Jane Ftacnik
Literature 4333  
November 21, 2003

Woman Warrior:  Kingston Battles the Chinese Culture

     It is sometimes said that in this country women are discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens.  It is true that the founders did not grant the constitutional rights to anyone but themselves, (land-owning white males), but women and minorities have since fought and won to exercise their constitutional rights.   Women in America are allowed to do most anything that men can do, including joining the military and fighting in combat.  So while discrimination has been a part of America's past, it is generally accepted that now women are able to become educated, earn money, and advance in their careers.  Any discrimination that is present may be manifested in subtle ways, but certainly when American women are born they are welcomed into society and can maker their own way if they choose.  But a conflict may occur in America when a woman is born into an immigrant family and is the first generation born here.  The immigrant family is not likely to espouse the same values that an assimilated American family does, and therein lies a conflict.   In Kingston's Woman Warrior, she is part of the first generation born in America to Chinese parents who retain the same values they had when they lived in China.  In her memoir, she exposes the pervasive oppression of women within the Chinese culture.  Kingston becomes a woman warrior as she systematically rejects the Chinese culture imposed upon her in America. 

     Kingston begins her memoir with a powerful re-telling of the story about her aunt who killed both herself and her child.  But what is alarming about this story is not the story itself, rather; the reason why it is being told.  Kingston's mother is relaying it to Kingston to teach her about the Chinese cultural values and morals.  The aunt became pregnant by someone other than her husband, and on the night of the birth of her child, the villagers pillaged her home and destroyed much of the property inside of it.  Through this story, Kingston learns that becoming pregnant by anyone other than a husband is cause for punishment even if the pregnancy is by rape.  Furthermore, it is recognized that the whole village acts as a moral police and has the right to punish someone for behavior it deems intolerable.  The mother warns Kingston, "Don't humiliate us.  You wouldn't like to be forgotten as if you had never been born.  The villagers are watchful (Kingston 5)."  Her mother's sole purpose for telling the story to Kingston is because Kingston is coming of age and is able to be pregnant, and thus must bear the burden of having the child.  A man's sexual behavior can be kept a secret, for he does not harbor any tell-tale signs like a woman does.  Rabine agrees as she argues, "Sexed bodies become the visible signs through which a system of hierarchal social roles is enforced by economics, politics, the family, religion, and other institutional constructs so that individuals whose bodies are visibly marked "female" find themselves forced into oppressive positions (Rabine 87)."  So her mother uses the story as a parable and by doing so she endorses the actions of the villagers.  In other words, the villagers were right and the aunt was wrong.  Kingston justifies the actions of the villagers by asserting that extreme poverty may have caused them to enact social codes so that children were not born unnecessarily.  And Kingston suggests that her mother is only trying to let her know about life as she states, "Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on (Kingston 5)."  But by adding her commentary to the story, Kingston's mother clearly lets Kingston know how she should behave.  Kingston does not express any tenderness or affection for her mother but simply acknowledges that her mother is trying to tell her about the Chinese culture.   Rabine concedes as she notes, "The narrator of Woman Warrior weaves her ambivalence to her community and culture into her ambivalence toward her mother, who communicates to her the culture and its myths and who interprets the community for her (Rabine 91)."   

     The title of the chapter about the aunt reveals how her family thinks of her as Kingston calls the first chapter "No Name Woman."  By including the aunt's story into the memoir, Kingston defies her family's tradition of not ever mentioning the aunt.  Huntley concedes as she points out that "Kingston takes up the challenge, retelling the story of her aunt's transgression, thus articulating a portion of family lore that has been concealed (Huntley 94)."  Most Chinese revere the ancestors and speak of them often, so the unspoken tradition of not mentioning the aunt shows how little the aunt is regarded among family members.  Kingston not only includes the story into her memoir where it will be read by thousands of readers, but she offers her own interpretations on the story, suggesting that she is not fully accepting of her mother's version.  For instance, Kingston theorizes that the aunt enjoys sex as she narrates, "It could very well have been, however, that my aunt did not take subtle enjoyment of her friend, but, a wild woman, kept rollicking company (Kingston 8)."  Kingston also offers the possibility that the aunt is raped repeatedly as she writes, "…The other man as not, after all, much different from her husband.  They both gave orders:  she followed.  'If you tell your family, I'll beat you.  I'll kill you.  Be here again next week (Kingston 7)."  Kingston breaks the code of silence about the aunt. 

