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"turtle soup"
Sep. 30th, 2013 08:36 pmby Marilyn Chin.
explorations of the text
1. notice the author's choice of the word "cauldron" in line 4. what images or connection does this word evoke? why might the author have chosen "cauldron" rather than "pot"?
the choice of the word "cauldron" justifies its weigh to the poem's context as a thing, specifically a pottery of the past, making it relevant to the questions of traditional values inherent throughout the verses (as compared to the use of the word "pot" which would hold less significant values to the themes of culture brought up in the poem).
2. Chin refers to the "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?
she reference those rivers in China because the poem deals particularly about the Chinese tradition and it's values; and in this case the rivers holds significant values to the questions of tradition in the poem, as opposed to other rivers or places that are not in concern of the Chinese traditional context.
3. what is the tone of the poem?
as for the tone of the poem, i would go with incredulous as the nature of interaction between the persona and her mother in the verses shows how she was berating and preaching her mother about the values of the turtle in the preservation side of the tradition instead of the practices, i.e. eating it.
ideas for writing
write about this quote within the context of an immigrant family. what might a family gain or lose by moving to a new land?
the context of "life" here might refers to the identity and cultural background that an immigrant carries with him/her. it is "life" because it is the root of their origin and it serves as the basis of who and what they are; culturally. when an immigrant is asked a simple questions of 'where do they came from' the answers to that was often the "life" itself summed up in an undervalued rephrase of (for e.g.) "I came from China," or "I am a Chinese-American," in which these answers carries their own context of "life" that holds an identity and the core definition carried by an immigrant.
the turn of "the sacrifice" in context of an immigrant family here is when they have to release this "life" identities of them in order to adapt to a new one; another "life" in a foreign land of differing values. their traditions became the cost of fitting in and settling down that over time all that's left to them immigrants is the "shell" of their identities; of inheritances that has lost it's significant value. of course as most 'sacrifices' goes they do not exchange in vain; these families should know what they are truly in for by making this big move of immigrating in the first place. they gain a new life, a redefined identity and an overturned posterity for life; in losing their "life".
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 Wei, 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?
Copyright © 1993 by Marilyn Chin
Copyright © 1993 by Marilyn Chin
Published in: Chin, Marilyn. 1993. The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty. Milkweed Editions.
explorations of the text
1. notice the author's choice of the word "cauldron" in line 4. what images or connection does this word evoke? why might the author have chosen "cauldron" rather than "pot"?
the choice of the word "cauldron" justifies its weigh to the poem's context as a thing, specifically a pottery of the past, making it relevant to the questions of traditional values inherent throughout the verses (as compared to the use of the word "pot" which would hold less significant values to the themes of culture brought up in the poem).
2. Chin refers to the "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?
she reference those rivers in China because the poem deals particularly about the Chinese tradition and it's values; and in this case the rivers holds significant values to the questions of tradition in the poem, as opposed to other rivers or places that are not in concern of the Chinese traditional context.
3. what is the tone of the poem?
as for the tone of the poem, i would go with incredulous as the nature of interaction between the persona and her mother in the verses shows how she was berating and preaching her mother about the values of the turtle in the preservation side of the tradition instead of the practices, i.e. eating it.
ideas for writing
"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?
the context of "life" here might refers to the identity and cultural background that an immigrant carries with him/her. it is "life" because it is the root of their origin and it serves as the basis of who and what they are; culturally. when an immigrant is asked a simple questions of 'where do they came from' the answers to that was often the "life" itself summed up in an undervalued rephrase of (for e.g.) "I came from China," or "I am a Chinese-American," in which these answers carries their own context of "life" that holds an identity and the core definition carried by an immigrant.
the turn of "the sacrifice" in context of an immigrant family here is when they have to release this "life" identities of them in order to adapt to a new one; another "life" in a foreign land of differing values. their traditions became the cost of fitting in and settling down that over time all that's left to them immigrants is the "shell" of their identities; of inheritances that has lost it's significant value. of course as most 'sacrifices' goes they do not exchange in vain; these families should know what they are truly in for by making this big move of immigrating in the first place. they gain a new life, a redefined identity and an overturned posterity for life; in losing their "life".
