MYP unit planner
Unit title
Short Story Unit (International Mindedness)
Teacher(s)
Poppi Smith
Subject and grade
level
MYP 3 (Grade 8)
Time frame and
duration
6 Weeks
Stage 1: Integrate significant concept, area of interaction and unit question
Area of interaction focus
Significant concept(s)
Which area of interaction will be our
focus?
Why have we chosen this?
What are the big ideas? What do
we want our students to retain for
years into the future?
Approaches to Learning
 Organization,
Communication, Thinking,
Reflection
International-mindedness is a
hybridization of diverse cultural and
social influences. It is also expressed
in one’s concerns and connections
to others, outside one’s own
community.
Community
 Defining and creating
community
MYP unit question
How does reading help me become more
internationally-minded?
Assessment
What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question?
What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show
what they have understood?
Short story written by student that illustrates his/her definition of international-mindedness
(focus on setting, plot, conflict, character motivation, figurative language, dialogue,
irony and or symbolism ) (Criteria A, B, & C)
End of Unit In-Class Narrative Writing Piece.
Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit?
MYP 3 INTERIM OBJECTIVES
 appreciate and comment on the language, content, structure, meaning and
significance of both familiar and previously unseen age-appropriate oral, written
and visual texts.
 understand many of the effects of the author’s choices on an audience.
 compose pieces that apply age- appropriate literary and/or non-literary features
to serve the context and intention.
 compare and contrast age-appropriate texts, and connect themes across and
within genres.
 begin to express an informed and independent response to literary and nonliterary texts.
 use appropriate and varied register, vocabulary and idiom.
 use appropriate and varied sentence structure.
 use correct spelling/writing.
Which MYP assessment criteria will be used?
Language A: Criterion A: Content
Language A: Criterion B: Organization
Language A: Criterion C: Style and Language Mechanics
Stage 2: Backward planning: from the assessment to the learning activities through
inquiry
Content
What knowledge and/or skills (from the course overview) are going to be used to enable
the student to respond to the unit question?
What (if any) state, provincial, district, or local standards/skills are to be addressed? How
can they be unpacked to develop the significant concept(s) for stage 1?
Reading: 1a; 1c; 1d; 2a; 2b; 2d; 2h; 2i; 3b; 3c; 3e
Writing: 4a; 4b; 4f; 4g; 4h; 5a; 5f
Listening & Speaking: 6a; 6b; 7f; 7g
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general
approaches to learning skills?
Organization: Manage time and assignments by estimating time required to complete
tasks and use rubrics to refer to criteria being assessed in tasks. Approach tasks with
tenacity and in an organized manner. Present work accurately.
Communication: Be literate by using different reading strategies to understand a text.
Recognize and record confusing sections of texts.
Thinking: Apply past knowledge to make comparisons and predictions when responding
to a story. Generate ideas by looking at a topic or idea from multiple points of view.
Reflection: Improve ideas and work by using reflection as tool to expand ideas and to
break down ways to improve through specific actions.
Connect Ideas: Understand that the techniques used by writers in short stories can be
used in non-fiction narrative writing, as well.
Learning experiences
How will students know what is
expected of them? Will they see
examples, rubrics, templates?
How will students acquire the
knowledge and practise the skills
required? How will they practise
applying these?
Do the students have enough prior
knowledge? How will we know?
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Discussion of responses and
exploration of specific devices
used by the author.
Grouping Activity: Groups of 5
(self select) – list and present 3
things you have in common.
Number off first group of five
and regroup – repeat, find 3
things you have in common.
Using Graphic Organizers to plot
and define character attributes
(i.e. iceberg metaphor for “On
Teaching strategies
How will we use formative assessment to give
students feedback during the unit?
What different teaching methodologies will
we employ?
How are we differentiating teaching and
learning for all? How have we made provision
for those learning in a language other than
their mother tongue? How have we
considered those with special educational
needs?
Mini-lessons: Topic Choice, Narrowing the
focus, Types of Plots, point of view, literary
devices (foreshadowing, irony, symbolism).
Teacher will write along side of students,
discussing own problems with the process to
model what students should be doing in their
peer conferencing sessions.
Set up character hotseating activities
Enforce active reading strategies.
Introduce peer reading symbols for story
responses (see Gallagher Deeper Reading, p.
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the Sidewalk Bleeding by Evan
Hunter).
Write: “Who am I’ poems
Acting out alternative endings
or future scenes of existing
stories (Response task for “Thank
You, Ma’am by Langston
Hughes)
In-class workshop activities for
discrete skills including dialogue,
tone, sequencing plot
developments, word choice.
Compare two stories about
exclusion and disillusionment
(“The Stolen Party” by Liliana
Heker and “The White Umbrella”
by Gish Jen)
Graffiti Wall Posters for Response
to “War of the Wall”.
Explore Language change and
dialect in tandem with reading
“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
Create multiple choice
“Earthling Quiz” for aliens.
Compare “Once Upon a Time”
by Nadine Gordimer to
traditional fairytale forms (irony,
symbolism)
View “The Gods Gave Up on Us”
– the lost boys movie in tandem
with reading Gordimer’s “The
Ultimate Safari”.
Double entry journals and
anchor charts will help students
record and analyse the
techniques writers use and for
what purposes/effect.
Guided analysis of readings.
Closing Group Activity “Create
a Country”.
Formative
 Write a script for a scene that
takes places after the story. The
scene is for readers’ theatre
101).
One on one conferencing with students once
they start writing their drafts.
Monitor task completion of in-class activities.
Ensure that a minimum of 3 hours of
unstructured writing time is given to students in
this unit.
Advanced students: tasks can be adapted for
more agile students and such students will be
encouraged to polish and publish their piece
in a school publication or internet journal.
ESL students will be given individualized
attention based on their needs (e.g. reading
and writing buddies, extra vocabulary support,
encourage to take command of their areas of
weakness and conduct student-led discussions
with the class).
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(Criteria A & B)
Notebook Entries for
comparative tasks (Criteria A &
B)
Response activity after each
story (Criteria A, B, & C)
Group work presentations
(Criteria A, B, & C (oral
expression))
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Resources
What resources are available to us?
How will our classroom environment, local environment and/or the community be used
to facilitate students’ experiences during the unit?
Class Anthology: Scott Foresman’s Literature and Integrated Studies, Grade 8.
Materials in unit folder
Upper school library collection.
Conflict Themed Stories:
“Thank You, Ma’am” Langston Hughes
“On the Sidewalk Bleeding” by Evan Hunter
“The White Umbrella” by Gish Jen
“All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury
“The War of the Wall” by Toni Cade Bambera
“The Stolen Party” by Liliana Hecker
Additional New Stories:
“Metropolis” by Crystal Gail Shangkuan Koo
“Little Things are Big” by Jesus Colon
“Looking Back from the Hill” by Rev P E Adotey Addo
“The House on the Hill” by Topali
Mabukuwini Library Collection:
Cormier, Robert. 8 Plus 1 (F COR)
Meyers, Walter Dean. 147 Street Stories (U 808.8 MYE)
Soto, Gary. Baseball in April & Other Stories. (U 808.8 SOT)
Henry, O. The Gift of the Magi. (F HEN)
Skin Deep. (U F BRA)
13: Thirteen Stories that will capture the Agony and the Ecstasy of being 13. (U F HOW)
Ongoing reflections and evaluation
In keeping an ongoing record, consider the following questions. There are further stimulus
questions at the end of the “Planning for teaching and learning” section of MYP: From
principles into practice.
Students and teachers
What did we find compelling? Were our disciplinary knowledge/skills challenged in any
way?
What inquiries arose during the learning? What, if any, extension activities arose?
How did we reflect—both on the unit and on our own learning?
Which attributes of the learner profile were encouraged through this unit? What
opportunities were there for student-initiated action?
Possible connections
How successful was the collaboration with other teachers within my subject group and
from other subject groups?
What interdisciplinary understandings were or could be forged through collaboration
with other subjects?
Assessment
Were students able to demonstrate their learning?
How did the assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate the learning objectives
identified for this unit? How did I make sure students were invited to achieve at all levels
of the criteria descriptors?
Are we prepared for the next stage?
Data collection
How did we decide on the data to collect? Was it useful?
2010-2011
The inspiration for this unit is very personal to both me and the relationship I have with the
students. As we enter our third year together and second year as advisor to this group of
students, I think it’s time we went beyond traditional approaches to teaching short fiction
and representation
We rely on stories from America, stories from the 50’s, that focus on a kind of regionalism
and fidelity which are presented as emergent, but are dated. We appreciate these
stories because they are “othered” and well-written, but they lack immediacy to my
students and that, to me, represents a conflict with the rest of their programming. With
the initiation of the new Grade 8 leadership program, we focus on action, positive
change, and the representation and appreciation of individuals within our immediate
community. As a result, this unit seems vital and complementary with those goals.
Following our MYP authorization, I conducted some rather unsuccessful searches of the
MYP concept of “international mindedness.” Perhaps intentionally nebulously defined, I
felt that very little of our curriculum addresses the core of what this term could mean. It
made me revisit my readings on post-colonial writers such as homi k. bhabha, Gayatri
Spivak, Benedict Anderson and Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The concepts of the
subaltern and hybridity seemed to fit nicely with the considerations and issues vaguely
embraced by “International mindedness.” As the term seemed “in process,” I thought
the short story form and issue of identity and belonging would fit well with an exploration
at the middle school level.
The activities in this unit lead up to (what I think) is a more progressive and impactful
product. Although students will do with it as they wish, I am hoping that we will be able
to create stories that work towards defining “international mindedness.” These stories
could be about embracing the issues of others outside their existing communities, but to
get there, students need to define their own hybrid identities. This should also naturally fit
with the narrative goals of character development through subtle interior changes.
Ideally, students should realize at the end of the unit that the international-mindedness is
found in tolerance, open-mindedness, and caring for others, tolerance, not just others
who are “like me”, but for causes and issues that may not affect them directly at all. And
they should have a piece of original writing to support it.
Grade 8 Short Story (2010-2011)
Adapting the focus of this unit to fit the new Grade 8 leadership program at AISM worked
well. The students responded well to the scaffolding activities such as the internationalmindedness T-P-S, the Where I’m From poem, and the Create a Nation activity. They
generally liked the short stories we read and easily made connections and gathered
thoughts and influences from the works.
The broad scope of possibilities allowed advanced learners to combine themes, motifs
and styles from a variety of influences and in a couple of cases, the pieces showed
experimentation not only with theme, but at the level of structure. Students needing
more support were able to work within socio-economic or racial differences to still relate
to the topic and convey a clear message/theme about tolerance, cultural sensitivity,
and the appreciation of differences.
Intro to Short Story Unit (Grade 8)
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Identity in literature. How do writer’s establish a cultural or social
representation of a character?
What is your identity? How do you represent your identity in your writing?
What is our identity as a school community? How do represent ourselves
as a group of Grade 8’s at AISM?
What is international about us? How could we chart that in the story of
ourselves? How could we represent diversity in a short piece of writing?
What literary techniques can we use within the freedom of fiction to
symbolically, metaphorically represent who we are?
Activity 1:
Groups of 5 (self select) – list and present 3 things you have in common.
Number off first group of five and regroup – repeat, find 3 things you have
in common.
Keep this going until it gets boring and too difficult.
Everyday, ask them as a class to come up with 1 thing that they can all
agree on that defines them.
Reading Assignment: On the Sidewalk Bleeding by Evan Hunter
Response task: Iceberg and interpretation activities
Activity 2:
Who am I poems.
Reading Assignment: “Thank you, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes.
Response task: pair dramatization of future meeting.
Activity 3:
Discrimination simulation – you choose a group of individuals who have
the same shoes on or something like that, whatever they ask of you refuse
to help or listen.
Reading Assignment: “The Stolen Party” by Liliana Heker and “The White
Umbrella” by Gish Jen.
Compare the stories.
Activity 4:
View: Graffitti and community expression
Read: “The War of the Wall”
Response: Create a graffiti poster and present it.
Activity 5:
Language facts from Global Ed:
http://www.globaled.org/issues/155/index.html
Read: “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
Extra Activity: Create an multiple choice earthling quiz.
Activity 6:
Brainstorming S.A. facts
Read: “Once Upon a Time” by Gordimer
Discuss irony, symbolism
Activity 7:
Globalization as tolerance, interest in human rights.
View: God gave up on us…the lost boys movie
Read: The Ultimate Safari.
Group Activity: Design a nation.
Summative Assessment:
Write a story that represents a protagonist who demonstrates
international-mindedness through tolerance, compassion for others,
preservation of culture, or the crossing of ideological or geographical
barriers or boundaries.
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Throughout this unit for Grade 8, you will need to keep reinforcing
and regrouping them so that they don’t form cliques. By keeping
them moving and staging inclusion and exclusion activities, you can
mix up their perceptions so they don’t revert back to cultural
identities, but see themselves as a collective identity.
Ideally, they should realize at the end of the unit that the
international-mindedness is found in tolerance, open-mindedness,
and caring for others, tolerance, not just others who are “like me”,
but for causes and issues that may not affect them directly at all.
Criterion A: Content
LEVELOF
ACHIEVEMENT
0
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
DESCRIPTOR
The student does not reach a standard described by any of
the descriptors given below.
The student demonstrates very limited understanding of the
short story genre. The short story lacks detail, development and
support. The short story does not reflect imagination and
sensitivity.
·
The story is over-simplistic. It lacks a controlling
idea or theme.
·
The story lacks a developed plot line.
·
There is a failure or resistance to use details,
anecdotes, dialogue, suspense, and/or action.