     As she builds the idea that women are not valued within the Chinese culture, Kingston also shows how little girls are treated in China.  From their childhood, girls are seen as nothing but an inconvenience.  By this time in the memoir, the reader understands that girls are nothing and are not treated equally as boys.  But nothing prepares the American reader for the description of little girls being sold in the market as slaves.  As Kingston describes how her mother swiftly moves through the market, she reveals the reason why her mother was there, in Kingston's words, "…she had come to market to buy herself a slave (Kingston 78)."  Now at this point it is not obvious that her mother will eventually buy a little girl as Kingston uses the word "slave."  Kingston captures the value of little girls in one sentence as she narrates, "Among the sellers with their ropes, cages, and water tanks were the sellers of little girls (79)."  The girls are seen in an image that makes them as valuable as pets.  The descriptions in this scene of the memoir are haunting and belie the undercurrent of oppression.  Yet they are necessary to illustrate the general feeling of Chinese men and women towards little girls.  Kingston tells us the different prices for girls and we learn that girl babies are free.  They are, according to Chinese culture, worthless.  The families struggle to sell the girls in order to rid their families of what is perceived as a burden.  Again, as Kingston's mother describes this scene to her, she lets Kingston know that babies were considered to be worthless and that she paid $200.00 to give birth to Kingston.  But the mother's statement is not one of love or caring as the mother is pointing out that Kingston should feel overwhelmingly grateful to her mother for paying to give birth to her.  The mother was in America when Kingston was being born, so she had to go to a hospital to have her daughter and could not just drop her off in the street to die or try to sell her to anyone because that would be breaking the law in America.  The circumstances would be very different if Kingston's family were in China when Kingston was being born, as she may have been dropped off at the market for anyone to pick up or to die.  Because the family moved to America, at least Kingston was allowed to live. The American laws allowed Kingston to live, but she enjoyed no love or affection, as there are no laws requiring a child to be loved.  Kingston realizes that her mother cares more for the slave than for her as she senses her mother's affection for the slave.  As Kingston narrates, "My mother's enthusiasm for me is duller than the slave girl; nor did I replace the older brother and sister who died while they were still cuddly (Kingston 82)."  Even within her own nuclear family, she is devalued. 

     After Kingston shows us how the Chinese in China think of girls, she effectively begins to break up the traditional pattern for girls in her family as they expect her to cook, clean, and sew just like the little girls in China.  But Kingston rejects these ideas as she sabotages her family's efforts by openly defying the villagers' comments and refusing to become an expert at housework. The emigrant villagers make comments just as though they had never left China.  They do not seem to be assimilating into American culture and consider girls to be worthless.  As Kingston notes, "When one of my parents or the emigrant villagers said, 'Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds,' I would thrash on the floor and scream so hard I couldn't talk.  I couldn't stop (Kingston 46)."  Her actions are so unexpected that the villagers do not comprehend why she would react in this way.  They are unable to see how they are devaluing girls and discriminating against them, even though they are here now, not in China anymore.  Huntley agrees with this as she notes, "Even in America, immigrant communities tended to retain some of the cultural practices of their countries of origin, and Stockton's Chinatown is no different (109)."   They brought China with them to America and they have reconstructed their own Chinese village in the middle of Stockton, California. 

     By verbally expressing her emotions and letting her parents know that she understands that her brothers are more loved than she is, Kingston fights against her discrimination.  After her brothers were born, Kingston asks her mother, "Did you roll an egg on my face like that when I was born?  Did you have a full-month party for me?…Why not?  Because I am a girl? Is that why not (Kingston 46)."  But the villagers' response is what is so surprising.  Even when Kingston is blatantly pointing out how her brothers are more loved than she is because they happened to be boys, the villagers refuse to acknowledge what she is saying and they merely comment that "She is very mean, isn't she (Kingston  46)?"   The emigrant villagers see Kingston as not behaving like a Chinese girl should.  The oppression of girls in Chinese culture is so pervasive that one little girl's voice can hardly change it.  So Kingston must fight many battles as she rages against the emigrants who have built their own Chinese village in America, and also her parents. 

