In July 2012, our Online Book Club continues by discussing Forget Sorrow by Belle Yang. Each week, we'll put forth a different question to prompt reflection on the book and its themes.  We hope you will participate in the discussion, or communicate questions you might have of Forget Sorrow directly to author/illustrator Belle Yang.

Question for Week 4:

Belle had many turbulent events occurring in her life. What were they? Thinking about your own life, was there a particular event or experience that altered your course?

In her life, as recorded in Forget Sorrow, Belle Yang moves from east to west to east, and home again. From the year of her birth in 1960, through 1971, Belle experienced remarkable changes in cultures and languages as she and her family move from Taiwan to Japan, and then to California.  Within the golden state, Belle and her family find a home first in free spirited San Francisco and then in the more reserved enclave of Carmel, becoming American citizens in 1975. In 1978, Belle is off to UC Santa Cruz. Four years after graduation, Belle is home again, imprisoned by threats and violence delivered by a former boyfriend turned stalker. In 1986, Baba advises his daughter to flee the U.S. for a meditative stint and further artistic training in China. In 1989, following the Tiananmen Square massacre, where members of the People’s Liberation Army fired upon and killed their own citizens, Belle was pulled from a cab by the PLA and had her passport confiscated. As soon as she can, she returns home once more.

Reunited with her parents, Belle’s dreams are nightmares, burdened with scenes of capture (in the stalker’s hands) and escape (China). In her waking state Belle is simultaneously pulverized by her father’s voiced disappointments and  harsh criticisms: "All your friends are MDs and PhDs. Your life is a waste....At your age I was already dean, overseeing thousands of students....Look at you, doing nothing," and mentored by his encouragements: "You’ve got your mind and two hands, one hand for writing and the other for painting. ...If your soul achieves peace, you can attain your goals."  She does.

Belle writes, "I thank heaven for life’s jagged path, without which I would never have learned about solitude and patience." What in your life was difficult to experience and how have you changed because of that experience? What did you learn?

For additional reading: A very personal account of the writing of Forget Sorrow and the sense of liberation that followed, please see: http://www.belleyang.com/The%20Language%20of%20Dreams.htm

For July 2012, our Online Book Club continues by discussing Forget Sorrow by Belle Yang. Each week, we'll put forth a different question to prompt reflection on the book and its themes.  We hope you will participate in the discussion, or communicate questions you might have of Forget Sorrow directly to author/illustrator Belle Yang.

Question for Week 2:

The women in the father’s story are generally in the background: present but uninvolved. How has the role of women changed since the early twentieth century? Compare Xuan’s (Belle’s) mother and Xuan to the other women in the grandfather’s household? 

I disagree that any of the women in the story are mere background figures – present but uninvolved.

Initially the women of Baba’s (Belle’s father) early life, by virtue of time and place, were socially positioned by sex, age and marriage partners to lead lives of respectful silence, agreeability and checked speech (which included most of the aunts and uncles’ wives) or irascibility and blunt honesty (Baba’s grandmother.) With the exception of Baba’s mother, Belle provides us with no names of these women. We know them only through their birth order (i. e. "youngest aunt") or their marital alliances (i.e. – second uncle’s wife.) Through Belle’s artistic representation however, the personalities of these women emerged to line the landscape and move the action in the lives and hearts of husbands, children and extended family members. Throughout the turmoil of the times the true natures of these women came forth. Baba’s grandmother, the family matriarch is the pipe smoking mistress behind the master and the accountant/manager of her husband’s estate, having sway and final say on marriage partners, school funds and children’s punishments. Her spirit, riding wave after wave of diminished family fortune is only crushed by news of the brutal death of her favorite son. Youngest  aunt, depicted as a child with self-satisfied cheeks and generously bestowed with love and gifts, becomes first an unwitting informant for third brother, and later a self preservationist, spurning her own father’s need for food and shelter, in fear of communist reprisal for aiding and abetting a once wealthy man. Second aunt, most silenced by her station, brought kindness to the lives of the children in her midst, providing Baba with tenderness necessary to his survival. Second uncle’s wife, cross-eyed, "smart and domineering," was selected to successfully manage second uncle. After the birth of a baby boy her status is upgraded and she evolves into a defiant, breast-baring, public nurser, ablaze with her husband’s Taoist ways and in time, a virago, interested in managing the patriarch – Baba’s grandfather.  Adversity transforms her again. She becomes a helpful companion to Baba’s mother in search of sustenance, with an ability to laugh at the spillage of their dearly acquired measly grain. Third uncle’s wife is a goad to her husband’s selfish, evil inclinations. Forth uncle’s wife, depicted as glutinous and obsequious, endowed with the look of a wide mouthed carp, wouldn’t open her door to the patriarch, tossing from memory his kindness in feeding, clothing and sheltering her own father, brother and sister-in law in their time of need. Aside from second aunt, most constant was Baba’s gentle, understanding, most Buddha like mother, Yong Qin, sweetly accepting of her husband’s whims, defending her children from their father’s rage, directing her sister in law in law to join her begging, rather than exposing her husband and brother in law to humiliation. Welcoming her father-in-law in, when all others in the family drove him away or would not answer the door to succor him. Her last lines “…why, what should we change in to? We won’t change. We’ll always be the same.” It is the essence of these women, no matter what the circumstance, which led them to their actions. China’s historical and political upheaval between the Second World War and the communist revolution are illustrated through these women and their deeds. They are a force, not merely background figures.

The sentiment of the majority within Chinese society was to value male of over female. Even on Baba’s return to his homeland, instead of inquiring as to his welfare and asking what befell him on their separation, he is encountered with sentiments of selfishness and greed, and the statement, "besides, you have only a daughter." Adverse to such philosophy, both of Belle’s parents seek to nurture, instruct and protect her. Belle, that daughter, is the pivotal piece of the tale, bringing past and present together in her search for voice, strength and freedom. While Baba has collected a bit of his father’s temperament, Belle’s mother, Laning is a stabilizing force, a peace maker, kind and patient, but ready to speak immediately and act when necessary, similar in character to Baba’s mother.

Belle’s given name, Xuan, meaning "forget sorrow," was unable to do so. She needed to excavate her father’s memories to release his story, by asking the questions.  Belle, born in Taiwan, mainstreamed child of immigrants, taken with all things western, former American college student, was, at the onset of this tale, imprisoned by the unceasing violence and threats of an abusive relationship, impinging on her and her parent’s freedom in America. She flees to China, her ancestral homeland, links to her past, and just as the Communist crackdown of the populace cause them to lose their strength and freedoms in the fall at Tiananmen Square, Belle finds hers.  She flees another brutality and returns to America, relieved, confident and angry at the ways of the world. She was ready to confront her father, hear his story, earn his respect and receive the coveted jade pendant. She writes, "Rotten Egg silenced me with his fists, the Chinese government silenced its citizens with its tanks, I have a voice in America, and I won’t waste it."

What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you feel that the women of Baba’s story are mere background pieces, or agents of action in their own right?