The student demonstrates a limited understanding of the
relevant aspects of the short story genre. The short
story displays insufficient detail, development and support. The
short story reflects limited imagination and sensitivity.
·
The story elements may not have a controlling
idea or theme.
·
The story lacks a developed plot line.
·
There is a use of details, anecdotes, dialogue,
suspense, or action to attempt to enhance the story
The student demonstrates a sufficient understanding of the
relevant aspects of the short story genre. The short story
displays adequate detail, development and support. The short
story reflects a degree of imagination and sensitivity.
·
The story elements may not create a controlling
idea or theme
·
The story has a minimally developed plot line.
·
There has been an attempt to use some details
and/or anecdotes, suspense, dialogue, and action,
but with minimal effectiveness.
The student demonstrates a good understanding of the
relevant aspects of the short story genre. The short story
displays substantial detail, development and support. The short
story reflects substantial imagination and sensitivity.
·
The story elements have been combined to
create a thought-provoking theme or incident.
·
A standard plot line with complex major and
minor characters within a definite setting has been
introduced.
·
There is use of anecdotes, sensory details and
examples to create a sense of the characters’
thoughts, actions and appearances.
·
There is a use a range of devices such as
9-10
suspense, dialogue, and action (gestures, expressions)
to advance the plot, give insight into characters, and
keep the reader continually informed/entertained.
The student demonstrates a perceptive understanding of the
relevant aspects of the short story genre. The short
story consistently displays illustrative detail, development and
support. The short story reflects a high degree of imagination
and sensitivity.
·
There is a skillful combination of all elements of
short story writing to create a thought-provoking
theme or incident.
·
There is a skillfully developed a plot line with
complex major and minor characters within a definite
setting.
·
There is excellent use anecdotes, sensory details
and examples to create a clear sense of the main
characters’ thoughts, actions and appearances
·
There is use of a range of devices such as
suspense, dialogue, and action (gestures, expressions)
to skillfully advance the plot, give insight into
characters, and keep the reader continually
informed/entertained.
Criterion B: Organization
LEVELOF
DESCRIPTOR
ACHIEVEMENT
0
The student does not reach a standard described by any of the
descriptors given below.
1-2
The student’s work is generally disorganized and confused, and
arguments are not presented in a logical manner. Paragraph
structure and transitions are very weak.
·
The exposition, conflict and/or resolution or
denouement may not exist.
·
Little or no sense of sentence structure.
·
Lack of or inappropriate use of transitions.
3-4
The student’s work shows the beginnings of organization, but
lacks significant logical order. Paragraphs and transitions are
weak.
·
The story lacks an engaging “hook”
·
The story’s sequencing of ideas in one part of the
structure (body/resolution/denouement) need some
revision.
·
Some understanding of sentence structure.
·
Limited use of appropriate transitions to connect
sentences.
5-6
The student’s work is basically organized, clear and coherent,
and arguments are presented in a logical manner. Paragraph
structure and transitions are apparent.
·
The story begins with an engaging “hook”
·
The story has logical sequencing of ideas based
on purpose and is linked to your theme.
·
The story’s resolution and denouement needs
some revision.
·
Use of sentence structure to enhance intended
effect.
·
Transitions connect ideas within and across
paragraphs.
7-8
The student’s work is usually well organized, clear and coherent,
and arguments are presented in a thoughtful, logical manner.
Paragraph structure and transitions help to develop the ideas.
·
The story begins with an engaging “hook”.
·
The story has logical sequencing of ideas based
on purpose and is linked to your theme.
·
The story’s resolution and denouement reinforces
the theme and provides ‘closure’ to the events
narrated.
·
Purposeful use of sentence structure to enhance
intended effect.
9-10
·
Transitions connect ideas within and across
paragraphs.
The student’s work is consistently well organized, clear and
coherent, and arguments are presented in a perceptive and
persuasive manner. Paragraph structure and transitions
effectively develop and substantiate the ideas being expressed.
·
The story begins with a strong and engaging
“hook”.
·
The story has logical and effective sequencing of
ideas based on purpose and is skillfully linked to your
theme.
·
The story’s resolution and denouement reinforces
the theme and provides ‘closure’ to the events
narrated.
·
Purposeful and innovative sentence structure
enhances the intended effect.
·
Skillful use of transitions within and across
paragraphs.
Criterion C: Style and Language Mechanics
LEVELOF
DESCRIPTOR
ACHIEVEMENT
0
The student does not reach a standard described by any of the
descriptors given below.
1-2
The student’s use of vocabulary is often inappropriate and
limited. Very frequent errors in spelling, pronunciation,
punctuation and syntax persistently hinder communication. Little
attempt has been made to use a register suitable to the intention
and audience.
·
Some of the story’s words or phrases are limited or
repeated with high frequency. There are only one or
two details that reveal the characters’ looks, actions,
feelings, reactions, and conversation.
·
The writer’s voice, purpose and/or audience is
unclear or inappropriate.
·
There are multiple errors in conventions (spelling,
punctuation) that the meaning is unclear throughout
the piece.
3-4
The student’s use of vocabulary is sometimes inappropriate and
somewhat varied. Regular errors in spelling, pronunciation,
punctuation and syntax hinder communication. The student
attempts to use a register suitable to intention and audience.
·
Some of the story’s words or phrases are repetitive
and/or generalities. There are minimal details that
5-6
7-8
9-10
reveal characters’ looks, actions, feelings, reactions,
and conversation.
·
The writer’s voice is detached from the story.
·
The purpose and/or audience is not clear.
·
There are five or more errors in conventions
(spelling, punctuation) and they occasionally obscure
the overall meaning.
The student’s use of vocabulary is usually appropriate and
generally varied. Some errors in spelling, pronunciation,
punctuation and syntax sometimes hinder communication. The
student often uses a register suitable to intention and audience.
·
Some of the story’s words or phrases are precise
and detailed to reveal characters’ looks, actions,
feelings, reactions, and conversation, but there are one
or two places in the story where more attention is
needed.
·
The writer’s voice is authentic most of the time.
·
There is sense of purpose and audience but the
piece has redundancies in one or two places.
·
There are three to five errors in conventions
(spelling, punctuation) but they are few and do not
obscure the overall meaning.
The student’s use of vocabulary is appropriate and varied.
Occasional errors in spelling, pronunciation, punctuation and
syntax rarely hinder communication. The student consistently
uses a register suitable to intention and audience.
·
The story’s words or phrases are precise and
detailed to get the message across and skillfully reveal
characters’ looks, actions, feelings, reactions, and
conversation.
·
The writer’s voice is confident, clever, and
entertaining.
·
There is a clear sense of purpose and audience
·
There are one or two errors in conventions
(spelling, punctuation) but they are minor and do not
obscure meaning.
The student’s use of vocabulary is always appropriate and
greatly varied with very infrequent errors in spelling,
pronunciation, punctuation and syntax. The student has
mastered the use of a register suitable to intention and
audience.
·
The story’s words or phrases powerfully convey the
intended message and skillfully reveal characters’
looks, actions, feelings, reactions, and conversation.
·
The writer’s voice is authentic, clever, and
entertaining.
·
There is a clear sense of purpose, audience and
meaning to be interpreted in this story.
·
The story shows creativity and flexibility when using
conventions to enhance meaning.
International-Mindedness Think-Pair-Share
What is international-mindedness? Is it an attitude, a way of life, or can in
be represented in one’s goals and actions? How will you represent this
international component in your short story? Use this page to map out
your thinking on how your generation, peer group, or communities you
are, or have been, a part of represent internationalmindedness. Remember to draw or list everything that matters!
1. What kind of people are internationally-minded? (i.e. ages, races,
ethnicities, educational level, cultures, genders, economic class,
social trends...)
2. Where do they live or where would you find them?
3. What kind of attitudes and beliefs do they have towards society,
politics, culture, religions, economics ?
4. What kind of goals and values do they have?
5. What are they good at doing?
6. List some people you know (famous, fictional, or personal) who are
internationally-minded.
Grade 8 Short Story Template
Theme:
Your short story this year must incorporate a theme that relates to internationalmindedness, or being internationally-minded.
Quickly state your message to your reader, below:
Setting:
Where and when will your story take place? Will it be suitable for your message/theme?
Try to choose a setting that an internationally-minded person can relate to – it will require
less description because the reader can infer the details he/she is familiar with.
Characters:
Limit yourself to 2 or 3 main characters. Think about how you can use these characters to
help convey your theme through the goals they might have. Fill in the table below with
your character descriptions
Name
Physical/psychological
Description
Goal/Role in the story
Conflict:
The character(s) in your story must face some sort of problem. Without conflict a story is
boring. Think of a conflict that is realistic for your character and that will help lead the
reader to your message through your character’s actions and thoughts.
Rising Action:
Do not make it easy for your character to achieve his/her goal. Throw some obstacles in
the way to prevent your story from ending too quickly. The rising action should
complicate or compound the main conflict (above). Think of 2 complications to put in
your character’s path before the story’s climax.
Transformation:
Something has to change in your story in order to resolve the conflict. This change can
be internal (e.g. a change in perception) or external (e.g. moving to another place).
Resolution:
Before you end the story, you need to leave your reader with a final image. This final
image should tie up all the loose ends of your story regardless of whether your ending is
happy or tragic.
“Where I’m From” (Poem Template)
I am from ___________________________(specific, ordinary item) , from
________________(product name) and _________________ (an item you really love).
I am from the ____________________ (home description. . . adjective, adjective, sensory
detail).
I am from the __________(plant, flower, natural item) , the _____________(plant, flower,
natural detail)
I am from __________(family tradition) and _____(family trait) , from__________(name of
family member) and __________(another family name) and _________(family name).
I am from the _________(description of a family tendency) and ______________(another
family tendency).
From ___________(something you were told as a child) and ___________(another).
I am from _______________ (something you really believe in) ,
from______________________________________________________ (further description, if
possible).
I’m from ___________(place of birth and family ancestry) , from ________ and
__________(two food items representing your family).
From the ________________________________________(specific family story about a specific
person and detail) , the _________________________(another detail) , and the
______________________(another detail about another family member).
I am from _______(description of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more
lines indicating the worth of these).
Lesson: “Thank You Ma’am” by Langston Hughes
Essential Question: Can trust be regained once it is lost?
1. Objectives:
o To identify and articulate a theme of a work and to differentiate it from the
subject of a work.
o To predict based on an understanding of character.
o To understand character motivation.
2. Materials: Copies of “Thank You Ma’am”, Sri’s Thank You Ma’am
comprehension quiz, Reader’s Theatre props.
3. Procedure:
A. Write essential question on the board. Have students discuss it in groups for
five minutes and formulate a consensus. Nominate a reporter to report on
what the group decided.
B. Introduce Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
was the first African American to earn a living as a writer.
when he started out he received scathing criticism. Critics called
his writing ‘trash’, launched personal attacks against him calling him
a ‘sewer dweller’. Imagine this time in literary history – most writers
in popular circulation are white, During the 1920s there is a Harlem
Renaissance, a period when African American talent is just breaking
into the world (but it is suspect, as most new things are). African
American writers and musicians are expressing emotions and
representations of society through blues music and writing about
hardships as they see it, which were never acknowledged.
Langston Hughes wrote about common people, who weren’t
heroes or angels. For this he disrupted the reflection of society in
literature that had dominated creative writing.
C. Direct students to the text and the descriptive way Hughes employs imagery:
Mrs. Jones’ purse – “a large purse that had everything in it but a
hammer and nails”.
The Symbolism in The White Umbrella
A sign of someone who is special/admired/important
Eugenie will be pleased to get her umbrella back; Mrs Crosman will
think the narrator is considerate. (Draw attention to how Jen notes that the
narrator sees Mrs Crosman tell Eugenie that her piece is stupendous and
then give her a hug. When Mrs Crosman tells the narrator that her piece is
stupendous she notices the absence of a hug. She then lies about her mother
and receives the hug).
How does the writer emphasize the important of the umbrella?
§ It is white – symbolizing purity
§ “glowed” – magical
§ “scepter” – royalty
§ It seems to illuminate everything around it – meaning it is
like a light.
§ The narrator collapses it under her skirt – meaning she is
ashamed of it.
1. What is your opinion of the narrator? -- she seems confused, funny,
proud, envious, embarrassed (answers will vary)
2. What problems is this family having adjusting to American life? – As
minorities they are self-conscious about departing from what everyone else
does.
3. What is the importance of the umbrella? -- symbolizes what the
narrator doesn’t have (beauty, money, talent, a boyfriend, a mother who
doesn’t work).
4. Why does the narrator throw the umbrella down the sewer? – She is
ashamed of wanting it; she is ashamed of what she said to Miss Crosman
and how she lied about her mother.
5. When did the narrator experience a moment of truth? When she sees
her mother apparently injured after the accident. She realizes she loves her
mother.
6. Does the weather play a role in this story? – Yes, the rain prompts
Miss Crosman’s sympathy and the narrator’s desire for the umbrella affects
the story’s events. The weather is a trigger.
7. How would this story have been different if it were told from the
point of view of the mother? – Readers might have learned more about the
mother’s feelings about getting a job and about how she thought it would
affect her family.
8. How did the characters in the story react to being in a minority
group? The narrator reacts by wanting to excel and be accepted. She also
reacts by feeling ashamed of her family. Her parents feel self-conscious
about the mother’s job and want to maintain their status within their cultural
community.
Metaphors and Similes in All Summer in One Day
Write metaphor and simile on the board.
Have students brainstorm various objects as comparison and write down a list of
three on a slip of paper – collect and rotate them around. Students think of a
metaphor or simile to describe their given list of things. – e.g. grass, concrete, braces,
sweat, stuffed toy, hairbrush, hot car interiors, etc.
