Ex Voto

I'm not sure what I was expecting at the Ex Voto reading, but the Joynes Reading Room had been transformed. It's usually very bright and airy, probably due to the windows, but when it's dark outside it feels very cloistered. Combining that feeling with the relatively dim lighting (unless my memory is failing me), stepping into the room before the reading began felt like stepping into a quiet hole in time where the outside world didn't exist. It was extremely surreal, although this aura was broken every time somebody entered from outside or the Joynes assistants walked to the seminar room with refreshments.

Again, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but Adélia Prado was very distinguished. In comparison, Ellen Watson seemed vibrant and energetic, eager to help her friend. The dynamic between them seemed similar to a pair of friends or siblings in which one is clearly acknowledged to be more proficient or established in a field; Watson's continued descriptions of how she felt while translating Prado's work and showing Prado her own works translated into Portuguese only reinforced that idea. Seeing them interact and laugh (and seeing the crowd of Portuguese-speakers in the front few rows react with them) was heartening in that slightly confused sense where you don't exactly know why you're laughing, but you are.

Hearing her introduction and some of her back-story made all of her experiences more clear; in particular, I remember Watson describing Prado's poem about the ocean and how Prado struggled to describe it to her family, full of people who have never seen it before. With her family being of that time and location and yet now with Prado herself being a published poet in multiple languages...experiencing that firsthand truly helped me appreciate how much of an opportunity it was to see her. Listening to life experiences is one of my favorite experiences, and hearing about them through her poetry was stunning.

Her poetry itself was beautiful, but listening to her deliver it in the original Portuguese was the best part of the evening. Much like how the world becomes more beautiful and easier to bear when I take my glasses off and let everything blur together, letting the foreign syllables wash over me was soothing. Most of what I hear everyday around campus, in classes, even in the foreign music I listen to is understandable to me, at least in bits and pieces. Hearing a language that I finally didn't know at all was surprisingly refreshing, although I couldn't help but try to pick out cognates here and there (with my only success being the word 'sex'!). Relying on just the poet's delivery to feel the emotion involved was a new experience (almost like being blindfolded and having your other senses heighten to compensate), but it was certainly worth it. I wasn't able to get a copy of her works from Joynes, but it's on my list of works to read.

The Woman Warrior 3/3

It's interesting how the idea of ideals continually comes into play, especially with things so fundamental to a culture like language. Saying that Chinese is "ugly" and "not beautiful like Japanese sayonara words" almost doesn't make sense, until the description "with the consonants and vowels as regular as Italian" (Kingston 171). I'm not saying that the sentiment isn't unhappy or frustrating, but at least the idea makes sense here, why Americans seem to be so uncomfortable with Chinese. As a language, it sounds harsher and less 'familiar' than Japanese does, if only because of the tones and multiple different sounds. In terms of speaking, Japanese is much easier to pick up than Chinese for the same reason; grammatically, it has clear syllables and distinct blocks. It's simply easier to break apart than Chinese, which probably contributes to why it sounds more familiar.

Development of writing (Chinese -> Japanese).

The fact that to her mother's eyes, buying candy would be "sneaky and bad" is another illustration of how different cultures can be. The clash of cultures is crushing the Chinese-American girls to the point that they can't speak up in class, that they resort to being "cute and small" so "no one hurts" them (170). It isn't even just the clash of cultures that's crushing them; the vestiges of their Chinese past still lie around them, and still end up tormenting them. The idea that their own relatives call them "maggots" so frequently that they commiserate over it at the dining table, the idea that it's become so common-place...that put together with the way 'slave' means the female 'I' and how 'dustpan-and-broom' is a synonym for 'wife' shows how ingrained into the culture the idea that girls were inferior is (204).

Wife?

The Woman Warrior 1/3

Was I the only one who found this book harder to get through than expected? I'm not sure whether it's because we just finished Fun Home, but this book took much more focus to understand and get through. I think I like it though. It's another very interesting snapshot of somebody else's life.

Do you remember the part where she's describing her mother's diploma photograph? "Chinese do not smile for photographs" (Kingston 58). The same is (was?) true for Indians. In most of the photos from my parents' generation, nobody smiles in the photos -- it's almost as if everyone's taking a group mug shot or something. The mood is very solemn, a trait which certainly isn't helped by the sepia or black-and-white photo itself. That same change towards cameras and photos that the Chinese-Americans experienced (that caused her mother to ask "What are you laughing at?") is seen in the emigrants that I know.

Not sure why this is sideways, but this is me at age...1.5? Around then. I liked to think I was 'helping' with the dishes.

