Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men - Essay Example

(Section) 21 February 2007 China in America and Chinese-American immigrants. It is difficult to face a tear in personality especially when it requires conciliation between two cultures and being American was the only hope and guarantee of a great life to Chinese immigrants to America. As all kinds of immigrants to a new society they were deformed in the sense that the unacceptance they were received by deformed their personalities yet they had the power to struggle and face it and stand on their feet solidly. China Men is a sequel to the woman warrior where in the latter women were better unborn and geese were better to raise. The chapter on discovery tells the story of the myth or tale of a woman warrior and slavery of men (a state of fiction where a woman tries to balance the scale of reality to the side of women treated as nothing in the culture of the immigrants.) The sourness of living where dignity is flushed and third and fourth degree works(which in America they do not accept to deal with and leave to women to do) was the only was to find a means of living to survive. Thus the laundry business ran by Maxines father when he was kicked out of the business of gambling. As children from Chinese immigrants, Maxine did not understand the relation between myth and reality and talk-stories were a way to sense the factuelles and weave a mentality that could help her understand America and become American yet not forgetting her heritage of Chinese background. A journey of sufferings does not stop at the point where problems concerning finance stops but extends to the beloved ones who suffer in silence besides the person and try to find a way out of it. Being a man responsible for a family, Maxines father was in the place of a woman when dealing with the American society(now he has to obey the father when yet unmarried(illegal immigrants),obey the husband when married(the legal laws and registration of legal papers),obedience to the sons when widowed(the happiness of father when he planted his plants in the garden a steady and slow into the future of the family ,remembering the suffering he was suffering when out of a job.).Yet the ethics of a woman in a male society where immigrants were not seen as unwelcomed beings drove the family to work in the third-grade industries –the laundry. The work being hard and tiring, the father was experiencing the problem of facing reality through a womans eyes (whether he saw or did not see or realize this). China men is a story about growing up in a Chinese background in American reality with a family to support, from the point of view of Maxine who had no access Chinese realities but what she sees in reality as a child surrounding the family and working on. As seen for sure, the reality was harsh and the fact that women were unpreferable to men made Maxine want to prove herself and thus conflicted inside her with herself as to the fact if she would ever become a pride in the family and to it when ever growing up in America with her strict and unbent mother from Chinese heritage. Brave Orchid was the motive for Maxine to grow up into a strong character and she recited the story from the point of view of her male relatives and especially her fathers because she understood that understanding someone from a different gender and being in their shoes made her understand the factuality and beliefs she carried on in life. China Men is in fact a biography of the father and an autobiography of Maxines feelings and point of view of life through her fathers stories from his living reality. Life was harsh and getting legal registration of documents and facing racism in America for Chinese people who came poor from their countries doing their best to be better in the land of the golden mountains of gold made he see what reality is truly like from someone who is far away from home, estranged and widowed having nobody to support them. Yet their happy times did not fade away as they were able to recollect their shattering experiences and the number of times the family was going to become dysfunctional and stand on strong solid grounds and become opposing to reality yet gentle towards each other. Maxines father and mother were typical Chinese immigrants who were the fourth generation from Chinese immigrants in the 1850s when it all began. Life is about struggling and fantasy is a manner of balancing oneself to be able to face reality at its worst without having to bend or find conflict for a long time between achieving goals and reality breaking them down. Maxine and her mother in china men both faced problems with typical Chinese attitudes but the fact that Maxine had to struggle to become someone who is a fully grown personality was something shown in the text clearly from the time she waited for her father to come back home and hugged a stranger instead. The family was growing tired when times crushed them and the humane moments between them (as Maxine saw and imagined) met her with confidence that she could make it on her own in the real world. From a child loving her father to an adult facing racism at work like her father (towards Chinese females) she became determined of becoming a pride to herself and to her mother who made her who she was. As the story shows, the Chinese men have stripped out of their Chinese skin and tried to claimed America, which is what most people from poor backgrounds especially refugees from communism and political disasters in their home countries try to do. Although it was difficult they were successful in the end for the father plants trees in the back yard signifying the long and present rooting of the family tree and generations to come in the new home which will change from being called china to being called America. It can be told that the symbolism of the Chinese warrior Fa Mu Lan in the woman warrior and the warrior in the chapter on discovery shaped the heritage and outlook of the little silenced and