Week 8 Questions 1 & 4

1. “A Chinese Banquet,” by Kitty Tsui is a perfect example of internal contradictions. She repetitively says that “it was not a very formal affair,” but in words the informal affair is made formal because she describes how she can not talk about her feelings, and that her mother “sits across from her.” The distance between her and her family members suggests that what is suppose to be an informal occasion has really turned out to be informal. This great piece of literature also hinges on the contradiction that it is suppose to be a family affair, “just the family getting together,” yet her lover is “not invited.” This further illustrates the contradiction that the informal family affair really is not informal and really is not a family affair. Other internal contradictions that make this poem a great piece of literature is the conflicting ideas. “Her eyes are wet but she will not let tears fall.” Inside her mother I crying but outside she pretends like the problem does not exist. This is why she says that her mother “no longer asks when i'm getting married.” Instead her mother shifts the subject to “you've got to make a living,” even though her daughter being gay is eating her up inside.” She ends the poem with the idea that even though she is surrounded by her family she is not at home but instead her home “is in her arms,” (her lover's arms). Her conflicting theme is that her home is where she is accepted, but it is outside of her family.
4. I expected that the poem “Commitments,” would be on gay love, based on my knowledge of the author. Based on the title I expected the poem to be on a man's commitment to his relationship to another man. “I will always be there...I will be pictured smiling among siblings, parents, nieces and nephews.” I interpreted this to mean that he was rejected by family members, and that they buried (because exhumed can mean to raise from a grave) their memories of him in silence because of the fact that he was gay. I expected him to talk about being gay when his families dug up (or remembered) those memories of him when he was a boy. I stopped when I read “I am always there for critical emergencies, graduations, the middle of the night.” The text pointed out that he was constantly there for his family, and that his family was constantly calling him. So instead of them rejecting him and forgetting about him, he kept a relationship going with them. This helped me look at the poem in a new light- he was describing being someone close but nobody really saw him or knew him. “I am the invisible son...nothing appears out of character... I smile as I serve my duty.” He felt obligated to be a part of the family, because it was a job or duty as a son, but truly he was invisible because nobody saw that he loved another man.