Throwaway+Daughter

Novel Ideas sharing : **T**** HROWAWAY DAUGHTER ** by Ting-xing Ye Virginia, CHOY Wai Kwan

This story is about a self-identity discovery of a Chinese Canadian girl, Grace Dong-mei Margaret Parker. She was a bandoned on the steps of a Chinese orphanage and adopted by a Canadian family. H aunted by the cold fact that she was unwanted, Grace was once a little girl who hated all Chinese and defined herself as a Canadian. However, through the hours of Chinese language lessons and the growing yearning to find out where she had come from. She begins a journey to China, to meet and challenge the woman, Chun-mei, who had thrown her away. The journey to China has changed all her perspectives on seeing herself. The story background is set from 1980, during the Era of Reconstruction by Deng Xiaoping. From 1980 to 2000, there were several important events happened which changed the political, economical and social situations in China, including Cultural Revolution, Chinese Economic Reform and Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Title: Throwaway daughter Author: Ye, Ting-xing, with William Bell Publish Date: 2003 Publisher: Toronto: Doubleday Canada Physical description: 227 pages, paperback. Price: CD$16.95 Toronto Public Library: FICTION YE (44 copies) [] Class I will teach: ** Classes can be taught in Canada: ESLC/D since there are a large group of Chinese students in class. Although Grade 9/10 History does not cover Chinese History, students have to study World War history, which may give students some knowledge about China. In Hong Kong: Curriculum objective: to build students’ identities as Chinese and develop sense of belonging to the country CHINESE VERSION ONLY: Grade 7-9 [] Grade 10-11 [] Grade 7-9 [] Grade 10-11 [] Note: Chinese History and History are compulsory subjects from Secondary 1 to 3 (Grade 7 to 9), while starting from Secondary 4 (Grade 10), they are elective subjects.
 * Summary: **
 * Book details: **
 * a) ****In what grade level / course would you teach this text? Are there other courses for which it might also be appropriate?
 * I would like to use this text to teach Secondary 3 to 5 ( Grade 9 to 11 ) English Language because of the language level of the book and the relevance to the Chinese History and History curriculum.
 * For Chinese History curriculum in Grade 9 and Grade 11 includes the history of People’s Republic of China (Theme 8 and 9 in Grade 9; Part 2, Theme 3 of Grade 10-11 Chinese History curriculum).
 * For World History in Grade 9 has a touch with modern Chinese history (Theme 1 and 2 in Grade 9; Theme 1 and 2 in Grade 10-11 History curriculum)

1. Textual Knowledge: The whole story is broken into pieces. It is composed by various narrators’ descriptions about their own memories. While reading the chapters, r eaders will put the pieces back into one whole piece by linking their descriptions together. For example, in Grace’s early life in the Canadian family, there is a certain amount of description by her Canadian mother. However, those characters in this stage do not appear again in the remaining part of the story, since Grace’s life has been switched to China, and the narrators have been changed to her father, grandfather and other Chinese characters.
 * Knowledges: **

There are also a lot of pinyin ( Chinese Phonetic Alphabet ) to let the readers know some Chinese cultures through the Chinese language. Following the pinyin, there are English definitions to let the English speakers understand the meaning of the Chinese words. For example, Pei-qian-huo means money losing items/bad investments (p.59)

2. Cultural knowledge: In a broad sense, two main cultures, Canadian culture and Chinese culture, are covered in the book, and Grace is a combination of these two cultures. Canadian culture in the story is presented in a simple and straight forward way, it is an open-minded culture and is respectful to other cultures. Jane, Grace’s Canadian mother, with typical Canadian background, is not narrow-minded at all. She is the one who keeps Grace in touch with her origin for being a Chinese. She insists to keep “Dong-mei” in Grace’s full name and sends Grace to learn Chinese. In contrast, Chinese culture is more complicated to be explained. There are various sub-cultures in it. Each character represents a cultural and historical background, and they describe their individual lives to readers. · Loyalty and 100% belief to the government. No matter Old Revolutionary Chen or his son Loyal, believe totally what their leaders (Mao and Deng) said, and they follow everything without any doubt. · Value boys over girls: “They are just not as useful and capable as boys… (they) just like water rushing past a broken dam.” (p.38 by Chen) · Collectivism in Chinese society, which they will agree with the norms and do things together. For example, they eat together in a big group

