Annotation blog# 5: From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle

1) Summary/ Main Ideas

This writing starts off with the writer telling us her mom died and was in silence for two months before her death. She grew up in two conflicting worlds: home and society. She tells us that she is writing this paper to fill up silence with her words that she didn’t have when she was a student in China and teacher in the U.S. She speaks English,Shanghai dialect, and standard Chinese. She expresses how much English is important to her family just like education because her father’s fluent english created many more jobs for him. Her grandfather kept losing good paying jobs because he couldn’t speak english. These were both reasons why her bilingual skill made her successful. In high school however she experienced society differently. Her aunt was almost labeled as a Rightest for talking on the phone in english to her husband. This made Lu conceal her knowing of english from her new classmates and not use english outside of her house. She as well started to feel ashamed and self-conscious of the language she used at home. Now her daughter like her has adapted to speaking english and is even sensitive to the way her teachers speak english. Lu’s main point in her writing is that English or any language is a “survival tool” that will place you into different areas in life, but also help you.

2) Quotes & Reactions/Responses

-“ I had always know that i t was good to be a worker, but until then, I had never felt threatened for now being one.”

I felt like this is trying to say we are so pressured to work these days. Now, we have to work to survive it isn’t that it’s “good to work” anymore. For Lu and her family i think english got away of that.

-“ I reduced their metaphors to dictionary meanings: “red” meant “Revolution” and “red sun” meant “New China” in the “language” of the Working class. I learned mechanically but eagerly”.

I found this quote fascinating because she put her own meaning to words and made it related to something she knows about. I also was intrigued how she described her learning “mechanically”.

-“ the teacher ever explained exactly how we were supposed to “turn” into workers. Instead, we were given samples of the ritualistic annual plans we had to write at the beginning of each term. In these plans, we performed “self- criticism””.

This quote was interesting because she said “turn”. In real life we don’t really know how to “turn” into workers we just are learned to study and get educated and that will give us a job. She also includes “self- criticism” which i was confused about… like if the schooling system was strict there and that’s how they made kids get work by criticising themselves as a learning method.

3) Questions for Discussion

-When she was talking about speaking Shanghai dialect she mentioned only to the servants. Do you think her family valued education so much so she wouldn’t become a servant and have to speak Shanghai dialect? Why did they have servants?

-She mentions how some days each word had one meaning, is that because she learned one word each day or because she would like to connect a day to a word?