Chapter 5 Observing a Scene Essay Paper

Chapter 5 Observing a Scene Essay Paper

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Chapter 5 Observing a Scene Essay Paper

Chapter 5, Observing, Scene, Essay, Paper

Learning from Other Writers Here are two essays by writers who observe their surroundings and reflect on their observations. As you begin to analyze the first reading, look at the notes in the margin. They identify features such as the main impression created in the observation and stated in the thesis, the first of the locations observed, and the supporting details that describe the location.

As You Read These Observations As you read these essays, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What does the writer observe? Places? People? Behavior? Things? 2. What senses does each writer rely on? What sensory images d_pes each

develop? Find some striking passages in which the writer reports obser- vations. What makes these passages memorable to you?

3. Why does the writer use observation? What conclusion does the writer draw from reflecting on the observations?

Eric Liu The Chinatown Idea Eric Liu is an educator, lecturer, and author of Guiding Lights (2004), a book about men- torship. In this selection from The Accidental Asian (1998), he describes a childhood visit to Chinatown in New York City.

A nother family outing, one of our occasional excursions to the city. It . was a Saturday. I was twelve. I remember only vaguely what we did dur-

lntroductlon . . . mg the day – Fifth Avenue, perhaps, the museums, Central Park, Carnegie Hall. But I recall with precision going to Chinatown as night fell.

. —{ We parked on a side street, a dim, winding way cluttered with Chinese 2 Vantage pomt 1 placards o and congested with slumbering Buicks and Chevys. The license

plates – NEW YORK, EMPIRE STATE – seemed incongruous here, foreign. We walked a few blocks to East Broadway. Soon we were wading through thick crowds on the sidewalk, passing through belts of aroma: sweat and breath, old perfume,

Supporting detail spareribs. It was late autumn and chilly enough to numb my cheeks, but the bustle all around gave the place an electric warmth. Though it was evening, the scene was lit like a stage, thanks to the aluminum lamps hanging from every produce stand.

Peddlers lined the street, selling steamed buns and chicken feet and imitation Gucci bags. Some shoppers moved along slowly. Others stopped at each stall, inspecting the greens, negotiating the price of fish, talking loudly. I strained to make sense of the chopped-off twangs of

placards: Posters, signs.

Learning from Other Writers

Cantonese coming from every direction, but there were more tones than I knew: my ear was inadequate; nothing was intelligible.

This was the first time I had been in Chinatown after dark. Mom held 3 Andrea’s hand as we walked and asked me to stay close. People bumped us, brushed past, as if we were invisible. I felt on guard, alert. I craned my neck as we walked past a kiosk o carrying a Chinese edition of Playboy. I glanced sidelong at the teenage ruffians on the corner.

They affected an air of menace with their smokes and leather jackets, but their feathery almost-mustaches and overpermed hair made them look a bit ridiculous. Nevertheless, I kept my distance. I kept an eye on the sidewalk, too, so that I wouldn’t soil my shoes in the streams of putrid o water that trickled down from the alleyways and into the parapet 0 of trash bags piled up on the curb.

I remember going into two stores that night. One was the Far Eastern 4 Bookstore. It was on the second floor of an old building. As we entered, the sounds of the street fell away. The room was spare and fluorescent. It looked like an earnest community library, crowded with rows of chest-high shelves.

In the narrow aisles between shelves, patrons sat cross-legged on the floor, reading intently. If they spoke at all it was in a murmur. Mom and Dad each found an absorbing book. They read standing up. My sister and I, meanwhile, wandered restlessly through the stacks, scanning the spines for stray English words or Chinese phrases we might recognize. I ended up in children’s books and leafed through an illustrated story about the three tigers. I couldn’ t read it. Before long, I was tugging on Dad’s coat to take us somewhere else.

The other shop, a market called Golden Gate, I liked much more. It was 5 noisy. The shoppers swarmed about in a frenzy. On the ground level was an emporium o of Chinese nonperishables: dried mushrooms, spiced beef, sea- weed, shredded pork. Open crates of hoisin sauce 0 and sesame chili paste. Sweets, like milky White Rabbit chews, coconut candies, rolls of sour “haw flakes .” Bags of Chinese peanuts, watermelon seeds.

