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I thought today's discussion was also about dealing with the identity of Asian-Americans. I think that children whose parents were originally from China that are now in America may have identity issues. Their parents may want to keep tradition while the children want to assimulate into American society. This can cause friction in the family.
That is a very important question. Certainly something we can guess Pan had to deal with as a character. I wish you had brought it up! Don't worry though, that is a MAJOR theme in the next two books we will look at, "Bone" and Donald Duk".
Wow I managed to get the blog working...i hope. Any way I think the real messsage in Pam's story is about how diffrent cultures and diffrent people can see or react to the same event diffrently. What he thought was no big deal Pam thought was a very big deal. She trusted him to keep China town's secrets while he felt he was free to write about them becuse they had been shown to him. This situation clearly arised from him not understanding the ways of the culture he was trying to write about and not even makeing an honest effort to do so. Althoght I do belive he grew to care for her I think he choose not to aknolege the inportance of her heratige as a pice of herself as a person and dismissed and choose to see only one side of her rather then the two halves that mand the whole Pan.
I think that Mark Carson had devious intentions. He went looking for a story to make his big break. Even if his feelings for Pan were genuine, he did not care enough about her to accept all of her. I do not necessarily agree with moonspell completely about the real message because it sort of lets Mark Carson off the hook, like he just did not know any better because he is from a different culture. He knew something was wrong with what he had done, because he admits that "She would have forgotten that article by now." and "I knew they would not blame you, Pan". If there was nothing wrong with what he did, there would be no reason to have these statements in the story.
In class we discussed the idea of secret(inside and out). Pan trusted Carson with her inside scoop of China Town but as for my understanding and as far as the author tells, Pan never tells Carson it is a "secret". If this information was so treasured within her culture why was Pan never questioned about who Carson was? Even though she is well known within the community,why would the people just let a random white man walk into their realm? So I questioned myself if it was truly a secret or was it a way of Pan revealing the unknown culture to the outside world?
I feel that Pan's personality was greatly affected by her mother's death. She probably never opened up to anyone or never had someone in her life that allowed her to express herself, even if it was her speaking about her culture. Therefore, she trusted Carson so much. I think she figured that due to their close relationship, it didn't have to be stated that everything she said was a secret. In everyone's life, there is a person who you meet that you think can fully be trusted. However, you end up being hurt by them. It was basically, just a lesson that Pan had to learn.
7 comments:
I thought today's discussion was also about dealing with the identity of Asian-Americans. I think that children whose parents were originally from China that are now in America may have identity issues. Their parents may want to keep tradition while the children want to assimulate into American society. This can cause friction in the family.
That is a very important question. Certainly something we can guess Pan had to deal with as a character. I wish you had brought it up! Don't worry though, that is a MAJOR theme in the next two books we will look at, "Bone" and Donald Duk".
Wow I managed to get the blog working...i hope. Any way I think the real messsage in Pam's story is about how diffrent cultures and diffrent people can see or react to the same event diffrently. What he thought was no big deal Pam thought was a very big deal. She trusted him to keep China town's secrets while he felt he was free to write about them becuse they had been shown to him. This situation clearly arised from him not understanding the ways of the culture he was trying to write about and not even makeing an honest effort to do so. Althoght I do belive he grew to care for her I think he choose not to aknolege the inportance of her heratige as a pice of herself as a person and dismissed and choose to see only one side of her rather then the two halves that mand the whole Pan.
I think that Mark Carson had devious intentions. He went looking for a story to make his big break. Even if his feelings for Pan were genuine, he did not care enough about her to accept all of her. I do not necessarily agree with moonspell completely about the real message because it sort of lets Mark Carson off the hook, like he just did not know any better because he is from a different culture. He knew something was wrong with what he had done, because he admits that "She would have forgotten that article by now." and "I knew they would not blame you, Pan". If there was nothing wrong with what he did, there would be no reason to have these statements in the story.
In class we discussed the idea of secret(inside and out). Pan trusted Carson with her inside scoop of China Town but as for my understanding and as far as the author tells, Pan never tells Carson it is a "secret". If this information was so treasured within her culture why was Pan never questioned about who Carson was? Even though she is well known within the community,why would the people just let a random white man walk into their realm? So I questioned myself if it was truly a secret or was it a way of Pan revealing the unknown culture to the outside world?
I feel that Pan's personality was greatly affected by her mother's death. She probably never opened up to anyone or never had someone in her life that allowed her to express herself, even if it was her speaking about her culture. Therefore, she trusted Carson so much. I think she figured that due to their close relationship, it didn't have to be stated that everything she said was a secret. In everyone's life, there is a person who you meet that you think can fully be trusted. However, you end up being hurt by them. It was basically, just a lesson that Pan had to learn.
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