Girl by Jamaica Kincaid

[Click on the title of the blog to download an audio file of me reading the story.]

How can you tell that a mother loves her daughter?

"Girl" is a mother's stream of commands and instruction that fill up a single page interrupted by just two lines spoken by her daughter. It is a story about the tension between mothers and daughters and the deep misunderstandings that sometimes occur. Inserted among the warnings and the helpful houshold hints, is the knowledge of a woman's sadness and her burdens; of how to love a difficult man and how to get rid of an unwanted baby before it is born. It's a story that has to be read aloud so you can hear the cadence of the islanders, smell the cooking of Antigua, imagine the jumbled tapestry of life in town, feel the mother's strength and read the words that open up a new world. Antigua is strange and yet familiar: benna must be a song, doukona is something edible, and dasheen is certainly a plant. I had to look them up on the internet and found that benna is indeed a genre of music, doukona is a spicy dish of the island, and dasheen is taro (called pheuak in Thai).

The story ends where it begins. The mother's last instruction is to squeeze a loaf of bread to see if it is fresh. The girl asks plaintively "What if the baker won't let me feel the bread?" The mother pauses for a moment. " You mean to say," she demands, "you are really going to become the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?" At the very last, "Girl" is a circular story that breaks the endless tension in mother-daughter relationships with wry humor.

[At the bottom of this page you can listen to a sample of reggae music.]

The Edge of the Empire: First Impressions

Alba gave me this book by Sanya Polprasid about the origins of the Thai people. Though it is based on currently accepted theory that the Thai migrated south from China, it is a novel and like all novels, authors have license to fictionalize. So I do accept the facts, broadly speaking, but not its details. In the introduction, the editor states that the book was written in "the classical style" and I am not sure what that means. In the first 30 pages of the book 17 characters have been introduced; there is no main character or hero.

Reading China

Last week, Sudarat gave me two books to read about China. One was Shen and the other was Chu Ju's House by Gloria Whelan. We are looking for books for the seventh graders to read for a course called Humanities. Chu Ju is about a young teenaged girl who realizes that as a girl, she is not as valued as a boy. When her little sister is born, her poor family cannot afford to raise two girls. They consider selling the baby. To save her sister, Chu Ju runs away.

As I read Chu Ju's story, I compared it with Chrisman's book of stories. One is set in contemporary China, the other in a China of long ago. I didn't read all the stories in Shen of the Sea as I sampled only two of them. In any case, the language would be difficult for my students and they would find it hard to identify with the characters. Chu Ju would be easier to read but I wondered how many of them would be able to identify with the main character's problem. I am looking for a balanced portrayal of the Chinese for my students to read; something that speaks to their experience, too.

Shen of the Sea: Seeing China

I read two stories out of Shen and the Sea. The first one was “Ah Tcha the Sleeper” and the other was “As Hai Low Kept House.” Arthur Bowie Chrisman won the Newbery Medal in 1925 for distinguished children's literature in the United States. This book is an artifact of its time, preserving early 20th century attitudes; a fossil in print. As folk tales, the stories depend on archetypes to teach a lesson or to send a message. Unfortunately, archetypes portray people as one-dimensional, such as Hardworking and Industrious or Silly and Ridiculous. The name Chrisman gives to the character "Hai Low" pokes fun at how Chinese names sound to Western ears and shows the reader that Hai Low is ridiculous in the author's eyes. Today, no book publisher would dare accept stories that make fun of another ethnic group. In 1925 when the book was published, attitudes were different. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the leader of China had died. China was engulfed in civil war, forcing the US to send six warships to China to protect Western interests. Yet these stories show nothing of the Chinese struggle to become a modern nation. Instead, the Chinese are presented as people who wear traditional dress, have funny-sounding names, and live in a place that is out of step with modern times. It's hard to reconcile this image of China with images from the Beijing Olympics.

