As a native of Orange County, I found this story so incredibly accurate, despite its stereotypes. With the exception of my mom, my aunts all married white males, so I found myself relating to most to this story, out of all the stories we have read so far. I believe that the overarching characterization of Chinese people valuing discipline and loyalty to person and Irish people valuing willfulness and orthodox thinking were blanket generalizations. At first, I found the conclusion unsatisfying because it was a relatively short resolution after the climatic moment of the story when Natalie and John find Sophie covered in bruises. I realized though that when Natalie asks her mother to leave and live with her son-in-law’s mother, an Irish woman of similar age to the narrator, that this story is just as much about generational gaps as it is about ethnic divisions, allowing me to forgive Gish for some of her stereotypes. As a matter of fact, based on the conclusion of the story, I surmised that generational gaps are harder to overcome than ethnic divisions because the narrator and the son-in-law’s mother are able to bond together over their confusion about their children’s ways in a way that the narrator cannot even connect with her daughter Natalie. The ironic part of the story in my mind is that the person who helps the narrator somewhat overcome her prejudices against Irish people is not the narrator’s liberal-thinking, Westernized daughter but John’s mother, who, surprisingly, is the character that accepts the narrator the most.
I found Natalie to be the most interesting character because I think Chinese immigrants’ American-born children (the second generation) often find themselves swinging like a pendulum between two cultures, between family expectations and desire for self-identity, and between traditions and new dreams. I actually feel that Natalie, not the narrator, is the most tragic character because she can never be truly content. Trying to accomplish the impossible, she must please her husband, who has no job, her mixed race daughter, and her mother, who she ultimately kicks out to keep her immediate family unhappy. I was a bit disappointed that Natalie’s identity crisis is ultimately unresolved because I feel the tensions between living according to Chinese or American ways lie at the heart of the story.
I really, really loved the voice in “Who’s Irish?” It was wonderfully distinctive, and certainly realistic. It’s as interesting to read as a child’s perspective, because so many things are foreign to the narrator, or understated, whereas the reader can read between the lines and see what’s really happening—with one sentence, “Don’t start the send her back to China thing again, because we can’t,” for example, a whole slew of connotations arise. It also does an excellent job of bringing out our sympathies for the narrator, contrary to what one might expect of a voice riddled with grammatical errors and judgment about her granddaughter and new in-laws. We learn that there is so much she has to say, that she says to us, but is never capable of articulating to her daughter, and that, to me, is very sad. But we also learn through the sheer, relentless drive of the narration that this is a very strong woman, despite being at the age where a good Chinese daughter would already be taking care of her, and we grow to admire her, too—despite the misadventures she has in trying to discipline her daughter’s American child.
My initial reaction to this story was that it was racist and insensitive, but as I read on, I realized it was an accurate reflection of an older generation of immigrants and a younger generation of “Americans.” At basically every turn of this story I sympathized with the grandmother. She was a wonderful grandmother who was not content with the fact that her family was happy, but desired that they also be good people. Unfortunately, sometimes that means you have to make them temporarily unhappy, such as with the spankings. They are effective and fair (at least from the grandmother’s perspective). Nattie and John serve as perfect examples of modern Americans to my mind. They are passive to the point that their daughter is becoming unruly. Nattie is walked on (somewhat unsurprising for a 50’s wife) and John serves as an example of the stereotype that first generation immigrants (i.e. that they are lazy, sponging off the hard work of their parents). I liked how this story was written as if the grandmother were telling it directly. The broken English was a little hard to follow at first, but it was really powerful throughout the story and solidified the contrast between the generations. I really enjoyed this story!
One thing that i really enjoyed in "Who's Irish" was the correlation between the character's names and their characterization. Sophie to me is a very innocent name. It is perfect for a young, sheltered child like herself in the story. Furthermore, John is a very generic, boring name. Similarly, John is a very flat character in the story. It turns out, he is abusive, stern, and he does not offer much in terms of talents or hobbies. Bess Shea is a great name for a character who is quirky and unique, just like Bess herself. LAstly, the narrator has no name, thus it keeps us as the reader very involved in the story. We are constantly learning about her story, yet looking to know more. I think that choosing the names for your character is a crucial step in your story-writing process. It is important to make sure that the names you choose go with the character you describe/create.
