Underground youth

I guess my main concern right now is to think about my life choices and how I can help myself focus my energy. One of my issues is I've got a bum knee from a skateboarding accident, and I'm currently waiting on my situation to change so I can get the surgery and begin to exercise again and be active. I feel like my problem is a hard problem to solve because it is just a matter of time before all of the things in my life begin to change. I guess this is a real problem for me because I am not particularly excellent with change, and I wish all of the change in my life hadn't happened at once. Anyways I feel like I can't complain. I know that there's people out there that are really struggling with other issues. So for now I guess I am just going to stick to being underground. Here's What I'm listening to Folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-GN1ibonvE

Coming Home again

            The story Coming Home Again by Chang-rae Lee is about a Korean family that burdens a mother who is dying of stomach cancer. The story’s protagonist is a young man who reflects and analyzes his relationship with his mother. As a boy the main character is fascinated by his mothers cooking. His mothers cooking represents the eternal bond of the mother child relationship. This is very powerful because of how real it is. I know from my own experience growing up, as a kid who was very fortunate when it came to eating home cooked food that home cooked food isn’t like giving someone a gift or doing work for them. A cooked meal is nourishment and somewhat personal.

            For the protagonist in the story his mothers cooking is special because it’s what makes her his mother. He also really appreciates a home cooked meal after going to boarding school. I can definitely relate to this because I went from living on campus to living at home and both settings have their perks. When I was at school I was around my piers all the time but I didn't have the luxury of cooked food. Now that I commute I am around my piers when I choose to be and I have the luxury of home cooked food. I can’t make a decision about which is better; they both have their strengths. If I was the main character I probably would have reacted the same way when asked If there was any regret when leaving for school.

“The meat needs the bone nearby,” she said, “to borrow its richness.”

I chose this quote because I think it tells the metaphor for the story. I think that in the story the meat is the mother and the bone is her child. After her child went away to boarding school there was a big sense of loss. This is represented in the story by how distant they tell us the mother is. I wonder if the cancer developed in her stomach because she could no longer borrow the richness, or energy from her son. I don't think this is too far of a stretch because in the story they tell us that these two people were kind of destined for each other.  Not to mention the cancer hit her right in the stomach.

Edison, New Jersey

            The story Edison New Jersey fits the contemporary realism genre perfectly. This story is about an average man who delivers pool and card tables to peoples homes. He works with a man named Wayne, and together they go to people’s homes and assemble pool tables. At times when a customer is unfair or doesn't tip, they take a walk around the house and try and find little things to steal. Most of the time it is something like a cookie or bathroom supplies. The main character is a thief yet he is still a likeable character. Since we see the story from his perspective we learn why he steals and what he does with the money.

            He steals from the store he works at by pocketing the money that he gets when the customers purchase something. A lot of times he stole this money to pay for useless stuff for his ex-girlfriend. Somehow it would take the main character two and a half years to buy his own pool table if he saved; yet he still spent all of his money on his ex-girlfriend. This tells us that although the main character doesn't have a lot of money he enjoys spending the money to make him feel like the people who he works for.

            This story has an interesting perspective for precisely this reason. It shines light on how people who can’t afford to live a luxurious life have to abide to those that do. Also it shows what it is like watching the ultra rich live this life. How do people give value to themselves in a scenario like this?

“Most people don't realize how sophisticated pool tables are. Yes, tables have bolts and staples on the rails but these suckers hold mostly together by gravity and by precision of their construction. If you treat a good table right it will outlast you. Believe me. Cathedrals are built like that. There are Incan roads that even today you couldn't work a knife between the cobblestones. The sewers that the Romans built were so good that they weren’t replaced till the 1950’s. That’s the sort of thing that I can believe in.”

This passage has a lot of meaning because it shows how a person who has the simple job of putting pool tables together gives value to his life. He thinks that he his job has a lot of meaning because of well he does it. For him its not just building a pool table, it's a masterpiece. This could even be the same for someone who works at a subway. They can create the perfect sandwich and feel accomplished just because of how well it’s constructed.

The cariboo cafe

            I see the story The Cariboo Café as a story that has a very deep meaning, and at times can be confusing. What is confusing about this story is the jumps the story makes from paragraph to paragraph and also from section to section. The first section is about the struggle that these two kids have. A reoccurring item in the first section of the story is when the boy keeps saying coke. I think it’s hilarious that the only word in the English language this kid can say is coke. It’s very simple, yet special in a certain way.

