The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl
by Elizabeth Wong

这一期我们再来看一篇叙述文（ narration）,在The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl里，作者Elizabeth Wong（从名字我们看得出是一位华裔作者）讲述了她在双重文化背景下的成长经历（bicultural upbringing），尤其是其间的痛苦—作者觉得自己外表上是个中国人，而内心是美国人。作者将具体描写和想象中的比较结合在一起，生动地描写了自己的童年生活的片段。

It's still there, the Chinese school on Yale Street where my brother and I used to go. Despite the new coat of paint and the high wire fence, the school I knew 10 years ago remains remarkably, stoically the same.

Every day at 5 p.m., instead of playing with our fourth- and fifth-grade friends or sneaking out to the empty lot to hunt ghosts and animal bones, my brother and I had to go to Chinese school. No amount of kicking, screaming, or pleading could dissuade my mother, who was solidly determined to have us learn the language of our heritage.

Forcibly, she walked us seven long, hilly blocks from our home to school, depositing our defiant tearful faces before the stern principal. My only memory of him is that he swayed on his heels like a palm tree, and he always clasped his impatient twitching hands behind his back. I recognized him as a repressed maniacal child killer, and knew that if we ever saw his hands we'd be in big trouble.

We all sat in little chairs in an empty auditorium. The room smelled like Chinese medicine, an imported faraway mustiness. Like ancient mothballs or dirty closets. I hated that smell. I favored crisp new scents. Like the soft French perfume that my American teacher wore in public school.

There was a stage far to the right, flanked by an American flag of the Nationalist Republic of China, which was also red, white and blue but not as pretty.

…

In Chinatown, the comings and goings of hundreds of Chinese on their daily tasks sounded chaotic and frenzied. I did not want to be thought of as mad, as talking gibberish. When I spoke English, people nodded at me, smiled sweetly, said encouraging words. Even the people in my culture would cluck and say that I'd do well in life. “My, doesn't she move her lips fast,” they would say, meaning that I'd be able to keep up with the world outside Chinatown.

My brother was even more fanatical than I about speaking English. He was especially hard on my mother, criticizing her, often cruelly, for her pidgin speech－smatterings of Chinese scattered like chop suey in her conversation. “It's not 'What it is' Mom,” he'd say in exasperation. “It's 'What is it, what is it!' ” Sometimes Mon might leave out an occasional “the” or “a,” or perhaps a verb of being. He would stop her in mid-sentence: “Say it right.” When he tripped over his own tongue, he'd blame it on her: “See, Mon, it's all your fault. You set a bad example.”

…

I thought of myself as multicultural. I preferred tacos to egg rolls; I enjoyed Cinco de Mayo more than Chinese New Year.

At last, I was one of you; I wasn't one of them.

Sadly, I still am.


读完文章，我们不难感受到作者受到美国文化的影响和她对自己华裔身份的厌恶。我们暂且不说作者的感受和观点是否“正确”，仅从写作的角度看，Elizabeth Wong还是很生动的写出了自己的感受。在她眼中，和中国文化联系在一起的东西都给她不愉快的回忆，无论是耶鲁街上的中国学校（the Chinese school on Yale Street），那里的校长，还是教室里的味道。作者还将教室里的味道和她的美国老师身上的香水味做比较，给人深刻的印象。

思考题：
我们以前讲到过写作的目的（writing with purpose），你觉得作者写这篇文章的目的是什么？她用到的写作技巧是不是符合她的目的？
作者还特别提到了她和弟弟对语言的态度，把这部分内容找出来，这些叙述有什么作用？
结合前几期介绍的时间表达方法，分析一下作者是怎么体现时间概念的。


自己写：
看了这样一个ABC的文章，你是困惑了，气愤了，很同情，还是有其他的感受？写写你看了这篇文章后的感受。
写一篇类似的记述文，可以是你遇到的文化上的冲突和困惑，试着运用描写，对比， 比喻，对话等写作手法，尤其要注意细节描写。