Asian Culture in America \"Crack

Asian Culture in America

"Crack it Open" by Kim Yong Ik concerns the dichotomy between reality and illusion, and does so by means of a blindness motif. There are two types of blindness in the story: literal blindness and metaphorical blindness. Literal blindness is manifest in those whose eyes are weak in the story. Cho, the first-person narrator, works at a Korean school for blind children. In the United States, the character who suffers from literal blindness is Dick's mother, whose eyes began to weaken before he left for the war.

The literal blindness in the story draws the attention of the reader to the theme of metaphorical blindness. The first case of metaphorical blindness in the story is that of Cho and his students. Dick tells them what he later calls "fairy tales" about his lifestyle in the United States. He sketches for them an image of luxurious homes, each of which has a television and luxury cars. He draws for them a picture of an idealistic lack of poverty, where every American is both fabulously rich and fabulously happy.

Indeed, Cho's memories of Dick appears to indicate that even Dick believed his own stories to some degree. Blinding the already blind children to the realities of the situation, and seeing them happy, made Dick happy as well. Cho remembers him as being a cheerful person, which made Cho's disillusion upon meeting him all the more painful.

Both Cho and Dick's blindness fall away once they arrive in the United States. Ironically, it is Dick's half-blind mother who removes the last of any illusion Cho might have held about Dick's lifestyle and situation. Indeed, he is not originally from the United States, and his mother reminds Cho of the native Korean women, who have suffered throughout their lives.

Dick also blinds himself to a certain degree, by wishing to obtain employment that would suit the status he manufactured for his friends in Korea. Ironically, he is therefore both unwilling and unable to obtain work that would at least serve as a vehicle towards realizing the illusion.

2. In both Kim Yong Ik's "They Won't Crack it Open" and Chita Divakaruni's "Silver Pavement, Golden Roofs," there is a marked dichotomy between the real and the ideal in terms of the image of the United States.

In Ik's story, Dick deliberately deceives his friends, the teacher Cho and the blind children in Korea, about his home and his lifestyle in the United States. Cho's initial narrative indicates that Dick created an illusion of perpetual material wealth for all Americans. The author begins to indicate that something is amiss from Cho's arrival at a United States train station. He expects Dick to meet him at the station, but the reader realizes that something is not as it seems to be, because he does not arrive.

Cho attempts to rationalize Dick's failed appearance during his taxi journey to the latter's home. All illusions are however dismissed as soon as he arrives at the home. Dick's cheerful disposition is replaced by a perpetual grimness, a mean attitude towards his mother, and a drinking problem. Cho's physical movement from Korea to the actual location of Dick's home dissipates the illusion of his wealth. The blind children who remain in Korea are able to maintain their illusion, as those who have seen the reality choose not to reveal this to them.

It therefore appears that illusion is only possible by physical removal. Dick's disposition in Korea appears to indicate that he deludes even himself into believing in a certain American image. His return to reality is both physical and mental; hence the distinct difference in his personality from that in Korea. So different is this personality that Cho briefly entertains the idea that he might be a brother rather than Dick himself.

Ultimately, Cho recognizes that the illusion is irreparably broken, and that he would do better to pursue his own goals in the United States. The unbroken coconut he sends the blind children represents perpetual and self-imposed illusion -- they choose not to break the mystery.

3.

The story "Gussuk" by Mei Evans relates the adventures of a Chinese-American girl, Lucy when she works as a health professional in an Alaskan village. Never having been to Alaska before, Lucy begins her work with great enthusiasm. Initially she enjoys her work and makes easy friends with the natives. Indeed, the ethnic similarities at the beginning appear to be more than the differences.

The most prominent racial terminology used in the story is also its title, "Gussuk," a term used to refer to white people. The Alaskans regard Lucy as one of them, and at first she makes a marked attempt to perpetuate this sense of belonging. Her sense of identity however shifts as soon as Robert, who is married to Esther, begins to make advances towards her. Her final sense of belonging in the village occurs on the day he first attempts to touch her hand. She remarks to Robert that the mountains remind her of a calendar picture, and that she feels as if she is home. Robert, on the other hand, feels that there is a distinct lack of space.