To echo some of what my classmates have already said, the protagonist’s voice is the strongest element of the story, keeping us intrigued and highlighting the fatal differences between traditional Chinese, Irish, and American culture.
From the start, the grandmother, who is a forceful, dynamic character, enthralled me. We get a sense of her fiery nature, her love of discipline and familial values, and her admiration of Chinese culture. She has already mothered one daughter, who she believes has turned out successfully. The grandmother’s conviction and intensity, paired with her frequent grammatical errors, set her apart from the more Americanized characters in the story, creating a sense of distance and conflict from the beginning.
The perspective choice was so helpful in creating the emotional value of the final few scenes. Even if this story had been told from Natalie’s perspective, it would have been heartbreaking. But the fact that we receive an explanation and justification for every action—from the spanking to using the stick to get Sophie out of the foxhole—makes the grandmother’s actions seem reasonable. We sympathize with her values and her pain at the same time we realize that her parenting methods simply will not work in her new home. This choice of narrative voice forces the reader to make a choice—is the grandmother simply the victim of circumstances, or does she deserve her punishment? And which method of parenting is correct? This simplistic-on-the-surface story ends up creating a host of difficult questions.
As many have mentioned, the narrator in Who’s Irish was one of the most compelling parts of the story. One of my favorite things about her were the sharp observations she used to characterize the people around her. The narrator uses short, brief descriptions that speak paragraphs of insight. For example, to examine one of her many observations, she notices “My daughter have a funny habit when she win an argument, she take a sip of something and look away, so the other person is not embarrassed.” First, this observation tells us about Natalie and her unoffending nature. But it also tells us that the narrator is the type to pick up on these minute character traits, and also point them out to us – she is unashamed to tell us so in a moment she is vulnerable. I think it is through these phrases, where every word holds weight, by the end of the story and just after a few pages, the narrator becomes someone we sympathize with, making the moment she leaves her daughter’s family sadly poignant.
I loved Gish Jen's manipulation of the English language to give the grandmother a distinct and intriguing narrative voice. The sense of incongruence was striking from the very beginning where the title, "Who's Irish," made readers expect a story about Irish folk, while Jen juxtaposed it against the first two words, "In China." This made for an unexpected beginning, courting the interest of the reader while conveying a sense of being out of place. The way in which the author manipulated grammar to reflect the grandmother's voice complemented this feeling. Phrases such as "they pretend they are come to eat" paint a vivid picture of how the grandmother comes across to the Western counterparts of the extended family. Interestingly, it made me think this story may not have been as interesting if written in Chinese, where the humour that arises out of conflicting cultures is less present.
I'd also like to comment on the way in which Jen breaks up the dialogue with actions that give an informative pause to the conversation. From the scene about the turkey (p615) to the moment where her daughter loses the argument (bottom of p617), Jen gives rich observations of their reactions, giving us insight into the character while moving the action in the story forward.
I really like what Liu was saying about the focus on the generational gap perhaps even more than the racial gap. I feel like the other distinction is that this story is not just about a difference in parenting styles; it's a difference in "child-ing" styles - or how children view their parents. For John, the family dynamic has established that the parent is a source of help/bailout, but someone who should be independent and take care of themselves. Natalie, initially, seems to be keeping with a more traditional, older style of "child-ing" that dictates that the parents have valuable information and should be treated as superiors, given a place to stay in the home. This even has less to do with a Chinese-Irish culture shift and more of a wider worldwide culture shift: as the elderly population grows, it has become increasingly more common for the elderly to live in nursing homes or with other elderly rather than stay with their families. Jen does beautiful job of illustrating a few of the factors that have contributed to this shift - urbanization, new job dynamics, etc. The characters are relatively well fleshed out, but the story could be anyone's.