What scenes from the story stand out most in your mind? -- (answers will vary) –
when the children run outside and see and feel the sun. When Margot is locked in
the closet. When the children remember they locked her in the closet.
What do you think the children saw when they opened the closet at the end? –
Margot on the floor cowering.
What is the first clue in the interactions between the children that tells you they
dislike Margot? --- Margot stands apart from the other children; a boy says that
Margot didn’t write her poem.
Do you think the children will treat Margot differently after what they did to her?
– Yes, because now they know she wasn’t lying and have shared her
experience. They will probably feel bad about what they did (for a while)
How does the author appeal to your sense of smell, taste, sight, touch or hearing?
– The author uses colours to appeal to our senses. The sun is “gold’ and ‘flaming
bronze’. The sky is a ‘blazing blue’. The lightning on their faces is ‘blue and terrible’.
The jungle is ‘the colour of stones and white cheese and ink.”
Experiences adjusting to new places? – (answers will vary) – recount your
experience moving to PEI.
Grade 8 – Short Story Questions
1. Consider the action: briefly summarize the plot and determine all of the story's conflicts.
Determine the major conflict and state this in terms of protagonist versus antagonist.
2. Identify the important turning points of the story. Which would be the climax, the point that
determines the outcome?
3. Consider the setting, including objects. How may descriptions of place objects help us
understand character or theme?
4. Explore the characters. Are they believable and round, or flat and one-dimensional? Does the
major character (protagonist) change? What causes the change?
If you were able to give advice to one of the characters, what would you say?
5. Consider the theme, the story's truth. What subject does the story examine and what may it
reveal about human behavior or values?
6. Look for any irony--situational, verbal, or dramatic. Explain the effect of the irony.
7. Look for telling quotations. Note any passage that is particularly revealing; identify the page or
paragraph and explain its significance.
8. Was the ending satisfying? Why? If you were not satisfied, rewrite the ending.
9. Write a scene that may be added to the story; try to remain consistent with the story's details.
10. What is the narrative point of view, and how does this perspective affect our understanding of
character or theme?
GRADE 8 -- SHOWING THROUGH DIALOGUE:
You can tell your reader what your characters are like, or you can show them!
Showing is far more effective. Well-developed characters often show what they are
like through the things they say. A few choice words of dialogue will make your
writing come alive!
SEE how it’s done.
ORIGINAL SENTENCE:
Regina was disappointed.
REVISED SENTENCE, SHOWING CHARACTER THROUGH DIALOGUE:
“I don’t believe it!” Regina cried. “All that work for nothing! I never wanted anything
more in my life, and now it’ s over!”
TRY IT
with this sentence:
ORIGINAL SENTENCE:
Chester was overjoyed.
REVISED SENTENCE, SHOWING CHARACTER THROUGH DIALOGUE:
APPLY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
this skill in your class notebook. Change each sentence below into
dialogue that shows what the character is feeling.
My dad was confused.
Arthur was hungry.
Mimi couldn’t believe what she heard.
Simon was irritated at his mom.
My sister was caring.
GRADE 8 – SETTING
An excellent way to engage your reader’s interest is to create mood by describing the
setting of your narrative. Remember that setting describes the where and when of
your narrative.
Engaging the reader through setting plunges the reader into the world of your
characters. It also lets the reader know, from the very beginning of your narrative,
what type of narrative to expect.
SEE
how it’s done.
ORIGINAL OPENING:
I had a really scary day during the blackout of 2004. Everything was dark, and I
didn’t know what was happening.
REVISED OPENING:
I was alone in my bedroom listening to the rain pound against the window. The
single bulb that hung from the center of the room cast just enough light for me to
do my homework. I loved the quiet of my bedroom because it allowed me to
concentrate on my assignments. I wrote my name and date, June 24, 2004, at the
top of a fresh sheet of white paper when the lights went dim and then went out.
The room was draped in total darkness. I could see nothing, and all I could hear
was the beat of the rain. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning that cast a brief
but ghostly light in the room.
Notice how the revised opening lets the reader feel what the character feels.
TRY IT
with this sentence:
ORIGINAL OPENING:
The happiest moment of my life was my fifth birthday party. Everyone I knew
was there. There was music and food and decorations.
REVISED OPENING:
“Thank You Ma’am”
Answer these questions in adequate detail. The mark allocation for
each question is given. Use this as a guide when you decide how
much to write. Always support what you say with evidence from the
story.
1. Write three (3) words that could describe Mrs. Jones’ character (Do not
give a physical description). Explain why you think she fits those
descriptors.
(6)
2. At the start of the story, why does the boy tell the truth when the woman
asks if he will run away?
(2)
3. If you were Mrs. Jones, would you have taken Roger home with you?
Explain your answer.
(2)
4. Why does Roger offer to go to the store while she is cooking? Do you think
he plans to run away? Explain your answer.
(2)
5. What was the part you liked best in this story? Explain.
(2)
6. Why did the writer give this title to the story? Write one other title that
would also suit the story.
(3)
7. How exactly would the events of the day have brought about a turning
point in Roger’s life?
(3)
BONUS QUESTION:
There are two points in the story where Roger might have experienced a
“moment of truth” about the change in himself. When do you think they might
have occurred?
(2)
GRADE 8 SUPPLEMENTAL SHORT STORIES
“On the Sidewalk Bleeding”
By Evan Hunter
The boy lay bleeding in the rain. He was sixteen years old, and he wore a bright purple
silk jacket, and the lettering across the back of the jacket read THE ROYALS. The boy's
name was Andy, and the name was written in black thread on the front of the jacket,
just over the heart. Andy.
He had been stabbed ten minutes ago. The knife had entered just below his ribs, tearing
a wide gap in his flesh. He lay on the sidewalk with the March rain drilling his jacket and
drilling his body and washing away the blood that poured from his open wound. He had
known terrible pain when the knife had torn across his body, then sudden relief when the
blade was pulled away. He had heard the voice saying, 'That's for you, Royal!' and then
the sound of footsteps hurrying into the rain, and then he had fallen to the sidewalk,
clutching his stomach, trying to stop the flow of blood.
He tried to yell for help, hut he had no voice. He did not know why his voice was gone, or
why there was an open hole in his body from which his life ran redly. It was 11.30 p.m.,
but he did not know the time.
There was another thing he did not know.
He did not know he was dying. He lay on the sidewalk bleeding, and he thought only:
That was a fierce rumble. They got me good that time, but he did not know he was
dying. He would have been frightened had he known. He lay bleeding and wishing, he
could cry out for help, but there was no voice in his throat. There was only the bubbling
of blood from between his lips whenever he opened his mouth to speak. He lay silent in
his pain, waiting, waiting for someone to find him.
He could hear the sound of automobile tires hushed on the rainswept streets, far away at
the other end of the long alley. He could see the splash of neon at the other end of the
alley. It was painting the pavement red and green.
He wondered if Laura would be angry.
He had left the jump to get a package of cigarettes. He had told her he would he back
in a few minutes, and then he had gone downstairs and found the candy store closed.
He knew that Alfredo's on the next block would be open. He had started through the
alley, and that was when he'd been ambushed.
He could hear the faint sound of music now, coming from a long, long way off. He
wondered if Laura was dancing, wondered if she had missed him yet. Maybe she
thought he wasn't coming back. Maybe she thought he'd cut out for good. Maybe she'd
already left the jump and gone home. He thought of her face, the brown eyes and the
jet-black hair, and thinking of her he forgot his pain a little, forgot that blood was rushing
from his body.
Someday he would marry Laura. Someday he would marry her, and they would have a
lot of kids, and then they would get out of the neighbourhood. They would move to a
clean project in the Bronx, or maybe they would move to Staten Island. When they were
married, when they had kids.
He heard footsteps at the other end of the alley. He lifted his cheek from the sidewalk
and looked into the darkness and tried to cry out, but again there was only a soft hissing
bubble of blood on his mouth.
The man came down the alley. He had not seen Andy yet. He walked, and then
stopped to lean against the brick of the building, and then walked again. He saw Andy
then and came towards him, and he stood over him for a long time, the minutes ticking,
ticking, watching him and not speaking.
Then he said, 'What's a matter, buddy?'
Andy could not speak, and he could barely move. He lifted his face slightly and looked
up at the man.
He smelled the sickening odour of alcohol. The man was drunk.
The man was smiling.
'Did you fall down, buddy?' he asked. 'You mus' be as drunk as I am.'
He squatted alongside Andy.
'You gonna catch cold here,' he said. 'What's a matter? You like layin' in the wet?'
Andy could not answer. The rain spattered around them.
'You like a drink?'
Andy shook his head.
'I gotta bottle. Here,' the man said. He pulled a pint bottle from his inside jacket pocket.
Andy tried to move, but rain wrenched4 him back flat against the sidewalk.
'Take it,' the man said. He kept watching Andy. 'Take it.' When Andy did not move, he
said, 'Nev' mind, I'll have one m'self.' He tilted the bottle to his lips, and then wiped the
back of his hand across his mouth. 'You too young to be drinkin' anyway. Should be
'shamed of yourself, drunk an' laying in an alley, all wet. Shame on you. I gotta good
minda5 calla cop.'
Andy nodded. Yes, he tried to say. Yes, call a cop. Please. Call one.
'Oh, you don't like that, huh?' the drunk said. 'You don' wanna cop to fin' you all drunk an'
wet in an alley, huh? Okay, buddy. This time you get off easy.' He got to his feet. 'This time
you lucky,' he said. He waved broadly at Andy, and then almost lost his footing. 'S'long,
buddy,' he said.
Wait, Andy thought. Wait please, I'm bleeding.
' S'long,' the drunk said again. 'I see you aroun,' and then he staggered off up the alley.
Andy lay and thought: Laura, Laura. Are you dancing?
The couple came into the alley suddenly. They ran into the alley together, running from
the rain. The boy held the girl's elbow, the girl spreading a newspaper over her head to
protect her hair. Andy watched them run into the alley laughing, and then duck into the
doorway not ten feet from him.
'Man, what rain!' the boy said. 'You could drown out there.'
'I have to get home,' the girl said. 'It's late, Freddie. I have to get home.'
'We got time,' Freddie said. 'Your people won't raise a fuss if you're a little late. Not with
this kind of weather.'
'It's dark,' the girl said, and she giggled.
'Yeah,' the boy answered, his voice very low.
'Freddie ... ?'
'Um?'
'You're ... you're standing very close to me.'
'Um?'
There was a long silence. Then the girl said, 'Oh,' only that single word, and Andy knew
she'd been kissed. He suddenly hungered for Laura's mouth. It was then that he
wondered if he would ever kiss Laura again. It was then that he wondered if he was
dying.
No, he thought, I can't be dying, not from a little street rumble, not from just getting cut.
Guys get cut all the time in rumbles. I can't be dying. No, that's stupid. That don't make
sense at all.
'You shouldn't,' the girl said.
'Why not?'
'I don't know.'
'Do you like it?'
'Yes.'
'So?'
'I don't know.'
'I love you, Angela,' the boy said.
'I love you, too, Freddie,' the girl said, and Andy listened and thought - I love you, Laura.
Laura, I think maybe I'm dying. Laura, this is stupid but I think I'm dying. Laura, I think I'm
dying!
He tried to speak. He tried to move. He tried to crawl towards the doorway. He tried to
make a noise, a sound, and a grunt came from his lips. He tried again, and another grunt
came, a low animal grunt of pain.
'What was that?' the girl said, breaking away from the boy.
'I don't know,' he answered.
'Go look, Freddie.'
'No. Wait.'
Andy moved his lips again. Again the sound came from him.
'Freddie!'
'What?'
'I'm seared.'
I'll go see,' the boy said.
He stepped into the alley. He walked over to where Andy lay on the ground. He stood
over him, watching him.
'You all right?' he asked.
'What is it?' Angela said from the doorway.
'Somebody's hurt,' Freddie said.
'Let's get out of here,' Angela said.
'No. Wait a minute.' He knelt down beside Andy. 'You cut?' he asked.
Andy nodded. The boy kept looking at him. He saw the lettering on the jacket then. THE
ROYALS. He turned to Angela.
'He's a Royal,' he said.
'Let's ... what ... what do you want to do, Freddie?'
'I don't know. I don't want to get mixed up in this. He's a Royal. We help him, and the
Guardians'll he down on our necks. I don't want to get mixed up in this, Angela.'
'Is he ... is he hurt bad?'
'Yeah, it looks that way.'
'What shall we do?'
'I don't know.'
'We can't leave him here in the rain.' Angela hesitated. 'Can we?'
'If we get a cop, the Guardians'll find out who,' Freddie said. 'I dont know, Angela, I don't
know.'
Angela hesitated a long time before answering. Then she said, 'I have to go home,
Freddie. My people will begin to worry.'
'Yeah,' Freddie said. He looked at Andy again. 'You all right?' he asked. Andy lifted his
face from the sidewalk, and his eyes said: Please, please help me, and maybe Freddie
read what his eyes were saying, and maybe he didn't.
Behind him, Angela said, 'Freddie, let's get out of here! Please!' Freddie stood up. He
looked at Andy again, and then mumbled, I'm sorry.' He took Angela's arm, and together
they ran towards the neon splash at the other end of the alley.
Why, they're afraid of the Guardians, Andy thought in amazement. But why shouldn't
they be? I wasn't afraid of the Guardians. I never turkeyed out of a rumble with the
Guardians. I got heart. But I'm bleeding.
