Week 7: Close Reading Analysis of an excerpt from Sun Sui Far's Mrs. Spring Fragrance

Warning: This analysis may imply a biased opinion against White people. I do not wish to inflict any forms of microaggression on anyone, so if my statement had in any way offended you (reader), I express my sincerest apology.

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Please see my reading notes for a summary.

The story revolves around a Chinese couple who begrudgingly let the Americans take their son for the reason that the infant doesn't have any legal document available to migrate to California. I believe that the reason why they took the Chinese couple's two-year-old son is to brainwash him, to make him believe that the Americans/White people are dominant, and to strip away his Chinese culture maybe because they want to assert that if he (or anyone) wants to continue living in their (White people's) land, he has to adapt to their culture.

I believe that the mention of the difference between the clothing of a Chinese boy Lae Choo used to play with, and the clothing of her Little One when she finally sees him again is an indication of brainwashing.

Sun Sui Far gave us a glimpse of traditional Chinese clothing by writing, "A roly-poly woman in black sateen, with long pendant earrings in her ears, looked up from the street and waved at her smiling greeting. It was her old neighbor, Kuie Hoe, the wife of the gold embosser, Mark Sing. With her was a little boy in a yellow jacket and lavender pantaloons (Hicks et. al. pp. 324-325)." Then, she writes ". . . she [White woman] reappeared leading by the hand a little boy dressed in blue cotton overalls and white-soled shoes (Hicks et. al. p. 329)."

This is a blatant attempt to strip away a young boy's identity and culture that has succeeded. One may argue that the White people who took away Lae Choo's son don't have any clothing resembling the child's traditional clothing. However, if the people who took and "nurtured" the Little One could take some time to teach him his culture through pictures, perhaps, he wouldn't be thinking of his mother as a stranger. I assume that when Lae Choo meets her son again, she is wearing her traditional clothing. Little One has been deprived of his own identity, and as his young mind and heart seeks attention and affection, he finds it with his captors as they so provided. I assume that Lae Choo wears her traditional clothing every day, as to that day she meets her child, so Little Kim's young mind is confused finding no resemblance to what he currently has, he is inclined to dispel his own mother.

On this note about the difference in clothing, I believe that the White caretakers had Little Kim on a short leash, and it had completely brainwashed him. Sun Sui Far writes, "She fell on her knees and stretched her hungry arms toward her son. But the Little One shrunk from her and tried to hide himself in the folds of the white woman's skirt.
"Go 'way, go 'way!" he bade his mother. (HIcks et. al. p. 329)

This also proves that the White people have, slowly yet surely, controlled and asserted their dominance over People of Color. It is tragic and unimaginable to see your own child turn away from you; the same child you bore and raised for two whole years had been brainwashed by his captors in just five months. It may have been because of the depravity of a mother's love that the White captors had inflicted Little One. His yearning and longing for his mother's love and touch had vanished because he was made to feel unloved. Not just that, the captors had also taken the liberty of naming the child, Little Kim, which his mother had unfortunately lost. The captors created a new identity for the Little One, not for his own sake, but flourishing their dominance, establishing their authority to rule over People of Color, and inflicting psychological and mental damage to People of Color to tremble in fear.

In relation to this, I would like us to look at the children being detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).


WORK CITED:

Hicks, Jack et al.  From an excerpt of Sun Sui Far's Mrs. Spring Fragrance. The Literature of California, vol. 1, University of California Press, 2000, pp. 321-329