Voice Conversation

Voice conversation between Jane and Dong-Mei:
My voice: Dong-Mei Mako's voice: Jane 

The link to my voice thread:http://voicethread.com/share/5155202/

Throwaway Daughter Book Review

Throwaway Daughter book review: 

           I have read “Throwaway Daughter” book by Ting-Xing Ye. The narrator of the story always changes, so mostly Grace Parker or Dong-Mei is the narrator and she is the protagonist as well. Grace Parker is a Chinese girl, who adopted by the canadian family. Her mother, Chun-Mei left her on the step in front of the orphanage, after she was born for 2 days. Basically, she was raise by her canadian parents for her whole life. Her canadian mother always try to make she studied Chinese language and keep calling her name in Chinese (to keep her culture and identity). When Dong-Mei turned 20 years old, after her graduation, she asked her parents for a ticket to China as well as to study the university in China. And that is how she met her family and the truth about herself, which no one can answer the question, except her mother like why Chun-Mei abandoned her.

          What I have understood from the novel, the idea of the Dong-Mei’s Chinese family is her mother must give birth as a baby boy because of the old traditional culture in China. Her grandfather(Old Revolution Chen) and other old chinese people always believe that if they could have a nephew or a son, it will be more useful than have a niece or a daughter because they do not want their surname to be disappear, they want their surname to be continued and they think that guys can do more works than women as well. So, if the mother gave a birth as a baby girl, she will abandon her by leaving her daughter at the train station, orphanage and some random places that no one can be seen because in the time the rules of China is really strict that the family can have only one children in the family. For example, in case of Chun-Mei, her father-in-law(Old Revolution Chen) put pressure on her and always tells her that he wants a nephew, so when she gave a birth as a baby girl, she has to abandon her daughter on the step of the orphanage secretly because she doesn’t want anyone to know about this, except the Chen’s family. 

          If compare Chinese traditional culture about birth gender to an anglophone country like Canada from the book, I can see that canadian people don’t really pay attention about the birth gender and they don’t have the law from the government that family can have only one child. So, Dong-Mei’s canadian parents love her and takes care of her like she is their own daughter. They also support and help her to keep her identity, which is different from chinese culture that they only like baby boys and they are prejudice. 

          I think that the writer has explored the ideas in her novel successfully by writing and expressing the feeling of an adopted child, the mother, the adoption parents and other characters in the book really well. It is as like the writer has given different perspectives of what people think about in their minds, not just the words of the narrator that describe the action and situation through the text.

          However, I’m not chinese, but I was raised in half Chinese half Thai traditional culture, so other people like chinese people may not agree with the way the writer explored her ideas in the novel because I don’t really know much about the ideas of Chinese people think because they may have something more than that.

English B diary

24  October 2013

Dear diary, 

           I think that I will ask my parents about buy a ticket for me to go to China for my graduation present. In six months, I will be graduated, I can’t wait to graduate and get my present! And the reason that I want to go to China.. do you really want to know, diary?

          When I was in elementary school, my history teacher was teaching us about multiculturalism. He asked me about how long had my parents lived in Canada and where did my parents come from? Well.. what could I say? They lived in Canada since they were born, but I was an orphan child who was born in China.

          I had never thought much about ethnic in that time until I was in high school. I got to know more people like Chinese-Canadian girl and Vietnamese girl. From that time, I got to know that some families like the Lee family had got their own accents, traditional foods and sometimes they could fly back to their homeland to visit their relatives as well. I wanted to feel like that once in my life.. I wanted to know how it feel to live with my own family and speak our own accents. Even though the Parker(my family) had been raising me up and taking care of me most of my whole life, I still wanted to find out and get to know more about my real family. 

        Right now, I feel like I don’t belong to Parker family, I don’t feel like I fit with them. This is not my place. Compare my yellow asia skin with my parent’s white skin.. my hair colors and their hair colors. It is so obvious for everyone that I’m not Parker even though Parker family treats me like I am not an adopted child. 

         Grace Parker