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While reading these chapters I kept in mind the section title, "Seeing". Obviously these 2 chapters are both about Hollywood, something that can only truly be appreciated by seeing. Within chapter 10 Smith highlights Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo by contrasting ideas of what it means to be loved as a Hollywood starlet (always wanted to use that word, "starlet"...). I started thinking about what it means to see something; to see something means it must be outside of yourself, happening out there in the world. But part of seeing is also perceiving, how you interpet what's going on out there based on your own experiences (can you tell I'm a psych major? Haha). So how are these chapters "seeing"?
In chapter 10 Smith affirms her love of Hepburn by explaining "My teenage bedroom, a shrine to the Golden Age of Hollywood, reserved a whole half wall for her alone." (p.151) One would assume this gave Smith more than plenty of opportunities to see Hepburn, to idolize her. If her bedroom wall was a shrine, Hepburn was the deity for which half of one "whole half wall was reserved" (p.151); talk about a VIP. Shrines are made to look at, to be a visual representation of what you believe in, what you care about, what you worship. Smith refers to Hepburn's photograph as being "like a Madonna looking over lesser saints." (p.151), the one your eyes would be drawn to. Smith also reflects on how the public sees Hepburn, essentially as being an unconventional sort of beautiful, and certainly not sexy. But Smith refutes these ideas quickly by choosing to include a piece of biography about Hepburn being turned down from the lead of gone with wind, "..she [Hepburn] told him snootily that "some people's idea of sex appeal is different from yours" and stormed out of his office. It was never a question of Hepburn changing to suit Hollywood; Hollywood had to change to suit Hepburn." (p.152). Smith perceives Hepburn as being not only sexy, but as being controversial, fiesty and strong-willed. Perhaps these are things that Smith feel are under-appreciated, or unseen, about herself? Was she worshiping the traits Hepburn had and wanted to also possess? When Smith introduces Garbo to the chapter she starts by saying that you would "...have to make a case..." (p.159) to celebrate the century anniversary of her birth, because she's "different" (p.159). While Smith made the argued Hepburn's differences from mainstream Hollywood by pointing out her strengths, her unseen beauty and her own idolization of this actress; Smith introduces Garbo with a sense of hiddenness. She speaks of memories of Garbo being "...not of a women, they are of face. Garbo's body was an irrelevance." (p.159) Next to shrines of photos that take up half a wall, a women with no body is not as easily seen. Hepburn was in your face, making sure she was seen, wether you liked her or not. Garbo, on the other hand was "...an idea.."(p.160), not a personality. "Garbo has no quirks..."(p.160) Smith writes, she was not a presence; she was looked at as just a face. Where Smith sees positive encouragement to make a change to the establishment in Hepburn's sassyness; Smith sees "existential depression" (p.162) in Garbo. Garbo hides from the world, not allowing herself to see what is making her so unhappy. As an actress, Garbo "seems to respond to something deep inside herself, not to the actor she plays opposite. It was a world of her own she was in, and it was wonderful to watch." (p.163), this again leads me to think that maybe this also something Smith either values in herself even if it goes unseen, or perhaps something Smith wishes she could tap into. Garbo seems to represent seeing life from an internal point of view and (trying to be) being unmoved by what you see; while Hepburn might represent being able to clearly see what's going on around you, and having the perceived ability to change what you don't like.
Alright, that's enough about seeing.

Hollywood

I'm noticing a theme of vessels, or vehicles, used to help portray the imagery of how the author feels about herself. (She carried this same tone in the other stories she told as well.) Obviously she doesn't blatantly say so, so how does she do this? With her tone. This look at tone, among other things, is my stab at "self irony," and "looking back." For instance, in her tone, she speaks about Hepburn with an exciting, aspirational view. Garbo is spoken of in a suave and sentimental tone. She watched Hepburn in movies and looked up to her. But with Garbo, she saw a mysterious element, one where in moments she says if she were ever to like a woman it would have been in a moment she found Garbo particularly sexy. (Please excuse my misquoting. I'm listening to this on audio.) And there is hollywood itself. All of which she has spent quite a bit of time familiarizing herself with. But they both died. Hepburn never received her awards, by choice, and Garbo wanted to be known as an actor, not as a person. Their films hold onto their immortality. These actresses are in hollywoods time capsule.

