1. Who is Elizabeth Wong? (Remember that we talked about the importance
of setting a context before reading).
Elizabeth Wong
is a dramatist and television writer who lived and grew up in Chinatown in the
Los Angeles. She studied at University of Southern California in 1980 and then studied
at New York University eleven years later. Due to her accomplished writing
skills, she worked as a reporter and taught in the theater department at
Bowdoin College. When Wong was in fourth grade of primary school, her mother,
who lived as a Chinese, ask Wong to learn the Chinese language and culture as
their heritage. However, Wong wanted to be completely an American girl instead
of being a multicultural person. After being forced to attend Chinese school
for about tow years, her learning of traditional culture end up in a cultural
divorce.
2. After looking at Carrie’s essay, White Buds on an Apple Tree,
what are some similar “moves” that this writer is making in her essay?
First of all, using
personal narrative and 1st person writing, both Wong and Carrie put much ink on
describing their own experience. They recounted the story very specific, form
the appearance of characters to the scents; from a conversation to a tiny
motion. When I read either of these two essays, I felt like I traveled back to
the past and stood right beside the authors, watching the real story. In
addition, they both first told the entire story and then give the theses, which
means that the theses are both located on the end of the essay for these two essays.
3. How does she begin this essay (intro)? How does she end the essay (conclusion)?
In the beginning
of her essay, Wong described all that how she hates the Chinese school and how
awful her mother is. She hates her stubborn mother; she considers the stern
principal as a repressed maniacal child killer; she scorns everything that she
learned in Chinese school, and she even hates the smell of the school. However,
the author used a totally opposite attitude to end the essay. She had dreamed
about being an All-American girl when she was a child, so she refused to accept
Chinese culture that her mother and grandmother love. But when her dream finally
came true, it came with a disappointing result for her family and for herself.
She began to regret about the decision. She realized that she lose the
priceless traditional culture that has a long history and also the chance to become
a multicultural person because it must be a wonderful experience to grow up as
a mix culture. Wong shows her process of growing through this story. Her
attitude toward Chinese culture became more and more mature as she growing up.
As a child, it might be difficult and fearful to “be different from others.” In
contrast, differences are cherished as presents for adults, and those are the things
which makes us become us, an unique individual in the world.
4. How do we know for sure that Wong regrets her assimilation into
American culture? Be specific.
At the end of
the essay, Elizabeth Wong wrote: “At last, I was one of you; I wasn't one of them.
Sadly, I still am.” It is easy for us to see her regret through the word
“sadly.” Her mother tried so hard to let her learn more about traditional
culture, but she just struggled to be a Chinese and wanted to be a completely
American girl. After her assimilation into American culture, she found that no
matter how hard she tried she couldn’t change the fact that she is a Chinese.