quiet girl Maxine to become the most outspoken feminist woman on racism and social differences. Maxine was driven to so by her mothers courage and by her unbent determinism to become a better Woman Warrior. China men is somewhat a taste of what the Chinese men in her family tasted as sufferers of the legal system in America and role-playing women (as Maxine sees it) in the society of men. What she best had and has to do is report the injustice through story telling and imagining that the symbol of justice bringers are female warriors since the male warriors in reality are not as strong as she feels her female warriors are, also pictured in on discovery chapter. The fact that women were the weaker as in any society ruled by men made the fact she sees of china men bring more color to her feminist view of the previous book the woman warrior, and as she has shown in the title of her first book :stories of girlhood among ghosts) the ghosts she sees in her father and Chinese immigrants in direct relation to her family shows that her fathers image of a scholar and poet failed in the new society to give him priviledge of knowing humanitarian issues and discussing them elitely and was turned down and found that the American practicality towards non-Americans is by turning people to jobs which they are fit into as second or third class citizens in society. Even in modern America-the nowadays America- this issue is true as people from all over the world find difficulty in finding a means of living in the land where dreams come true where it is a concrete jungle to live in where the survival is for the first to come, occupy the land, take it from its right owners and mistreat those who follow in migration to it from other societies not European. China taught as any country teaches its immigrants to realize their dreams, America taught such immigrants that in order to make America home they must follow strict rules of realism-realization and realistic thinking to offer what theyve got to the world and live as expected. America is a land of numbers and mathematics where coldness of emotions and feelings do not fit Easterns like Maxine and her father, yet, thus, it allows and finds way into the subconscious of the immigrants and transforms them to more scholastic people on life and its meanings and its truth towards dreamers who seek Dream Land to realize their dreams. The fact is, Maxine grew rebelious coming from a different and weaker background on a strong and youthful country where she grew to observe how each of her family members grew up to be and become in the face of the new land obligations. The land was transforming her and her father and mother from dreamers in 1924 and coming with great expectations to who she became presently owing it all to her silence and observation attitude in childhood. Her father and mother played roles in bringing her up: the job of calligraphy that the father wanted to work if not a poet shows the art of understanding people through handwriting. The handwritings of Maxine and the papers from the legal documents on migration in the book show that there was a hope and determinism for a better future sought in America. Communism is the process of equating everyone unequal in ability and belongings, liberality was the fortune wheel of those who could prove themselves right and deserving when everyone stood on the same starting grounds and had each to prove themselves to become what they want to be(in their field or another depending on their gold). In Maxines fathers case the case was bringing money to the family and thus from a mean job could stabilize the income of the family and buy his two hundred dollar suit. Her poetic style of writing is similar to any poet with the same conditions: the fantasies, the trying to make sense of reality through loved ones eyes and stories, the want to become a scholar and fight rejection from society and the eleven scholarships she got which enabled her in the end to become what she is in the present moment. As all people who live in America and worldwide state: education is the key to success and finding a great job wherever you live. The education she got from home as a descendant of Chinese immigrants and that from school as an American citizen was the fact that made her realize her family conditions when compared to those of other people who are Americans, Japanese, Philippines, etc(those from the far east).the coping in the family and in the new country was a challenge for Maxine and her family as the years passed by. The belonging to the Chinese or American tradition and the transition from Chinese to American cultural heritage made them think that what china had to offer them was lesser than what America had offered them in the reality they live. Observing their attitudes shows that they have accomplished fully round characters that grow more dynamic after every set back that faces them. Maxines story of growing up among Chinese men and women in an American cultured land was a struggle to become and make herself stronger and more reliable on herself as she felt alienated from her life and drifted into the imaginary world of women warriors and swords. The understanding between men and women is stereotypical: men are better because they work and because they are males but women are margined because they are born the weaker race and have to obey and serve silently the stronger gender. There is no bias in the cultural conflict or psychology or psychological look at the culture. The culture is rich and ancient and the immigrants come with the understanding of the mother land of life where they have to be shattered and broken down and shaken to understand the facts from the perspectives of the new land(the new mother of the mind and heart).not all carry china in their hearts but it is true that sometime in their lives they have experienced and asked whether turning back was a good thing and not coming to this land. Being an American to an immigrant means to be more practical ,more efficient, more monetary in standard of ideas and thinking, but China taught them poetry which reflects in the genes of Maxine when she writes the story and finds that the dream of becoming a scholar to her father she made come true in her own steps and by achieving the facts of becoming both world renown and her Fathers dream come true of himself. The ethics of the Chinese differ from those of Americans in perspective of manner of dealing with everyday life and with each other. Family comes first in china and in the east where it is not so true in America. Literature means a lot to those who love their cultural heritage and become more sentimental to the language of the heart when speaking whereas in America speaking come from the mind. East is emotional, West is practical, East dreams and is sentimental, West is revolutionary and determinate intimidators. If to achieve a moderate place between both one must take the best of each and blend to the personality they owe to each for creating it(just like the circles spiritual meaning in the Korean and Chinese heritage(the man and woman)). Cultural awareness is noticed throughout the whole book where America is favored to the father from china but Maxine favors china yet does not neglect the truth of the goods that the American society has made up of her as a little girl. The men have torn away from their Chinese skin and became Americans as they found better opportunities and a better culture which made their perspective on life not so sentimental and poetical. Factors affecting and leading to such interpretation is in Maxines poetic style, her choice of words and her understanding of the difference between coldness and warmness in the two cultures she comes from and belongs to. Emotions conflict between the raising in the united states on real grounds and the image of women seen and that seen in her imagination on women from china as warriors and superior to men unlike what is factual in the culture. Maxine tries to familarize herself growing up in a newly bred environment which she has to cope with and in and the land her father came fromB both were quick to understand the real life of the world and how it goes from the perspectives of Americans and not from those who come from Chinese soils who have been living all their life in a homeland until they were forced to immigrate outside of it. Coming from a poor family, and not knowing English until she was in school ,the writer had to find grounds to raise herself up on and in story-telling she made it clear that to become is to overcome. Is it true that America is better for Chinese men and women than China? Was the fact of immigration to new found lands the source of all the inspirations in Maxines literary and real-life conflicts outside and inside herself? China was the raiser of such men and Americas glitter is what stole them away from their motherland. Yet, is a homeland actually a mother or a daughter? It is actually a daughter. Most people do not accept the fact that their homelands are worth more than what they fled from but people like to realize dreams easier on dream lands than in reality lands(dream lands being those which offer quicker and easier lifestyle living and stronger currency rate and better industrialization grounds even if it means giving up home and what it means and turning where my better advantage of living lies my home).is Maxine satisfied of being an American and from a Chinese heritage? She is better realizing herself in her mothers stories and in the point of view she has of men on the chapter On Discovery .Being Chinese means a strong root of uniqueness on a unique land which can give you anything you ever ask for when you show who you are, where you come from being a matter of conflict between what you see as deserving to stay and deserving to be departed from in the personality you weaved growing up. Was china more righteous of her emigrants after what they have found from goods in other lands? Its true, yet natives who make life a hell for the same birds of their feather in the nest they all belong to makes those rejected birds hate the homeland and want to change skin and live quietly where home is not in estrangeness and estrangeness is not in being at home. Was America a better place for working than china to suffer the most in estrangement(in family members and in land and in nostalgia from the homeland) for the sake of which America offers? It depends on what and how you define it. As china men have defined it, mother is where I could live peacefully and live wealthy even if I have to stop my heart from thinking of my biological mother for a while and think of my new mother which raised me better in her new womb. Is life ever fair to weak people who seek new lands and want a good credit of living a good life but this weakness shown in the beginning is what yielded the personality they are? Is it true, then, that the performance they gave in America and the grace od living they found there was worth and deserving more than if they had lived in China? Would they have found the dreams they wanted in china if they had spent their time in America back home in china and worked to achieve what they got in America? Perhaps we wouldnt have heard of Maxine Hong Kingston and her family epic and struggles of Chinese immigrants to America if she hadnt come. Perhaps we wouldnt have understood the truth of things as college students from a Chinese point of view in American lands(a point of view of heavy volume and value-volume being the width of life experiences from childhood through adulthood, height of imagination and its intermingling with reality, and the length of the journey of a Chinese immigrant from Chinese-America(family and home and story-talking) to America(America of childhood through America of adulthood(the life of a Chinese on American grounds from beginning to end)) . Bibliography: Online article: (1)Maxine Hong Kingston. Encyclopedia Britannica.2007.www.britannica.com Read More