Like most people, I found the narrative voice of "Who's Irish?" extremely powerful. We often allow the fact that a person is a second-language speaker of whatever language is native to our countries to hollow out the characters of people we encounter in real life. (And in my experience there's a peculiar tendency in this country to react to people with Asian accents differently from those with other ones.) Gish Jin's use of the actual English voice of her protagonist, rather than the one her protagonist probably wishes she had, allows her to play right along the line of the protagonist's comfort zone in her adopted country. She's clearly extremely comfortable in the life she and her husband built for themselves, a life firmly occupying previously established American and Chinese cultural overlaps. That initial experience also obviously shaped the English she learned and is comfortable using. But she also struggles at the linguistic and cultural divisions her daughter learned to navigate long ago, the divisions and boundaries surrounding childcare and what the next generation should look like.
These aren't strictly Chinese/American problems. One of the powerful things about this story is that even though the voice is clearly that of an older Chinese woman speaking second-language English, her experience as an established outsider could easily be happening in any nation of immigrants.
As mentioned previously by many of my classmates, I found the distinct voice in "Who's Irish" to be a very unique and compelling aspect of the story. It highlighted an ongoing theme of difference in the story. There is difference in race and culture, as well as generations. I sympathized with the grandmother who is witnessing her culture fading as the generations continue. First, her daughter seems to lose the values and cultural identity that the grandmother tried to instill in her, and then her granddaughter strays even further away. I think the author did a great job of showing that the grandmother wasn't just "stuck in her old ways" by showing that she was understanding and accepting of other cultures, especially towards the end. I think that the ability for her to be open to other cultures and accepting of her daughter's decision made us more sympathetic with her despite her actions. However, it was still disheartening for me to see the grandmother somewhat lose both her daughter and granddaughter due to the generational and cultural gap that existed between them.
As so many have said already, I loved the narrative voice through which this story was told. I liked that it was broken-up and choppy and made us feel like we were inside the grandmother's mind, processing events as she processed them. Like Liu was saying, I think the significance of this story is not as much in cultural differences as it is in generational differences. I feel like this was especially highlighted when the grandmother used the stick to try to find Sophie. This scene highlighted the differences in understanding between the generations, and sadly depicted these differences as being insurmountable. Again, I think this scene would not have been ask powerful if told through any other perspective than the grandmother's.
As a native of Orange County, I found this story so incredibly accurate, despite its stereotypes. With the exception of my mom, my aunts all married white males, so I found myself relating to most to this story, out of all the stories we have read so far. I believe that the overarching characterization of Chinese people valuing discipline and loyalty to person and Irish people valuing willfulness and orthodox thinking were blanket generalizations. At first, I found the conclusion unsatisfying because it was a relatively short resolution after the climatic moment of the story when Natalie and John find Sophie covered in bruises. I realized though that when Natalie asks her mother to leave and live with her son-in-law’s mother, an Irish woman of similar age to the narrator, that this story is just as much about generational gaps as it is about ethnic divisions, allowing me to forgive Gish for some of her stereotypes. As a matter of fact, based on the conclusion of the story, I surmised that generational gaps are harder to overcome than ethnic divisions because the narrator and the son-in-law’s mother are able to bond together over their confusion about their children’s ways in a way that the narrator cannot even connect with her daughter Natalie. The ironic part of the story in my mind is that the person who helps the narrator somewhat overcome her prejudices against Irish people is not the narrator’s liberal-thinking, Westernized daughter but John’s mother, who, surprisingly, is the character that accepts the narrator the most.
ReplyDeleteI found Natalie to be the most interesting character because I think Chinese immigrants’ American-born children (the second generation) often find themselves swinging like a pendulum between two cultures, between family expectations and desire for self-identity, and between traditions and new dreams. I actually feel that Natalie, not the narrator, is the most tragic character because she can never be truly content. Trying to accomplish the impossible, she must please her husband, who has no job, her mixed race daughter, and her mother, who she ultimately kicks out to keep her immediate family unhappy. I was a bit disappointed that Natalie’s identity crisis is ultimately unresolved because I feel the tensions between living according to Chinese or American ways lie at the heart of the story.