     Her parents behave as traditional Chinese parents would behave, and so they try to marry Kingston and her sister in order to get them out of the family.  But Kingston has another plan, and this includes going to college.  She also defiantly tells her mother to stop trying to marry her sister.  When the men come to visit her family, Kingston behaved in the opposite manner that was expected of her.  Instead of being a quiet, obedient, and unobtrusive girl, Kingston became defiant and refused to act like a Chinese girl.  When a particular Chinese man came for dinner, she made herself as unattractive as possible to the Chinese man.  As Kingston narrates, "I would protect my sister and myself at the same time.  As my parents and the FOB sat talking at the kitchen table, I dropped two dishes.  I found my walking stick and limped across the floor…(Kingston 194)."  But even after Kingston openly expresses her contempt against the idea of marriage, her mother still tries to point out that Kingston is worthy as a Chinese wife as Kingston narrates, "She can sew, though, I heard my mother say, and sweep (Kingston 194)."  Her parents do not consider any other options for her, and her mother cannot empathize with her daughter as she ignores her daughter's behavior. Her mother insists that Kingston's destiny is to be married, as Kingston writes, "Though you can't see it, my mother said, 'a red string around your ankle ties you to the person you'll marry.  He's already been born, and he's on the other end of the string (Kingston 194)."   Finally Kingston tells her mother that she is not getting married, and plans to go to college, and her mother berates her and explains that she is not wanted by anyone as tells Kingston that she is "noisy, messy, and disobedient (Kingston 202)."  Her mother then acknowledges that she was not able to complete her dream of having a career as a doctor, as she interrupted her career to marry and then moved to America.  Still, even after Kingston tells her mother that her teachers have told her that she get scholarships, her mother encourages her to go to typing school.  The mother refuses to let Kingston grow up differently than she did even though she is no longer in China.

     Sometimes Kingston had to remain silent when fighting her battles.  Kingston painfully recounts how her great-uncle treated her and her sister as she explains that on Saturday mornings her great-uncle would come over and ask if any of the children wanted to go out with him, but he was addressing the question only to her brothers.  As Kingston narrates, "…I'm coming, I'm coming. Wait for me…When he heard girls' voices, he turned on us and roared, 'No girls, and left my sisters and me hanging our coats back up, not looking at one another (Kingston 47)."  Kingston does not attempt to verbally lash back at the great-uncle, because this would not be effective as the great-uncle has all the power.  But at his funeral she silently refuses to be sad that he has passed away.  As Kingston writes, "At my great-uncle's funeral I secretly tested out feeling glad that he was dead-the six-foot bearish masculinity of him (Kingston 47)."  By including her silent battle into her memoir, Kingston ensures that the world knows how she felt as a little girl.  She may not have had any power against the great-uncle at that moment, but through her writing she has power now. 

      After Kingston earns her college degrees and returns home, she realizes that she is still not valued by the Chinese culture.  Kingston writes, "I went away to college-Berkeley in the sixties-and I studied, and I marched to change the world, but I did not turn into a boy (Kingston 47)."  She will never be a boy and so will never be loved or appreciated like a boy is within in the Chinese culture.  Kingston continues to become a woman warrior as she fights against the discrimination within the Chinese culture.  She returns home and realizes that her family will never believe that she is honorable but she knows that she is, and that is what is important.  She knows that they will never change.  Simmons agrees as she notes, "In The Woman Warrior Kingston is concerned primarily with the identity that had been imposed on them as potentially destructive outsiders-"maggots in the rice," never fully members of the all-important, male-dominant kinship system-to that of heroines who save their families and the world, who clean it up and hold it together (Simmons 140)."  Kingston disagrees with the value system of the Chinese culture, and fights against it using every available resource including the pen. 

     A few weeks ago a Chinese male customer of mine acknowledged that if he were a girl, he would think the situation was worse and even though I was shocked at his statement, I understood why he said it.  I acknowledged what he was saying, but chose not to respond to it.  Because of Kingston, I too have become a woman warrior and join her in a sometimes silent battle against the oppression of women within the Chinese culture.     

Works Cited

Kingston, Maxine Hong.  The Woman Warrior. New York:  Vintage International, 1976. 

Huntley, E.D.  Maxine Hong Kingston. A Critical Companion.  Westport:  Greenwood Press, 2001.

Rabine, Leslie W.  "No Lost Paradise."  Social Gender and Symbolic Gender in the Writings Of Maxine Hong Kingston.  Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior A Casebook. Ed. Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1999.

Simmons, Diane.  Maxine Hong Kingston.  New York:  Twayne Publishers, 1999.