Grace ( Dong-mei ) : a mixture of Canadian and Chinese cultures. She claims to be a Canadian, but through the journey to China, she changes her perspective and finds her self-identity as a Chinese. However, some of her behaviours remain to be those of a “Canadian”, for instance, she travels to China alone is an action in a western style. 3. Social knowledge: A conversation on the abandoned baby girls between two passer-bys reflects how female suffers under this social norm, “It’s one of those again, isn’t it?”, “They’re everywhere nowadays. In bus terminals, train stations, even in ditches.” (p. 204-205) 4. Topical knowledge: Jane: Jane’s decision of adopting Dong-mei (Grace) in the beginning. Babies adopted must be imperfect: a disability or questionable health. She asks herself and her husband a question that whether they will give up Megan (Grace’s Canadian sister) if they know that she is imperfect. They will not, so she adopted Grace and treats her as a birth daughter. Also, her love towards Grace is reflected when she notices that Grace has decided to go to China, she behaves to be jealous but longs for Grace’s return.
 * Because of the social norm of male domination over female, Chinese often abandoned and even killed their bab y girls ( See: p.204-205, 213 ).
 * The adoptions of imperfect babies from the western countries and the baby policy in China after 70s ( Only couples whose child is deformed are allowed a second ).
 * The change of society under different politicians’ ruling (Mao and Deng) is presented by Chen and his son Loyal.
 * Old Revolutionary Chen represents the lower social class with little knowledge and one of the passionate follower s of Chairman Mao, who started the Cultural Revolution.
 * His son, Loyal: a passionate follower of the new leader after Mao, Deng Xiao-ping, who promotes economic revolutionary that every citizen should live a better life. Symbolically, his name reflects traditional Chinese culture in a sense that “Loyalty” is one of the fundamental moral principles in the traditional Chinese society.
 * Chun-mei: Dong-mei’s mother, whose role is a victim under the social norm of attaching more importance to male than female. She also represents those people with some education background. H er father belongs to the intelligentsia, who has suffered from Cultural Revolution but is admired during Deng Xiaoping ’s economic reform . She c riticize s the social norm of having sons but not daughters . On the other hand, she is unable to fight against the social norms. The only thing she could do was to send Dong-mei (Grace) away before the family kills baby Dong-mei.
 * Self-identity discovery / Initiation of Grace: Accept the past of your home country and respect its culture
 * Criticism of the Chinese culture/society: the shame in modern Chinese history (e.g., Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, the difficult years in modern China, etc.)
 * Motherhood : Jane V.S. Chun-mei à Foster mother V.S. Birth mother

Chun-mei: The decision of sending Dong-mei away at first (let her survive and live in a better family) but longing for her return. “We will keep our seeds.” p.205 by Chun-mei’s father.

**b)** **What are the main ideas/ issues/ teaching points which you would emphasize when teaching the text? ** 1. Motherhood: birth parents and adoptive parents 2.  Feminism: introduce Canadian feminist to them: “When you raise up a boy, you raise up a man; when you raise up a girl, you raise up a family.” Relate back to Canadian history. 3.  Chinese culture (see part a)
 * Relating to Chun-mei’s action to send Dong-mei (Grace) away, there is one extra story written at the end of the book to conclude mothers’ love towards their daughters. It is a story on the war in Vietnam, a Vietnamese woman sent her baby to a man in the helicopter before she died.