As seen for sure, the reality was harsh and the fact that women were unpreferable to men made Maxine want to prove herself and thus conflicted inside her with herself as to the fact if she would ever become a pride in the family and to it when ever growing up in America with her strict and unbent mother from Chinese heritage. Brave Orchid was the motive for Maxine to grow up into a strong character and she recited the story from the point of view of her male relatives and especially her fathers because she understood that understanding someone from a different gender and being in their shoes made her understand the factuality and beliefs she carried on in life.

China Men is in fact a biography of the father and an autobiography of Maxines feelings and point of view of life through her fathers stories from his living reality. Life was harsh and getting legal registration of documents and facing racism in America for Chinese people who came poor from their countries doing their best to be better in the land of the golden mountains of gold made he see what reality is truly like from someone who is far away from home, estranged and widowed having nobody to support them.

Yet their happy times did not fade away as they were able to recollect their shattering experiences and the number of times the family was going to become dysfunctional and stand on strong solid grounds and become opposing to reality yet gentle towards each other. Maxines father and mother were typical Chinese immigrants who were the fourth generation from Chinese immigrants in the 1850s when it all began. Life is about struggling and fantasy is a manner of balancing oneself to be able to face reality at its worst without having to bend or find conflict for a long time between achieving goals and reality breaking them down.

Maxine and her mother in china men both faced problems with typical Chinese attitudes but the fact that Maxine had to struggle to become someone who is a fully grown personality was something shown in the text clearly from the time she waited for her father to come back home and hugged a stranger instead. The family was growing tired when times crushed them and the humane moments between them (as Maxine saw and imagined) met her with confidence that she could make it on her own in the real world.

From a child loving her father to an adult facing racism at work like her father (towards Chinese females) she became determined of becoming a pride to herself and to her mother who made her who she was. As the story shows, the Chinese men have stripped out of their Chinese skin and tried to claimed America, which is what most people from poor backgrounds especially refugees from communism and political disasters in their home countries try to do. Although it was difficult they were successful in the end for the father plants trees in the back yard signifying the long and present rooting of the family tree and generations to come in the new home which will change from being called china to being called America.

It can be told that the symbolism of the Chinese warrior Fa Mu Lan in the woman warrior and the warrior in the chapter on discovery shaped the heritage and outlook of the little silenced and quiet girl Maxine to become the most outspoken feminist woman on racism and social differences. Maxine was driven to so by her mothers courage and by her unbent determinism to become a better Woman Warrior. China men is somewhat a taste of what the Chinese men in her family tasted as sufferers of the legal system in America and role-playing women (as Maxine sees it) in the society of men.

What she best had and has to do is report the injustice through story telling and imagining that the symbol of justice bringers are female warriors since the male warriors in reality are not as strong as she feels her female warriors are, also pictured in on discovery chapter. The fact that women were the weaker as in any society ruled by men made the fact she sees of china men bring more color to her feminist view of the previous book the woman warrior, and as she has shown in the title of her first book :stories of girlhood among ghosts) the ghosts she sees in her father and Chinese immigrants in direct relation to her family shows that her fathers image of a scholar and poet failed in the new society to give him priviledge of knowing humanitarian issues and discussing them elitely and was turned down and found that the American practicality towards non-Americans is by turning people to jobs which they are fit into as second or third class citizens in society.

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