What is it about hollywood? In some ways it speaks for itself. Hollywood has been under America's lens forever. The difference between a character and her own life has always been under scrutiny. How does she handle her fame? Where did she come from? Who is she? She'll never make it. It's a world we feel we know and don't think we need to explore. Stereotypically set in stone for generations after generations. It's a perfect vehicle for describing how one might feel. She could have talked about all the positive pieces, how the search for fame can be exciting and how the ocean is beautiful. But she is cynical. She picks at the people whom inhabit hollywood with vulture like precision, not leaving any scraps behind.  Zadie may not feel she physically embodies these characters, but the tone in her words shows how she sides with the characters. Or doesn't side. Even though her style is journalistic, and does an impeccable job of not making her stories overwhelming self centered, she talks a great deal about her self. 

The tone tells the story of Zadie's life without having to tell the story. Self Irony. The way one feels about a situation often comes out in what they think about a situation.  I hate that hot girl for instance can mean I hate myself for not being more like that girl. We choose our words wisely. So how would these relate to Zadie? A character who is a feminist and stands up for herself. A character who lets hollywood get the best of her. Stories of struggle. Stories of hatred. Why did she look up to Hepburn more so than Garbo? Hollywood as a character summed this up for me. In the celebrity stories of old hollywood actresses, hollywood acted as a challenge. A place where they felt conflicted at times. But nonetheless beautiful. When hollywood comes to life in the last story, it's hardly appreciated. Hollywood is a place where all of Zadie's emotions display themselves in the characters of her stories. 

Audrey Hepburn

Hollywood Sign

Greta Garbo

Hepburn, Garbo, and Now

I really enjoyed both “Hepburn and Garbo” and “Ten Notes on Oscar Weekend,” especially because in the earlier chapter Smith discusses her favorite movie—The Philadelphia Story—which also happens to be my favorite movie.  I found it incredibly interesting to read these chapters side by side because of the stark difference in strategy Smith employs when discussing these various actors and actresses. In “Hepburn and Garbo,” Smith fully buys in to the goddess statuses of Hepurn and Garbo, gushing about her personal admiration and life long devotion to the public personae of these women. In including so much biographical information, Smith joins the many legitimators of the legend of these women that had been crafted over decades by Hollywood and now bears the distinguished, romantic sheen of an iconic past. In her defense, Smith’s idea of perfection necessitates complexity, depth, courage, and independence of mind, yet she systematically adds to the misty elevation of these figures in a way that consciously immortalizes them. Not only does she buy into the mythicism of these women, but she champions them as something perfect of the past that will never again exist. At the end of her discussion of Hepburn, Smith writes “The marvelous weight of the pleasure ennobles all clichés, and I hope to see the obituaries full of ‘the last of her kind,’ ‘the greatest star in the firmament’ and the rest of that sort of guff because, for once, it is all true” (159). The fact that this essay is in some ways a eulogy, written days after Hepburn’s death, in part explains why it is possibly more sentimental than if Smith had written it at another time. Yet I found it very interesting that Smith chose to end the essay talking about clichés. As a successful novelist, Smith no doubt has a particular sensitivity to cliché and what it means in writing, so this statement can be seen as curious. Maybe she is saying that at the heart of these clichés is pure sentimentality, which is why they ring false and feel cloying under most circumstances. But, in an instance like this when actress beloved by so many, who has given the public so much pleasure, dies, the only appropriate emotion is sentimentality and therefore those phrases paradoxically become right and fitting.

In complete contrast, in “Ten Notes on Oscar Weekend,” Smith takes a completely opposite tack in discussing the various movie stars and other famous people in the industry. While it becomes fairly obvious, the reader doesn’t officially find out until the very end of the chapter that Smith is consciously subverting everyone’s expectations of an Oscar weekend account: “What if you got assigned to write about the Oscars and you didn’t mention a single name? You know, as a kind of demystifying strategy?” (221). She instead focuses on depicting attitudes; everyone has an attitude about Hollywood and collectively those attitudes conglomerate into an often unruly beast of expectations, glamour, exclusivity, and dehumanization. There are the “hot girls” and their “jock boyfriends” who sip expensive cocktails, groom themselves into oblivion, and feel they are on the lower tiers of the Hollywood glow by virtue of their appearance and habits; there are the aspiring writers and actors who often work as waiters, ever pushing at the seams, hopeful of a big break and admittance into the club; then there are the stars themselves, the people on the inside, whom Smith paints as professionally oriented but so conscious of the public gaze that they cannot even laugh at these events, but instead narrate their reactions: “That’s hilarious. That is so funny” (215). I felt Smith’s anti-name strategy was very effective at giving us an almost anthropological view of Hollywood; unencumbered by emotional responses to famous names, the ridiculousness, the performance, the endless and inescapable grasping and wanting came through and created a very perceptive social critique.