Difficulties in teaching and how to cope with them: ** In Hong Kong: 1. Hong Kong students are lack of knowledge of recent Chinese History. Students are exam-oriented, they choose the texts that are easier to read and they tend to memorize during study. Recent Chinese History is rather complicated that History teachers usually skip to teach. ·  A sk students in class that what kind of knowledge they know about the recent Chinese history, rather than feeding them from the beginning. Ask them to find the descriptions in the book and tell what are the similarities and differences with their prior knowledge. 2. Political position varies in schools: some support the Chinese government very much that they will not let this book to be used in classrooms. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">· Focus on the social norms rather than modern history: The heavy consideration on sons and the loyalty/belief to the country
 * c) ****<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-font-family: '@Arial Unicode MS'; msofareastfontfamily: '@Arial Unicode MS';">What are the issues/ challenges you might encounter in teaching the text?

In Canada, <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">3. There is no Chinese history required in the curriculum of History that students may feel difficulties in understanding Chinese history. For Chinese students, the social and historical background would be a very sensational topic to discuss. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">·  Focus of the textural knowledge: how to organize thoughts in chronological order, thematic order, topical order, or narrative order. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">· Ask the Chinese students to introduce or explain some Chinese in classroom. Since Chinese students are not as outspoken as the Western students, you can encourage them to speak, and they will feel safer to talk about their cultures. E.g. the classical Chinese book //Journey to the West//; Chinese words such as “Pei-qian-huo” mentioned in the book.

**d)** **<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: '@Arial Unicode MS';">Describe one possible assignment / activity which you could use when teaching the text. **<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: '@Arial Unicode MS'; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW;"> <span style="font-family: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-font-family: '@Arial Unicode MS'; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastfontfamily: '@Arial Unicode MS'; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW;"> Assignments:  <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">1.  Summative essay:  <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">·  Put back the story into order: train organization skills, selection of data to present. <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">· Image what will happen to Grace when she returns to Canada, how the relationship between the Canadian family and her will change. <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">2. Debate: <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">· Traditional Chinese values <span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msobidifontfamily: Symbol; msofareastfontfamily: Symbol; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">· If Chinese students are uncomfortable with this topic, you may change the focus into Canadian cultures, such as “is it good for total freedom in a country?”

Activities / Teaching strategies: <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msolist: Ignore;">1. Four corners: which family background would you like to stay? Chen’s, Loyal’s, Jane’s, Boarding? Why? <span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW; msolist: Ignore;">2. Referral to another book: I would like to introduce an autobiography called //Chinese Cinderella// in class. It is written by Mah, Adeline Yen, which is also a story about an unwanted daughter. Although Adeline is very talented and has a lot of potential, she is considered to be a bad luck in the family because her mother died very soon after she was born. Every family member (except her aunt and grandfather) blames her and dislikes her. Adeline hides all these secrets and pretends herself as a loved child at school. The story describes her lonely and discriminated life at school in Tianjin and boarding school in Hong Kong, and how her positive attitudes to life achieve a greater success. This story is different from //Throwaway Daughter// that it does not refer a lot of historical background as Throwaway Daughter does. Instead, it chooses to focus more on the unwanted daughter’s feelings and thoughts towards life, which has a higher relevance to students’ lives. Also, the love and support from her aunt and grandfather are more realistic than the characters’ expressions in //Throwaway Daughter//. Expressions in //Throwaway Daughter// are a bit dramatic and remote to the readers since the author tries hard to depict the historical background by including too many narrators and issues in the book. A quotation from Chinese Cinderella: In spite of my writing and academic record, my classmates probably suspected there was something pathetic about me. I never spoke of my family; neither issued nor accepted any invitations outside the school; and always refused to eat the candies or snacks brought by my friends. My hair-style, shoes, socks and book bag did not inspire envy. No one from home ever came to be with me on prize-giving day, regardless of how many awards I had won. <span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW;">Amazon.com: [] <span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-language: ZH-TW; msofareastlanguage: ZH-TW;"> Toronto Public Library: ( 7 copies total in locations searched ): []