Tuesday, July 20, 2010
woman warrior
Overall this was a good book. A lot better than I thought because I knew this book was going to have something to do with ghost and I was afraid it was going to be very similar to Beloved. It went a bit slow for me at first, but it definitely picked up. The ghost stories weren’t ones that I rolled my eyes about; they seemed modern like it could have been a tv series or movie. In particular I’m thinking of the story where brave orchid was away at school and slept in the haunted room to prove her classmates wrong. Only she was proven wrong when a ghost sat on her and tried to suffocate her. It took me a while to catch on to the fact that everyone in the book who was not Chinese was considered a ghost. I assumed because I had heads up about the book being about ghost like Beloved that maybe it was some sort of ghost town. But as I got more and more into the book I did come to realize that every American figure such as mail men were considered ghost. This showed another act of discrimination like many we have seen in all the other books we have read. These Chinese people thought that anyone who was different was not even considered human, like slaves weren’t considered human during beloveds time. My favorite of the stories was the one with Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid searching for Moons double life husband. That is something I could see me and my friends doing so I like the way it seemed so real in my mind. I like things that are easy to relate with and can mean something in my life. With that said my least favorite of the stories was the one where the girl is learning to fight better than a man and defeat armies alone. Having seen Mulan it helped me get the idea of what the scene was about but I couldn’t appreciate it.
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As soon as I read the word ghost, I was like shit! I really do not like stories that include ghosts because I do not find them to be realistic. However, I really did not mind it in this story because I thought it was a beneficial and realistic. Until I read your post, I never really thought about what you said about every American figure being considered a ghost. But, I guess that really does make sense now, thinking back to the story. Unlike you, I actually enjoyed the White Tigers chapter. I thought it was interesting about how she dreamed to be a woman warrior. All I kept thinking about was the movie Mulan. My favorite chapter was the first one. I think it shows how hard life was and still is for Chinese women. It is sad that she felt she had to kill herself as well as her child because she and her child were not accepted in society. Nobody should have to go through that or even have to worry about it.
ReplyDeleteI found it so interesting that the term ghost was to refer to all other Americans that were not Chinese. It intrigued me because we never hear about discrimination of the majority, we only hear about discrimination against the minority. This may be because there is more discrimination to be spread around but I liked to see it the other way around. I feel this was displaying that everyone discriminates is their own way, even if they do not mean to it is just something that is a fact of life. I actually loved the chapter “White Tigers.” I thought the way we were able to feel for the young girl and her family was great especially considering it was just a myth that Kingston heard from her mother. I did enjoy the chapter about Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid as well because it was a story about family and like you said it is easier to connect to the familiar. I could also see myself as Brave Orchid and making others take a stand cause.
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