CHAPTER 5: "A Song for the Barbarian Reed Pipe"

Summary

Kingston opens this section with a reference to the trip to Los Angeles: "What my brother actually said was, 'I drove Mom and Second Aunt to Los Angeles to see Aunt's husband who's got the other wife.'" She recounts the conversation in which she grilled her brother for details, asking him if Moon Orchid had hit her husband and what she said to him. He told her she had said nothing; Brave Orchid had done all the talking and had made the husband take the two of them to lunch. Kingston next writes, "In fact, it wasn't me my brother told about going to Los Angeles; one of my sisters told me what he'd told her." Kingston adds that her brother's version of the story is probably better than hers, because it would be bare and not twisted into designs like her version is. She then tells the story of the knot makers who lived long ago in China. They tied string and rope into buttons, frogs, and bell pulls. One knot was "so complicated that it blinded the knot-maker, and the emperor outlawed this cruel knot. Kingston concludes this story by saying that if she had lived in ancient China, she "would have been an outlaw knot-maker."

Kingston wonders whether her rebellious attitude was the cause of her mother cutting her mouth. Her mother had pushed her tongue up and sliced the frenum with a knife or a pair of scissors. Kingston does not remember the act, only her mother's tale of it afterwards. She used to look at the bottom of her tongue in the mirror, but found she had no scars. Sometimes she felt proud that her mother had cut her mouth, committing "such a powerful act" on her. At other times, she felt terrified that her own mother had cut her. When she asked her mother why she had done it, her mother responded that she did not want her daughter to be "tongue-tied" in speaking. Kingston says if her mother was not lying about her reasons for cutting her tongue, she should have done more because she still has "a terrible time talking.'' She describes her difficulty in kindergarten when she had to speak English for the first time and became totally silent. "A dumbness--a shame--still cracks my voice even now, even when I want to say hello casually." Asking an easy question at the check out counter, or asking a bus driver for directions makes her freeze in silence until she can speak the whole sentence. Then her listeners do not hear her, and she has to repeat the whole painful process over again. Even a telephone call "takes up that day's courage," and she knows that her "broken voice" makes people wince to hear it. She, however, feels that she is making progress every day in the English language. She also admits that she is not really bilingual.

Kingston's silence was total during a three-year period of her childhood when she covered her school paintings with black paint. When she drew on the chalkboard at school, she covered over her drawings with a layer of chalk. Her teacher had called her parents to the school and talked seriously to them about her behavior, but her parents did not understand English. Her parents had simply taken the black picture home, and Kingston continued her silence, which she learned to enjoy. As a result, she failed kindergarten. By first grade, she could read aloud, but only in a whisper; when reading, at least she did not have to think of something to say. In her second grade class, they put on a play; everyone participated except for the Chinese girls. Their voices were too soft and their parents refused to sign the permission slips, never signing anything unnecessary. Kingston feels that the second grade teacher, being Hawaiian, should have understood them, but she did not. In the evening, after American school, Kingston went to Chinese school, which was less regimented. In Chinese classes, Kingston was not mute, but she remembers that not all the children who were silent at the American school found their voices at Chinese school. Kingston is amazed that she has these memories. Her mother has told her that the Chinese-American of the second generation has no memories, just like the ghosts.

Kingston has other detailed memories from her childhood. Once at the laundry the pharmacy had mis-delivered a package of pills to them when it should have gone to another Chinese family. Her mother had mumbled about it for an hour; then she began yelling that they had to get revenge on this "wrong on our future, on our health, and on our lives. The children had looked away knowing she would do something embarrassing. Finally, Brave Orchid had ordered Kingston to go to the drugstore and make them stop the curse begin when their delivery person had brought the wrong medicine. Her mother further ordered her to get reparation candy, saying to the pharmacist that he has tainted her house with sick medicine and must remove the curse with sweetness. Kingston protested to no avail. When she arrived at the drug store, she runs her words together "Mymohtersestagimmesomecandy" and finally asks for a sample of candy, which was freely given. In fact, the pharmacist continued to give her candy for years to come. Brave Orchid felt vindicated, telling Kingston that she had taught the Druggist Ghost a lesson in good manners.

Kingston next remembers a silent schoolgirl, a year older than she and in her class for twelve years. Kingston hated the silent girl for being the last one chosen for every team, for her China doll haircut, and for her wheezing flute playing. One afternoon when they were in the sixth grade, the quiet girl and her sister stayed after school, and Kingston had stayed playing with them. While in the lavatory with the silent sissygirl, Kingston told her that she was going to make her talk. She reached to the girl's cheek, and pinched it. Her skin was "fleshy, like squid out of which the glassy blades of bones had been pulled. I wanted tough skin, hard brown skin." Kingston kept pinching and pulling the girl's hair, while commanding her to speak -- to cry out in pain or call for help. The girl appropriately dressed in weak pastels, remained silent and cried ceaselessly, eyes and nose dripping. Kingston kept it up; she said she was a disgusting nothing and called her stupid, accusing her of not knowing her own name. She begged and bribed the girl to talk, and began to cry herself knowing she had done the worst thing I had yet done to another person. Kingston began to feel they had been in the lavatory forever, yet the girl was still silent. Kingston had lost the battle.

Kingston then states that the world is sometimes just. I spent the next eighteen months sick in bed with a mysterious illness." Kingston felt no pain and suffered no symptoms, but her family rented her a hospital bed and she had to stay home. In retrospect, she says, "It was the best year and a half of my life. Nothing happened." Then one day her mother announced that she had to get up and go to school. At school she had to re-learn how to talk. She also had to face the "poor girl I had tormented" and found her unchanged. She wore the same pastel clothes and no make-up. Kingston also remembers looking at her school records during sixth grade. She learns that she failed kindergarten and in the first grade had an IQ listed as zero. She wondered if she was crazy.