"how other culture and Jess’s friends change her "

Hello! I come back with my last scene summary, so let’s get starts. My last post is about how other culture and Jess’s friends change her to become and to think differently.

"To become and to think differently"

For example, Jess starts to wear a bit shorter and (kind of see through) dress that can see her body, when she is about to go out with her friends and her coach. This scene shows me that after she starts to meet new people with different cultures, she starts to adapt those cultures and combine them with her Indian culture. Also, the almost the last scene of the movie, Jess can finally change in front of her friends without caring about other girls to see her body. She doesn’t put her arms into her shirt and change from the inside of her shirt anymore. This scene basically shows the audience that different cultures and different people can influence us in anytime.
 I hope you enjoy reading these blogs that I post! And have a good day peopleJ

'Contrast between younger generation and older generation’s thoughts'

Hello! how is your weekend so far? Mine is really busy with school works.L However, I want to continue with my ‘Bend it like Beckham’ cross-cultural scenes’ summary. After I have been watching the movie for quite a while, I have started to notice the contrast between the younger and older Indian generations’ thoughts in the movie. For example, their inspirations and future careers.

"Inspirations"

 Jess’s inspiration and her parents’ inspiration are totally different. Jess has the photos of Beckham all around her bedroom, while her parents have Sikh guru’s portrait at the living room of their house. And whenever her mother has something to express about something, she usually talks about it in front of Sikh guru’s portrait. This scene shows me that Jess is more influenced by other culture and younger generation than her own culture.

"Future career"

Also, when the soccer university offers her the scholarship, she actually wants to go there, but her parents think different from her. Her parents want Jess to study at the normal university to get a normal career/job because they don’t want their daughter to become a single woman for her whole life. Since, they have believed that if Jess becomes a professional soccer player, no guys will marry her.

I will write my last blog really soon! Stay tunes people ;)

'Friends' issue'

Hello again! I haven’t finished my last blog because I didn’t finish watching the movie in the class, so I want to continue typing this blog! J

“Friends’ issue”

Today, I saw a scene about friends’ issue that can be related to cross-cultural. The scene is taken in the girls’ dressing room. While everyone is changing their clothes in the room, Jess is the only one who felt embarrass and uncomfortable changing her clothes around the girls in her soccer team. She basically puts her arms inside her body and changes everything in there. This scene shows me that Jess has been influencing by her Indian culture much more than other cultures around her like British culture. This scene is the earliest scene before Jess starts to change herself and adapt other cultures that change her life after that.

I have to go now, but I will type about it 2 mores, so stay tune!

'Bend it like Beckham'

Hello everyone! How are you doing? Welcome to my blog J OH-MY-GOSH! I have been watching ‘Bend it like Beckham’ in my English class recently and I find it really interesting about the cross-cultural issues that relate to the main character, Jess, and the other Indian and British characters in the film.

If you haven’t watched the film yet, this film is about a girl, who is fascinated with soccer. Jess Bhamra, the main character of the film, is an Indian teenager and lives in England with her sister and parents. She always plays soccer with her friends at the park and keeps this story as a secret because she doesn’t want her parents to know about it. Since she is an Indian girl, her parents have always been expecting her to become a good Indian teenager girl, who doesn’t usually play soccer or any other sports like men and follows the Indian’s traditional rules. For example, she must know how to cook ‘dhal’, behave properly (like don’t hug and kiss the guy) and marry an Indian guy at the age of 18 or more.

“Parents’ issue” 

There is one scene that her mom just comes back from shopping and unexpectedly walks through the park, where Jess’s boy friend is holding her whole body up in the air. Her mother becomes really angry and takes her home immediately. From this incident, it shows that the Indian traditional culture is so important in her mother’s life that it is inevitable for Jess. Also, her mother’s expectations is to protect her daughter from all the guys and to find a right Indian guy to marry her daughter, so Jess has to behave properly, in order to keep herself away from other guys and to remain unadorned.

