下載本文檔
版權(quán)說明:本文檔由用戶提供并上傳,收益歸屬內(nèi)容提供方,若內(nèi)容存在侵權(quán),請進(jìn)行舉報(bào)或認(rèn)領(lǐng)
文檔簡介
1、The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl來源:本站原創(chuàng) 作者:Elizabet 時(shí)間:2005-8-7 0:14:50 Brief IntroductionNarration is telling of a story. Writers using narration usually rely on descriptive details to advance their stories. Involved in the story telling, m
2、oreover, is some purpose that goes beyond mere enjoyment of the story itself. Ultimately, narration in an essay enhances a thesis, or main idea.In this narrative essay, Elizabeth Wong gives a poignant account of the hurts and sorrows of her bicultural upbringing. With concrete description coupled wi
3、th imaginative comparisons, Wong effectively offers a vivid investigation into the life of a child who felt she had a Chinese exterior but an American interior.The Struggle to Be an All-American Girlby Elizabeth WongIts still there, the Chinese school on Yale Street where my brother and I used to go
4、. Despite the new coat of paint and the high wire fence, the school I knew 10 years ago remains remarkably, stoically1 the same. Every day at 5 P.M., instead of playing with our fourth- and fifth-grade friends or sneaking out to the empty lot to hunt ghosts and animal bones, my brother and I ha
5、d to go to Chinese school. No amount of kicking, screaming, or pleading could dissuade my mother, who was solidly determined to have us learn the language of our heritage. Forcibly, she walked us the seven long, hilly blocks from our home to school, depositing our defiant tearful faces before t
6、he stern principal. My only memory of him is that he swayed on his heels like a palm tree, and he always clasped his impatient twitching hands behind his back. I recognized him as a repressed maniacal child killer, and knew that if we ever saw his hands wed be in big trouble. We all sat in litt
7、le chairs in an empty auditorium. The room smelled like Chinese medicine, an imported faraway mustiness. Like ancient mothballs or dirty closets. I hated that smell. I favored crisp new scents. Like the soft French perfume that my American teacher wore in public school. There was a stage far to
8、 the right, flanked by an American flag and the flag of the nationalists Republic of China, which was also red, white and blue but not as pretty. Although the emphasis at the school was mainly languagespeaking, reading, writingthe lessons always began with an exercise in politeness. With the en
9、trance of the teacher, the best student would tap a bell and everyone would get up, kowtow2, and chant, “Sing san ho,” the phonetic for “How are you, teacher?” Being ten years old, I had better things to learn than ideographs copied painstakingly in lines that ran right to left from the tip of
10、a moc but, a real ink pen that had to be held in an awkward way if blotches were to be avoided. After all, I could do the multiplication tables, name the satellites of Mars, and write reports on “Little Women” and “Black Beauty.” Nancy Drew, my favorite heroine, never spoke Chinese. The languag
11、e was a source of embarrassment. More times than not, I had tried to disassociate3 myself from the nagging loud voice that followed me wherever I wandered in the nearby American supermarket outside Chinatown. The voice belonged to my grandmother, a fragile woman in her seventies who would outshout4
12、the best of street vendors. Her humor was raunchy, her Chinese rhythmless, patternless. It was quick, it was loud, it was unbeautiful. It was not like the quiet, lilting romance of French or the Gentle refinement of American South. Chinese sounded pedestrian. Public. In Chinatown, the comings a
