this book is so hilarious!!!!! (great choice professor)... who would think the Japanese took their private life so serious... when Sherman was calling the hot line at the temple just to talk to Mona about the places he's been. i thought it wad so cute the way Mona and Sherman was acting like they didn't know who each other was on the phone...they had a good thing going on until Mona told Barbara who for some odd reason believed its Andy Kaplan (the boy Barbara was in love with in her early years) on the next line. she ended ruining Sherman and Mona relationship when she buts into the conversation and started yelling Andy's name. Sherman resulted into telling Mona once again that "She will never be Japanese!" ladies this is what happens when you go blab to your girlfriends about the guy you really like and your supposedly girfriend ruin your relationship.
i guess i wont ever be a japanes either :-)
Am i the only one who believes that Mona family is a typical American family? Her mother Helen flips over any and everything, her father is always analyzing every details on what is going on. Mona is just a typical confused teen, she is just going through puberty...
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Okay K, when you read later down in the book, you will realize that its really Andy Kaplan and Seth who were pretending to be Sherman. Barbara hit the nail on its head when she said that it was Andy on the other end of the line. Both of these young men were playing a joke on Mona, letting her believed that Sherman was calling her from these places. Seth explained to her when he met her in Callie's room at Harvard (p. 277). Keep on reading you'll find it very interesting how everything ties in at the end.
ReplyDeleteAnother point, I believed that even though Mona family tried to embrace the American way of living, and trying to be a typical American family, as you say, and by the way, what is a typical American family? What does it look like? The Changs never let go of their old beliefs from China. Mrs. Chang wants her girls to have the best education, but she wants them to remain chinese. Remember when Mona got into trouble in helping Alfred find a place to stay when his 'bitch' wife Charlene booted him out of the house. After she told her mother that she's not the one sleeping with him. Her mother said that if she had done that she would have kill herself. Mona replied that she was racist. She retorted that a good chinese daughter would say, "I'll kill myself too" (pg. 221). That goes to show you can move from the country of your birth but their are certain things that you never let go of Your culture in your new place of adoption.
Chesla
Mona in the Promised Land
ReplyDeleteWhen I read Mona in the Promised Land, I saw a connection between than book and the film 'Lone Star.' In Lone Star, the Blacks had their own meeting place where they could gather whether to have fun or be religious, and that was either at Otis' saloon or the church. The Mexicans had theirs and the Whites theirs also those were difinite boundary lines.
In MIPL, there are boundaries also, Mrs. Chang wanted to hear nothing about the Japanese she got very agitated when she found the Japanese flag on her fridge, She hissed at Sherman that this is the U.S of A.(pg. 15). That was a boundary being drawn between herbeing Chinese and him being Japanese. The boundary line is also drawn when the Gugelsteins found out what happened in their home while they were away, Alfred was the 'scape goat' and the axe feel on him, he was fired by Mona's parent from the Pan Cake House to appeased the Gugelsteins, and as Mona's mother said so the family could keep their heads up when they meet the gugelsteins on the streets (pg.220).
I don't know how many of you while reading make this connection, if I'm wrong let me know, I'll be checking the Blog for your comments.
CHerbert
When I was reading this book, I saw a lot of similarities to my own life growing up. Not that I decided to become Jewish, but my parents were a lot like Mona's parents. Other than the fact that they also ate all their fruit peeled (even the tomatoes), they put a lot of pressure on the next generation to become successful (whatever that may mean to them). Chinese parents are especially fond of doctors or anything in the medical field, which is why I thought it was funny when they wanted Callie to go to medical school. When I was a teenager I never thought my parents were even close to being like the typical American family and Mona's parents are a lot like my parents. So I think Mona's parents are more like traditional Chinese parents than American.
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