PS Because I am not totally immune to curiosity about who she saw/met that weekend, I did a little googling and found this picture. http://guestofaguest.com/tag/oscar-party/

a dose of humor, in a very serious way.

The thing I'm enjoying most about Zadie Smith's writing is her tone. She is relaxed, she is precise, she is sure of herself and she is humorous. In these ways, she gives herself credibility and draws her reader in so that they are seeing the world through Smiths' eyes. She also maintains a nice flow; relaying on the information she has already shared with us a bridge to the information she is planning to share.
The informal diction of these pieces make them feel lighter than prehaps they really are. In "That Crafty Feeling", we get a lot just from the title. We see she is not taking herself too seriously, she has a great sense of humor, and she is going to teach us about her craft. Smith is honest with her audience,  letting them know that the steps she is offering to potential writers are not the same steps for one and all; but rather "...what they most accurately describe, in truth, is the writing of my novels." (p.99). Now that the reader understands we are going through this intense process of writing a novel through someone else's, personal steps and stages; we get to see it all directly from Smiths point of view. It's ok if your not a "micro manager", but Smith is; and so she examines her craft through her own eyes; hoping that some people out there are either smilar enough to her, or open enough to understand what she goes through.
There are so many places throughout these chapters that Smith is able to create humor by laughing at herself. "After each book is done, you look forward to hating it (and you never have to wait long).." (p.102) Smith points out the obvious in her ife and makes it either relatable to other aspiring authors, or at least just funny to her readers. She doesn't relay heavily on the technical jargon of publishing a novel. instead Smith focuses on the actual processes and states of mind that a writer goes through, not the typical "how to" you would expect. Another place I found a surprise was when Smith was describing a conversation in Liberia and adds "?" (p.118) to the banter. I had to stop. What does a question mark sound like, I had to ask myself. I appreciated the playfulness she added to such a depressing subject.
Smith was able to weave imagery into the readers mind by using simple descriptions that were not dragged down by excessive adjectives; "The old executive mansion is broken open like a child's playhouse..." (p.118) The imagery here is precise with out getting muddled down by details. She is right to the point, and it her descriptions are surprising and dramatic in their simplicity.

Questionable Audience

Zadie Smith- That Crafty Feeling

(I hope this is still literary and not too far off from the analytical perspective.)

What follows is a version of a lecture given to the students of Columbia University's Writing Program in New York on Monday, March 24, 2008. The brief: "to speak about some aspect of your craft."

This disclosure makes me wonder… Why the focus on Micro and Macro planners? A writer, seeking to gain insight on writing, may be confused by such a broad portrayal of writing. What does it mean exactly to hone on these two distinct styles of the writing process? And how the hell is it supposed to help? For me, it was confusing. A lecture for a writing program. To speak about some aspect of your craft… Very interesting.

In her language, she favors the micro planner and criticizes the macro planner. Perhaps this is because her identity lies with the micro planner and not the macro planner. Therefore she cannot truly mesh herself into the positives of the macro. At least to the extent she does with the micro. How does this help a lecture for writers though. I assume all writers when reading this. Here she talks about the macro planner:

I know Macro Planners who obsessively exchange possible endings for one another, who take characters out and put them back in, reverse the order of chapters and perform frequent- for me, unthinkable- radical surgery on their novels: moving the setting of a book from London to Berlin, for example or changing the title. I can't stand to hear them speak about talk about all this, not because I disapprove, but because other people's methods are always so incompressible and horrifying.

So why are you trying to comprehend this? Is it not a lecture? Maybe it's as she says, because although she doesn't understand it, its not necessarily a bad thing, just horrifying to her. So than she goes on to discuss her own style:

I am a Micro Manager. I start at the first sentence of a novel and I finish at the last. It would never occur to me to choose among three different endings because I haven't the slightest idea of the ending until I get to it, a fact that will surprise no one who has read my novels.

Etc. Etc.. So "speaking to [her students, (in this case us)] about some aspect of [our] craft" means she is speaking to us about our craft in her mind.

Now, on the positive side, she uses a great sense of humor and points to EXACTLY where she wants her readers to focus on.

You can ignore everything else in this lecture except number eight. It is the only absolutely twenty-four-karat-gold-plated piece of advice I have to give you. 

But than you sort of doubt her credibility with the next sentence…

I've never taken it myself, though one day I hope to.