The rain was soothing. It was a cold rain, but his body was hot all over, and the rain
helped cool him. He had always liked rain. He could remember sitting in Laura's house
one time, the rain running down the windows, and just looking out over the street,
watching the people running from the rain. That was when he'd first joined the Royals. He
could remember how happy he was the Royals had taken him. The Royals and the
Guardians, two of the biggest. He was a Royal. There had been meaning to the title.
Now, in the alley, with the cold rain washing his hot body, he wondered about the
meaning. If he died, he was Andy. He was not a Royal. He was simply Andy, and he was
dead. And he wondered suddenly if the Guardians who had ambushed him and knifed
him had ever once realised he was Andy? Had they known that he was Andy, or had
they simply known that he was a Royal wearing a purple silk jacket? Had they stabbed
him, Andy, or had they only stabbed the jacket and the title, and what good was the
title if you were dying?
I'm Andy, he screamed wordlessly. I'm Andy.
An old lady stopped at the other end of the alley. The garbage cans were stacked
there, beating noisily in the rain. The old lady carried an umbrella with broken ribs, carried
it like a queen. She stepped into the mouth of the alley, shopping bag over one arm. She
lifted the lids of the garbage cans. She did not hear Andy grunt because she was a little
deaf and because the rain was beating on the cans. She collected her string and her
newspapers, and an old hat with a feather on it from one of the garbage cans, and a
broken footstool from another of the cans. And then she replaced the lids and lifted her
umbrella high and walked out of the alley mouth. She had worked quickly and
soundlessly, and now she was gone.
The alley looked very long now. He could see people passing at the other end of it, and
he wondered who the people were, and he wondered if he would ever get to know
them, wondered who it was on the Guardians who had stabbed him, who had plunged
the knife into his body.
'That's for you, Royal!' the voice had said. 'That's for you, Royal!' Even in his pain, there
had been some sort of pride in knowing he was a Royal. Now there was no pride at all.
With the rain beginning to chill him, with the blood pouring steadily between his fingers,
he knew only a sort of dizziness. He could only think: I want to be Andy.
It was not very much to ask of the world.
He watched the world passing at the other end of the alley. The world didn't know he
was Andy. The world didn't know he was alive. He wanted to say, 'Hey, I'm alive! Hey,
look at me! I'm alive! Don't you know I'm alive! Don't you know I exist?'
He felt weak and very tired. He felt alone and wet and feverish and chilled. He knew he
was going to die now. That made him suddenly sad. He was filled with sadness that his
life would he over at sixteen. He felt at once as if he had never done anything, never
been anywhere. There were so many things to do. He wondered why he'd never thought
of them before, wondered why the rumbles and the jumps and the purple jackets had
always seemed so important to him before. Now they seemed like such small things in a
world he was missing, a world that was rushing past at the other end of the alley.
I don't want to die, he thought. I haven't lived yet.
It seemed very important to him that he take off the purple jacket. He was very close to
dying, and when they found him, he did not want them to say, 'Oh, it's a Royal.' With
great effort, he rolled over on to his back. He felt the pain tearing at his stomach when
he moved. If he never did another thing, he wanted to take off the jacket. The jacket
had only one meaning now, and that was a very simple meaning.
If he had not been wearing the jacket, he wouldn't have been stabbed. The knife had
not been plunged in hatred of Andy. The knife hated only the purple jacket. The jacket
was a stupid meaningless thing that was robbing him of his life.
He lay struggling with the shiny wet jacket. His arms were heavy. Pain ripped fire across
bis body whenever he moved. But he squirmed and fought and twisted until one arm
was free and then the other. He rolled away from the jacket and lay quite still, breathing
heavily, listening to the sound of his breathing and the sounds of the rain and thinking.
Rain is sweet, I'm Andy.
She found him in the doorway a minute past midnight. She left the dance to look for him.
When she found him she knelt beside him and said, 'Andy, it's me, Laura.'
He did not answer her. She backed away from him, tears springing into her eyes, and
then she ran from the alley. She did not stop running until she found a cop.
And now, standing with the cop, she looked down at him. The cop rose and said, 'He's
dead.' All the crying was out of her now. She stood in the rain and said nothing, looking
at the dead boy on the pavement, and looking at the purple jacket that rested a foot
away from his body.
The cop picked up the jacket and turned it over in his hands.
'A Royal, huh?' he said.
She looked at the cop, and, very quietly, she said, 'His name is Andy.'
The cop slang the jacket over his arm. He took out his black pad, and he flipped it open
to a blank page.
'A Royal,' he said.
Then he began writing.
Source: Diverse Cultures - Short stories by Jean Moore and John Catron, Hodder and
Stougjhton, pp. 64-70
The Stolen Party
by Liliana Heker
As soon as she arrived she went straight to the kitchen to see if the monkey was there. It
was: what a relief! She wouldn't have liked to admit that her Mother had been right.
Monkeys at a birthday? Her mother had sneered. Get away with you, believing any
nonsense you're told! She was cross, but not because of the monkey, the girl thought; it's
just because of the party.
"I don't like you going," she- told her. "It's a rich, people's party." "Rich people go to
Heaven too," said the girl, who studied religion at school.
"Get away with Heaven," said the mother. "The problem with you, young lady, is that you
like to fart higher than your ass."
The girl didn't approve of the way her mother spoke. She was barely nine, and one of the
best in her class.
"I’m going because I’ve been invited," she said. "And I’ve been invited because Luciana
is my friend. So there."
"Ah yes, your friend," her mother grumbled. She paused. "Listen, Rosaura," she said at last.
"That one’s not your friend. You know what you are to them? The maid’s daughter, that’s
what."
Rosaura blinked hard: she wasn't going to cry. Then she yelled: "Shut up! You know
nothing about being friends!"
Every afternoon she used to go t o Luciana's house and they would both finish their
homework while Rosaura's mother did the cleaning. The), had their tea in the kitchen
and they told each other secrets. Rosaura loved everything in the big house, and she
also loved the people who lived there.
"I'm going because it will be the most lovely party in the whole world, Luclana told me it
would. There will be a magician and he will bring a b monkey and everything."
The mother swung around to take a good look at her child, and pompously put her
hands on her hips.
"Monkeys at a birthday?" she said. "Get away with you, believing any nonsense you're
told!"
Rosaura was deeply offended. She thought it unfair of her mother to accuse other
people of being liars simply because they were rich. Rosaura too wanted to be rich, of
course. If one day she managed to live in a beautiful palace, would her mother stop
loving her? She felt very sad. She wanted to go to that party more than anything else in
the world.
"I'll die if I don't go," she whispered, almost without moving her lips.
And she wasn't sure whether she had been heard, but on the morning of the party she
discovered that her mother had starched her Christmas dress. And in the afternoon, after
washing her hair, her mother rinsed it in apple vinegar so that it would be all nice and
shiny. Before going out, Rosaura admired herself in the mirror, with her white dress and
glossy hair, and thought she looked terribly pretty.
Sefiora Ines also seemed to notice. As soon as she saw her, she said: "How lovely you look
today, Rosaura."
Rosaura gave her starched skirt a slight toss with her hands and walked into the party
with a firm step. She said hello to Luciana and asked about the monkey. Luciana put on
a secretive look and whispered into Rosaura's car: "He's in the kitchen. But don't tell
anyone, because it's a surprise."
Rosaura wanted to make sure. Carefully she entered the kitchen and there she saw it:
deep in thought, inside its cage. It looked so funny that the girl stood there for a while,
watching it, and later, every so often, she would slip out of the party unseen and go and
admire it. Rosaura was the only one allowed into the kitchen. Sefiora Ines had said: "You
yes, but not the others, they're much too boisterous, they might break something."
Rosaura had never broken anything. She even managed the jug of orange juice,
carrying it from the kitchen into the dining-room. She held it carefully and didn't spill a
single drop. And Sefiora Ines had said: "Arc you sure you can manage a Jug as big as
that?" Of course she could manage. She wasn't a butterfingers, like the others. Like that
blonde girl with the bow in her hair. As soon as she saw Rosaura, the girl with the bow
had said:
"And you? Who are you?"
"I'm a friend of Luciana," said Rosaura.
"No," said the girl with the bow, "you are not a friend of Luciana because I'm her cousin
and I know all her friends. And I don't know you."
"So what," said Rosaura. "I come here every afternoon with my mother and we do our
homework together."
"You and your mother do your homework together?" asked the girl laughing.
"I and Luciana do our homework together," said Rosaura, very seriously.
The girl with the bow shrugged her shoulders.
"That's not being friends," she said. "Do you go to school together?'
"No."
"So where do you know her from?" said the girl, getting impatient.
Rosaura remembered her mother's words perfectly. She took a deep breath.
"I'm the daughter of the employee," she said.
Her mother had said very clearly: "If someone asks, you say you're the daughter of the
employee; that's all." She also told her to add: "And proud of it." But Rosaura thought that
never in her life would she dare say something of the sort.
"What employee?" said the girl with the bow. "Employee in a shop?'
"No," said Rosaura angrily. "My mother doesn't sell anything in any shop, so there."
"So how come she's an employee?" said the girl with the bow. just then Sefiora Ines
arrived saying shh shh, and asked Rosaura if she wouldn't mind helping serve out the hotdogs, as she knew the house so much better than the others.
"See?" said Rosaura to the girl with the bow, and when no one was looking she kicked
her in the shin.
Apart from the girl with the bow, all the others were delightful. The one she liked best was
Luclana, with her golden birthday crown; and then the boys. . Rosaura won the sack
race, and nobody managed to catch her when they played tag. When they split into
two teams to play charades all the boys wanted her for their side. Rosaura felt she had
never been so happy in all her life.
But the best was still to come. The best came after Luciana blew out the candles. First,
the cake. Sefiora Ines had asked her to help pass the cake around, and Rosaura had
enjoyed the task immensely, because ever one called out to her, shouting "Me, me.!"
Rosaura remembered a story in which there was a queen who had the power of life or
death over her subjects.
She had always loved that, having the power of life or death. To Luciana and the boys
she gave the largest pieces, and to the girl with the bow she gave a slice so thin one
could see through I t.
After the cake came the magician, tall and bony, with a fine red cape. A true magician:
he could untie handkerchiefs by blowing on them and make a chain with links that had
no openings. He could guess what cards were pulled out from a pack, and the monkey
was his assistant. He called the monkey "partner." "Let's see here, partner," he would say,
"Turn over a card." And, "Don't run away, partner: time to work now."
The final trick was wonderful. One of the children had to hold the monkey in his arms and
the magician said he would make him disappear.
"What, the boy?" they all shouted.
"No, the monkey!" shouted back the magician.
Rosaura thought that this was truly the most amusing party in the whole world.
The magician asked a small fat boy to come and help, but the small fat boy got
frightened almost at once and dropped the monkey on the floor. The magician picked
him up carefully, whispered something in his ear, and the monkey nodded almost as if he
understood.
"You mustn't be so unmanly, my friend," the magician said to the fat boy.
"What's unmanly?" said the fat boy.
The magician turned around as if to look for spies.
"A sissy," said the magician. "Go sit down."
Then he stared at all the faces one by one. Rosaura felt her heart tremble.
"You, with the Spanish eyes," said the magician. And everyone saw that he was pointing
at her.
She wasn't afraid. Neither holding the monkey, nor when the magician made him vanish;
not even when, at the end, the magician flung his red cape over Rosaura's head and
uttered a few magic words . . . and the monkey reappeared, chattering happily, in her
arms. The children clapped furiously. And before Rosaura returned to her seat, the
magician said:
"Thank you very much, my little countess."
She was so pleased with the compliment that a while later, when her mother came to
fetch her, that was the first thing she told her.
"I helped the magician and he said to me, 'Thank you very much, my little countess.'
It was strange because up to then Rosaura had thought that she was angry with her
mother. All along Rosaura had imagined that she would say to her: "See that the monkey
wasn't a lie?" But instead she was so thrilled that she told her mother all about the
wonderful magician.
Her mother tapped her on the head and said: "So now we're a countess!"
But one could see that she was beaming.
And now they both stood in the entrance, because a moment ago Sefiora Ines, smiling,
had said: "Please wait here a second."
Her mother suddenly seemed worried.
"What is it?" she asked Rosaura.
"What is what?" said Rosaura. "It's nothing; she just wants to get the presents for those who
are leaving, see?"
She pointed at the fat boy and at a girl with pigtails who were also waiting there, next to
their mothers. And she explained about the presents. She knew, because she had been
watching those who left before her. When one of the girls was about to leave, Sefiora
Ines would give her a bracelet. When a boy left, Sefiora Ines gave him a yo-yo. Rosaura
preferred the yo-yo because it sparkled, but she didn't mention that to her mother. Her
mother might have said: "So why don't you ask for one, you blockhead?" That's what her
mother was like. Rosaura didn't feel like explaining that she'd be horribly ashamed to be
the odd one out. Instead she said:
"I was the best-behaved at the party."
And she said no more because Sefiora Ines came out into the hall with two bags, one
pink and one blue.
First she went up to the fat boy, gave him a yo-yo out of the blue bag, and the fat boy
left with his mother. Then she went up to the girl and gave her a bracelet out of the pink
bag, and the girl with the pigtails left as well.
Finally she came up to Rosaura and her mother. She had a big smile on her face and
Rosaura liked that. Sefiora Ines looked down at her, then looked up at her mother, and
then said something that made Rosaura proud:
"What a marvelous daughter you have, Herminia."
For an instant, Rosaura thought that she'd give her two presents: the bracelet and the yoyo. Sefiora Ines bent down as if about to look for something. Rosaura also leaned
forward, stretching out her arm. But she never completed the movement.
Sefiora Ines didn't look in the pink bag. Nor did she look in the blue bag. Instead she
rummaged in her purse. In her hand appeared two bills.