I really, really loved the voice in “Who’s Irish?” It was wonderfully distinctive, and certainly realistic. It’s as interesting to read as a child’s perspective, because so many things are foreign to the narrator, or understated, whereas the reader can read between the lines and see what’s really happening—with one sentence, “Don’t start the send her back to China thing again, because we can’t,” for example, a whole slew of connotations arise. It also does an excellent job of bringing out our sympathies for the narrator, contrary to what one might expect of a voice riddled with grammatical errors and judgment about her granddaughter and new in-laws. We learn that there is so much she has to say, that she says to us, but is never capable of articulating to her daughter, and that, to me, is very sad. But we also learn through the sheer, relentless drive of the narration that this is a very strong woman, despite being at the age where a good Chinese daughter would already be taking care of her, and we grow to admire her, too—despite the misadventures she has in trying to discipline her daughter’s American child.
ReplyDeleteMy initial reaction to this story was that it was racist and insensitive, but as I read on, I realized it was an accurate reflection of an older generation of immigrants and a younger generation of “Americans.” At basically every turn of this story I sympathized with the grandmother. She was a wonderful grandmother who was not content with the fact that her family was happy, but desired that they also be good people. Unfortunately, sometimes that means you have to make them temporarily unhappy, such as with the spankings. They are effective and fair (at least from the grandmother’s perspective). Nattie and John serve as perfect examples of modern Americans to my mind. They are passive to the point that their daughter is becoming unruly. Nattie is walked on (somewhat unsurprising for a 50’s wife) and John serves as an example of the stereotype that first generation immigrants (i.e. that they are lazy, sponging off the hard work of their parents).
ReplyDeleteI liked how this story was written as if the grandmother were telling it directly. The broken English was a little hard to follow at first, but it was really powerful throughout the story and solidified the contrast between the generations. I really enjoyed this story!
One thing that i really enjoyed in "Who's Irish" was the correlation between the character's names and their characterization. Sophie to me is a very innocent name. It is perfect for a young, sheltered child like herself in the story. Furthermore, John is a very generic, boring name. Similarly, John is a very flat character in the story. It turns out, he is abusive, stern, and he does not offer much in terms of talents or hobbies. Bess Shea is a great name for a character who is quirky and unique, just like Bess herself. LAstly, the narrator has no name, thus it keeps us as the reader very involved in the story. We are constantly learning about her story, yet looking to know more. I think that choosing the names for your character is a crucial step in your story-writing process. It is important to make sure that the names you choose go with the character you describe/create.
ReplyDeleteTo echo some of what my classmates have already said, the protagonist’s voice is the strongest element of the story, keeping us intrigued and highlighting the fatal differences between traditional Chinese, Irish, and American culture.
ReplyDeleteFrom the start, the grandmother, who is a forceful, dynamic character, enthralled me. We get a sense of her fiery nature, her love of discipline and familial values, and her admiration of Chinese culture. She has already mothered one daughter, who she believes has turned out successfully. The grandmother’s conviction and intensity, paired with her frequent grammatical errors, set her apart from the more Americanized characters in the story, creating a sense of distance and conflict from the beginning.
The perspective choice was so helpful in creating the emotional value of the final few scenes. Even if this story had been told from Natalie’s perspective, it would have been heartbreaking. But the fact that we receive an explanation and justification for every action—from the spanking to using the stick to get Sophie out of the foxhole—makes the grandmother’s actions seem reasonable. We sympathize with her values and her pain at the same time we realize that her parenting methods simply will not work in her new home. This choice of narrative voice forces the reader to make a choice—is the grandmother simply the victim of circumstances, or does she deserve her punishment? And which method of parenting is correct? This simplistic-on-the-surface story ends up creating a host of difficult questions.
As many have mentioned, the narrator in Who’s Irish was one of the most compelling parts of the story. One of my favorite things about her were the sharp observations she used to characterize the people around her. The narrator uses short, brief descriptions that speak paragraphs of insight. For example, to examine one of her many observations, she notices “My daughter have a funny habit when she win an argument, she take a sip of something and look away, so the other person is not embarrassed.” First, this observation tells us about Natalie and her unoffending nature. But it also tells us that the narrator is the type to pick up on these minute character traits, and also point them out to us – she is unashamed to tell us so in a moment she is vulnerable. I think it is through these phrases, where every word holds weight, by the end of the story and just after a few pages, the narrator becomes someone we sympathize with, making the moment she leaves her daughter’s family sadly poignant.
