读与朝暮第十二期：《女勇士/女战士》

选择作品：The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

    “A remarkable book...As an account of growing up female and Chinese-American in California...As a dream—of the ‘female avenger’—it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword.”—The New York Times

    The Woman Warrior was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for the best work of nonfiction in 1976, a milestone of Chinese American literature and a masterpiece of feminism.

     这本书是女性华裔美国人写给美国人看的一部中国神话。作者曾在一次采访中坦承：“有中国血统却想成为美国人；身为女性却想追求平等。”实际上，她遭遇的是双重边缘化：身为华人，她在主流社会得不到认同；作为女孩，在华人团体中也得不到尊重。本书分为五个章节，始于《无名女子》，终于《野蛮之声》，历经《白虎》《萨满》和《西宫》。

 

内容干货

1. 作者简介，本文概要

    作者简介: Maxine Hong Kingston (born October 27, 1940) is a Chinese American writer. She is the first of six children born to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She is currently a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend fiction with non-fiction.

    Notable Works: “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976)” “China Men (1980)” “Hawai’i One Summer (1987)” “Through the Black Curtain (1987)” “Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989)” “To Be the Poet (2002)” “The Fifth Book of Peace (2003)”

    作品梗概：The autobiography The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts mainly shows the life experience of the author Maxine Hong Kingston as a typical Chinese American woman as well as the life of women around her. This book contains five chapters with each consisting of a story about a woman: No Name Woman, White Tigers, Shaman, At the Western Palace, A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe.

 

2. 单词词组，地道表达

    同学们可以猜猜ABC和Chinese-American是什么意思呀？都是对于华裔美国人的称呼哦，全称是American-born Chinese和Chinese-American，因为身份的复杂性所以这一部分朋友对于自己的所属时常会有一些困扰，我在美国的时候遇到了这些家庭的classmates他们大部分认为自己属于group of Americans但是也有些认为自己属于both (Chinese and Americans)，就像谷爱凌也是这其中的一份子。

    Sometimes在这样的家庭氛围里，身为第一代移民的孩子都会live with one family, with their mother who marked their growing with stories, varieties of stories, plenty of myths. 有时候也会想象自己就像一直无忧无虑的小鸟，clouds make pointed angel wings that stream past the sunset，但是在看过they shred into clouds at last，我们的反应会是My brain has momentarily lost its depth perception吗？那时候我们也许才意识到I was that eager to find an unusual bird.

 

3. 散文佳句，沉浸赏析

    如果你是一个华裔美国人，从小出生在美国，但是家庭组成都是中国人，那么你认为自己究竟从属于哪儿呢？

    Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is China? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?

    母亲的教导往往是很关键的，那么在这样的家庭母亲的教育又是怎么样的呢？在美国的成长与在中国是能区分开来的吗?究竟什么是中国传统，什么是中国神话和电影呢?——《第一章（No Name Woman（无名妇人））》

    作为神话或史诗，这本小说面临当代文学在类似体裁中共有的问题，即如何在混乱时代里塑造出一位英雄（或女英雄）的主人公。The Woman Warrior中的花木兰和蔡琰引导着“我”，使“我”朝着俄勒冈的伐木工人设定自己的生活角色。所以Maxine很快就发现自己成为巾帼英雄（heroines or swordsman）的反面，她讲述的就是关于自己的溃败的故事：

    I’ve looked for the bird. I’ve seen clouds make pointed angel wings that stream past the sunset, but they shred into clouds. Once at a beach after a long hike I saw a seagull, tiny as an insect. But when I jumped up to tell what miracle I saw, before I could get the words out I understood that the bird was insect-size because it was far away. My brain has momentarily lost its depth perception. I was that eager to find an unusual bird.

    并且在这样的无根之地，美国，“我”感觉自己又被美国的鬼魂所困扰住了？那究竟是什么呢？身为一名ABC亦或是Chinese-American，对于自我身份的认同总是一个很复杂纠结迷茫漫长的过程，我们究竟是谁呢？属于哪里呢？我是不是也是ghost一份子呢？

    We belong to the planet now, Mama. Does it make sense to you that if we’re no longer attached to one piece of land, we belong to the planet? Wherever we happen to be standing, why, that spot belongs to us as much as any other spot. “Can we spend the fare money of furniture and cars? Will American flowers smell good now?” Stranded in a land of ghosts, or am I another ghost myself?

 

4. 主旨哲思，流连赏玩

    Ghost（鬼魂、幽灵）

    中国文化中鬼的形象是随着环境的变化而变化的。鬼魂/幽灵可以是仍然在我们世界里虚无缥缈的存在，也可以是记忆，甚至可以是真实的人。当西方列强于1860年入侵中国时，他们在中国掌权了近一百年。当时，中国人用“鬼”来贬称入侵者；他们称欧洲侵略者为“西方洋鬼”，称日本侵略者为“东方洋鬼”，这就是真实的人被称为鬼魂的原因。Maxine用称那些来到她家门口的美国人为鬼魂，尽管他们是真实的、可触摸的存在，而不是褪色的记忆或虚无缥缈的实体。

    Silence（沉默）

    书中涵盖了各种各样的沉默：姑姑的沉默、美国子女的沉默、蔡琰的沉默，被割掉舌头的沉默，the narrator认为：“I thought talking and not talking made the difference between sanity and insanity.” 这也是作者写这本书的理由，“If we had to depend on being told, we’d have no religion, no babies, no menstruation (sex, of course, unspeakable), no death.”

    Feminism（女权、女性意识的觉醒、男女平等）

    妈妈的姊妹Brave Orchid阿姨是一个在那个年代较为彻底明显的女权主义者了，“I refused to cook. when I had to wash dishes, I would crack one or two.”&“even now, unless I’m happy, I burn the food when I cook. I do not feed people. I let the dirty dishes rot. I eat at other people’s tables but won’t invite them to mine, where the dishes are rotting.” 同时作者也描绘了一些裹小脚的、像古董一样可笑的中国妇女：她们失去了仆人就变得像旱地上的鸭子一样，半里路也走不了，没有了丈夫就只会哭泣，就像Moon Orchid阿姨。但是作者Maxine在Brave Orchid的路上走得更远，她幻想成为“a lumberjack in Oregon”（俄勒冈的伐木工），像花木兰和蔡琰那样成为一名男性化亦或是说英雄化了的女性，独立自主又充满了力量感。

    The Woman Warrior一书中的叙述者女孩子生于美国，属于二代移民，她也挣扎在中美两种文化之间。不过更多的，她是受中国传统文化的影响，我们的鬼神观念，我们的佛道儒，与国外的宗教一样，都是我们生活的一部分。就像西游记的西天取经故事，红楼梦的一僧一道（绛珠草与神瑛侍者的传奇），三国演义诸葛借东风等均具奇幻色彩。移民身份也让她迷茫不知道自己究竟属于什么群体，应该如何behave，所以文化意识的交叉融合和教育都是非常重要及必要的。