Or do you doubt her? Because writers make mistakes. After mistakes. And then more mistakes.  So her advice comes from her mistakes. Right?

But why is this all in a lecture? To show she knows what she knows because she has made the mistake many writers make, and wants to offer help? Or is she stating the inevitability of mistakes? That they will happen regardless of any anecdotes. We must learn to cope with our slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune and make it into the art we know how.

At least that's what I understand from this piece. A very interesting place to enter her book.

 

Writing about Writing about Writing

I felt “That Crafty Feeling” was an interesting chapter because it was very clear that Smith uses certain strategies deliberately to get her points across. (What a vague sentence! It gets better I promise). This chapter is in a unique position as a work of writing. The fact that is was originally a lecture to college students and then adapted to a print essay means that she had to design the piece to be easily understood orally, the first time it is heard; a listening audience member cannot choose her own pace or go back and repeat parts like a reading audience. The first strategy I noticed was how Smith coins her own terms and then defines them, which then become the basis for the entire essay: A “Macro Planner” “makes notes, organizes material, configures a plot and creates a structure—all before he writes the title page” (99) while a “Micro Manager” “Start[s] at the first sentence of a novel and…finish[es] at the last” (100).   Another example is “OPD,” “obsessive perspective disorder,” a “compulsive fixation on perspective and voice” that happens at the beginning of writing her novels. These terms do two things: first they create a shared language between her and the audience so a mutual understanding can occur as she builds on these concepts, and second it provides a bit of humor and builds a subtle camaraderie with the audience as we are let in on her personally created terms.

Along with her coined terms, Smith sets up a view of writers delineated in a series of dualities: either you are a Macro Planner or a Micro Manager; either you can’t read anything while you are writing your novel, or you want to read everything. This is the only part of her essay that I wasn’t sure if I agree with. I’m sure for the purposes of a one time lecture that Smith created these types to illustrate common tendencies in writers and exaggerated them for effect, to highlight the essence of them. Yet I am not sure if every writer could fall completely into one category or the other. It seems more realistic for writers to gravitate more toward one or the other, as if they were on a spectrum rather than clearly defined pigeon holes.  

Smith also uses metaphors extensively to illustrate her points. While I know metaphors are very commonly used in all sorts of writing, I think these metaphors were crafted specifically for an auditory audience. By inviting the listener to create an image in her mind, Smith makes her concepts more concrete and easily understood by the audience. For example: “Some writers are the kind of solo violinists who need complete silence to tune their instruments. Others want to hear every member of the orchestra—they’ll take a cue from a clarinet, from an oboe, even” (103). She uses the kind if imagery that most likely everyone in her audience will understand and be able to imagine vividly.            

Most obviously, Smith uses subsections with headings to break up and organize her lecture on writing. Again, I feel that she chose subsections pointedly for an auditory audience. It is easy when listening to a lecture to lose the thread of conversation if you zone out for a minute, or become impatient if you are not sure how long a speech will last, so I can imagine that hearing these subsections with a title summarizing them would be very helpful. Reading a written essay, it is more conventional to let your clarity, logic, and appropriate transitions do the work of keeping your reader on the journey you want her to be on through your piece. As a written work, though, the subsections also give the piece more movement and are useful if you want to go back quickly and find a certain section. They playfully set the essay in a sort of writers’ self help category that is still very personally reflective of Smith’s own process. 

