Turtle Soup

Turtle Soup

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?

1. The word 'cauldron', referring to the 12^th Edition Oxford Dictionary , is used to describe a large metal pot with a lid and handle, used for cooking over an open fire. Within the first stanza it could be seen as an ancient apparatus pertaining to Chinese custom for cooking per se, however it might reflects the whole intrinsic meaning lies behind the whole construction of the poem. Rather than been visualized as a 'tool', cauldron might suggests an instability state of one's emotion; 'a situation characterized by instability and strong emotions.' In relation to this, it is also fundamental to note on the usage of the word 'hearth' in the third line which 'used as a symbol of one's home'. The third line, perhaps as an evidence, providing a much clear explanation on the state of the mother ,a strong instable emotional state of her wistful longing towards her homeland China.
   
   
2. The name of the rivers (the Wet, the Yellow, and the Yangtze) used within the construction of the second stanza might suggests a preliminary explanation of a chronological process or an event, followed by the act of witnessing a certain type of glorious age as well as visualizing the turtle as a symbol of wisdom during China's ancient time. Consequently, one could view this in a historical perspective as the persona subsequently mentioned about the Bronze Age and The High Tang which significantly reflects the state of a long lost empire and suggesting that it should be that way forever; ancient and historic.
   
   
   This exemplifies a perfect anti-orthodox behavior by the child who might be born and raised in Pasadena, unlike her mother, an immigrant from China. These traits of contradictory self-beliefs and acknowledgements explain the usage of the those rivers' names instead of the Nil, the Amazon and the Missisipi.

3. Throughout the poem, one could sense the tone of anger, condescending as well as resentment within its constructions. Anger in a sense which the mother and her child's argument on the life of a turtle, condescending in relation to the mother's superior order on eating the turtle and ask her child to conform to their cultural heritage norms and last but not least resentment when the child made her mother cry for she had argued and refused to fulfil her mother's desire (and conforms to the ancient Chinese norms/practices)
   
   
   
   
   
   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.
   
   
   

   Being in a new foreign place is one challenging task, its more than just the act of moving; it may consists of a complete accculturation to the new or strange norms and surroundings, as well as the learning process of the new culture. One of the most significant changes that one might have to go through is the adaptation of the identity, which in my perspective is the most essential element in the process of migration. Sociologically, identity provide an astute state of conformity in completing one settlement and becoming a 'citizen' within any new nation-state regardless anywhere. However it may propose a certain setback, not only at an individual stage but to the whole family as well.

   
   

   In reference to the poem by Marilyn Chin, I couldn't help to note the fact that she is proposing a conflict of identity represented by the word 'shell' within the last stanza subsequently proposing a set of questions concluding the Chinese-American sociological traits of the new, immigrant integrated multifaceted America. The quote proposed a sense of abandonment, yet a reminder to the child.

   
   

   "Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice."

   
   

   Within the same stanza, the inconsolable weeping of the mother denote her dissapointment towards the faux adapted American personality of her child (or the Chinese-American population at large in the “decorous Pasadena”. Perhaps the child might have slowly abandoned her primary Chinese identity, proposed by her new Westernized adapted surroundings consequently forgotten the fact that she is still a Chinese.

   
   

   Additionally, the word 'napkin' which spreaded on her child's lap in my perspective suggests on how her child have been tryng to coat her Chinese identity with an American personality in again, the 'decorous Pasadena' in an attempt to seek for a true sole identity despite the fact that her Chinese soul can't be sacrificed in relation to “The golden decal on the green underbelly says 'Made in Hong Kong'.” This self-conflicting fact fundamentally became one of the most prominent issue to most immigrant children who were born and raised in a foreign land. As stated in the American Psychological Association's ACT online journal, these kids within their daily routines they find themselves in a stressful clash of divergent cultures which may include their own parents' culture from the native land, mainstream American culture as well as other racial and ethnic minority cultures which have developed within the US. They could not simply abandon their original identity in becoming a real American, hence they are stuck within the two diversified identity resulting in self-esteem issues such as fear and anxiety.

   
   

   The last stanza prominently proposing a complete confusion state of the child;

   
   

   “Is there nothing left but the shell

   and humanity's strange inscriptions,

   the songs, the rites, the oracles?”

   
   
   

   As she gather her understanding on her own identity (shell), she found everything related to her Chinese origin family's culture, heritage, norms and practices (humanity's strange inscriptions) as absurd and irrelevant to her new improved contemporary American identity, proposing that those elements related to her Chinese identity are merely elements without meaning, hence the question is there nothing left but the shell?

   
   

   *Group leader - Denise Lim