Also sideways, but this illustrates the difference between my childhood photos and those of my parents (none of which, sadly, I have a copy of with me now). I think what I'm laughing at in this photo is one of my parents tickling me. In contrast, the photos of my father at this age are just of him and his siblings sitting (probably as posed by the photographer) and looking blankly at the camera.

But back to Kingston's story. I know it's all we've been talking about for a while (immigrant stories, adapting to a new life, puzzling out your own culture), but there must be a reason we keep reading. A part of me realizes that although we all have very different experiences, some of the things we go through are really very similar. The multiple standards that women had to live up to in those days hasn't really changed; it has simply adapted to the modern times. Now, instead of necessarily becoming "a woman warrior" like "Fa Mu Lan", women can build careers for themselves (20). They try to support themselves with their degrees and their jobs, often becoming very successful (however you define success for yourself). At the same time, however, they must decide on the issue of having a family and how becoming a wife and mother balances out with their own lives and aspirations, if it can.

I once saw a conversation online about children.

                  Girl 1: You know, I really want children in the future.
                  Girl 1: I just don't want to...you know...actually get pregnant and be pregnant for nine                                  months.
                  Girl 1: Not to mention actually giving birth.
                  Girl 1: But...I still want them to be mine, you know? It's really selfish, but that's why I                                  don't really want to adopt.
                  Girl 2: So basically, you want to be a father.

That's probably taking it too far away from The Woman Warrior itself, back into family dynamics and gender roles and parenting, but that's what I feel was touched upon in this section itself where it discussed multiple times how unwanted female babies were.

The stories about female infanticide were also unfortunately familiar. This summer in India, I found a book about female infanticide in a bookstore. One of my uncles bought it for me; I read it and was somewhat horrified and very saddened. How Kingston describes how her mother may have "prepare[d] a box of clean ashes beside the birth bed in case of a girl" (86)...it's extremely gruesome for me to say, but that's one of the more humane ways I've heard about.

An innocuous (?) pile of ashes...

Some of the mothers in rural India had worse ways. The author of the book was a woman who founded an organization dedicated to stopping the female infanticide (and now, female foeticide). During her time as an activist and while compiling the materials for this book, she spoke with many mothers who had committed or were suspected of committing female infanticide. Their methods varied from feeding the baby poisoned milk or herbs that would somehow slit her throat as she swallowed (I'm still not quite sure of the mechanics of that, nor do I really want to understand in more detail). In one instance, the baby's grandmother exclaimed in disgust that it was 'another girl-child', kicked the child, and then left her out in the cold to die supposedly from "exposure and pneumonia", one of the most-used cover-ups of the time. Over time in India, the problem of female infanticide has evolved into the problem of female foeticide (to the point where if you Google 'foeticide', the first result is a Wikipedia article on 'Female foeticide in India'). Some progress has been made...but who knows how long it'll take to fix India's gender standards? Considering the number of (highly-publicized) rapes this year and the nearly 2-to-1 male-to-female ratio in some parts of the country, it'll take a lot more time and effort.

Aloo paratha (potato-filled...tortillas? 'Flatbread'? I'm not sure how this would be translated.)

To end on a marginally more cheerful mood, Kingston and I (and many more of us, I'm sure) shared another bit of experience with food. I can't remember how many times I was warned that I would continue to have "leftovers until [I] ate it all" (92). I never avoided eating them so much that "brown masses" (of mold, I'm assuming) grew on them, but the principle would probably still have applied (92).

P2: Perspective as Passion

Start.

For once, it's cold outside. You can see clouds of white billowing out when you huff out a breath before snuggling down into your scarf, shrugging your shoulders impatiently to hike the straps of your backpack up. If you finish your work quickly enough, you might be able to catch a movie at the union tonight, so just for today you have motivation and focus in spades. Your gaze slides downwards to a business card someone's left behind on the ground, noting the splash of color before you look back up and enter the library.

Blink.

Rotate.

Your legs are cold, your hands are cold, and your face is freezing - you scowl and curse the fact that you rolled out of bed and out the door before checking the weather. You have too many back-to-back classes today to have time to go home and trade your shorts for a pair of jeans, and it's not going to get any warmer today -- you checked the weather ten minutes ago, only three hours too late -- as you spend the rest of you time in the library working on a video project for your Chinese class. As you head up the steps, the toe of your right sneaker slides on a wet piece of paper and crumples it up, pushing you a little off balance. You count that as another thing that's ruining your day and shake your head as you open the doors.

