Analysis_of_Balancing_Both_Chinese_and_American_Cultures_in_Woman_Warrior

A critical analysis of balancing both Chinese and American cultures in Maxine Hong Kingston’s "Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts" Kingston cannot be defined as simply American, however she can hardly be defined as exclusively Chinese either. This is to be expected though, as neither culture had a full pull over her in her youth, but both were definitely strong influences of the development of who Kingston stands as today. Her parents brought over much, if not most, of the culture that they grew up with. They brought the religion, the superstitions, the food, and other particulates of their culture over to America. They wore western clothes, went to public schools, and watched western television. At the same time though they lived in a Chinese oriented suburb, went to a Chinese school after they finished their school day at American school, and helped their parents run the family business. Her mother embraced the Chinese culture far more than she ever did an American one, but even she wasn’t entirely akin to one culture. She definitely had many obstacles with the strange American culture that she was often unsure how to interact with. Her mother’s struggles with integrating herself into the American strongly affected Kingston as well. Kingston often found herself embarrassed by being forced to act as a go between for her mother and America. Her mother would force her to clash the cultures together, in many extremely uncomfortable instances. In one scenario a “Delivery Ghost” (169) had accidentally delivered some medications to the wrong house. Instead of viewing it as Kingston did, as a simple mistake, she feared for a curse being put on her family. She forced Kingston to return to the drugstore and demand that candy be given to “remove the curse with sweetness” (170). When Kingston attempted to explain to her mother the differences is culture her mother would not, or could not, understand. She forced Kingston to go to the store to demand candy; when she returned with candy her mother happily gloated and ignored Kingston’s explanation that the clerks now thought they were beggars. Conversely, her mother views herself as more advanced and Western than the Chinese wives back home; even Kingston herself admits that her mother is a “modern woman” (76). Her mother is indeed quite a good deal more modern than many of the Chinese woman back East. She is a licensed, practicing doctor back in China, as well as then living in America and raising an “American” family. In many ways, the intercultural balancing act is even more strenuous on Brave Orchid than it is on Kingston. Not only did Kingston face a tug-of-war between two cultures at home, but also in nearly every other aspect of her life. She was not living in a average American, middle class suburb, but was living in a neighborhood with many other Chinese immigrants. Obviously, she had contact with the general American lifestyle, the “ghosts” she was surrounded by. She went to a public school that did have a large immigrant population, but also had plenty of students from more Americanised families as well. Her teachers were American, and the curriculum was the general, state-mandated one. She had virtually the same education as any other American child. After being submersed in the American education system all day she once again experienced the wide gap between the cultures and attended a Chinese-oriented school for two hours after her public school. Nearly everything in Kingston’s life was a dual cultural experience. As a result Kingston can not identify with either culture completely. This is not unique to Kingston’s experience however, as this phenomenon is experienced by nearly everyone at some point. On a less drastic skill it can be paralleled to something like moving from one town to a neighboring one, having parents of two different faiths. Every one has experienced some sort of awkward combination of cultures, beliefs, etc. Whether it is from parents, towns, cultures, or anything of the like, there is really no such thing as a full assimilation. Even the mere memories of one’s heritage will have some affect, even if they are not externally expressed, Kingston had an incredible amount of culture pulling at her from either side and definitely came to a general realisation of balance between the two. While she did have issues with her Chinese heritage at many points, she also embraced it at other times, forming the hybrid of cultures that, in theory, our country is supposed to be based off. Kingston deftly represents a general life experience to achieve a compromise between to halves of herself.