wow, that was a good book

The first thing that jumps out at me about The Language of Blood is how Jane Trenka plays with time while always leading the reader forward.
One moment we are with her as a young child in a new home, the next we are with her as she considers her love life from an adult point of view, and the next we are the audience in a deeply personal play. This technique of letting her memory be her guide works very well for the way she has set this memoir up. While at first it seemed chaotic to me, I never felt confused, or second guessed where Trebka was taking me on this journey to self discovery and self acceptance. "...there is a moment of disorientation that collapses times and swirls the years together so that my present is indistinguishable from my past. These moments are...a reminder that although time seems to pass in orderly, pie-shaped increments, I am wherever-and whenever-my memory drops me." (p.80), live in the moment, any moment; be who you feel like you are today even if it changes tomorrow; that's how a less skilled writer may have called our attention to the fluidity of time and the shades of grey that constitute memory. In her text, Trenka changes her mind, about the past, about the future, about who she is; what defines her. She uses informal jargon, making the reader feel like a close friend she is sorting things through with; but throws in Korean words that ostracize the reader, makes them feel as left out and out of place as she did/does. Trenka shows us her struggle to be the daughter she has always wanted to be; "Some things I will never know; others I am learning gradually, with effort and determination." (p.148);and how not being able to understand her dying Korean mother's wishes make her feel as out of place as not understanding her American mom's wishes to have had her own little boy. Both of these are things that Trenka must come to terms with she travels back in time in her own mind, as well as traveling half way around the world to find her "place" where not understanding word doesn't matter as much because there are other, more profound ways to understand each other.
Trenka is navigating her way through her own memory in these vignettes, searching for truth, searching for a place where she can be herself. As she loses her Korean mother to cancer, Trenka gains a deeper understanding of herself; she is able to see where she truly comes from, "I saw for the first time what you as a mother already knew: that I am made in the image of you; I am a daughter after your body and after your heart." (p.160). Not being the only non-white face was a large enough shock; but to then see that she was more than just similar to other Asians; she belonged to a family who had the same blood running through their veins was what ultimatly helped Trenka to finally see herself as a part of something outside of herself. In her American family, her sister and herself were often critized for things we later see are family traits, like shuffling while they walk. She leads the reader to ask: did this American family really do what they could to help these girls? We ask ourselves the same question Trenka asks: Why would they never speak of the adoption, was it because it made them see themselves as failures; unable to create their own family? We see how these questions lead Trenka to explore her own past, both in America and abroad, trying to collect and connect the pieces that make her who she is.

weeeee Language of Blood

In my opinion, the best part of Language of Blood was the scene on page 96 called Don't Worry, I Will Make You Feel Comfortable: A monologue for imagining. Here Trenka describes a (presumably!) fictional stand-up comedy routine that is only funny because it is so unfunny. I really appreciated this part because self-deprecating humor is such a balancing act. On the one hand it can be funny because it's true, on the other hand you don't want to seem insecure. You want to acknowledge your own flaws without shame, in a way.

Here is a partial list of the ways she makes fun of Asian women: Makes a joke that isn't funny. Overly welcoming, like restaurant hostess. Academic. Eats dogs. Unclean. Bad English. This bit even comes with a song! Weee!! We can see another way that self-deprecating humor is a balancing act-- Koreans in Korea wouldn't be able to write something like this, nor would white Americans in America. You have to be in a position where you're sensitive to others perceiving you as different. If you're fully part of an ethnic or national group, there isn't much about your identity that you can joke about with your peers.

If I may relate this back to myself (my favorite subject, and maybe yours, too! I AM that interesting!)-- even though I'm not THAT neurotic and my nose isn't THAT big, I still joke about these things as a way of acknowledging my different identity. As Trenka grows more uncomfortable in her dual identity, she tries on new ways to deal with it. Again, one of the many wonderful things about self-deprecating humor is how nuanced it can be. When reading this scene, it's supposed to be funny because it's stand-up comedy. But it's also not that funny. But its not-funniness makes it funny. But it's also expressing the sad truth about Asian women stereotypes. It's this subtle multi-layering of tone that I think makes this piece carry the most meaning about being a Korean adoptee in America. Even though the whole book is about that, this piece really made me think about what it's like to walk around having those stereotypes shadow you. Despite being called "I Will make you feel Comfortable," this monologue is a very UNcomfortable reminder of what it's like to be an Asian woman in America.

Memories Spill Out

The Language of Blood by Tranka is hands down my favorite piece that we have read in class so far. I loved the variety of modes she presents us with so we can better access her memories. I was surprised by the crossword, warmed by the intimacy presented in the intimate letters (that Tranka wrote for us - even the ones that were from her mother), and humbled by the final apology that Trank offers her mother after the "story" is complete.

I can't imagine the effort that it took to write this book, parts of it brought me to tears, to relive and have to face a past stalking experience, to explore the ins and outs of complex relationships, and to put those that she loves through the sometimes brutal honesty of her feelings by publishing this book. I can't imagine what it might be like for her adopted parents to read this book. I wonder if they even wanted to.

I thought Tranka did an excellent job of exposing us to her past, the emotions her past forced her to live through, and the path of realizations that Tranka comes to as she lives her life. I did not feel that she forced her memories. In fact, it was not until I finished reading the book did I really give much thought to Tranka's intent. The fact that I was not thinking about being manipulated by Tranka throughout the book made me reflect on my own memories and how I share and expose them and when I decide not to. I reflected a lot on how I as a writer intentionally present myself to my readers and when things just flow out without much thought to the reader, when the intent is more selfish and exploratory, maybe even healing.