"You really and truly earned this," she said handing them over. "Thank you for all your
help, my pet."
Rosaura felt her arms stiffen, stick close to her body, and then she noticed her mother's
hand on her shoulder. Instinctively she pressed herself against her mother's body. That
was all. Except her eyes. Rosaura's eyes had a cold, clear look that fixed itself on Sefiora
Ines's face.
Sefiora Ines, motionless, stood there with her hand outstretched. As if she didn't dare
draw it back. As if the slightest change might shatter an infinitely delicate balance.
Heker, Lilian "The Stolen Party." Literature for Composition 4th ed. Ed Sylvan Barnet et al.
New York: HarperCollins, 1996 613-616
A Whole Nation and a People
by Harry Mark Petrakis
There was one storekeeper I remember above all others in my youth. It was shortly before
I became ill, spending a good portion of my time with a motley group of varied ethnic
ancestry. We contended with one another to deride the customs of the old country. On
our Saturday forays into neighborhoods beyond our own, to prove we were really
Americans, we ate hot dogs and drank Cokes. If a boy didn’t have ten cents for this
repast he went hungry, for he dared not bring a sandwich from home made of the
spiced meats our families ate.
One of our untamed games was to seek out the owner of a pushcart or store,
unmistakably an immigrant, and bedevil him with a chorus of insults and jeers. To prove
allegiance to the gang it was necessary to reserve our fiercest malevolence for a
storekeeper or peddler belonging to our own ethnic background.
For that reason I led a raid on the small, shabby grocery of old Barba Nikos, a short,
sinewy Greek who walked with a slight limp and sported a flaring, handlebar mustache.
We stood outside his store and dared him to come out. When he emerged to do battle,
we plucked a few plums and peaches from the baskets on the sidewalk and retreated
across the street to eat them while he watched. He waved a fist and hurled epithets at
us in ornamental Greek.
Aware that my mettle was being tested, I raised my arm and threw my half-eaten plum
at the old man. My aim was accurate and the plum struck him on the cheek. He
shuddered and put his hand to the stain. He stared at me across the street, and although
I could not see his eyes, I felt them sear my flesh. He turned and walked silently back to
the store. The boys slapped my shoulders in admiration, but it was a hollow victory that
rested like stone in the pit of my stomach.
At twilight, when we disbanded, I passed the grocery alone on my way home. There was
a small light burning in the store and the shadow of the old mans body outlined against
the glass. Goaded by remorse, I walked to the door and entered.
The old man moved from behind the narrow wooden counter and stared at me. I
wanted to turn and flee, but by then it was too late. As he motioned for me to come
closer, I braced myself for a curse or a blow.
You were the one? he said finally, in a harsh voice.
I nodded mutely.
Why did you come back?
I stood there unable to answer.
What's your name?
Haralambos, I said, speaking to him in Greek.
He looked at me in shock. “ You are Greek! he cried. A Greek boy
attacking a Greek grocer! He stood appalled at the immensity of my crime. All right, he
said coldly. You are here because you wish to make amends. His great mustache bristled
in concentration. Four plums, two peaches, he said. That makes a total of seventy-eight
cents. Call it seventy-five. Do you have seventy-five cents, boy?
I shook my head.
Then you will work it off, he said. Fifteen cents an hour into seventy-five cents makes
“he paused-five hours of work. Can you come here Saturday morning?
Yes, I said.
Yes, Barba Nikos, he said sternly. Show respect.
Yes, Barba Nikos, I said.
Saturday morning at eight clock, he said. Now go home and say thanks in your prayers
that I did not loosen your impudent head with a solid smack on the ear. I needed no
further urging and fled.
Saturday morning, still apprehensive, I returned to the store. I began by sweeping, raising
clouds of dust in dark and hidden corners. I washed the windows, whipped the
squeegee swiftly up and down the glass in a fever of fear that some members of the
gang would see me. When I finished I hurried back inside.
For the balance of the morning, I stacked cans, washed the counter, and dusted bottles
of yellow wine. A few customers entered, and Barba Nikos served them. A little after
twelve oclock he locked the door so he could eat lunch. He cut himself a few slices of
sausage, tore a large chunk from a loaf of crisp-crusted bread, and filled a small cup
with a dozen black shiny olives floating in brine. He offered me the cup. I could not help
myself and grimaced.
You are a stupid boy, the old man said. You are not really Greek, are you?
Yes, I am.
You might be, he admitted grudgingly. But you do not act Greek. Wrinkling your nose at
these fine olives. Look around this store for a minute. What do you see?
Fruits and vegetables, I said. Cheese and olives and things like that.
He stared at me with a massive scorn. That's what I mean, he said. You are a bonehead.
You don't understand that a whole nation and a people are in this store.
I looked uneasily toward the storeroom in the rear, almost expecting someone to
emerge.
What about olives? He cut the air with a sweep of his arm. There are olives of many
shapes and colors. Pointed black ones from Kalamata, oval ones from Amphissa, pickled
green olives and sharp tangy yellow ones. Achilles carried black olives to Troy and after a
day of savage battle leading his Myrmidons, he'd rest and eat cheese and ripe black
olives such as these right here. You have heard of Achilles, boy, haven't you?
Yes, I said.
Yes, Barba Nikos.
Yes, Barba Nikos, I said.
He motioned at the row of jars filled with varied spices. There is origanon there and
basilikon and daphne and sesame and miantanos, all the marvelous flavorings that we
have used in our food for thousands of years. The men of Marathon carried small packets
of these spices into battle, and the scents reminded them of their homes, their families,
and their children.
He rose and tugged his napkin free from around his throat. Cheese, you said. Cheese!
Come closer, boy, and I will educate your abysmal ignorance. He motioned toward a
wooden container on the counter. That glistening white delight is feta, made from goat's
milk, packed in wooden buckets to retain the flavor. Alexander the Great demanded it
on his table with his casks of wine when he planned his campaigns.
He walked limping from the counter to the window where the piles of tomatoes, celery,
and green peppers clustered. I suppose all you see here are some random vegetables?
He did not wait for me to answer. You are dumb again. These are some of the
ingredients that go to make up a Greek salad. Do you know what a Greek salad really
is? A meal in itself, an experience, an emotional involvement. It is created deftly and with
grace. First, you place large lettuce leaves in a big, deep bowl. He spread his fingers and
moved them slowly, carefully, as if he were arranging the leaves. The remainder of the
lettuce is shredded and piled in a small mound, he said. Then comes celery, cucumbers,
tomatoes sliced lengthwise, green peppers, origanon, green olives, feta, avocado, and
anchovies. At the end you dress it with lemon, vinegar, and pure olive oil, glinting golden
in the light.
He finished with a heartfelt sigh and for a moment closed his eyes. Then he opened one
eye to mark me with a baleful intensity. The story goes that Zeus himself created the
recipe and assembled and mixed the ingredients on Mount Olympus one night when he
had invited some of the other gods to dinner.
He turned his back on me and walked slowly again across the store, dragging one foot
slowly behind him. I looked uneasily at the clock, which showed that it was a few minutes
past one. He turned quickly and startled me. And everything else in here, he said loudly.
White beans, lentils, garlic, crisp bread, kokoretsi, meatballs, mussels and clams. He
paused and drew a deep, long breath. And the wine, he went on, wine from Samos,
Santorini, and Crete, retsina and mavrodaphne, a taste almost as old as water...and
then the fragrant melons, the pastries, yellow diples and golden loukoumades, the honey
custard galatobouriko. Everything a part of our history, as much a part as the exquisite
sculpture in marble, the bearded warriors, Pan and the oracles and Delphi, and the
nymphs dancing in the shadowed groves under Homer's glittering moon. He paused, out
of breath again, and coughed harshly. Do you understand now, boy?
He watched my face for some response and then grunted. We stood silent for a moment
until he cocked his head and stared at the clock. It's time for you to leave, he motioned
brusquely toward the door. We are square now. Keep it that way.
I decided the old man was crazy and reached behind the counter for my jacket and
cap and started for the door. He called me back. From a box he drew out several soft,
yellow figs that he placed in a piece of paper. A bonus because you worked well, he
said. Take them. When you taste them, maybe you will understand what I have been
talking about.
I took the figs and he unlocked the door and I hurried from the store. I looked back once
and saw him standing in the doorway, watching me, the swirling tendrils of food curling
like mist about his head.
I ate the figs late that night. I forgot about them until I was in bed, and then I rose and
took the package from my jacket. I nibbled at one, then ate them all. They broke apart
between my teeth with a tangy nectar, a thick sweetness running like honey across my
tongue and into the pockets of my cheeks. In the morning when I woke, I could still taste
and inhale their fragrance.
I never again entered Barba Nikos's store. My spell of illness, which began some months
later, lasted two years. When I returned to the streets I had forgotten the old man and
the grocery. Shortly afterwards my family moved from neighborhood.
Some twelve years later, after the war, I drove through the old neighborhood and
passed the grocery. I stopped the car and for a moment stood before the store. The
windows were stained with dust and grime, the interior bare and desolate, a store in a
decrepit group of stores marked for razing so new structures could be built.
I have been in many Greek groceries since then and have often bought the feta and
Kalamata olives. I have eaten countless Greek salads and have indeed found them a
meal for the gods. On the holidays in our house, my wife and sons and I sit down to a
dinner of steaming, buttered pilaf like my mother used to make and lemon-egg
avgolemono and roast lamb richly seasoned with cloves of garlic. I drink the red and
yellow wines, and for dessert I have come to relish the delicate pastries coated with
honey and powdered sugar. Old Barba Nikos would have been pleased.
But I have never been able to recapture the halcyon flavor of those figs he gave me on
that day so long ago, although I have bought figs many times. I have found them
pleasant to my tongue, but there is something missing. And to this day I am not sure
whether it was the figs or the vision and passion of the old grocer that coated the fruit so
sweetly I can still recall their savor and fragrance after almost thirty years.
Harry Mark, Petrakis. "Ethnic American Literature: A Whole Nation and a People." Ethnic
American Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Aug. 2010.
<http://ethnicamericanlit.blogspot.com/2007/10/whole-nation-and-people.html>.
Everyday Use
by Alice Walker
I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday
afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a
yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and
the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and
sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the
house.
Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners,
homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a
mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one
hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.
You've no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has "made it" is confronted, as
a surprise, by her own mother and father, tottering in weakly from backstage. (A
pleasant surprise, of course: What would they do if parent and child came on the show
only to curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace and smile into
each other's faces. Sometimes the mother and father weep, the child wraps them in her
arms and leans across the table to tell how she would not have made it without their
help. I have seen these programs.
Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly brought together on a TV
program of this sort. Out of a dark and soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright
room filled with many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny
Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have. Then we are on the
stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her eyes. She pins on my dress a large
orchid, even though she has told me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers.
In real life I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I
wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog
as mercilessly as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day,
breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver cooked over the open fire
minutes after it comes steaming from the hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in
the brain between the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill
before nightfall. But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my
daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked
barley pancake. My hair glistens in the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to
keep up with my quick and witty tongue.
But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever knew a Johnson with a
quick tongue? Who can even imagine me looking a strange white man in the eye? It
seems to me I have talked to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head
fumed in whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always look
anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.
"How do I look, Mama?" Maggie says, showing just enough of her thin body enveloped in
pink skirt and red blouse for me to know she's there, almost hidden by the door.
"Come out into the yard," I say.
Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich
enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him?
That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground,
feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground.
Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She's a woman now, though
sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that the other house burned? Ten, twelve years?
Sometimes I can still hear the flames and feel Maggie's arms sticking to me, her hair
smoking and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes seemed
stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them. And Dee. I see her
standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to dig gum out of; a look of
concentration on her face as she watched the last dingy gray board of the house fall in
toward the redhot brick chimney. Why don't you do a dance around the ashes? I'd
wanted to ask her. She had hated the house that much.
I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised money, the church
and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She used to read to us without pity; forcing
words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant
underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of
knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her with the serf'ous way
she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to
understand.
Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her graduation from high
school; black pumps to match a green suit she'd made from an old suit somebody gave
me. She was determined to stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not
flicker for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her. At sixteen she
had a style of her own: and knew what style was.
I never had an education myself. After second grade the school was closed down. Don't
ask my why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now. Sometimes
Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good naturedly but can't see well. She knows
she is not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passes her by. She will marry John
Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face) and then I'll be free to sit here and I
guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could
carry a tune. I was always better at a man's job. I used to love to milk till I was hooked in
the side in '49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk
them the wrong way.
I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, just like the one that
burned, except the roof is tin; they don't make shingle roofs any more. There are no real
windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and
not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This house is in a pasture,
too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees it she will want to tear it down. She
wrote me once that no matter where we "choose" to live, she will manage to come see
us. But she will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and Maggie
asked me, "Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?"
.
She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on washday after school.
Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshiped the well-turned
phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in Iye. She read to
them.
When she was courting Jimmy T she didn't have much time to pay to us, but turned all
her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant
flashy people. She hardly had time to recompose herself.
When she comes I will meet—but there they are!
Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling way, but I stay her with
my hand. "Come back here, " I say. And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with
her toe.
It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even the first glimpse of leg out
of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were always neat-looking, as if God himself had
shaped them with a certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky
man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin like a kinky mule tail. I
hear Maggie suck in her breath. "Uhnnnh, " is what it sounds like. Like when you see the
wriggling end of a snake just in front of your foot on the road. "Uhnnnh."
Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress so loud it hurts my
eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to throw back the light of the sun. I feel my
whole face warming from the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging
down to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she moves her arm
up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits. The dress is loose and flows, and as
she walks closer, I like it. I hear Maggie go "Uhnnnh" again. It is her sister's hair. It stands
straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two
long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears.
"Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!" she says, coming on in that gliding way the dress makes her move.
The short stocky fellow with the hair to his navel is all grinning and he follows up with
"Asalamalakim, my mother and sister!" He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right
up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I look up I see the
perspiration falling off her chin.
"Don't get up," says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a push. You can see me
trying to move a second or two before I make it. She turns, showing white heels through
her sandals, and goes back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops
down quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front of the house
with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a shot without mak' ing sure the
house is included. When a cow comes nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it
and me and Maggie and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the
car, and comes up and kisses me on the forehead.
Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie's hand. Maggie's hand is
as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it
back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or
maybe he don't know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie.
"Well," I say. "Dee."
"No, Mama," she says. "Not 'Dee,' Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!"
"What happened to 'Dee'?" I wanted to know.
"She's dead," Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it any longer, being named after the people
who oppress me."
"You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie," I said. Dicie is my sister.
She named Dee. We called her "Big Dee" after Dee was born.
"But who was she named after?" asked Wangero.
"I guess after Grandma Dee," I said.
"And who was she named after?" asked Wangero.
"Her mother," I said, and saw Wangero was getting tired. "That's about as far back as I
can trace it," I said. Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back beyond the
Civil War through the branches.
"Well," said Asalamalakim, "there you are."
"Uhnnnh," I heard Maggie say.
"There I was not," I said, "before 'Dicie' cropped up in our family, so why should I try to
trace it that far back?"
He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody inspecting a Model A
car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent eye signals over my head.
"How do you pronounce this name?" I asked.
"You don't have to call me by it if you don't want to," said Wangero.
"Why shouldn't 1?" I asked. "If that's what you want us to call you, we'll call you."
.
"I know it might sound awkward at first," said Wangero.
"I'll get used to it," I said. "Ream it out again."
Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had a name twice as long
and three times as hard. After I tripped over it two or three times he told me to just call
him Hakim-a-barber. I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn't really think he was,
so I didn't ask.
"You must belong to those beef cattle peoples down the road," I said. They said
"Asalamalakim" when they met you, too, but they didn't shake hands. Always too busy:
feeding the cattle, fixing the fences, putting up saltlick shelters, throwing down hay.
When the white folks poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in
their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.
Hakim-a-barber said, "I accept some of their doctrines, but farming and raising cattle is
not my style." (They didn't tell me, and I didn't ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really
gone and married him.)
We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn't eat collards and pork was unclean.
Wangero, though, went on through the chitlins and com bread, the greens and
everything else. She talked a blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted
her. Even the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table when we
couldn't effort to buy chairs.
"Oh, Mama!" she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. "I never knew how lovely these
benches are. You can feel the rump prints," she said, running her hands underneath her
and along the bench. Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee's
butter dish. "That's it!" she said. "I knew there was something I wanted to ask you if I could
have." She jumped up from the table and went over in the corner where the churn
stood, the milk in it crabber by now. She looked at the churn and looked at it.
"This churn top is what I need," she said. "Didn't Uncle Buddy whittle it out of a tree you all
used to have?"
"Yes," I said.
"Un huh," she said happily. "And I want the dasher, too."
"Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?" asked the barber.
Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.
"Aunt Dee's first husband whittled the dash," said Maggie so low you almost couldn't hear
her. "His name was Henry, but they called him Stash."
"Maggie's brain is like an elephant's," Wangero said, laughing. "I can use the chute top as
a centerpiece for the alcove table," she said, sliding a plate over the chute, "and I'll think
of something artistic to do with the dasher."
When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I took it for a moment in my
hands. You didn't even have to look close to see where hands pushing the dasher up
and down to make butter had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of
small sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the wood. It was
beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the yard where Big Dee and Stash
had lived.
After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed and started rifling
through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the dishpan. Out came Wangero with
two quilts. They had been pieced by Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung
them on the quilt ftames on the ftont porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Stat
pattetn. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them were scraps of
dresses Grandma Dee had wotn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa
Jattell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece, about the size of a penny
matchbox, that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's unifotm that he wore in the Civil War.
"Mama," Wangro said sweet as a bird. "Can I have these old quilts?"
I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen door slammed.
"Why don't you take one or two of the others?" I asked. "These old things was just done by
me and Big Dee from some tops your grandma pieced before she died."
"No," said Wangero. "I don't want those. They are stitched around the borders by
machine."
"That'll make them last better," I said.
"That's not the point," said Wangero. "These are all pieces of dresses Grandma used to
wear. She did all this stitching by hand. Imag' ine!" She held the quilts securely in her atms,
stroking them.
"Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come ftom old clothes her mother
handed down to her," I said, moving up to touch the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back
just enough so that I couldn't reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.
"Imagine!" she breathed again, clutching them closely to her bosom.
"The ttuth is," I said, "I promised to give them quilts to Maggie, for when she matties John
Thomas."
.
She gasped like a bee had stung her.
"Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!" she said. "She'd probably be backward enough
to put them to everyday use."
"I reckon she would," I said. "God knows I been saving 'em for long enough with nobody
using 'em. I hope she will!" I didn't want to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a
quilt when she went away to college. Then she had told they were old~fashioned, out of
style.
"But they're priceless!" she was saying now, furiously; for she has a temper. "Maggie would
put them on the bed and in five years they'd be in rags. Less than that!"
"She can always make some more," I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt."
Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just will not under.stand. The point is these
quilts, these quilts!"
"Well," I said, stumped. "What would you do with them7"
"Hang them," she said. As if that was the only thing you could do with quilts.
Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost hear the sound her feet made
as they scraped over each other.
"She can have them, Mama," she said, like somebody used to never winning anything, or
having anything reserved for her. "I can 'member Grandma Dee without the quilts."
I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with checkerberry snuff and gave her
face a kind of dopey, hangdog look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her
how to quilt herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds of her skirt.
She looked at her sister with something like fear but she wasn't mad at her. This was
Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work.
When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my head and ran down to
the soles of my feet. Just like when I'm in church and the spirit of God touches me and I
get happy and shout. I did some.thing I never done before: hugged Maggie to me, then
dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero's hands and
dumped them into Maggie's lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open.
"Take one or two of the others," I said to Dee.
But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim~a~barber.
"You just don't understand," she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car.
.
"What don't I understand?" I wanted to know.
"Your heritage," she said, And then she turned to Maggie, kissed her, and said, "You
ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But
from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it."
She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of her nose and chin.
Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not scared. After we watched
the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat
there just enjoying, until it was time to go in the house and go to bed.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” BowNET.org. Ed. Joy McDermott. 2006. 18 Jan. 2008
http://www.bow.k12.nh.us/jmcdermott/everyday_use__by_alice_walker.htm.
Metropolis
By Crystal Gail Shangkuan Koo
This is how you talk about a city you love. You talk about it as if it's the only place in the
world where this story can happen.
A friend of mine fell in love with someone when she went for a bite at a malatang one
winter night. There was no snow; there is very little snowfall during Beijing winters. The film
below the skies turns from yellow to gray, then the winds from Mongolia come and we
would say, it's so cold already there might as well be snow. Some days there are, and
those are the days when photographers go out to make postcards of fresh powder
collecting over the shoulders of the stone lion finials perched on the gables of the
Forbidden City.
But those are postcards. There are times you feel cheated when you glance at them
and wonder at your inability to recall a greater feeling of grandeur when you had
bought them in front of the pagoda. The event, like infinity, had been too big to be
grasped and had only given way to frustration, a voice insisting with the strongest
conviction and the vaguest meaning that there should have been something more.
I had flown to China with a postcard in my hand. My grandmother didn't want me to.
Why should I go back to the place she had taken so many pains to run away from sixty
years ago to get to Manila? The Philippines was glamorous then, before it melted in its
own torpor. Europe and America creolized in Asia, QuÈ hora es? A las ocho y media, sir,
good morning, how d'ye do, how d'ye do? because the sun never sets in the Western
empire. Before I left for the airport, my grandmother told me to be careful in the mud
alleys.
The postcard I had was a picture of a language university in Beijing that specialized in
teaching Mandarin to foreigners. Once in the Philippines, when I was eleven, I had to
recite the week's lesson from memory to the teacher in Mandarin class. This was the way
we learned the language carved on steles in a tiny family shrine somewhere across the
ocean. I had spent the night before reading out loud from my little exercise book and
hoping school would be canceled the next morning. It was monsoon season and the
floods rose from the gutters blocked with garbage and the beggars' children played
naked in the waters. But the storm left at dawn, and memory is unreliable, selective,
compressed. The next day I finally received on my palm the two red stripes that I had
been avoiding during the entirety of my young life in school.
Eight years later I was sent to Beijing with my parents' blessings, and a friend of mine
fell in love one winter night when she went to the malatang.
*
Now malatang kept you warm. That's why my friend had gone to one. I'm not going to
tell you what each syllable means; I'm not here to teach you Chinese. I'm here to tell you
what Beijing was like beyond the language classes. Malatang was a street-vendor's
boiler filled with skewers of meats, innards, seaweed, tofu, and mushrooms that floated in
a dark oily soup of chili and cayenne pepper. Malatang was choosing pig intestines and
whisking the oil off towards the pavement before burning your tongue. Malatang was
huddling together with strangers who looked like you and reading advertisements
pasted on electric poles. Malatang was sucking the bitter north wind to cool the spice in
your mouth and keeping your eyes from tearing, while the vendor counted the wooden
skewers that you had speared into your broken half of a Styrofoam rice box.
Malatang kept you warm and kept off hunger till you reached home.
My friend looked like me and studied in the same building as I did, but she was from
Canada and never got stripes for not being able to speak Mandarin. She met a Korean
student at a malatang. Love at first skewer just outside the campus gates, where the redcheeked lady selling small bottles of fermented milk on her bike would look enviously at
the little fish-cake stall across from her. Chocolate fish-cakes were pastries shaped like fish
with hot chocolate inside, sold for one yuan each. No one bought fermented milk. The
man who sold fish-cakes was called 'Uncle;' business was doing so well that for one week
Uncle's stall disappeared because he was hiding from the police for making too much
money without a license. He reappeared just in time for the winter frost.
The Koreans are invading the Beijing suburbs, but the city is still the stronghold of the
Europeans. I have a map of what old Beijing was like in 1936, drawn just before World
War Two. The Legation Quarter used to be on Chang An Road; now Chang An Road is
lined with malls enclosing the Forbidden City. The foreign embassies have been moved
to Jianguomen, in the Chaoyang district, European Union flags flapping over the wire
fences. Europe is extraordinarily chic in Beijing nowadays; the city is making up for lost
time. I have seen the diplomats' children in Chaoyang, with their white skin, brown hair,
big blue eyes; pudgy eleven-year-olds speaking Mandarin over the counter at the
coffeehouse. They never got stripes either, I would suppose. The cafÈ where I saw them
had French movie posters on the walls and it was next to a little stationery shop that sold
notebooks with old paint advertisements from Copenhagen printed on the cover.
I went to the Philippine embassy once, for fun. The building looked tiny and
abandoned and there was no flag on the pole. The Chinese guard saw me looking
behind the gate and chased me away from where I had stood. I hadn't brought my
passport with me. If I had he would have opened the gate for me and I would have
danced past him.
*
NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER WANTED. My friend had found a company searching for
someone to teach English to their representatives, but they turned her down, saying she
looked too much like a local. This is a story in Beijing. It is not likely that it would have
turned out another way. It is likely that an Italian with a working facility in English would
have been hired, but my friend did not look Italian.
He spoke little English and she spoke no Korean, so they used the language they were
only beginning to grasp. In the brokenness of the Mandarin they spoke, they found the
distance that they would need for their own defense later. All of us who knew transience
understood that what happened in Beijing stayed there.
I met my language partners every Friday in the school library, two local girls who
wanted to practice their English with me, but they frequently slipped back to Mandarin
because there were too many interesting questions to be asked. How can you be
Chinese? How can you be Filipino? How can you speak English? You speak Filipino too,
right? How do you say, 'How do you do?'
I taught them to say kumusta, simplest thing in the world, contraction of como esta,
consonants crunchy and hard, vowels wide and open. Back in the Philippines, some
people would be so surprised with my speaking Filipino that they would forget to stop
speaking English with me. Would you have to marry a Chinese too? You speak a little
Chinese too, right? How do you say, 'How do you do?'
A French friend in Beijing, whom my language partners had first accosted, had
referred Miao Ban and Xin Feng to me. Xin Feng spoke English with the recklessness and
confidence of someone who wanted to learn. Miao Ban was made of inquisitiveness and
less eloquence, looking for Xin Feng for the frequent translation.
What do foreigners think of us? Why does the government forbid Chinese people from
entering your churches?
I did not quite look at their eyes. Perhaps if I had greater proficiency in their language,
I would not have sounded so simplistic.
We foreigners look at the Chinese with the awareness that we come from a different
world, I said.
How?
We think there are certain problems in the kind of government that cause a great
deal of difference.
But certainly other countries, your countries, have your own problems as well!
This was Miao Ban. She knew where this would lead to if we pursued it.
It's different, I said vaguely, my vocabulary failing me. We shouldn't be talking about it
here.
Oh, it's fine! Xin Feng. We know about those things that shouldn't be talked about.
I raised my head to see if anyone else was listening. There was a local Chinese boy
two chairs down, buried in his book.
How is it different?
I found myself talking about the 'free world' as if months before I would not have
laughed at myself for using those two words with such idealism in the Philippines. But
when a language fails you, you use wide blanket statements and say to yourself, This
conversation isn't so important anyway. Every minute I looked up to see if the middleaged lady who had come and was standing nearby could hear us.
