Shaman: Literature Circle

I have the same role as I did in the first literature circle "White TIgers" - analyzing quotes that I felt were important and have some significance. Shaman was a chapter which was mainly focused on Maxine Hong's mother whose name we learn is Brave Orchid. The entire chapter talks about the life that Brave Orchid lived before she had Maxine - the easy life she had with the money her husband was sending her, her education at a medical school, the people she encountered, her sadness after the loss of her two children, and so much more.

"My mother is not soft; the girl with the small nose and dimpled underlip is soft. My mother is not humorous, not like the girl at the end who lifts her mocking chin to pose like Girl Graduate. My mother does not have smiling eyes; the old woman teacher (Dean Woo?) in front crinkles happily, and the one faculty member in the western suit smiles westernly. Most of the graduates are girls whose faces have not yet formed; my mother's face will not change anyone, except to age. She is intelligent, alert, pretty. I can't tell if she's happy." (pg. 58-59)

This quote shows and paints an image of the features that Maxine Hong's mother held. It gives me a clear picture in my mind about the type of person that Maxine Hong's mother had been. One of my favorite parts of this quote is when she says 'smiling eyes' because smiling is something that people normally wouldn't use to describe ones eyes but by using this description I can see that Maxine Hong's mother was something with maybe piercing eyes, and not shining and sparkling or 'smiling'. In this quote there is much confusion and thought going through Maxine's head about the mother she never knew.

"In America my mother has eyes as strong as boulders, never once skittering off a face, but she has not learned to place decorations and phonograph needles, nor has she stopped seeing land on the other side of the oceans. Now her eyes include the relatives in China, as they once included my father smiling and smiling in his many western outfits, a different one for each photograph that he sent from America.
He and his friends took pictures of one another in bathing suits at Coney Island beach, the salt wind from the Atlantic blowing their hair. He's the one in the middle with his arms about the necks of his buddies...My fatherr, white shirt sleeves rolled up, smiles in front of a wall of clean laundry. In the spring he wears a new straw hat, cocked at a Fred Astaire angle. He stpes out, dancing down the stairs, one foot forward, one back, a hand in his pocket." (pg. 59-60)

And so I was right, her eyes were like 'boulders' not 'shining' - they were hard not smooth. Maxine Hong compares the past and present and how she thinks her mother has changed from those times. This is a quote where I also learned a little about the type of person her father was. It seems as if her father had been the opposite of her mother - more outgoing and more friendly, and it goes to show that opposites do attract. There is a hint that her father and mother had a loving relationship and that her mother had really cared for her father

"I keep looking to see whether she was afraid. Year after year my father did not come home or send for her. Their two children had been dead for ten years. If he did not return soon, there would be no more children. My father did send money regularly, though, and she had nobody to spend it on but herself. She bought good clothes and shoes. Then she decided to use the oney for becoming a doctor. She did not leave for Canton immediately after the children died. In China there was time to complete feelings." (pg. 60)

Maxine's mother must've gone through a lot not having a husband there to be for her while she was going through the tough times after losing her TWO children. Even though she had been going through these terrible things she seemed to be a very strong and confident person trying to get on with her life and live it while she was still in her youth. And soon she realized that instead of using the money she was getting from her husband-far-far-away, she decided to do something more worthy and time consuming than shopping - she decided to get an education. I admired Maxine's mother for doing this because she was being strong for not only herself but for her husband as well and even her dead children. She didn't try to look at the negatives or the past too much and tried to look straight ahead and out to her future.

"...she took out her pens and inkbox, an atlas of the world, a tea set and tea cannister, sewing box, her ruler with the real gold markings, writing paper, envelopes with the thick red stripe to signify no bad news, her bowl and silver chopsticks...She would clean her own bowl and a small, limited area; she would have one drawer to sort, one bed to make." (pg. 61)

Although this is a very random quote and doesn't seem to show much significance I thought it was interesting for the book to be listing the things that Maxine's mom was carrying. Maybe each item is supposed to have a significance and open up different parts of Maxine's mother's personality and the type of person she is. She seems to be very prepared and cautious person bringing so many items to a school especially unusual items like a tea set and tea cannister - maybe she was trying to keep her culture as close as she could even if she was gaining an education in America.

"Chang Chung-ching, father of medicine, had told how the two great winds, yang and yin, blew through the human body...By the time the students graduated - those of them who persevered - their range of knowledge would be wider than that of any other doctor in history. Women have now been practicing medicine for about fifty years." (pg. 63)

This quote didn't have much to do with Maxine's mother herself, but it did tell a little about history - more specifically Chinese history. Also it gives a little information about what we might want to look forward to in the near future, back then the generation was looking at the evolution of women and how they were becoming more superior in the world. Maybe in the near future for 'us' as in people of the 21st century, we're supposed to look toward artificial intelligence and new life. It's an interesting fact that I learned while reading Shaman.