Reading the Sherman Alexi piece and doing that in class rushed written response got me out of the mindset of being aware of the reader. I read what I wrote to a friend and as I was reading it I realized that I didn't have time to think about how my reader would receive what I was writing, or how it would shape their view of me. I wonder if Tranka had that feeling while writing that book? The absence of intent is sometimes a beautiful thing.

Pass the Tissue

It is difficult to know where to start with this book because there are so many intricately woven facets of it, both in terms of theme and writing technique as well as emotion.

I wanted to discuss the form in which The Language of Blood is written. While the short sections of the book initially seem to come randomly, certain subjects are returned to in a cycling effect: Umma’s letter at the beginning of the book is revisited on page 72, the story of the queen being cured by the tree on page 13 is referenced on page 162 during Jane’s month of taking care of her mother, and so on. There are multiple effects of this revisiting technique: it is mimetic of Jane’s fragmented memory as an adopted child, it is mimetic of Jane’s fragmented life as a Korean child adopted by an American family, it allows reflection of past events, and it also gives the sense of growth and connection between seemingly independent parts.

            Seemingly speaking directly to the form of her work, Trenka introduces the fifth section of her book by writing, “A quilt is the perfect thing to make. Scraps of pants, jackets, skirts – old useless abandoned things – transform” (103). Initially, Jane is preoccupied by the question of why her mother gave her up for adoption, and if she was really loved. As the book goes on and Jane meets Umma, her emotions towards her mother are transformed from feelings of painful neglect to love and belonging. Jane revisits this notion after having met and spent time with her mother: “I have made it my task to reconstruct the text of a family…to collect the overlooked, the debris…[w]ith these I will sew a new quilt of memory and imagination, each stitch a small transformation” (150). This cycle of the idea of creating something from nothing reveals Jane’s growth and inner transformation.

Though readers are shown the tragedy of Jane’s journey to meet her mother and Umma’s subsequent sickness on page 162, they are rewarded with a fuller understanding of the passages on pages 13-15. Revelation 2:17 states that “[t]o him that overcometh…I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it” (13). As Jane sits at the temple Haeinsa, which was the temple of the monks who helped to heal the queen, she picks up “a small white stone the size of [her] palm” (14). Though this passage may have little initial meaning to the reader, a second glance after reading up through Jane’s journey to Korea and her mother’s illness reveals that these stories she is sharing are part of her path to overcoming the sadness in her life and becoming a new person. 

The Art of Repetition 3/30

Jane Jeong Trenka's "mothers life wrapped itself around [her's] in an echo" (79). But she didn't have to say so for us to see how much their lives really did mimic each other. I started reading this book pausing to write down things which seemed to show up more than once. The note card I used filled up quickly. So I concluded her stories have an intentional repetition. There are many techniques which allow her to have the effect she intends, but the repetition is prime. And even though it can be a very risky technique, one which undermines the readers own capabilities, she uses it to her advantage.

Trenka's thoughts change and grow with the underlying sense of anxiety connecting her actions. She seeks desperately to find herself. The search for a diagnosis of her anxious feelings point to the hope for something beyond her control, something she can blame her anger on. The anxious feeling appears in all instances of her life. Her emotions give depth to her story. In trying to find herself she comes across many instances which help her to reflect. In doing so, she avoided the, "This happened to me, but now it's like this," style of reflection, and found a way to integrate the past with the present.

I found it easiest to focus on Trenka's technique in the two instances in which she comes across Buddhist necklaces. The subject matter is direct and connects to a wide range of pupils in her life. The first time she received a necklace was with her first boyfriend. He had bought her a necklace for christmas with a little buddha figurine, which she instantly had to hide.

"I put the Buddha in a safe place in my dresser, inside a sealed box, two layers of waterproof packing tape wrapped around it to seal in the sin" (66).

It concerned her because she thought she "would surely go to hell" for having it (65). Her concern was deep. It showed how she felt judged by god and by her parents. It showed how she felt judged for having an asian boyfriend. She needed to keep it hidden. It was a sin. Her exile was deep under her skin. In Minnesota, parents wanted their daughters to "date only real Americans." The hiding of the necklace was symbolic of the way she felt about her relationship and how she felt about being asian as a child. Hide it and forget about it.

