Talking Points: Seventeen Syllables

The High-Heeled Shoes:

• (after being sexually assaulted, not seeing the suspects face and going to the authorities) “She came back with the impression that the police had been much amused, that they had actually snickered as she left with their officially regretful shrug over her having giving them nothing to go on. She told her boss and he called the police himself and evidently made his influence felt, for we had a caller that evening.” Are the police less likely to believe API’s? Is this a gender issue or a race issue?
• “For me, there can be no preparation for violence. All preparation must be for non-violence if courage of the highest type is to be developed. Violence can only be tolerated as being preferable always to cowardice.” -Gandhi

Seventeen Syllables:

• “English lay ready on the tongue but Japanese had to be searched for and examined, and even then put forth tentatively (probably to meet with laughter.) It was so much easier to say yes, yes, yes, even when one meant no.” Other than issues of language barriers, did this concept of saying yes, escalate to deeper issues?
• “Your Father’s in the bathhouse,” Before this class I was unaware of a Japanese bath house. I have heard of gay bath houses, where men go to have sex with each other. Does the differing uses of “bathhouse” cause issues among the Japanese community?

The Legend of Miss Sasagawara:

• “Oh, I’ve always wanted to be a nurse” “What’s stopped you?” “Mom” I made a connection to what we have learned about the relationship of API mothers and daughters, like in the film The Joy Luck Club.
• “a little girl in a grass skirt and superfluous brassiere did a hula” We have yet to discuss Pacific Islanders, but I was wondering – what to Hawaiians think of white/non-Hawaiian tourists participating in hula/luau?

Wilshire Bus:

• “why don’t you get off this bus, why don’t you go back to where you came from? Why don’t you go back to China?” I find it odd how America is a country of immigrants, yet some people don’t realize that European Americans came from somewhere else, as well!
• “Wryly, she wished for an I AM JAPANESE button” When being racist, why do people always assume API’s are Chinese?

The Brown House:

• “She watched other cars either drive into the yard or park along the highway and she saw all sorts of people – white, yellow, brown and black – enter the house.” Quick question, are API’s offended when referred to as yellow?
• (when speaking American) “Talk in Japanese,” “and quit trying to be so smart.” I think that speaking multiple languages evokes intelligance.

Yoneko’s Earthquake:

• “there was no baptist church for happens in the rural community she lived in” Is there a Christian population in Japan?
• “Marpo painted larger-than-life water colors of his favorite movie stars, al; of them whom were woman and all of them who were blonde, like Ann Harding and Jean Harlow”

Morning Rain:

• “Harry tried, he really tried, but he always petered out in helpless English. But the fact was that these two principal men in her life were, as far as communicated with each other was concerned, incompatible.”

Epithalamium:

• “although she did not know it, today was her wedding day.” In class, the talk of arranged marriages is set in the past, are arranged marriages still a part of Japanese culture as of today?
• “who all dreamed of one day writing the Great Nisei Novel”

Las Vegas Charley:

• “There are very few Japanese residing in Las Vegas” Why? When I thought about Japan and Vegas, I noticed the similarity of the immense use of light in the cities.
• “Japanese were not allowed to buy property, they told him – it was part of something called the Gentleman’s Agreement between Japan and the Untied States” I researched more about the Gentleman’s Agreement – “the United States would not impose restrictions on Japanese immigration, and Japan would not allow further emigration to the United States.”

Life Among the Oil Fields:

• “…They missed collisions by inches, wavered on the edge of principles, and skidded across tracks to the sound of the warning bell.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• (after a hit and run) “And I know that their names were Scott and Zelda.”

The Eskimo Connection:

• Eskimos: the indigenous people traditionally of Eastern Siberia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Are Eskimos, API?

My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali:

• (talking about Muhammad Ali) “Ridiculous, the way he got away with dancing around every fight. Don’t you remember how he beat the sumo wrestler by making all kinds of rules and regulations in his own favor?” I thought it was interesting how a Japanese man despised Muhammad Ali, an African American. What do we think about this?

Underground Lady:

• “His name is Stanley Onodera. He works for the Harbor Department. What better way to infiltrate, eh, to signal the Japanese in World War II?”
• “That’s the way they want me to be. Like a Japanese – quiet.”

A Day in Little Tokyo:

• “Regular school five days a week, Japanese school on Saturdays.” Is this common in the U.S.?
• “Or maybe all the kids who took odori lessons? The privileged ones.” Odori – traditional Japanese dance.

Reading and Writing:

• “She never once came out and admitted she was illiterate.” I thought about how uncomfortable Hallie must have been, being an immigrant who is illiterate. I feel like the “American life” is based on reading and writing.
• This chapter focuses on the amount of Hallie’s medications. What are medications like in Japan? Though the study abroad process, although I am going to London, I have learned that Japan specifically prohibits some medications, thus creating a problem for travelers.