Explorations
of the Text
1. Notice
the author’s choice of the word “cauldron” in line 4. What images or
connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen “cauldron”
rather than “pot”?
When talking
about cauldron, the images that first come to mind will be witches. Usually the
word “witches” are associated to the word “cauldron”. In the line 4 “(who knows what else is in that
cauldron)” shows how the speaker being sarcastic. The author uses the word “cauldron”
since she wanted to relay how the speaker didn’t like what the mother does.
2. Chin
refers to “the Wei”, “the Yellow” and “the Yangtze”. Why does she reference these
rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?
Chin used
the rivers in China since she wanted to show the relation of the speaker and
the mother’s argument about maintaining their identity and culture as Chinese
people. If other river were use as reference, the message will not be able to
be relay to the readers about the argument.
3. What is
the tone of this poem?
The tones
of this poem are sarcasm and mocking. And from the way the poem starts, it was like
storytelling, of how the author tried to voice out the poem’s feeling by
casually telling the reader about what happened in the poem. In second stanza
line 10, we can see how the author being sarcastic about the mother’s action. Turtle
is the symbol of ancient wisdom and it was mentioned in the poem that the
turtle four thousand years and the mother’s action of boiling the turtle was
ridiculous.
Ideas
for Writing
1. “‘Sometimes
you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice.’” Write about this quote within the
context of an immigrant family. What might a family gain or lose by moving to a
new land?
Usually when
a family moves to a new land, they were always said the moves were in order to
be able to gain riches. People usually wouldn't think so much about what they
will lose when they move to a new land. However, they will lose something in
order to gain something. Thus the phrase “Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes
the sacrifice” really matches with the situation with immigrant.
When an
immigrant family moves to a new land, they will gain and lose something. Usually
they will be able to gain a comfortable life where they did not have to suffer
in order to live. However, it has been mentioned that when you gain something,
you will lose something too. Usually the immigrant family will have to drop the
practice of their culture and sometimes identity. The older generation may be
able to still practice and retain their culture; however the younger generation
is easily influenced with the new place’s culture which maybe didn't have a
complicated culture like the ones that they have will neglect practicing their
own culture.
When they
started to neglect practicing their own culture, they will slowly drifted apart
from it and it will come the point where they will even lost their identities. Physically
they will still look like the people in their homeland, however, there will be
nothing same between them and people from their homeland since they didn't practice
the same culture. Not only culture and identity, they also might not be able to
speak their mother tongue or not able to read their mother tongue’s language.
The younger
might be able to learn a little bit about their culture if their parents still
remind them. Although they will not be too familiar with it, but the constant
reminder by their parents will be able to make them remember a bit. However,
the problem comes with the parents who even forgot and abandon their own
culture in order to fit in with the new society.
For the
parents who abandon their own culture, this will affect their children. Their children
will lose their identity and there will be nothing left but the shell. They also
will become the third culture people. These children will have a hard time to
fit in with people who came from their homeland since the way they act will be
different. They will also become the talk of other people when they came back to
their homeland for a visit.
Leader: Annur Azze Ezzati
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