In the second instance is after meeting her mother for the first time. Her Umma (biological mother) wants to buy her a necklace at an expensive jewelry store. Trenka tries to buy something inexpensive, but knows it would be a sign of disrespect so she picks out a Buddhist symbol. She forgets her Umma is catholic and quickly realizes the mistake she makes. They purchase a cross necklace instead and rush out, forgetting about what had just happened. This innocent act shows just how much Trenka wanted to fit in somewhere. Mistakes were colossal to her. Her Umma forgave her quickly, but she is embarrassed. She doesn't want to mess up the relationship with her Umma!

In trying to figure out why these scenes were chosen, I thought about memory. Trenka's style of writing made me reflect on its purpose (memories) and why we remember the things we do the way we do. Her memories in this piece intertwine. For me, a memory is a reflection of my emotions memory. My body's way of telling its story. Jane seems to be connecting her memories to her feelings. They made her who she is. The memories created a way for her to feel like she had been connected to her mother all along. In the end, the grounded her.

Mothers

I feel like there is so much to write about in The Language of Blood that it is difficult to decide where to begin. The whole story is filled with so many complex relationships: self to parent(s), self to family(s), self to self, self to culture(s), self to government, and so in order to provide a coherent response, I chose one particular passage in the text that can radiate out to touch the rest of the story in terms of its significance and implications.

This passage appears on pages 191-192 and is the scene where Jane is inviting her adopted mother to the funeral she is holding for her birth mother. Jane says,

"It would mean a lot to me if you could come.” She makes some excuses, she’ll have to think about it, Wal-Mart has a sale that day... “Mom, please come. I want you to come. It would mean so much to me.” She says she’s not interested…She is unaffected by my mother’s death; it didn’t happen, she didn’t happen. In my mom’s mind, I don’t come from somewhere else, I don’t have a birth mother. I don’t, I don’t…She has done it again. She can cow me into submission with a single word

This passage is especially significant because it comes near the end of the memoir and is reflective of how far Jane has come in her journey. She has grown up conflicted, with so many questions about both her birth family and her adopted parents—feeling un-whole, caught between American and Korean cultures while truly being part of neither. On reaching adulthood, Jane really claims her birthright and the power to explore her roots by reconnecting with her birth family in Korea. By getting to know her birthmother and other sisters, Jane gets the blood connection she has always longed for, but also comes to see exactly how American she really is. By caring for Umma in her illness, Jane shows her birthmother the ultimate love and filial loyalty. By the time Umma dies, Jane really feels a deep familial connection with her and wants to memorialize her life in America.

While Jane’s journey of reconnecting with her birthmother (though emotional and difficult) is ultimately a personally healing experience, it does nothing to improve her troubled relationship with her adopted mother. As this passage acutely shows, Margaret is not supportive of Jane’s decision to hold a funeral, just as she is unsupportive of Jane’s relationship with Umma as a whole. In fact, and most heartbreakingly for Jane, she refuses to acknowledge Umma’s existence and role in the whole family’s life. Undoubtedly, Margaret’s feels that she is Jane’s only mother because she has raised her—put in the time, resources, and effort to give Jane a life and refuses to see any reason why Jane cannot feel wholly American, like any other child growing up in their community. By denying Jane’s dual heritage, Margaret refuses to truly see Jane and to acknowledge the issues of identity that constantly haunt her. Of course, living in a small Midwestern town, Margaret and Frederick most likely have very little experience with diverse cultures and clearly do not know how or even acknowledge that they need to help their daughters navigate through their experience as Asian-Americans in a predominantly white area.

This silence and stoicism seem to be at the heart of the problems between Jane and her parents. All the time while she grows up, she is bursting with inner conflict, feelings of outsider-ness, questions about the circumstances of her birth, yet her parents create a family space that accepts only silence and values repression of the unpleasant as a strength. In addition, Jane grows up with the belief that she is a consolation child, a stand in for the biological child they could never have and therefore she carries the weight of being a disappointment, a person not truly wanted by either of her families. While her adopted parents feed and clothe and make sure Jane gets a good education, they fail in helping her with her emotional health. With all this bottled up emotion that festers for years and decades, it is no wonder she is ultimately left with a heart wrenching ambivalence dominating her feelings toward her parents.          