Xin Feng and Miao Ban brought me out for dinner. Across the restaurant was a frozen
lake, fenceless, unwatched. I had never stood on iced water before. It was too dark to
see how the ice was, but it seemed thick enough, and I stamped on it, the cold
escaping into the soles of my shoes. Figures of twos or threes whispered and laughed
softly around me, but the lake was quiet and the world was calm.
*
My friend's story does not have a happy ending. Very few of the international romances
begun in Beijing by foreigners extend beyond the airport. This is a fact. There is a clear,
identifiable glance that passes between lovers when a friend asks one of them for any
plans to stay longer. It is silent, urgent. It is a source of anxiety because it is a perfunctory
question frequently asked. BEIJINGERS ARE FRIENDS TO ALL THE WORLD / Beijing shi shijie
de peng you says the blue billboard on the way to Sanlitun. The translation into English is
slightly inaccurate. Beijing is the world's friend. Good for Beijing. For the last few years, the
world had suddenly been just as eager to become Beijing's friend.
*
Sanlitun is in Chaoyang. Listen to Sanlitun crackling with neon life, Chaoyang laughing
across its new skyscrapers and the cranes building more - a vibrant young man who has
discovered that life is only beginning and that foreign women find him handsome in a
suit. Ten years ago Chaoyang had been the poor man's district, waterlogged in its
farmlands.
Sanlitun Bar Street is luminous after dusk, the sounds of entertainment eviscerating. My
friend goes there with him every Saturday. The waiters stand outside the street, chanting
the English they knew. Hello! Hello! Beer! When they see a white face they thrust
themselves in front of it and go for the arm.
Both of them stumbled out of a bar into the fresh air, their steps uncertain from the
alcohol.
'I am thinking of moving apartments soon,' he said as they slipped into a little alley that
led to the labyrinth of old Beijing, the hutong. The brick of the dusty courtyard homes
filtered the thunder from the bars. There are very few lights in a hutong at night.
'You have found one that you like more?' she asked.
'The Uncle in the fish-cake stall says he knows the landlord of an apartment that is
cheaper and closer to the school.'
In the dimness of the light my friend bumped into a row of bicycles. The metal rang
and the bicycles began to crash one after the other. A little yellow light went on in one
of the scratched windows and someone began to curse. Laughing, both of them ran out
of the alley and back to Bar Street.
'Would you like to share my new apartment with me?' he shouted as they returned to
the blinding light of the traffic.
'Yes, I would like that very much!'
It would have been romantic if they had looked at the stars. But stars are rarely seen in
the haze of Beijing.
*
I've gone walking in a hutong during lunch hour in spring. Pots of rice and cabbage
boiled outside sheds made of iron sheets. The aroma of garlic and meat coming from the
makeshift vents smelled of a home. Many of the crumbling brick walls washed in dirty
white were marked with the word chai. Chai means to demolish.
Once I had stood before the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City, hat in my hands,
waiting for the realization to engulf me. It had only been in Beijing that I learned to say
'ancestors' without feeling too self-aware. But the tourists jostled around me, stepped on
my foot, faces glowering in irritation at the sight of the crowd shoving each other to see
the Imperial Throne, and the realization never came. The tourists in Beijing are the
Chinese from Hong Kong or Taiwan or the other provinces in the mainland. They call my
province Overseas.
I went to parks often to escape the crowds. One of them had a small pavilion midway
the hill, the small inlaid paintings of willows and lakes on the ceiling restored. When I
reached the pavilion, a few lights were turned on softly and old fifties music was being
played and people were dancing. They were middle-aged, people who could have
afforded to take dancing lessons. The music crackled through a radio somewhere. Some
wore cocktail dresses; others office clothes. Swing, tango, waltz. They shook their arms
and legs to help their blood circulate after every set as people walked around to
change partners, their faces drenched in perspiration. Then the music would start and
they would laugh and take each other's arms and twirl over the floor, these old people,
lost in the sepia-colored music I was hearing. Spring was turning to summer. I sat on a
nearby bench, feeling the air turn humid, and a dragonfly landed on my shoulder.
*
My friend and her boyfriend went traveling to Tianjin the weekend after they moved to
their new apartment. Tianjin is Beijing's neighboring harbor city, two hours away by bus.
There my friend saw the saddest opera singer in the world. Up on a pavilion the
middle-aged lady was dressed in her gaudy finery, a green lace tunic over a white gown
with sleeves to the floor. Her face was powdered with the rouge of Beijing opera and she
wore a headpiece of braids. The pavilion was in the middle of the souvenir bazaar that
had been built for the tourists. People were looking at maps, calling lost friends on mobile
phones, and had crowded there, drawn by the human tendency towards collectivity.
She sang to the tourists in Tianjin, her eyes far away, one hand on her heart, the other
arm up in supplication. She looked exhausted. The people below the stage came and
went. The boyfriend took a Polaroid of the opera singer and the heads of the tourists,
and my friend had written on the back in English: The meaning of indifference.
*
The indifference is almost symbolic. In Beijing, a pregnant woman dressed in raggedy
overalls kneels on the sidewalk, her stomach bulging, her eyes caught in an empty stare
at the asphalt. A rusty pan sits between her spread knees and she seems to be on the
verge of giving birth.
Now you want to know how many people stop to put change into her pan to see if it
matches with what my friend had written on the back of the Polaroid.
I had stood there on the sidewalk, all senses stirred by the lovely sorrow of it all. If only I
could have taken a photograph. But I had driven past worse scenes of poverty in the
Philippines where I had learned I didn't want my money spent on drugs or drunk
husbands. When I walked past her, I looked at the pan. A few cents.
I once read in a magazine in Beijing about a man aboard a train who had been
accosted by an old woman when the train stopped at a station. Through his window she
tried to sell him cold bottles of mineral water, but he didn't want to buy any because he
knew she would slink away without giving back his change. As she coaxed him noisily
through the window, he grew more and more revolted by her presence until he resigned
himself and pulled a note out to buy himself some silence. As she handed him a bottle,
the train began to roll. The old woman had his change in one hand and she tried to run
after his open window, her arm outstretched. Your change, your change! He was
entranced by the sight. In her haste the old woman tripped and fell, and when she
raised her head he saw a trickle of blood on her forehead.
I saw more pregnant women kneeling on the streets on different days. To redeem
myself I finally gave a few notes to a bent old lady who cried her thanks to me while I
turned and walked away.
Once, an old man in tatters and his sick wife stopped me on the way back to the
university. His accent was missing the Beijing growl. He said they had come to the city
because his wife needed to go through a surgical operation for her stomach. The wife
was moaning to herself and her husband was close to tears. They were hungry and
needed some money for a subway ticket to the hospital.
I told them to wait. I went to a small restaurant nearby and bought them two meals
and bottled tea. Both of them were crying. I gave them some money for the trip, and as
the old man took the coins he whispered to his wife in a dialect before thanking me and
turning away.
A week later I heard someone saying that he had just given an old couple from the
provinces some money for a subway trip to the hospital because the wife needed
surgery.
It's very hard to talk about indifference without a photograph.
*
The months passed quickly. We overcame our brokenness in the language. We couldn't
rely on blanket statements anymore to cover us with indifference.
*
'Have you decided which computer to buy?'
'Sort of. One of my Korean friend's classmates has a desktop she wants to sell before
leaving Beijing. I'm going to take a look at it sometime this week at her house.'
'Her?'
'You can relax, she knows I have a girlfriend.'
'I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.'
'By the way, I've been thinking, I'm probably going to transfer schools next month.'
'Oh? Why's that?'
'Too expensive here. And there's a cheaper one nearby, the one across the bakery.
You know that?'
'Oh, that. Yeah, I do. It's pretty small.'
'Yeah, but it's not bad. You're going to be looking for work when you get back to
Vancouver, right?'
'Yeah. When you finish your bachelor's then go bum around in China for a while, you
know it's time to get a job.'
'If I'm lucky, I can get a good job next semester and earn enough to visit you before I
go back to Seoul with the proficiency certificate.'
'That's too tempting. Don't get my hopes up.'
'It can happen.'
'Well, what about after Seoul?'
'What?'
'I don't know. Everyone's just been asking.'
'Well, what if I ask you what happens after Vancouver?'
'Were you thinking of asking me that?'
'We still have two months left. I wasn't planning to ask you today.'
'We have to decide on something. I'm going to have to buy the plane ticket soon.'
'Do you think you can, maybe, just stay for another semester?'
'You know I can't do that. At some point, you're going back to Seoul.'
'I don't know when I'm going back to Seoul. I can keep on studying. I can tell my
parents I still need to study more. Even if I pass the Chinese test and get a certificate, I
can still keep on studying, get a job here -'
'That's stupid. You can't do that.'
'If you just tell me you can stay here -'
'You know my parents want me back home. You're Korean! You'd have a good idea
what Chinese parents are like. They're not that different.'
'Hey, I know you better. It wouldn't be just family pressure. You'd at least try to fight for
it if you really cared. '
'Okay. Okay. You know what? It's like this. I don't even know if it's going to be worth
the effort.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean...I mean, I can't just drop everything and stay here forever. I had a life
somewhere else too.'
'But you're always saying how Vancouver is too slow and how nothing happens, that
there's not enough there for you and Beijing is -'
'I know, I know, but I was already in the middle of something there. If I decide to stay
here, I'll have to start new for real, and...and this was...I was only supposed to be here for
a year. Everything has been great, everything good and bad, but I've just never thought
that...that...do you see?'
'Look, I'm just...I don't know.'
'You know you're not going to stay in Beijing forever either, and...and I just don't see
the point.'
'So what do we do? We just visit each other?'
'I don't know, all right? I don't know.'
'All right, there's still two months anyway.'
'All right.'
'Are you done with your plate?'
'Yeah. Thanks. Hey...come here. I'm sorry. You know we'd have to go home sooner or
later.'
*
Beijing was a little detour to keep off the hunger till we reached home. That is why we
write stories of it so we won't forget. That is why my friend's story cannot have a happy
ending.
If I had found a home in Beijing, where I am disguised by my skin, where I am a
nameless unit in a sea of faces, where I am finally part of the majority until I speak and
the accent reveals everything, I would have forgotten all my wonder.
Only a foreigner writes a Beijing story like this.
*
The city is covered with sand. The Gobi Desert is next to Beijing and it inches closer
towards the capital every year, threatening to choke it in a matter of years. When spring
fades into the summer, clouds of sand move in and the sky turns into the color of
unwashed fur. Waves of grit collect, and driven by the wind, they move languidly across
the cityscape like gigantic phantoms, slamming into the first building that comes into
their way and enveloping the horizon in an explosion of gray. The winds are tempests,
and umbrellas are blown inside out across the streets. The sand is blinding and fills every
orifice of your face to be spat out afterwards.
My friend had been watching the sandstorm from her apartment when I arrived. As I
shook the sand from my hair and tried to mend the bent spokes in my umbrella, she said,
'He went out to buy some milk.'
I went to the toilet and washed my face. When I came out she gave me a Polaroid
with the picture of a Beijing opera singer. 'A photo we took when we went to Tianjin. I
know you like that sort of thing.'
'Thanks.' I read what she had written on the back. 'So how are you guys doing?'
'We're fine. You want anything to drink?'
'Thanks, but I have to go back to the dormitory soon, I still have a few things to do.' I
unzipped my bag and brought out the DVDs and the books I had borrowed from her.
'These really kept me company during the nights, by the way.'
'You're welcome. So what's waiting for you after Beijing?'
'Looking for work in the Philippines, I suppose. Or maybe I'll go to Hong Kong and
teach English there. Something.' I finished stacking the boxes on top of the television. She
was looking at the sandstorm again. 'Are you sure you're all right?'
She shrugged. 'I think he's going to call it quits before I leave.'
I leaned against the wall and looked out the window with her. The storm was growing
more ferocious. 'I've always thought that he always seemed to be the martyr type.
Maybe he just doesn't want to lead you on with false hopes.'
'We could always call each other everyday.'
'Yeah, but for how long?'
She didn't answer immediately. She sat down on the couch and looked at the ceiling.
'He won't be leading me on. I understand how difficult this all is. I mean, if it all just falls
apart in the future, it won't be completely unexpected.'
'When do you think he'll tell you?'
'I don't know. Hopefully not on the day I leave because then I'll be bawling my way to
the airport.' She had crossed her arms and was staring at the floor. 'What do you think I
should do?'
I slung my bag on my shoulders and moved towards the couch. 'I don't know. If you
think he wants to break up, there's nothing much you can do. You still have a few days
left. Just make the most of it.'
'You'll have to go back to the storm, won't you?'
'Yeah, I have to start packing now. You're done with yours, right?'
'I'm halfway through. Anyway, in case I don't see you again before I leave.' She rose
and hugged me. 'Write me when you get home.'
'Of course.' I hugged her back. 'And thanks for the Polaroid. That was pretty random.'
She laughed, a little more quietly than she used to. 'Just get out of here.'
'Tell me what happens afterwards, all right?' I said as I opened the door.
I went down the stairs and twisted the knob. The gate gave a metal clang and I left
the building. Then I opened my umbrella and started walking into the sand.
My friend left Beijing three days before I did. I heard from a few friends that they did
break up, but I haven't heard from her since we parted. I think a great deal of Beijing
winter and the malatang. I wonder how he could stay there seeing everything that
would remind him of her.
This is how you talk about something you love. You tell why. And in the end it's really all
about remembering. How the sun rose above the granite and concrete. How the pigeon
flew above you, the whistle around its tail feathers trilling. Sometimes I remember it so well
that I can still feel the sand being crunched between my teeth.