Voice Conversation

Voice conversation between Jane and Dong-Mei:
My voice: Dong-Mei Mako's voice: Jane 

The link to my voice thread:http://voicethread.com/share/5155202/

Throwaway Daughter Book Review

Throwaway Daughter book review: 

           I have read “Throwaway Daughter” book by Ting-Xing Ye. The narrator of the story always changes, so mostly Grace Parker or Dong-Mei is the narrator and she is the protagonist as well. Grace Parker is a Chinese girl, who adopted by the canadian family. Her mother, Chun-Mei left her on the step in front of the orphanage, after she was born for 2 days. Basically, she was raise by her canadian parents for her whole life. Her canadian mother always try to make she studied Chinese language and keep calling her name in Chinese (to keep her culture and identity). When Dong-Mei turned 20 years old, after her graduation, she asked her parents for a ticket to China as well as to study the university in China. And that is how she met her family and the truth about herself, which no one can answer the question, except her mother like why Chun-Mei abandoned her.

          What I have understood from the novel, the idea of the Dong-Mei’s Chinese family is her mother must give birth as a baby boy because of the old traditional culture in China. Her grandfather(Old Revolution Chen) and other old chinese people always believe that if they could have a nephew or a son, it will be more useful than have a niece or a daughter because they do not want their surname to be disappear, they want their surname to be continued and they think that guys can do more works than women as well. So, if the mother gave a birth as a baby girl, she will abandon her by leaving her daughter at the train station, orphanage and some random places that no one can be seen because in the time the rules of China is really strict that the family can have only one children in the family. For example, in case of Chun-Mei, her father-in-law(Old Revolution Chen) put pressure on her and always tells her that he wants a nephew, so when she gave a birth as a baby girl, she has to abandon her daughter on the step of the orphanage secretly because she doesn’t want anyone to know about this, except the Chen’s family. 

          If compare Chinese traditional culture about birth gender to an anglophone country like Canada from the book, I can see that canadian people don’t really pay attention about the birth gender and they don’t have the law from the government that family can have only one child. So, Dong-Mei’s canadian parents love her and takes care of her like she is their own daughter. They also support and help her to keep her identity, which is different from chinese culture that they only like baby boys and they are prejudice. 

          I think that the writer has explored the ideas in her novel successfully by writing and expressing the feeling of an adopted child, the mother, the adoption parents and other characters in the book really well. It is as like the writer has given different perspectives of what people think about in their minds, not just the words of the narrator that describe the action and situation through the text.

          However, I’m not chinese, but I was raised in half Chinese half Thai traditional culture, so other people like chinese people may not agree with the way the writer explored her ideas in the novel because I don’t really know much about the ideas of Chinese people think because they may have something more than that.

English B diary

24  October 2013

Dear diary, 

           I think that I will ask my parents about buy a ticket for me to go to China for my graduation present. In six months, I will be graduated, I can’t wait to graduate and get my present! And the reason that I want to go to China.. do you really want to know, diary?

          When I was in elementary school, my history teacher was teaching us about multiculturalism. He asked me about how long had my parents lived in Canada and where did my parents come from? Well.. what could I say? They lived in Canada since they were born, but I was an orphan child who was born in China.

          I had never thought much about ethnic in that time until I was in high school. I got to know more people like Chinese-Canadian girl and Vietnamese girl. From that time, I got to know that some families like the Lee family had got their own accents, traditional foods and sometimes they could fly back to their homeland to visit their relatives as well. I wanted to feel like that once in my life.. I wanted to know how it feel to live with my own family and speak our own accents. Even though the Parker(my family) had been raising me up and taking care of me most of my whole life, I still wanted to find out and get to know more about my real family. 

        Right now, I feel like I don’t belong to Parker family, I don’t feel like I fit with them. This is not my place. Compare my yellow asia skin with my parent’s white skin.. my hair colors and their hair colors. It is so obvious for everyone that I’m not Parker even though Parker family treats me like I am not an adopted child. 

         Grace Parker