Blink.

Rotate.

"It's cold," your roommate warned you, coming back from an 8AM class and shivering exaggeratedly. "Take a thick jacket, you'll need it." You sigh at the recollection, rolling your eyes and adjusting the coat draped over your arm. It's not cold at all. It's just seasonably brisk, a perfect counterpoint to the colorful leaves and sparse branches outside, the kind of cold that revitalizes. You take in a deep breath and let it shock your respiratory system before breathing out, relaxing your shoulders when your phone suddenly buzzes in your pocket. Pulling it out and dropping a receipt to the ground in the same motion, you decelerate and stop, reading the message. It's your friend telling you he's on the fifth floor, and you reply quickly with an okay, on my way before shoving the device back in your pocket. You stoop over to pick up your receipt and throw it away before noticing another piece of paper nearby -- it looks like it used to be part of a brochure or something, but it's unrecognizable now, all wet and torn up. Does it say 'Black Swan Yoga,' maybe? Going inside, you deposit them both in the bin labeled 'PAPER' and walk past the front desk in the direction of the elevators.

Blink.

Stop.

ㅎㅎㅎ

Which is it really?

As you can see in this picture and the scenarios shown above, perspectives can be wildly different even when they're presented with the same situation. The three different points of view shown in the beginning all have the same basic outline: you're on your way to the library on one of the first legitimately cold days of the school year, and you notice a flyer on the ground. However, the reactions and interactions are vary depending on the person's personal viewpoint and frame of mind. You might not care about the piece of paper on the ground, or you might let it become part of the snowball of bad things happening to you. You might even try deciphering its message while disposing of it. It's like that piece of advice everybody gets and is exasperated by at some point; you don't know what it's like for them. Walk a mile in their shoes. You don't know their story.

"...one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl..suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place."

The above quotation is from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.[1] While these particular sentences (and the entire book) are comical, the sentiment remains true: if we were just a little nicer to each other, the world would be a happier place. There's no panacea for how we are; human nature doesn't work that way, and we probably wouldn't be able to function if everybody was always nice to each other. (Life would be very boring like that, at any rate.) At the very least though, we could attempt to look at the world through each other's eyes in a less tangible way than trading glasses for a minute. "There is something so much more dynamic and noble if" "you make peace, not war," [2] and all that's needed is the willingness to step away from yourself for a minute. Become "a genuine, first-class misfit," [3] or "a sixteen-year-old graduate of San Jacinto High School." [4] Drop everything that clouds the lens you look at the world through, and let somebody else's situation become yours.

They're both right.

ㅎㅎㅎ

There are "four modes of communication: reading, writing, speaking, and listening." [5] You're utilizing the first form right now, and I'm using the second. The one we use the most in our lives is the fourth; listening, which itself has sub-types. All but one of the forms of listening on the continuum are from one's own perspective, but this last one is the most important: "only the highest [type], empathetic listening, is done within the frame of reference of the other person." [6] Getting into the other person's perspective is understandably the hardest kind of listening for us to perform effectively because most of us haven't been taught how to strip our own prejudices away from how we look at the world. Being able to look at our respective worlds through each other's perspectives is one of the goals that I feel we should strive towards, because society would be a much better place if we could all find a little compassion for one another.

ㅎㅎㅎ

Who are you?

What kind of person do you think you are?

What unique perspective do you have?

The last question is the most relevant to how we perceive everything and can attempt to look through the eyes of other people, because only by doing so can we truly understand what it's like for another person. Can you really understand what the other person's going through every time you say I get that or I feel you? Probably not, because you're still equating that experience to one of yours. However, that "lack of performance is not the same as a lack of effort," [7] and that lack of effort is all that needs to be eradicated.

I've been trying on different perspectives for a while, whether it was wondering what my life would be like if I had been born a boy or thinking about how different the story of the Chamber of Secrets would have been if it was told from the perspective of a befuddled Hufflepuff [8]. While this is certainly an entertaining way to daydream and pass the time, there are practical applications to this way of thinking. The next time you make a comment, think about who it's affecting. Are you making a blanket statement about a type of people? Could your words potentially be hurtful to others? The next step is to think whether you still want to say them -- and chances are, the answer could turn out to be a 'no.' I'm not trying to lecture or preach; I'll get off the soapbox now. It would just be a much nicer place in the world where everybody would at least make an attempt to think of others. It would allow for us all to experience more than just ourselves, and that in itself would be an amazing thing.

