, I just implied him a message that says there are still some Japanese who wants same thing like you all, we want to live in a peaceful world….

Lastly, I wanted to point out two very interesting poems from Lawson Fusao Inada. First, “The Legend of Bad Boy” (Lawson p.17), isn’t this poem very similar to “Rico”s story? If I am the buddy, then I would use this poem to describe “Rico” in the beginning of my story telling…… I know Rico is not a Bad boy, he was just learned and tried to survive in the environment that he grew up. Second, “The Legend of Good Girl”, I think it just describes “Grandmother’s role” in our previous reading. Most or all of the characteristics here perfectly fits grandmother’s role. Please criticize it if you have other opinions. Thank you!

We, the Filipinos!!!!

I really like one of the short stories from this week’s readings, the story “RICO” written by Peter Bacho. I think one of the reasons that I really like it is because it is strongly related to my own culture. I felt really excited to read the Filipino story in this class. My approach today is trying to dig further into Filipino culture and pointing out several traditional characteristics of Filipinos. I hope you can learn more about Filipino culture after reading this.

As a Filipino, I totally understand the writing style of the author and I really appreciate his patriotism. For most of readers, you probably think that “RICO” is just an American born Filipino with bad hobbies, right? And I will argue that this was not the focus of the story. I think the author is purposely using Rico to introduce to readers some of the traditional good traits of Filipino, the traits that makes us proud of.

The author first described Rico with a so-called “typical Filipino” traits. Amazingly, there are several traits and hobbies that he used to describe Rico were actually similar to majority of the Filipinos. For instance, he illustrated Rico as “short and wiry……fast, and clever” (p.18), he mentioned about “Rico’s show” (p.19) and his swift dance steps, he also said “he’d [Rico] hold the girl tight and softly sing the lyrics of lost or impossible love.” (p.19) Two of the most popular hobbies in Philippines are singing and dancing, and this is pretty much the reason that leads me to think the relationship between Rico’s traits and the Filipinos. Today, I would also like to use some Youtube videos to support my argument. First one is the “Philippine All-Stars 2008 World Hip Hop Champions”, I am proud to say that Filipinos have won several world class dance competitions over the past years. Please watch it if you are interesting.





The author also talked about Rico’s boxing skill and how it affected his life. Boxing is a sport that every single Filipino feels proud of himself/herself, because of Manny (PacMan) Pacquiao. Pacquiao had won several world champions in boxing, he makes boxing the hottest sport show in Philippines, and he is the so-called “Hero” to many Filipinos. Personally, rather saying the boxing part is coincidentally mentioned in this story, I would think the author intentionally put that because boxing makes us proud of ourselves. Besides Pacquiao, there are also many Filipinos who had stepped on those world boxing stages. The reason that I mentioned singing, dancing, and boxing is to emphasis that these traits are inside Filipinos’ blood, no matter where Rico is born, he still owns the Filipino blood and genes. Blow is a link from abcNEWS about Pacquiao, and another Youtube video of Manny Pacquiao, if you are interested.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/lord-boxing-ring-manny-pacquiao-10091875




Lastly, I wanted to clarify the lifestyle of Filipino which the author mentioned in the story. One of those is the food that the author mentioned “electricity and pan-fried pork chops”, Filipinos really like to eat pork chops. The spirit of “helping each other”, which is the brotherhood between Rico and the author. In Philippines, we have a word called “Bayanihan”, the meaning of this is “helping each other”. It came from the traditional culture, where long time ago the houses were built from coconut trees and bamboo sticks (we called it “Bahay Kubo” which means "Nipa Hut" in English, it looks exactly like the logo of “Pizza Hut”, type nipa hut in Google and you will see it right away), the four legs serve as foundation of the house and the interesting fact is, those houses are “moveable”. And here comes “Bayanihan”, when a family wanted to move their house from one end to the others, then the whole neighborhood would came over and help lifting the house, then the family who moved their house will provide a huge meal for the whole neighborhood, just like celebrating festival event (in fact, we do have tons of festival events). When I read the part that says “Filipino always hired black bands………this was black music” (p. 19), I think I can guess the reason why. Think about it, why other Asians like Chinese, Japanese, or Korean would hang out with Caucasians more; while Filipino will choose to hang out with African Americans? I would say because of same similar traits they have, like singing, dancing, and boxing, maybe also because Filipinos are darker in color.

The Interesting/confusing parts of Homebase....~~~???!!!

After reading the book, Homebase, I sat down for a while and reminisced the whole book, then I decided that I wanted to write the interesting and confusing part of a character. However, instead of saying “a character”, I would rather say “the characters”, since the author mixed several characters in this book.

First, I think Rainsford’s personality is quite different from other Chinese-American kids, such as the way he views things, feels about his parents’ death, having a girlfriend, etc. He was raised up as a very tough kid; however, the confusing part is when the author said “I had witnessed her dying in another hospital eight years later and became the prominent figure at her funeral, I did not cry” (p.34) , he even mentioned it again later, “She had no longer wanted to stand by my side. After my mother died I was alone, but I did not cry.” (p.40) These statements are very contradicted towards his real feeling about his mother, he loves his mother so much, but he doesn’t even cry at all when she died and he even emphasis it again and again in the story. I think this is an unusual act for normal human being, so I would like to see what other people think about this scenario and why you think he keep mentioning about “I did not cry”?