Down a narrow flight of stairs was a-storehouse of rice cookers, ivory chopsticks, crockery, woks that hung from the wall. My mother carefully picked out a set of rice bowls and serving platters. I followed her to the long checkout line, carrying a basket full of groceries we wouldn’t find in Poughkeepsie. I watched with wonder as

Supporting detail

the cashier tallied up totals with an abacus. THESIS

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We had come to this store, and to Chinatown itself, to replenish our sup- r stating main impression ply of things Chinese: food and wares, and something else as well. We had ventured here from the colorless outer suburbs to touch the source, to dip into a pool of undiluted Chineseness.

It was easier for my parents, of course, since they could decode the signs and communicate. But even I, whose bond to his ancestral culture had frayed down to the inner cord of appetite- even I could feel somehow fortified by a trip to Chinatown.

kiosk: Booth. putrid: Rotten; decaying. parapet: Wall, as on a castle. emporium: Marketplace. hoisin sauce: A sweet brown sauce that is a popular Chinese condiment.

84 Part Two • Chapter 5 Observing a Scene

Yet we knew that we couldn’t stay long-and that we didn’t really want 7 to. We were Chinese, but we were still outsiders. When any peddler addressed us in Cantonese, that became obvious enough. They seemed so familiar and so different, these Chinatown Chinese. Like a reflection distorted just so.

Conclusion drawn them. I liked being connected to them. But was it because of what we -{

Their faces were another brand of Chinese, rougher-hewn. I was fascinated by

from observation shared- or what we did not? I began that night to distinguish between my world and theirs.

It was that night, too, as we were making our way down East Broadway, s that out of the blur of Chinese faces emerged one that we knew. It was Po- Po’ so face. We saw her just an instant before she saw us. There was surprise in her eyes, then hurt, when she peered up from her parka. Everyone hugged and smiled, but this was embarrassing.

Mom began to explain: we’d been up- town, had come to Chinatown on a whim, hadn’t wanted to barge in on her unannounced. Po-Po nodded. We made some small talk. But the realization that her daily routine was our tourist’s jaunt, o that there was more than just a hundred miles between us, consumed the backs of our minds like a flame to paper. We lingered for a minute, standing still as the human current flowed past, and then we went our separate ways.

Afterward, during the endless drive home, we didn’t talk about bumping 9 into Po-Po. We didn’t talk about much of anything. I looked intently through the window as we drove out of Chinatown and sped up the FOR Drive, then over the bridge. Manhattan turned into the Bronx, the Bronx into Yonkers, and the seams of the parkway clicked along in soothing intervals as we cruised northward to Dutchess County. I slipped into a deep, open-mouthed slumber,

Po-Po: The narraror’s grandmother. jaunt: Trip, outing.

Learning from Other Writers

not awakening until we were back in Merrywood, our development, our own safe enclave. I remember the comforting sensation of being home: the sky was clear and starry, the lawn a moon-bathed carpet. We pulled into our smooth blacktop driveway. Silence. It was late, perhaps later than I’d ever stayed up. Still, before I went to bed, I made myself take a shower.

Questions to Start You Thinking Meaning

1. Why do Liu and his family go to Chinatown? 2. How do Liu and his family feel when they encounter Po-Po? What ob-

servations and descriptions lead you to that conclusion? 3. What is the significance of the last sentence? How does it capture the es-

sence ofLiu’s Chinatown experience?

Writing Strategies 4. In which paragraphs or sections does the writer’s use of sensory details

capture the look, feel, or smell of Chinatown? In general, how success- fully has Liu included various types of observations and details?

5. How does Liu organize his observations? Is this organization effective? Why or why not?
6. Which of the observations and events in this essay most clearly reveal that Liu considers himself to be a “tourist”?

Alea Eyre Student Essay Stockholm For her first-year composition class, Alea Eyre records her introduction to an unfamiliar location.

The amount of noise and movement bustling around me was almost electrifying. As soon as I stepped off the plane ramp, I was enveloped into a brand new world. I let all my heightened senses work together to take in this new experience. Fear and elation collided in my head as I navigated this new adventure by myself. I was thirteen years old and just taking the final steps of a lonely twenty-six-hour journey across the world from Hawaii to Sweden.

I had never seen so many white folks in one place. Hundreds crowded and rushed 2 to be somewhere. The busy airport felt like a culture shock but not in a bad way. Blonde hair whipped past me, snuggled in caps and scarves. Skin tucked in coats and jeans appeared so shockingly white it almost blinded me. Delicate yet tall and sturdy people zipped around me as if they had to attend to an emergency.

A music-like language danced around my ears, exciting me as I drew closer to the 3 baggage claim . The sound was so familiar yet seemed so distant. I had heard it

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When have you had similar surpnses tn a new environmenr?

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