Jose Badillo
Mrs. Fay Lee
1302 Composition and Rhetoric II
24 September 2009
Scar.
My first impression when reading this story was the value of respect in the Chinese culture. Respect for your mother and respect for ancestors or other family members. It impressed me the most how far her daughter is willing to take it to save her mother’s life, even though Popo was really mean to her all the time.
Some of the issues that were brought are how for the Chinese culture their family name is so important. I think that Popo was wrong for telling An-mei all those bad things about her mom to her granddaughter, but the way the An-mei handle it throughout the story it was the appropriate way. An-mei forgives her mother even after all those years of hearing only bad things about her.
I think the meaning of the story is to no matter from what culture you come from forgiveness is really important. Because if you don’t forgive someone and let the time pass by, at the end the one that suffers the most is the one that can’t forgive. For An-mei’s mother she handle it well, and is also very important how she kind of teaches An-mei to be like her, by acting in front of her at all those times when she was with Popo.
Some of the literary terms that I saw that override in the story were: Scar (mainly this one, because it can have different meaning in regard to the story either physical or emotional.), “Shou”, honor, forgive, ghost, “ni” (traitor), daughter, family.
