A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe by Chris Pham

"His version of the story may be better than mine because of its bareness, not twisted into designs" (163).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:23:15 UTC

We are now at our LAST chapter! This chapter is probably the most jam packed with metaphors and half truths and "talk-story" than the rest. I will hopefully be able to walk you though the important ones!

"Long ago in China, know-makers ties string into buttons and frogs...there was one knot so complicated that it blinded the know-maker...I would have been an outlaw knot-maker" (163).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:30:11 UTC

Here is metaphor number 1: Kingston is the knot-maker of this book. She is telling us stories that are convoluted, mixed, filled with half truths and she KNOWS it.

The question is then: why is she purposefully telling us stories that are as intricate and complex and convoluted as Chinese frog knots that can blind us?

"The other Chinese girls did not talk either, so I knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl" (166).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:33:49 UTC

Two thoughts:
1. is this silence in part due to being Chinese American - or an individual in a marginalized group?
2. or is this silence due to Chinese culture and how it expects young girls to be subservient and silent?

"The Chinese "I" has seven strokes, intricacies. How could the American "I"...have only three strokes..." (166).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:36:45 UTC

我
vs. 
I
any thoughts on this new font and individualism?

"You can't entrust your voice to the Chinese, either..." (169).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:39:02 UTC

This chapter is also about perspective. How may this perspective of Kingston's on Chinese politics effect her stories? How she tells them? What she includes or assumes?

" "Do things." I felt the weight and immensity of things impossible to explain to the druggist" (171).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:40:53 UTC

Is there not something so incredibly uncomfortable about needing to explain yourself to others? Maybe that's why Kingston doesn't really explain anything she does to us - maybe that's also why her mom (as we will come to later this chapter) doesn't either.

"My father asks, "Why is it I can hear Chinese from blocks away? Is it that I understand the language? Or is it they talk loud?"" (171).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:42:02 UTC

I haha-ed here.

"We American-Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American-feminine" (172).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 21:49:24 UTC

Thinking about "American politeness" again.
Also femininity?
Also gender expectations?

Pages 173-181: A Child - Fragility, Self Hatred, Projections

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:00:09 UTC

Okay, I will go over this part in class. But if you are wondering why I put this movie poster here, it's because these pages parallel the relationship Shouko and Shoya had at the start of the story. Shoya was this bitter, angry kid who found Shouko's deafness as this nuisance. He bullied her for no apparent reason like Kingston does to the silent younger sister.

I don't want us to take this as kids being kids - because it's not that simple. There's a lot of misdirected hatred, anger at a world that tells you to be strong whilst you have someone who is blatantly "fragile". "I hated fragility" Kingston says, and it's not because the girl in front of her is so fragile, but it's because she is able to be fragile with a family that still supports and allows her to be fragile (176).
(UGH there is SO much good juicy commentary HERE)

"She was supported. She was protected by her family..." (182).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:03:43 UTC

And this is the resolve of Kingston's. I think this paragraph shows Kingston's envy over a support system she never had. It gives perspective into the resentment and the hatred she had for this girl.

"I thought talking and not talking made the difference between sanity and insanity" (186).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:15:11 UTC

These few pages can be taken many different ways. I personally took it as Kingston saying that just writing this memoir wasn't enough to explain everything she wanted to in terms of family, being Chinese-American, being a woman - there are too many perspectives, expectations, things that can never be clarified or answered.

On page 189, Kingston basically says for all of these instances of "Crazy women", I am also one. Yet another means to make it a point that she has done something unexplainable to us.

Opera scene on page 193

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:17:29 UTC

I think this is yet another great metaphor of the people laughing at the opera despite it's content being this anecdote for the fact that it's not your actual voice that matters, but what you're saying. --which adds to our conception of perspective.

bottom of page 194 to the end of the creepy man

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:20:05 UTC

I don't agree with Kingston's word choices here - in fact can we all agree that Kingston makes herself hard to be likable?

IF we can get over her language, I think we can attempt to come to this idea of self-advocacy and how she uses her voice in the attempt to do so.

"I continue to sort out what's just my childhood, just my imagination, just my family, just the village, just movies, just living" (205).

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:22:13 UTC

I think this is an amazing quote that encompasses what a memoir is - what recalling memory is.

The last metaphor: Ts'ai Yen's Song

chrispham1 — 2023-02-13 22:23:11 UTC

Kingston as Mulan.
Kingston as Ts'ai Yen.
Kingston as a woman warrior.