The book I am reading for outside reading this quarter is When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. It is an autobiography by Le Ly Hayslip that journals her experinces growing up in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. When she was growing up, she was raised with views on life that seem alien to me, like when her mother "...sang heroic songs to her tight belly, ate sparingly, and worked extra hard ...(Hayslip 1)." All so that her baby would be born a healthy and strong person. These kinds of thoughts are very different than the way we normally treat mothers in our society. Being careful and really cautious around expecting mothers is what most people do, and most mothers don't want to risk their child's health. I expect that back then and there, Le Ly's mother didn't have the scary truths that science sometimes bring us. Another custom alien to me was the thing her mother said to her, "When you marry, your mother-in-law will become your second mother--your boss. If you can satisfy her as a maid, she'll think you are a suitable wife for her son (Hayslip 12)."Trying to please your mother-in-law is something most spouses try to do so that they will be accepted, but in Vietnam back then, they see it as a kind of interview with their "boss" and that being accepted is what a young wife is supposed to do, not just highly suggested to do. Doing so will bring honor on your parents, which is the best thing that a child could hope for at that time.
There were also some very down to earth reasonings that Le Ly's family and her community were suprisingly down to earth in a lot of instances. One such moment is when the rice crop fails for some reason or another. When you normally see a society that has so many stories about rice, with rice playing a big role in it, or rice as a role in itself, a speaking role, it kind of struck me when she said " We always blamed crop failures on ourselves -- we had not worked hard enough...(Hayslip 9)." Compared to their stories about how rice had become so hard to prepare, like the story where the bags of a fast-growing plant and a hard to grow plant were mixed up by someone God sent down, so that rice was hard to grow and grass grew everywhere very easily, the fact that they accepted their defeat with such reality. These kinds of moments were rare, but many things in Le Ly's society when she was growing up show how their customs vary from lots of places around the world to make Vietnam a special place, especially to Le Ly.
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2 comments:
I think this book sounds very interesting in that it explores a different way of life. I think one of the weirdest things to me is that a mother-in-law is like a boss. To me, a family should be about giving and taking equally, not just one person giving and one taking. Also, bringing honor to one's parents was the greatest thing they could do. I think that children should be able to be their own people and not just focus on giving a good name to their parents. Bringing honor to parents seems more like living for your parents, not yourself. I am lucky I did not live in Vietnam during the Vietnam War like Le Ly Hayslip because I would have difficulty conforming to expectations.
I think you had some good points. This book sounds very interesting because it shows how the lives of people in that time period differ from our lives. The fact that the mother-in-law is kind of like a boss to you is an idea I'm not familiar with.
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