You go home one evening tired from work,
and your mother boils you turtle soup.
Twelve hours hunched over the hearth
(who knows what else is in that cauldron).
You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;
that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,
grazed on splendid sericulture."
(So, she boils the life out of him.)
"All our ancestors have been fools.
Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles
to kill a famous Manchu and ended up
with his head on a pole? Eat, child,
its liver will make you strong."
"Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."
Her sobbing is inconsolable.
So, you spread that gentle napkin
over your lap in decorous Pasadena.
Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.
The golden decal on the green underbelly
says "Made in Hong Kong."
Is there nothing left but the shell
and humanity's strange inscriptions,
the songs, the rites, the oracles?
_______________________________________________________________________
QUESTIONS
1. Notice the author’s choice of the word “cauldron” in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen “cauldron” rather than “pot”?
2. Chin refers to “the Wei”, “the Yellow”, and “the Yangtze”. Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?
3. What is the tone of this poem?
4. ESSAY: “‘Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice.’” Write about this quote within the context of an immigrant family. What might a family gain or lose by moving to a new land?
ANSWER
1. “Cauldron” images the place for the mother gives all her child needs. In line 3, “‘Twelve hour hunched over the heart’, (who knows what else is in that cauldron).” The time shows the timing for the soup to cook and only mother knows what the best is for her child. The author choose “cauldron” rather than “pot” because pot is small and it is not enough to portray the quantity of child’s need.
2. She refers to the rivers in China because it symbolizes the author’s background. The rivers were close to the narrator. It was the historical place for China. It shows that they are the migrate family from the China. In the second stanza, “that turtle lived four thousand years, swam the Wei, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze”. The turtle soup was originally come from the China.
3. The tone of this poem is melancholy. As in the third stanza, “Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles, to kill a famous Manchu and ended up, with his head on a pole?”, this stanza shows the sadness of the Chinese people about being obey to their believe.
4. Essay :
Nowadays, immigration has been a common world phenomenon. Migrate is an action which is move to one country or place to live or work. Usually, people immigrate to survive in their life. The people are called as immigrant. According to the quote, “‘Sometimes you’re the life, sometimes the sacrifice,’” it is clearly state that there are advantages and disadvantages of being an immigrant family.
Firstly, immigrants have to go through assimilation process. Assimilation is the process of two different things coming together to blend and in some cases, create a new thing all together. However, that is a very simplistic understanding of the process itself as there are many different types of assimilation. For instance, immigrant family will face assimilation towards culture, new idea, religion and language. For instance, in the poem of Turtle Soup by Marilyn Chin, the immigrant family just against the Chinese believe. The mother cooks the turtle soup even though the dish symbolize the luxury in Chinese culture. It is different with the United States country. In this process, they will lose several things because they live in the country as the minority. However, the immigrant family tend to learn and explore the new things that might be interesting.
Secondly, immigrants also have to face the adaptation process. Adaptation is the process of adjusting. In this case, culture adaptation is the evolutionary process by which an individual modifies his personal habits and customs to fit in to a particular culture. It can also refer to gradual changes within a culture or society that occur as people from different backgrounds participate in the culture and share their perspectives and practices. Adaptation can be occurring in several aspects such as dress, food, holidays, music and other forms of art. In this process, there is probability for the permanent residents to adapt the immigrant’s culture. Hence, this process will gain the immigrant’s family culture.
Thirdly, immigrants have the probability to get discriminate by the local residents. Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment or assumption of different categories of people toward race, religion and others. As the immigrants, they have to be patient and just follow the law.
As the conclusion, immigrants will probably go through all the process which is, assimilation, adaptation, and discrimination process. Although there are both advantages and disadvantages of immigration, people still continuously moving away from their own native land to live in some other country for have a better standard life.
GROUP LEADER : MOHD NOOR RAMDAN
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