ReplyDeleteI loved Gish Jen's manipulation of the English language to give the grandmother a distinct and intriguing narrative voice. The sense of incongruence was striking from the very beginning where the title, "Who's Irish," made readers expect a story about Irish folk, while Jen juxtaposed it against the first two words, "In China." This made for an unexpected beginning, courting the interest of the reader while conveying a sense of being out of place. The way in which the author manipulated grammar to reflect the grandmother's voice complemented this feeling. Phrases such as "they pretend they are come to eat" paint a vivid picture of how the grandmother comes across to the Western counterparts of the extended family. Interestingly, it made me think this story may not have been as interesting if written in Chinese, where the humour that arises out of conflicting cultures is less present.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to comment on the way in which Jen breaks up the dialogue with actions that give an informative pause to the conversation. From the scene about the turkey (p615) to the moment where her daughter loses the argument (bottom of p617), Jen gives rich observations of their reactions, giving us insight into the character while moving the action in the story forward.
I really like what Liu was saying about the focus on the generational gap perhaps even more than the racial gap. I feel like the other distinction is that this story is not just about a difference in parenting styles; it's a difference in "child-ing" styles - or how children view their parents. For John, the family dynamic has established that the parent is a source of help/bailout, but someone who should be independent and take care of themselves. Natalie, initially, seems to be keeping with a more traditional, older style of "child-ing" that dictates that the parents have valuable information and should be treated as superiors, given a place to stay in the home. This even has less to do with a Chinese-Irish culture shift and more of a wider worldwide culture shift: as the elderly population grows, it has become increasingly more common for the elderly to live in nursing homes or with other elderly rather than stay with their families. Jen does beautiful job of illustrating a few of the factors that have contributed to this shift - urbanization, new job dynamics, etc. The characters are relatively well fleshed out, but the story could be anyone's.
ReplyDeleteLike most people, I found the narrative voice of "Who's Irish?" extremely powerful. We often allow the fact that a person is a second-language speaker of whatever language is native to our countries to hollow out the characters of people we encounter in real life. (And in my experience there's a peculiar tendency in this country to react to people with Asian accents differently from those with other ones.) Gish Jin's use of the actual English voice of her protagonist, rather than the one her protagonist probably wishes she had, allows her to play right along the line of the protagonist's comfort zone in her adopted country. She's clearly extremely comfortable in the life she and her husband built for themselves, a life firmly occupying previously established American and Chinese cultural overlaps. That initial experience also obviously shaped the English she learned and is comfortable using. But she also struggles at the linguistic and cultural divisions her daughter learned to navigate long ago, the divisions and boundaries surrounding childcare and what the next generation should look like.
ReplyDeleteThese aren't strictly Chinese/American problems. One of the powerful things about this story is that even though the voice is clearly that of an older Chinese woman speaking second-language English, her experience as an established outsider could easily be happening in any nation of immigrants.
As mentioned previously by many of my classmates, I found the distinct voice in "Who's Irish" to be a very unique and compelling aspect of the story. It highlighted an ongoing theme of difference in the story. There is difference in race and culture, as well as generations. I sympathized with the grandmother who is witnessing her culture fading as the generations continue. First, her daughter seems to lose the values and cultural identity that the grandmother tried to instill in her, and then her granddaughter strays even further away. I think the author did a great job of showing that the grandmother wasn't just "stuck in her old ways" by showing that she was understanding and accepting of other cultures, especially towards the end. I think that the ability for her to be open to other cultures and accepting of her daughter's decision made us more sympathetic with her despite her actions. However, it was still disheartening for me to see the grandmother somewhat lose both her daughter and granddaughter due to the generational and cultural gap that existed between them.
ReplyDeleteAs so many have said already, I loved the narrative voice through which this story was told. I liked that it was broken-up and choppy and made us feel like we were inside the grandmother's mind, processing events as she processed them. Like Liu was saying, I think the significance of this story is not as much in cultural differences as it is in generational differences. I feel like this was especially highlighted when the grandmother used the stick to try to find Sophie. This scene highlighted the differences in understanding between the generations, and sadly depicted these differences as being insurmountable. Again, I think this scene would not have been ask powerful if told through any other perspective than the grandmother's.
ReplyDelete