The House on the Hill
by Topali
The house had looked out over the same valley for nearly three centuries. Halfway up
the highest peak, standing in a large clearing in the pine forest, it commanded all the
lower terrain. The fields, the densely overgrown foothills, the narrow creek that cut
through the valley-floor; this was the world the house had always known.
Much had changed in this world. When it was built, the house had shared the valley with
a few homesteads, dotted along the course of the creek. The house had been proud
then, the only stone structure in the valley. But as the house grew of age, the valley
changed. Many houses were built and more men lived in them. A church steeple made
of red bricks rose above what was now a town, criss-crossed by earthen roads and
cartpaths. And still more men came. The house too, was filled with ever more life. Men
were born, spent their lives in its spacious rooms and found their resting-place in the
shadow of its peaked roof. Some men were good, others were not. But always the house
looked on, the grime of many years silently accumulating.
After three hundred years of watching the world of men replace the original life of the
valley, the house was old. Its timbers were rotten to the core and broken windows had
not been refitted for many years. It would not be long before it too went the way of the
generations it had provided with comfort and shelter. The house did not mind; it was
tired.
Then new men came to the valley. They were soldiers, but different from the countless
soldiers the house had seen pass by. They had always been scared and anxious to go
home. The new soldiers were different. They smiled evil smiles and stayed in the valley.
And they took over the house. It was sorry to see the last descendent of its family go; he
was a good man, but he could not stand up to the smiling soldiers.
Soon more of the men came and they changed the house. Rotten wood was replaced
by concrete beams, priceless paintings replaced the crumbling sideboards and mouldy
paper on its walls. When it was finished, the house was larger and more luxurious than it
had ever been.
Many other things changed as well. Now, when men came to the house, they were
excited or scared. And smoke always filled the horizon, smoke from fires burning in far-off
places. A man had taken possession of the house, a special man. The house had seen
many men come and go, some strong, some weak, but none like this one. His presence
filled the house and lay like a blanket over the entire valley and beyond. The other men
with the evil smiles feared him, and tried to please him. The house did not like this man.
He was like the slow corruption that had spread through its timbers for two hundred
years, living off the life and strength of others and leaving only decay. Where once the
house had heard the laughter and tears of people living their lives, there was now
something much darker. Fear lay around the house and filled its halls.
The house became old beyond its days, and corrupted by the atrocities the man and
others committed within its walls. Others came from distant lands to pay respect to the
man, their hearts filled with fear. And never did they find comfort in the house, whose
hearth had once warmed the hands and faces of loving families. It no longer looked like
a home; it no longer was a home. It had become terror to all that knew it.
Then servants of the man dug up the roots of the house and poured more concrete into
the gaping hole they left. The last foothold of the original house vanished forever, along
with the bones of the man who had once built it. For the first and the last time in the life
of the house, it let out a sob that was heard in every room and in every basement; and a
sickness spread throughout. Slowly something withered and died in the heart of the
house. Behind its decorated walls, through its hardened concrete pillars first small
fractures crept, then larger and larger cracks. None of the men noticed. Day after day
the house crumbled, until only the outer walls and the roof remained untouched. Still, the
men did not notice.
Then, one day, many men came to worship the one who now lived in the house. With
them came the smell of more fear, the fear of a faraway people about to be trampled
by iron-shod boots and evil smiles. Their footsteps ringing through the halls sent a tangible
shiver throughout the house, widening every crack. Now suddenly, the dilapidation
around them was revealed to the men, and they were afraid. But it was too late. With a
sigh that was not quite soundless, the house collapsed. And of that place, that had seen
the world pass by for many lives of man, nothing remained but rubble and silence. All the
evil men were gone too, bringing many changes to the valley once again. But the house
was no longer there to see it. All that remained was the clearing and the valley, as empty
as they had been when the house was first built.
Human voices were no longer heard in the clearing. And for many, many years, it never
rained on that spot and no plants grew. For such is the way of things and places that
have seen too much.
Looking Back From The Hill
by Rev P E Adotey Addo
The old saying is that you cannot go home again. I think one can always go home as
long as one does not expect places and people one left behind to stay the same.
Things change. People change, and if one is to learn anything at all in life, one must
learn that change is inevitable. This is a fact of life. I have also learned that there is little to
gain from pretending or acting as if all is well when in fact all is broken up around us. This
is an inauthentic existence.
I have also learned that one must never live in the past. Living in the past creates
problems; therefore, to live an authentic life one must live in the present, the here and
now. One must live as if this is one's last day on earth but learn, care, and love as if life will
last forever. One cannot change the past, but one can always look and plan and hope
for a better future. An African proverb my father taught me says it better; "Castles are
only built in the future."
Most of us live as if there is going to be a tomorrow. This is good, except that most of the
time we are not prepared if things fall apart. We seem to expect things to stay the same.
Sometimes we are so certain of ourselves that we fail to accept the bumps in life. Living
as if there will always be a tomorrow to fix things, to care, to do things, to cherish, to love,
to give, to say and to do those great things we dream of is false. It seems to most of us
that there is always time, and there is no need to be in any hurry. We think the sun will
always rise - as an old childhood friend of mine used to say as a joke, "My Lord what a
morning." There is always a dawn on the horizon and there is no need to worry.
But sooner or later, that final dawn comes when we least expect it.
Another African proverb from my grandparents goes like this: "Only fools live by denying
or pretending that there is no final dawn in the horizon."
"Old or young, we are all chased by the final dawn of life," my father used to say in his
serious moments. For obvious reasons, I found great solace in these thoughts as I
prepared to go home after several years absence from my beloved country. I found in
these thoughts the will and the way to live away from my original home. I had learned to
accept the inevitability of life as I set out for home. Finally, I was aware that ultimately
there would be that day when the illusion of life would cease and the end would come
even for me.
I seem to be ahead of myself. My name is not important, but what I have to say here and
how these thoughts are connected and related to each other is very important. I just
happen to be the story teller, as we say in my language. It is amazing how one thing
always leads to another, and to larger issues, and finally to life and living itself.
Just before noon on that Christmas Eve the car, on the way from Accra the capital to
Suhum about fifty miles north, was stopped at a security checkpoint on the outskirts of
Suhum where my mother now lived. For almost twenty minutes nothing happened. I sat in
the car and just looked out of the windows; however, I was very angry at myself and
those who had stopped me.
A pot-bellied soldier with scars on his cheeks walked up and asked the driver to open the
trunk of the car.
I told myself that I should resist getting angry. I should not allow this experience to
change my love for and views of my beloved native land, now over forty years old as an
independent state. For me this experience was an epoch-making moment - the end of
the old Africa I left behind. I now realized that I had been so out of touch with the reality
of what was currently happening in my native country and all of Africa.
I felt it closing in on me. I said to myself, "My God, the proverbial barbarians are at the
gates." Still I could not believe that this was my beloved native country I was actually
visiting at this moment in time. A new order had emerged from the ruins of the many
coups and counter-coups.
I now came to the conclusion that we had not seen the last of the coups, and that this
present reality was the prelude of things to come. The final model would have to
combine the present and the future. I was observing just another bad phase of a
tribalized political culture of chaos. I felt the ground moving under me. It was enough to
give me the chills.
My mind flashed back to KuKuhill Estates, my beloved home on the hill. I thought about
my favorite time, when I was growing up. The noonday when lunch was prepared for
Daddy by my Mother, and served by the servants. The kitchen, a separate building all by
itself, became the center of household activity. Oh, how I loved watching my mother
create, as if by magic, one of her extraordinary and delicious meals.
There was no discussion of the menu, nor was there elaborate planning with the servants.
By the time mother, in her regal manner, came into the kitchen, she had all the
characteristics of a Queen. All the servants bowed as she entered. Everything had been
washed, cut, grounded, chopped, and carefully positioned. There were onions, okra,
tomatoes, yams, peppers, and many more exotic tropical vegetables. She would sit
down on a stool as if it were her throne and would not move an inch. Only the servants
moved at her command as she watched like a well rehearsed drama. She would mix,
stir, smell, but never tasted as she worked, relying on timing, color and texture and scent
to create our sumptuous mid-day meal. For just a moment this memory of the distant
past became real.
I could not believe it. I had to wake up.
KuKuhill was no more; it had become a medical center. I was choked with tears. It had
taken me a bone-rattling three hours to drive from Accra to Suhum. There was an
element of poignancy to the journey, and an uncertainty that I could not explain to
myself. The family had become exiles in my beloved native land.
Perhaps this explained why I had not been back until now. In spite of the way I was
feeling, I was still stunned by the beauty of my country. I was amazed at how little the
land itself had changed. The trees on the plains and forests were weighed down with
ripe mangoes, bananas, papayas, blackberries, coconuts, guavas, and cashew nuts. At
the makeshift stands along the route to Suhum, street vendors spilled out into the
highway with people touching and jostling each other. This was always how it had been.
I suddenly decided to take charge of our current situation and responded to the order of
the security guard to open the trunk of the car. I got out of the car and said to the
security guard in pidgin English, "My friend, how you dey?" This meant, "How are you my
friend?"
He replied in a friendly manner, "I dey like I don dey." This meant "so, so."
I said, "Afishapa to you," meaning, "A happy new year to you and a merry Christmas."
He replied with a silly grin, "You master, you be good friend." He meant, "You are a good
friend, Sir."
I continued, "I be in a hurry. I dey go see my mama I no see for plenty years." As I spoke I
raised my ten fingers.
He responded, now smiling, "Yes sah, yes sah, yes sah, master. You go tell Mama I say her
son deh come home safe." What he was trying to say was, "Go sir, go and tell your
mother her son is home now." Up to now my visit was clearly not a pleasant nor an
enjoyable one for me. Perhaps he made it bearable just for a few minutes. I thanked
God for that.
When I stepped into the half-sunken room that doubled as a shop for my mother, it led
me straight into the courtyard. I was met and greeted by a portly and elderly tenant of
my mother who ran the palm wine bar next door. He took my hand and led me to his
palm wine bar.
The bar was really a rickety verandah in front of a large room stacked with bottles. Over
the verandah hung a sign that read, "Palm Wine Bar." A farmer, a merchant, a soldier,
and an elderly man were sitting down as if waiting just for me. They spoke in pidgin
English with me, although among themselves they spoke their local languages. They had
no idea that I could understand them so I just smiled at them.
The old man took over and asked all of them to drink to my health. "We are all different
tribes here," he said, "but we find it pleasant to get along with each other." Pointing to
me, he said, "Osofo," meaning Reverend, "Now that you have seen how we have taken
care of your mother, we drink to you as you take care of the bill." Everyone started to
laugh. I paid the barkeeper and gave each of them some money and left while they
were still roaring with satisfied laughter.
Back at the airport I was silent and somber as I waited for my return flight to the United
States. The spiritual food I came to find in all its abundance had left most of my hunger
untouched and unabated. Like much of what had passed my lips, the trip had been
both sweet and sour, rich and bitter.
I realized that you can never go home again and I also realized that when I returned to
the United States I would have a lot of unpacking to do. Not only would I have to
physically unpack my belongings, but I would also have a lot of mental and spiritual
unpacking to do.
Little Things are Big
by Jesus Colon
"I’ve been thinking; you know, sometimes one
thing happens to change your life, how you look
at things, how you look at yourself. I remember
one particular event. It was when? 1955 or '56...a
long time ago. Anyway, I had been working at
night. I wrote for the newspaper and, you know,
we had deadlines. It was late after midnight on the
night before Memorial Day. I had to catch the train back to Brooklyn; the West side IRT.
This lady got on to the subway at 34th and Penn Station, a nice looking white lady in her
early twenties. Somehow she managed to push
herself in with a baby on her right arm and a big
suitcase in her left hand. Two children, a boy and
a girl about three and five years old trailed after
her.
Anyway, at Nevins Street I saw her preparing to
get off at the next station, Atlantic Avenue. That’s where I was getting off too. It was going
to be a problem for her to get off; two small children, a baby in her arm, and a suitcase in her
hand. And there I was also preparing to get off at Atlantic Avenue. I couldn’t help but
imagine the steep, long concrete stairs going down
to the Long Island Railroad and up to the street.
Should I offer my help? Should I take care of the
girl and the boy, take them by their hands until
they reach the end of that steep long concrete
stairs?
Courtesy is important to us Puerto Ricans. And
here I was, hours past midnight, and the white lady with the baby in her arm, a suitcase and
two white children badly needing someone to help her.
I remember thinking; I’m a *Negro and a Puerto
Rican. Suppose I approach this white lady in this
deserted subway station late at night? What would
she say? What would be the first reaction of this
white American woman? Would she say: 'Yes, of
course you may help me,' or would she think I
was trying to get too familiar or would she think
worse? What do I do if she screamed when I went
to offer my help? I hesitated. And then I pushed by her like I saw nothing as if I were
insensitive to her needs. I was like a rude animal walking on two legs just moving on, half
running along the long the subway platform, leaving the children and the suitcase and the
woman with the baby in her arms. I ran up the steps of that long concrete stairs in twos and
when I reached the street, the cold air slapped my warm face.
Perhaps the lady was not prejudiced after all. If you were not that prejudiced, I failed you,
dear lady. If you were not that prejudiced I failed you; I failed you too, children. I failed
myself. I buried my courtesy early on Memorial Day morning.
So, here is the promise I made to myself back then: if I am ever faced with an occasion like
that again, I am going to offer my help regardless of how the offer is going to be received.
Then I will have my courtesy with me again."
* The word Negro was commonly used in the early and middle years of the last century to
refer to an African American. Its use reflects the time period.