Indeed, I have to say that this week’s reading is definitely different from most of our readings in the past. It is quite mysterious when reading this story. I thought this kind of superstitions only happens in China, in fact, it was also past to Japan and Korea. I wasn’t surprised to read the person acting like this because I had heard stories about this kind of superstitions before. What I felt surprised is that I actually read it from a Japanese descendant.
In today’s reflection, I would like to clear up couple points, as well as, telling you the real story that I heard from my friend’s family.
This story really makes me think, it confuses me in some part, but I was able to get back to the track, digest and organize the story. When Beccah started to reminisced what her mother said to her, “I killed your father” (p. 192), I first thought that her mom is a murderer and this story might be something about Beccah’s father is a bad person. However, After reading the statements like “……secure the double locks…so my mother couldn’t get out of the house”, (p.193) “Instead of continuing straight to school, I’d wait with her until the number 8 came to take her to Reno’s Waikiki Bar-B-Q Hut……” (pp. 193-194), then I thought the story will be about Beccah’s crazy or incapable mother, who in some point became crazy and killed her husband and she felt guilty that she needs to tell Beccah, but then when the story reached the end, it proves that all my thinking and assumptions were all wrong. Beccah’s mother said “I wish him to death”(p.201), “Every day I think,…Die, die, sending him death-wish arrows, until one day my prayers were answered” I thought my assumptions in the beginning was right, but when Beccah said “so you didn’t actually, physically kill him. Like with a knife or something” (p.202), it really confuse me how can this possibly happened? However, after linking and organizing all thoughts from the whole story, especially, the ending part, then I realized what is really going on in the story.
Many of you would think that the spirit thing is a joke, right? I would think the same things if I have never seen one, but I have to acknowledge that this kind of power is actually exist. The story happened when my friend’s grandmother past away for “7 weeks”, and they went to one of the “Spirit medium” (p.200) just like “Akiko”, and they summoned his grandmother to the Spirit medium’s body, talked and asked her questions. The amazing part is, she where able to say who were there and what they did before, she also talked what she is doing now in the other world. He told me the process of summoning the death people’s spirit and it actually looks very similar to what Beccah’s story describes, except, the “Spirit medium body” is not insane and people don’t have to wait day and night.
Now, do you think it is still unbelievable? Me too…. Even though I have heard lots of these, I still wanted to see it myself.
Hey Anthony,
ReplyDeleteThis story really got me thinking. I feel as though each character is layered with deeper meaning, and yet the author provides no real back story for them. Each character intrigued me- Does Beccah hate or love her Mother? Did she really think ill thoughts about her Mother as she states at the end of the story? Who was the Father? What was he like? Was he mean to the Mother? What was his relationship to the characters? Does the Mother really get possessed by spirits, or is she crazy? I wish some of these questions would have been answered. However, the mystery behind the story makes it intriguing.
When the Mother first stated said “I killed your Father” (p. 192), I was taken back and thought that it was a murder as well. As the story went on however, like you, I began to think that the Mother was crazy, which is why Beccah had to take so much care of her “Intead of coming straight to school, I’d wait with her until the number 8 came to take her to Reno’s” (193). Do you think that Beccah honestly cared for her Mother, I was just afraid of what other people would think if her Mother went into another one of her trances in public? When the Mother stated at the end of the story I was thrown off, especially when she stated that she killed him by wishing him to death. This confused me as well, how do you kill someone with Ill thoughts? Is this a superstition in their culture?
Do you really think that one is able to become possessed by spirits? And how does one become possessed? When didn’t Beccah have the ability to communicate with the dead? What made the Mother so special?