            After learning about these two kids the story changes direction and we learn about the man who owns the café. There is a part of this section when the man describes the shop and he calls it the double zero café. I think that this has a connection to the very end of the story when he says that he will never let go of his son. My best interpretation of this is that zero is an important number, and calling the café the double zero café gives an equal sense of importance that both him and his son have.

            Aside from his son we also learn that the main character has an ex-wife who’s name is Nell. It almost seems that the main character is paralyzed without her. He can’t call the police with confidence because she was the one that always pressured him to do that. We don't know much about Nell other than what she did for the main character. I wonder what she was like. I feel like if I knew more about Nell then I wouldn't think that the main character was so superficial. He calls one of the kids that comes into his café a sweetheart without really knowing the kid at all.

There were a few great analogies in this story. I thought that between the three or four analogies I got a good sense for the message of the story.

“I think about moths and their stupidity. Always attracted by the light, they fly into fires, or singe their wings with the heat of the single bulb and fall on his desk writhing in pain.”

I like this quote because of what it means. It is a paradox. Moths are stupid because they fly into places with light that ends up hurting them, but they are doing what they want. A moth wants to get as close to the light as possible for warmth. It is sort of a smart, stupid way for the moth to get what it wants.

Hisaye Yamamoto Photo

Seventeen Syllables

            The short story Seventeen Syllables is told through the eyes of Rosie. Rosie is apathetic when it comes to studying her Japanese, and she doesn't have clean-cut perspective of her parents. At the end of the story we learn that her mother, Tome Hayashi is in an arranged marriage to Rosie’s father. Rosie’s aunt arranged this marriage because Tome had an illegitimate child with a young man in her village. After birthing the child Tome was neglected by her family and threatened to kill herself unless she could move to the states.

            The background of Tome is important because it connects to the bigger picture of why this family is normal on the outside, but has a lot of internal conflict. Not any different from other families with secrets, the secret eventually arises and changes a characters perspective on their family and life in general. For this story the secret comes out when Rosie’s Dad destroys a picture that is a prize won by Tome for her haiku. In the beginning of the story we learn that Tome becomes two people. The first person is the person she has always been and has the duties of a mother. The second person is Ume Hanazono. Ume is a bitter person who doesn't like to respond to her family and spends her time at night writing Haiku’s.

            All of this is valuable information when learning about Rosie. Rosie starts off not really caring about Japanese or Haikus. When she learns this it seems that Rosie doesn't really care about her culture or her ancestors. Then she decides to care when she realizes that she has a brother who is in Japan.

All of that aside, there are parts of this story that need to be analyzed. One of the most important parts of this text is when Rosie thinks that she is more shocked by the request of her mother than the revelation. This is important because Rosie has such a concrete depiction of her mother that she doesn't believe she would make such a request to tell her to not marry. The secret seems less important because of how obtuse the request is. This relates to a pretty much everyone. This relates to people that know their parents and people that don't know their parents. By the time that most people have kids they have already grown up, made important life decisions, and created a network of people that they know. A lot of times parent’s kids don't even know who their parent were before they were born. Also this story is a great example of how we are not defined by a past secret, what really matters are who that person is on a day to day basis.

Vocabulary from the story:

Garrulous – Rambling in a roundabout manner

Rambunctiously- difficult to control

Haiku – Poem of seventeen syllables

Dead mens path

"This path was here before you were born and before your father was born. The whole life of this village depends on it. Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path of children coming in to be born."

            This story raises the argument of church and education. In the story the fight is between a school and a village. The village in the story represents the church because of the spiritual beliefs that are held. Unfortunately for the characters in the story both sides lose. At the end of the story the path is still closed off and the headmaster of the school gets a bad report. However, does this mean that children in schools cant have a spiritual belief as well as a hunger for knowledge?

            No. The education of the next generation, and the generation after the next generation, and all the generations to come will not lose a spiritual sense. This is because people need to believe in something, whether its that our past ancestors are still with us, or something as simple as wearing a cross everyday. The reason why people need these beliefs is because it gives us a sense of meaning. There are certainly people who don't have spiritual beliefs, but these people still believe in something. That something could be the idea of being the best. This idea and belief gives motivation, drive, and meaning behind acting. For example, a person might not believe in god or anything spiritual, and if they believe in an idea, they suddenly have meaning.

            This idea of believing in an idea or something spiritual cannot be taught in school. It can only be learned through action. This is why my position on the main character in the story is that he is arrogant, and I am glad his school didn't pass the inspection. Although knowledge through education is important, meaning through action is equally as important, so, if people in the middle east want to kneel before God however many times a day they do, let em.