Rose of Sharon by Myung Mi Kim
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The writing, ôRose of Sharon,ö by Myung Mi Kim, seems to straddle the forms between prose and poetry as it appears to tell the day in a life of a young Amerasian girl. Written in the first person from the viewpoint of the little girl, the reader is told from the beginning that the little girl is conscious of her mixed heritage since she has ôgolden brownö hair and is excluded from playing with the other children because of this (line 1). She seems to be also either anticipating a meeting with someone or daydreaming about it. She seems to be hoping someday to meet her elusive ôround-ôeyed father (line 10), the one that is never discussed at home (line 14). In the end, however, it is her mother the little girl misses as she reminisces about their time together. It is then that the reader learns of her motherÆs brutal murder at the hands of two ôBig Noseö men. As Kim exposes the reader to more of the young girlÆs story, she takes the reader on a journey. The reader is lead from seeing the girl as a simple young schoolgirl on any school playground who may feel excluded because of her looks to understanding the complete exclusion this little girl faces as a child of mixed Asian/Anglo descent, and the daughter of an assumed prostitute who has been brutally and carelessly murdered by her own customers. At the bottom of the poem, there is a note that the Rose of Sharon is the national flower of Korea. After reading this piece of writing, I realized that there were some assu
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at their mother desired, her daughters took up other American activities for girls, like sports. Their mother was upset, not just because they seemed to be rejecting their own culture, but also because she could now no longer identify with them. ôThe food we ate growing up had always been an indication of how Korean her æmixed-bloodÆ children were û or werenÆtö (298).
When the woman had her own mixed race daughter and realized how strongly she identified as Korean, and as a Korean American, and wanted her daughter to identify with that, she understood what her mother had been through all those years ago. As an adult and a mother, she no longer feared her own heritage and wants her daughter to grow up loving kimchee as well. The final scene is grandmother and granddaughter ômakingö kimchee with Playskool equipment while the mother looks on.
Growing up we had kimchee in our home. My parents love kimchee. Most of the people in my family love kimchee, even though we are from Singapore and are not of Korean descent. I seem to be one of the only ones in the family who does not like kimchee and sometimes I think that my parents think of it as some sort of a moral shortcoming, as if IÆm letting down my ancestors. Unlike the girl
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Keller Korean, Sumita Somesh, Singapore Korean, Singapore United, Rose Sharon, Divakaruni Sumita, Mi Kim, Widows India, Noseö Kim, Korean American, little girl, rose sharon, ôrose sharonö, advantage opportunities, advantage opportunities offered, family singapore, opportunities offered, mixed race, short story, start fresh, trials tribulations, ôa bite kimcheeö,
Approximate Word count = 2355
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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