It is very strange to me when I read the part that says “only in the first days after my father’s death did I cry silently into my pillow, my lover, my hero gone….as I cried”(p.40), it is interesting to me that Rainsford will cry for his dad, who he barely remember in his memories; while his mom, who live with him for seven more years, he didn’t even cry when she died.

To be honest, throughout the whole story, the way he mixed the characters had sometimes confused and lost me; however, I totally understand that as a lonely grown kid, Rainsford definitely wants someone to talk and share experience with him if not physically, then at least mentally. I think it is very interesting when he imagined his grandfather is always besides him. The author said “Yes, Grandfather, you watched me as I grew.” (p.60)

Another interesting fact and I don’t know if that is author’s personal likeness or just majority of Chinese did that. It was the name “Bobby”. I remember Rainford said he unintentionally called his dad “Bobby” instead of “Daddy”, then later in the reading, the author mentioned about the General he met in the Bay Bridge. He said “I call the pilot “Bobby”, yell his name out, “Bobby!”” (p.63) My thought about this is that, as long as, he sees the person who has a heroic figure like his father, then he will name that person “Bobby”.

There is a part that is also very similar to my personal experience. It is the part when he won “the Most Valuable Player trophy of a year……I am the first Chinese in the history of this high school to receive this award in any sports, and they applaud.” (p.79) I also won something in the competitions either representing the school or the whole country, even though I am not the first Chinese-Filipino to won these competitions, but I can definitely say that it is very different, especially, for a kid whose has different ethnicity.

In general, I think the story is very organized, the author arranges the characters from Great-grandfather all the way down to Rainford, which is the fourth generation of the family. As the story gets closer to ending, the author reorganized all the characters and put them into one same character by saying “I was only my father’s son, that he was Grandfather’s son and Grandfather was Great-Grandfather’s son and that night we were all the same men.” (p.85)

Nail Salon....

Very funny Nail Salon scene....hope you guys enjoy it.!!!

Granddaughter/Grandmother ====Who's IRISH???

After I read the story “Who’s Irish”, I totally agree with Dr. Kulbaga that Gish Jen is a very interesting writer and perhaps one of my favorite authors now. Indeed, her writing style is very unique, she embedded different cultures such as, American, Irish and Chinese into one vivid and interesting mixed culture. Also, she has strong sense of humor.
Today, I will like to share some interesting parts that I read from the story and please feel free to jump anytime to discuss it more or comment on it. First, the way she introduces other characters to readers are very interesting. For instance, she gave credits to Irish ancestors first by saying “I always thought Irish people are like Chinese, work so hard on the railroad…” (p.177), and then criticizing the current Irish family that she has to deal with. Instead of saying that she is giving the credits to Irish ancestors, let’s just say she is using that as her stepping stone to humiliate her son-in-law’s family. She is being very sarcastic by comparing four young and strong man from Shea family, who can speak fluent English and hundred percent capable of working are just sitting in the house every day, and getting benefits from welfare; unlike the author, who “have no money and do not speak English” (p.177) and still able to open a restaurant and provide her daughter a good life and education.
Moreover, I also like the way that she blamed the Irish culture first, and use that thought to further humiliate the four brothers from Shea family. For instance, she is thankful that she came “from a country where the food is popular all over the world” while blaming the Irish country where “everything is boiled” (p.177). She further humiliate “plain boiled: John” (p.178) with a “plain boiled thinking” (p.178). The funny part here is that when she said “maybe because I grew up with black bean sauce and hoisin sauce and garlic sauce” (p.178) I am very impressed that she can even use the food culture to describe the differences of personalities.
In the whole story, I can definitely feel her enthusiasm of her country, culture and education. Sometimes, she will even use Chinese words, like “shu-shu”. For instance, she will never forget to praise her mother land first before comparing to other countries. Also, she often felt disappointed and frustrating when comparing other cultures with her authentic culture. For example, she is upset with the concept of being “supportive” (p.178) to her daughter, instead of her daughter taking care of mother like most of the daughters in China do. Another word that Chinese do not talk about is “creative” (p.180), she is complaining that Americans use it all day long.
Nonetheless, she wants her granddaughter to keep more of her Chinese side, both physically and mentally, because she dislikes the American/Irish education. For instance, she thinks that John and her daughter are very irresponsible when they “agree Sophie is a problem, but they don’t know what to do” (p.181), and even worse when said “in America, parents not supposed to spank the child” (p.181) John and Natalie wanted to use the author as a “free baby sitter”, but restricted her from punishing Sophie. The author tried to comply, but she failed. Sophie just being too persistent and will never listen to her grandmother, so the author decided to stick on her traditional way of educating the kids. At first, it seems to be working when she said “Sophie stop taking off her clothes. I report. Finally!” (p.182) However, the nature of personalities defeated the traditional education from grandmother, Sophie just gets wilder and wilder from hitting “the mommies of her friends” to hiding “in the foxhole” (p.183)
Lastly, I really like her sense of humor, especially when she said “but lucky enough, got the baby-sitter for free”. (p.178) At the end of the story, I was actually surprised when she said “now I am become honorary Irish myself…Who’s Irish?” (p.186) It makes me rethink again where the title “Who’s Irish” is really about her granddaughter or herself.