"There were two places where a student could study: the dining hall with its tables cleared for work, everyone chanting during the common memorization sessions; or the table in her own room. My mother usually stayed in her room or, when a roommate wanted the privacy of it also, went to a secret hiding place she had hunted out during the first week of school...She quickly built a reputation for being brilliant, a natural scholar who could glance at a book and know it." (pg. 63)

Another quote which I felt expressed Maxine's mother's personality - she was independent, strong, knowledgeable, intelligent, confident, and actually slightly cowardly because she didn't want the others in her dorm to know that she studied so much, she wanted to think that she was that smart. Actually, she felt it was an obligation to be that smart because she was older and elderly and was supposed to be wiser and help and guide those that were younger and had a longer life to live. She didn't want to be distracted while studying, she probably didn't chat much with others while she was studying, she wanted to become successful on her own, she just wanted to do everything alone.

"My mother may have been afraid, but she would be a dragoness ("my totem, your totem"). She could make herself not weak. During danger she fanned out her dragon claws and riffled her red sequin scales and unfolded her coiling green stripes. Danger was a good time for showing off. Like the dragons living in temple eaves, my mother looked down on plain people who were lonely and afraid." (pg. 67)

Using metaphors can often open people's mind about things or look at something in a different way. The way I see it, the closest thing Maxine could compare her mom to was a dragon, or should I say that might've been the only thing to compare her mom too. When reading this quote it made sense because like a dragon she was independent. In stories and fantasy books that I've read there are some dragons that live in 'packs' or 'colonies' but the majority are all isolated living independent and only getting together if they are in need to breed. Her mom liked the attention that she had as an intelligent person just as dragon's seem to attention they get while flying in the sky. People's compliments make them (Maxine's mom and the dragon) happy, and they don't want to hear anything bad about them or they might just get angry. According to this quote Maxine's mom didn't look up to those that were afraid, and I assume that dragon's must've been the same as they did not take self pity on those that they have killed and devoured. Maxine's mom and dragons share many similarities and I don't think there's another animal that has as many same skills and characteristics as a dragon has.

"No true head, no eyes, no face, so low in its level of incarnation it did not have the shape of a recognizable animal. It knocked me down and began to strangle me. It was bigger than a wolf, bigger than an ape, and growing. I would have stabbed it. I would have cut it up, and we would be mopping blood this morning, but - a Sitting Ghost mutation - it had an extra arm that wrestled my hand away from the knife." (pg. 72)

This is a condensed version of what had happened between Maxine's mother and the so called 'Sitting Ghost' - Maxine's mother had said this while explaining what had happened to her and the 'Sitting Ghost' to her friends and she was explaining and talking about all the details of the ghost. Maxine's mother seems to like to get everybody's attention and get them on their toes - she seems to be an excellent story teller with a knack of making everything so alive and reinacted.

"...my mother returned to her home village a doctor...My mother wore a silk robe and western shoes with big heels, and she rode home carried in a sedan chair. She had gone away ordinary and come back miraculous, like the ancient magicians who came down from the mountains." (pg. 76)

She had apparently graduated from the medical school she attended - successful and ready to help those in need. It's amazing what education can earn you - respect from the village and being treated like an empress. The villagers must've been very happy and impressed with the results of her hard work and constant studying.

"My mother would buy her slave from a professional whose little girls stood neatly in a row and bowed together when a customer looked them over...my mother, who distrusts people with public concerns, braggarts, went over to the quiet older girls with the dignified bows." (pg. 79)

Again - Maxine's mom only wanted the best, she may have seemed a little snobbish in this part, but in a quote before this (which I didn't find any significance in so I didn't put it here) she had seen girls crying because their parents were selling them for money. The parents were so poor they didn't have anything else to offer but their daughters. Maxine's mom didn't want to deal with all that drama so she moved on to the more sophisticated section - the section that was suited more to her liking. Maxine's mom had gone to the other section and found a quite pleasant girl whom she paid half the price for than originally offered by tricking the person that had been selling the slave girl. (I didn't put that quote here either because it wasn't much.) In that part of the book I saw a sly, sneaky, but most of all very clever side of Maxine's mom, the side that had been shown in the earlier part of the book where she enjoyed studying alone and felt it had been her duty to be smarter. Maxine's mom seemed to be a very bright woman getting away with everything and getting her way with everything.

"My mother's enthusiasm for me is duller than for the slave girl; nor did I replace the older brother and sister who died while they were still cuddly. At department stores I angered my mother when I could not bargain without shame, poor people's shame. She stood in back of me and prodded and pinched, forcing me to tyranslate her bargaining, word for word." (pg. 82)

Maxine seemed to feel some guilt in this quote. I felt a feeling like "I'm not good enough", Maxine's mom might've been harsh on Maxine because Maxine wasn't a girl like her, she wasn't truly able to stand up for herself like her mother had her entire life and only felt pity for those that didn't live a nice life like one that she had. I could see more compassion in Maxine than her mom, but more strength and confidence in Maxine's mom. Both have pros and cons, but mix them together and I think that would be the best combination.