Travel blogs

While reading this weeks blogs I found myself constantly thinking about who the audience was for each piece. The Best Guest blog was the one that got me really thinking about this. The voice was so proper, the information was so basic. Lines like "If you don't want to pend time with someone, get a hotel room", made me crack a smile. This was sound advice, sure, but who is the intended audience? Someone who has never been a (good?) houseguest I guess. It almost read like a lecture from a strict and proper mother. This blog was a to-do list, I'm still not exactly sure who the target audience was. AnxietyTowards Flying, on the other hand, had a very clear audience; those with anxiety towards flying. There were several ideas that came up in the interviews that the blogger shared. First was the idea that knowledge will conquer fear, "I wanted to be armed with information." one interviewee says, and this is echoed throughout the blog. I wondered if that's what made the blogger, Brooke, choose these select, very short interviews to put in her blog. It gives her piece a feel of hope, and a positive tone about what can be a very stressful topic to some people. The interviews are informal and make reading this blog feel like no big deal, a very relaxed feel. The voice of Starbucks in Beijing was refreshing, it was relaxed and comical; giving the reader a feel of Christine's (the blogger) personality. The blog seems to aimed towards those looking for familiar places in foreign lands, who want to hear personal experiences. Christine lets the reader in on her past travels, to give herself credibility as one who compares similar places in different countries. She expresses her expertise on the culture of China with phrases like "Blueberry is like THE fruit in Beijing..." letting the curious potential traveler in on the little things they won't find in a travelers guide. She also focuses on the similarities rather than the differences, this adds to the feeling of familiarity this pieces as, it feels like a conversation with a chatty friend. Last, but not least, we have Whitewater Rafting at the Source of the Nile in Uganda. This blog is more along the lines of what I expected of a travel blog. It takes you through an interesting activity in a far away land. I feel that a blog like this one has a wider audience. Those who are interested in travel, in Africa, in whitewater rafting and those who like to read about exciting things. While there was some jargon that exclude some readers (me/other non-rafters), like referencing the "...international whitewater rating system" and class 6 waterfalls, the author sets up these phrases well enough/explains them well enough so that even I feel like a natural born rafter after reading. The short, choppy paragraphs gave me a feel of things constantly moving, of excitement. The blogger put us in the raft. "...I'd glance around and see belligerent white waves bursting all around us." Bursting, wow. That's great imagery, I've never thought of waves as being able to burst before, and that image stays with me after reading this. I also enjoyed the use of dialog. Having some very close friends from Glasgow, the voice of Lee, the guide, seemed very real to me and I enjoyed the attempt to spell out his speech.

Once again, I would never have read any of these blogs if it wasn't for Elmaz. Thank you Elmaz!

I realized the reason I would never read these travel blogs isn't because I don't enjoy travel - I love it! The reason I wouldn't have read these blogs is because they inform readers on a very specialized topics: whitewater rafting, Starbucks in Beijing, staying in someone else's house while traveling, and travel anxiety. I found that what really linked these blogs, other than the fact that they were all about travel, was the fact that they were all about very specific experiences within the experience of travel, being on a river, traveling with kids, anxiety about traveling, and Starbucks overseas.

The whitewater post was informative, creative, and to be frank had me on the edge of my seat. I love rafting and the casual language used in the blog was appealing to me because it seemed like someone was telling a very exciting story. The accent that was conveyed in this blog had me laughing out loud. It was such a great personal touch that added so much to the blog. I felt like the conscious choice for the blogger to write in the guide's accent made the story that much more authentic. I was impressed that the images only added to the writing instead of distracting the reader for his very exciting rafting experience.

"Sprouts on Rout" was very specialized but I did't find the information to be all the informative. I felt like Kristen was restating common information. The fact that it lacked the flashy pictures that could be found in the "Starbucks in Beijing"post or the "Vagabonding" blog was disappointing. However, I feel like the fact that it didn't have flashy pictures wasn't necessarily a bad thing for the blog. I am guessing parents who are interested in reading a blog about traveling with kids is more about parents sympathizing with one another and less about "flash".

"Anxiety Town" gave generalized experiences of a variety of people. I didn't find the language of the blog to be interesting or descriptive enough to lure me into being interested in travel anxiety or sympathize with the experiences of people that suffer from it. The pictures were lacking as well.

I found "Starbucks in Bejing" to be one of the more interesting blogs in this series both in written content and in presentation. This blog had a great look. I didn't realize how much I appreciated that until I saw this blog. It got me thinking about the types of magazines and blogs that I frequent. I wonder how much more I am willing to frequent a blog or how much more likely I am to pick up a specific magazine due to it's layout? I loved the use of the pictures - especially the baby "testing" the floor. :) The writing conveyed a personal experience because it compared an expectation of  an aspect of "home". As someone who has lived overseas I completely identified with the experience of seeing how international companies market themselves abroad.