13、nd goings of hundreds of Chinese on their daily tasks sounded chaotic and frenzied. I did not want to be thought of as mad, as talking gibberish5. When I spoke English, people nodded at me, smiled sweetly, said encouraging words. Even the people in my culture would cluck and say that Id do well in l
14、ife. “My, doesnt she move her lips fast,” they would say, meaning that Id be able to keep up with the word outside Chinatown. My brother was even more fanatical than I about speaking English. He was especially hard on my mother, criticizing her, often cruelly, for her pidgin6 speechsmatterings
15、of Chinese scattered like chop suey in her conversation. “Its not What it is, Mom,” hed say in exasperation. “Its What is it, what is it, what is it!” Sometimes Mom might leave out an occasional “the” or “a”, or perhaps a verb of being. He would stop her in mid-sentence: “Say it again, Mom. Say it r
16、ight.” When he tripped over his own tongue, hed blame it on her: “See, Mom, its all your fault. You set a bad example.” What infuriated my mother most was when my brother cornered her on her consonants, especially “r.” My father had played a cruel joke on Mom by assigning her an American name t
17、hat her tongue wouldnt allow her to say. No matter how hard she tried, “Ruth” always ended up “Luth”7or “Roof”. After two years of writing with a moc but and reciting words with multiples of meanings, I finally was granted a cultural divorce. I was permitted to stop Chinese school. I thoug
18、ht of myself as multicultural. I preferred tacos to egg rolls; I enjoyed Cinco de Mayo more than Chinese New Year. At last, I was one of you; I wasnt one of them. Sadly, I still am.Discussion Topics1. Who are the “you” and “them” of the last but one para
19、graph? Explain the significance of the last sentence. What does it indicate about Wongs attitude toward Chinese school from the vantage point of being an adult?2. Because of their foreign ways, the mother and grandmother clearly embarrassed the Wong children. Unde
20、r what other conditions that you can think of do parents embarrass children? Children, parents?3. Is it possible for someone to maintain connections to his or her ethnic or cultural backgrounds and at the same time to become an “all American” girl or boy?4. &
21、#160; Were you Wongs mother, would you identify with the children to struggle for complete Americanization? What would you gain or lose if you became fully Americanized? Notes1. stoically: adv. without showing emotion2. kowtow: n. (former Chinese custom) touchi
溫馨提示
- 1. 本站所有資源如無特殊說明,都需要本地電腦安裝OFFICE2007和PDF閱讀器。圖紙軟件為CAD,CAXA,PROE,UG,SolidWorks等.壓縮文件請下載最新的WinRAR軟件解壓。
- 2. 本站的文檔不包含任何第三方提供的附件圖紙等,如果需要附件,請聯(lián)系上傳者。文件的所有權(quán)益歸上傳用戶所有。
- 3. 本站RAR壓縮包中若帶圖紙,網(wǎng)頁內(nèi)容里面會(huì)有圖紙預(yù)覽,若沒有圖紙預(yù)覽就沒有圖紙。
- 4. 未經(jīng)權(quán)益所有人同意不得將文件中的內(nèi)容挪作商業(yè)或盈利用途。
- 5. 人人文庫網(wǎng)僅提供信息存儲(chǔ)空間,僅對用戶上傳內(nèi)容的表現(xiàn)方式做保護(hù)處理,對用戶上傳分享的文檔內(nèi)容本身不做任何修改或編輯,并不能對任何下載內(nèi)容負(fù)責(zé)。
- 6. 下載文件中如有侵權(quán)或不適當(dāng)內(nèi)容,請與我們聯(lián)系,我們立即糾正。
- 7. 本站不保證下載資源的準(zhǔn)確性、安全性和完整性, 同時(shí)也不承擔(dān)用戶因使用這些下載資源對自己和他人造成任何形式的傷害或損失。
最新文檔
- 工廠供配電技術(shù)課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 工作協(xié)同能力課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 工業(yè)通風(fēng)振動(dòng)篩課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 工業(yè)現(xiàn)場機(jī)械手課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 工業(yè)廠房課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 川菜文化基因研究報(bào)告
- 嵌入式系統(tǒng)中斷課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 崇賢市人工智能課程設(shè)計(jì)
- 山西水塔防腐施工方案
- 山西商場瓷磚清洗施工方案
- 比亞迪品牌營銷策略優(yōu)化研究
- 三病母嬰阻斷知識(shí)
- 水工藝設(shè)備與儀表-第5章-容器(塔)設(shè)備
- 辦公家具采購預(yù)算清單
- 兒童奧運(yùn)知識(shí)大全課件
- 2024屆高考英語作文復(fù)習(xí)專項(xiàng)讀后續(xù)寫:拯救小貓任務(wù)單素材
- 財(cái)政局長競聘報(bào)告
- 弱電工程穿線隱蔽工程驗(yàn)收記錄及弱電工程表格大全
- 我國物流企業(yè)核心競爭力的分析與評價(jià)的開題報(bào)告
- 成反比例的量教材
- 酒吧籌備計(jì)劃書
評論
0/150
提交評論