Reading Literary Broads: A Woman from Malaya

The Teardrop Story Woman was the most conventional of the three women. In the beginning Mei Kwei rebelled against the patriarchy, the male-dominated society of Luping, Malaya. But then inexplicably, she began to behave in the most predictable ways. She displayed an unfortunate tendency to play to stereotype--the cold beauty rising from the scum of colonial Luping. The Native falling in love with a European. The Faithful Wife Wrongfully Accused of Infidelity. Catherine Lim, the story woman, also borrows a page from Colleen McCullough (The Thorn Birds). In both books the heroines experience Impossible Forbidden Love. I got impatient and I read the ending. I could see where this was headed, and I was right. Lim lost her voice, the one at the beginning that introduced us to the irony of being born female and Chinese. But instead of being an insightful account of the condition of Chinese women, Mei Kwei's story reveals a woman who cynically prostitutes her beauty to survive; first by marrying a handsome rich man, then by taking on a rich lover when her husband abandons her. There is nothing tragic in it because we don't get a sense that she has a fatal flaw, like Scarlett O'Hara's single mindedness that blinds her from recognizing true love until it is too late. Mei Kwei's beauty is not flawed; it is merely a necessary tool for survival. This is not a new insight; there have been rich concubines, not all of them literary.

Reading Literary Broads: A Queen

I don't remember how I came to have The Red Queen in my library, but she was very patient, I think, waiting for me to come around to reading her. Set in 18th century Korea, it's the story of the Lady Hyegyong and her mad husband, Crown Prince Sado. Like the Wife, the Queen conflates time. Her 18th century consciousness has adopted a 21st century ability to analyze the roots of her husband' s psychosis in his relationship with his father, the king. Gazing from the 18th century through 21st century lenses, the Queen tells her story, interpreting and re-interpreting events. Some of that (re)-interpretation is provided by Margaret Drabble. The Queen is given an awareness of a legacy, that others not yet born when she is writing her memoires are reading her story. This device helps the reader to understand the setting and empathize with the Queen.

However, in the second half of the book, the Queen suddenly becomes a character in a biography and the scholarly Dr. Babs Halliwell is reading her. It is Oxford, sometime in the early 21st century. Since the life of an academic is one of observer rather than participant in history, the horror of the prince's slow death in a rice chest is replaced by an academic conference in modern day Seoul. The switch from viewing events through the Queen's eyes to Babs' view of the conference and her life afterwards is a too-sudden release of tension, rather like the air escaping from a balloon.

Reading Literary Broads: A Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife is a book that Taranee had given me for Christmas with the recommendation "it's awesome!" Since what is awesome to a twentysomething is not necessarily so to her mother, it took me 2 years to get around to reading this book. I didn't exactly find it awesome, but the postmodernist that I am was intrigued by the possibility that time is not linear and that you can meet yourself in your past, present, and future. Which raises the question, what would be "home" to a time traveler--his past, present, or future? Which one of Me is the true Self? I was enthralled by the book's romantic premise of a woman who meets her future husband when she was seven and he was thirty. The time was never right for them--when would they be the right age to meet and fall in love?

The Lady or the Tiger?

In this story by Frank Stockton, a princess must watch her lover die or marry another. The king, her father, has decreed that her lover must choose one of two doors. Behind one door is a hungry tiger. Behind the other is a lady. If he opens the first door he will die, but if he opens the second door, he must marry the lady at once. The princess knows the secret of the doors and she has promised to help her lover. Which door will she choose?

In reading this story, I pictured in my mind what the arena must look like with the two doors, and the difficult dilemma facing the princess. I read that the king's daughter was very much like her father, so I decided that she must be just as ruthless, without pity. She would have chosen death for her lover rather than give him to another woman.

What are YOUR guilty pleasures?

I love to read books that are an escape from reality. I love a mystery and I eschew violence for art's sake. So let me introduce you to Alexander McCall Smith's books The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe, a lady of generous proportions who started the agency to help people solve their problems. For Mma Ramotswe there are no global conspiracies, just human heartbreak.

Mma Ramotswe is compassionate but also wise. In Tears of the Giraffe, her fiance Mr. J.L. B. Matekoni adopted two orphans without first discussing it with her. Mma Ramotswe did not throw a hissy fit. Mma Ramotswe, being a student of human nature, understood perfectly that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is kind but he hadn't the first clue how to take care of a child. Mma Ramotswe decided to take those two children into her own house. So that is how Mma Ramotswe came to have a son and a daughter before she was married.

