Song of the Stranger --- A Book Report

by Laura

Song of the Stranger is about Karen, a thirteen-year-old girl who’s disapproving grandmother(Obasan) comes to visit without much warning. Obasan always picks on Karen, saying she’s a rude and spoiled girl without Japanese culture. Karen is Japanese-American, but she doesn’t know a lot of Japanese. Karen is yearning for Obasan to leave, but when that day comes, Obasan announces that she is going to take Karen with her to Japan, ONLY to fulfill a deceased family member’s will. Karen thinks it’s the end to her blissful summer, or is it?

I found this book at the book giveaway at our local library after our Creative Writing class. The books on the shelf were free and you could take as many as you wished. 

When I saw the spine, I thought it was some Drama/mystery story.  Much to my surprise, on the cover was an asian girl and an old woman. I could tell the older woman was Japanese by looking at her kimono.  

I started reading the book the next day. It was awesome! Very well written. I could feel the way Karen felt and experience her thoughts. I felt lonely and angry when she did and I felt happy and hopeful when she did. Each character had it’s own personality, which made me look forward to each character’s conversation. It was written so well and truthful that you could have thought it was more like a memoir, not a fictional tale.

I read what was on the back. It turned out that Karen, the girl on the cover was indeed Japanese. She’s kind of like me, except I’m Chinese-American. I was born in America, but my ethnic roots are from China. Some people describe Chinese-Americans as Twinkies because our skin color is yellow on the outside but we are white on the inside. 

Some Chinese-Americans feel they are 100% American. They do everything the American way. However, I feel I am a little bit of both --- part yellow and part white, not exactly a Twinkie. My parents speak Chinese at home and I do too. At home, my language switch automatically turns to Chinese. When I was small, my mom would read me chinese stories and teach me Chinese writing. When I reach school age, I go to American school and learn american history and politics. I get the opportunity to experience different ways of doing things. At home, I eat Chinese food (of course, if dinner options include lasagna or pizza, which do happen sometimes when my mom runs out of ideas, I would go nuts!) Being chinese-american means going to Chinese school, writing chinese with mom, and most of all, having parents that push me TONS to do my best.

It’s summer break. If I were in China right now, I would probably be in Summer school. However, I am in America. In America summer is more relaxing. But when my mom says, “It’s time to do some math!” I just go do the math worksheet. When I’m done with it, I feel a sense of accomplishment that I learned something new or strengthened some skills. In my mind, without a good balance between relaxing and learning in the summer, I feel the summer’s not complete. My parents are helping me even it out, with summer meaning relaxing, swimming, doing hobbies, and also learning new things so that when school starts again, I will feel prepared. I feel that’s the right balance. But sometimes it can be hard to find the right place to draw the line. That was why I thought it would be interesting to learn about another asian-american girl about my age. I’ve never really seen a book with quite a topic like this. 

After I read the book, I thought this book was really good and well written. The only disappointment I had was that the storyline didn’t really stick to the summary on the back. The summary on the back was talking about how different cultures can interfere with each other. That was suppose to be why Obasan was so disapproving of Karen. Instead, the story was more about the relationship between Karen and her Obasan and about Karen’s adventures in Japan.

It was a good summer read. Learning how Karen deals with the problem may help me when I’m in the similar situation later on. I mean, who knows?

 

Comments

[Laura]

Thank you for reading! I appreciate your comments!
~Laura

[saskia]

song of the stranger sounds like a lovely book that I am definitely going to read!
thanks!