I just finished reading the book Obasan by Joy Kogawa, which was about Japanese Canadians and how they were treated during WWII. Long story short, we treated our Japanese American citizens like saints in comparison to Canada. It was a good story, but I can't help feeling a little desensitized to stories of asian tragedy. It seems that every "good" asian story is tragic. Otherwise, it's not accurately portraying our heritage or something. I mean, I love authors like Amy Tan to death, but my God. I'm also sick of reading the same story over and over again. I think I could write my own novel, having done so much first hand research...
In my asian tragedy, someone dies. The mother of the narrator of my story commits suicide after having to suffer a lifetime of pain at the hands of an abusive husband and a spoiled ungrateful son. A father figure or an older brother is enslaved by the army of the oppressor and forced to perform humiliating acts before getting shot to death. In the back. A mother drowns her own child, the bastard with no father because the father, who was an American soldier, ditched his mistress as soon as the war was over. Oh yeah, and then she commits suicide, too. Or something like that.
And I would need to somehow incorporate the "asians growing up in a foreign country" aspect. Stories of asian women caught in a dangerous limbo between the traditions of their mother country and the wild, unrestrained pleasures of the "western" nation in which they live. My heroine would fall in love with a white man and of course the hyper-asian parents who don't approve of him because he's white and despite that fact that their daughter loves him, they will be trying to hook her up with the "nice asian boy that lives down the street." Yeah, the skinny boring one who studied computer science or electrical engineering (or if you're a Cal student, EECS). But of course, the girl, having been fed western ideas of love (not duty), will elope with the gaijin man, forever shaming her parents and sullying the respectful Wong clan.
And I can't forget the generous aiya! helpings of asian interjections interspersed aigoo! throughout the text to give it a more banzai! authentic flair. Ii na?
For the finishing touch, I would have to give my asian tragedy a suitable title. Filled with words like "sorrow" and references to horoscopes or pagan dieties or a white crane. Or I can go the whole nine yards and throw in really "ethnic" sounding words in half-engrish. Some asian books written by asian people that I've read for title examples:
The Joy-Luck Club
The Kitchen God's Wife
The Year of Last Goodbyes
The Year of the Boar
10,000 Sorrows
Obasan
etc etc... if my career as a teacher or a scientist fails, then I will pursue my calling as a writer of asian tragedies. It's my calling...
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home