Some critics wonder if McCall Smith's portrait of Africa is genuine, because the only conflict in the books might be marital infidelity, not civil war or blood diamonds. He doesn't mention AIDS though it's hinted that the two children are AIDS orphans. The news media portray Africa as a broken continent with stories of starvation, disease, war, poverty, and corruption. Why can't there be a gentle beautiful side to Africa too? Somewhere between the two portrayals is the real Africa, a complex place of terrible beauty and pain.

Reading China

The Year of the Panda by Miriam Schlein is a book that my seventh graders are reading in class. As language learners, the book presents certain challenges to some, not the least of which is recalling story sequence. As the character Lu Yi learns more about the orphaned baby panda he has adopted, he also learns about the plight of the panda. I'm using the book not only to teach the structure of the novel, but also how to use research to deepen understanding of real world issues, in this case, the panda's loss of habitat. But reading this book has made me think again of China.

I went to Beijing last November for a weekend workshop. It was my first time in the country of my ancestors and it was a homecoming of sorts. But I was still the foreigner. At the Church where I went to mass, I noticed it was filled with old women. The priest was old, with a smoker's cough. I sat with the other teachers from my school; Penny, Sister Cecilia, Chuchi. Though we were Thai, Vietnamese, Filipina, and Chinese, we might have blended in but we were obviously strangers to this community. The woman in the pew in front of me turned and said in English, "Where are you from?" That was an unexpectedly complicated question. Do I tell her I'm Chinese, Jamaican, or American? It's a simple polite question that can't be answered in a single word. In the end, I said, "Thailand" which was true; it was my destination. It's the response I have learned to give to impossible questions.

No Fairy Tale Endings

Reading The Teardrop Story Woman, I am reminded of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, of two generations of Forsyte men who wish to possess Beauty, the character Irene. The Saga ended happily, for Irene is bestowed upon the worthiest Forsyte, a man with honor and integrity. However Mei Kwei ends up as a concubine or minor wife after her husband disowns her for giving birth to a "ghost child," a child with albinism, because he thinks she betrayed him with the French priest. Even though she is a dutiful daughter and wife, Mei Kwei is accused of unfaithfulness because she is beautiful.

In My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier said that to be born a beautiful woman is a misfortune. The narrator wants to possess the beautiful Rachel but because of jealousy and suspicion, he murders her. Mei Kwei avoids that fate. She smashes the jade bracelet, the symbol of her bondage to her rich lover. With such strength, it is hard to believe that all she can be is a mere mistress. Mei Kwei is a survivor; not like Irene or Rachel, for whom men are both predator and protector. She plays the role of the concubine for her own ends. It is both manipulative and cunning; and that diminishes her.

On Death and Dying

Tonight I went to the funeral prayers for a teacher who died yesterday. I had known her since I taught second grade and she the third, but we were not close friends, only colleagues. In all the years I have known her, she was a smiling presence. It was a shock when I saw her in early June to learn about the cancer. She was optimistic though she was obviously weak, and looking forward to the marriage of her eldest daughter. Now, with the school year barely begun, she is dead. She died with grace, and such courage I never knew.

How does one make sense of untimely death? I touched the books on my library shelves and pulled out Richard Adams' The Girl in a Swing. Alan, the narrator, describes the anguish and the pain of mourning his dead wife. I thought of the girls tonight, weeping for their mother, and I thought, There can be no comfort; their loss is unbearable. "Don't seek comfort," Tony, Alan's friend, tells him. "Don't avoid the suffering." The dead deserve all our grief.

The Teardrop Story Woman

Is beauty a commodity to be bought by the highest bidder?

Catherine Lim's book is about a beautiful woman, Mei Kwei, who is born in poverty in colonial Malaya (before it became Malaysia). She is rejected by her father who is disappointed that she isn't a boy. But because of her beauty, she brings the family wealth when two rich men want to marry her. She spends her whole life trying to please men: her father, her husband, her rich lover. Yet she cannot marry her one true love. He is a priest who will not leave the Church for her.

In the fairy tales, Beauty is out of reach of any man but a prince. Only a prince deserves her. In this book, Beauty can be bought if the man is rich. She meets her prince only to find he is out of reach.