It basically all boils down to this: think (about others) before you speak. Don't just think about them -- think like them. Try to become them for a short moment in time. At the least, it'll be an interesting experience in character, and at the most, you may be harnessing your ability to show and feel actual compassion. All it takes is a little bit of broadening your perspective to be able to see a different big picture. Can you see the old man and the kissing couple? Can you at least try to? Believe me, they're both there.

You can probably see the old man without any help, but I know it took me longer to find the kissing couple. I've outlined them below, the man surrounded by blue and the woman by pink.

ㅎㅎㅎ

Word count (without quotations): 1456
Word count (with quotations): 1578

Image credits:
Three or four?: http://www.asbestian.de/blog/uploads/reality.jpg
Boat and land: http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/aG9R9pK_700b_v1.jpg
Old man/kissing couple: http://brisray.com/optill/othis.htm

Sources:
[1] Adams, Douglas. The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. New York: Pocket Books, 19811979.
[2] Course anthology, page 391.
[3] Course anthology, page 363.
[4] Course anthology, page 360.
[5] Course anthology, page 86.
[6] Course anthology, page 87.

[7] Course anthology, page 398.
[8] Rowling, J. K.. Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. Large print ed. London: Bloomsbury Children's, 2002.

Fun Home 2/2

It's a little strange how much of this autobiography I can relate to. My overall feeling toward this work is an unflinching admiration for Bechdel's being able to lay all of the parts of her life out so honestly, baring all of her tender spots and insecurities for the world to see. I'm thankful that she did so.

But as I was saying, it's a little strange to me how much I can identify with parts of this work. The OCD is one part that I wasn't really expecting to see here (for whatever reason, I'm not really sure why; possibly the stigma and misunderstandings associated with it and similar disorders? The lack of their appearance or serious portrayal in popular media?). The painstaking effort to "show neither one preference," whatever the 'ones' might be, reminds me of myself when I was younger; in my case, my 'ones' were my left and right hands. Did it make logical sense? It did at the time (Bechdel 137).

Another bit that demanded attention was the uncertainty in oneself, especially how Bechdel used "those three dots [ellipses] to indicate not so much omission as hesitation" (162). I still see that hesitation in myself and have for years; lately I've taken to prefacing everything that I say that could be taken as even slightly controversial in any way, adding disclaimers everywhere possible, simply because it's easier to live that way. It may get frustrating (as I've been told) and it may make me sound like I don't commit to things (which isn't the case), but I'd rather live in such a way that those who I'm speaking to are aware of the fact that I am not trying to actively hurt them (rather, that I am consciously attempting the opposite).

Best and Worst 11/7

By the time I get to class tomorrow morning, that will be my best: it'll be the end of a what has been a very bad not-so-great week. I'll be done with my logic midterm tomorrow morning at 11AM and I'll probably be elated and excited and a little bit more at peace than I am currently.

The worst of my week (which was basically the whole week) pretty much melds into one big unhappy, frazzled snowball. I experienced some complications with my programming assignment (there it goes again...) which led to me not being able to attend any of the extra credit activities this weekend. (I did however manage to make it to the university's Diwali celebration, complete with mehendi, sparklers, and fireworks.) Then the mild cold I'd picked up got worse (which is why I missed classes on Tuesday), which made me feel stuffy and unproductive. That all led to tonight; I have a discrete math midterm tomorrow morning that I'm studying for now. I get the feeling that it'll be a very long night.

Fun Home 1/2

I'm not sure what I expected from this, although the subtitle certainly should have given me a hint. I was still very shocked to realize that the fun in Fun Home came from the word funeral though.

The idea that "the bar is lower for fathers than for mothers" is something that seems to be very true (Bechdel 22). It fits in with the stereotypical gender roles and men being expected to be less emotional and involved, which could also be seen in the The Bluest Eye and the student essays. It was often the fathers that were more detached and less involved in the lives and upbringing of their children. It leads to a lack of any attachment, which is what Bechdel states in the last line of this section; that the idea that she/her coming out was the cause of her father's suicide was "that last, tenuous bond" they had (86). It seems like the mothers have much more connection and investment in the lives of their children; I'm reminded of the mother who "pranced" around her son's room upon realizing that he was gay.

One of the pages of the anthology (I don't have my anthology with me here, so I can't remember the title or page number) that really struck me when I read it first was the page about being heterosexual and how if you weren't, the norm would be that you wouldn't really be able to relate to a lot of public media (songs, books, and so on). This book is a refreshing exception.

Also, I just really liked this line: "In a way Gatsby's pristine books and my father's worn ones signify the same thing -- the preference of a fiction to reality."