Zizhe(Derek) Hong
Gabriel Heller
IWW 1
9-15-14
In Coming home Again, Chang Rae Lee talks about his relationship with his mother and how the relationship changes as he grows up. Lee talks about his mother's cooking moments to show the relationship. As Lee describes the moment when he watches his mom "⦠takes up a butchered short rib in her narrow hand⦠and with the point of her knife cut so that the bone fell away, though not completely, leaving it connected to the meat by the barest opaque layer of tendon" to prepare Kalbi (Lee). Lee uses imagery to an extent where all the situations in the essay give the reader a better feeling of what is occurring. Lee also deeply respects and loves his mother, but the relationship becomes strained when he decides to attend the boarding school. As he looks back in the essay, he regrets the fact that he does not spend enough time with his mother before she passed.
The first IWW charter in Canada, Vancouver Industr...
A Wobbly membership card, or "red card"
1914 IWW demonstration in New York CityHe begins to feel that choosing a boarding school make him lose valuable time with his mother. I believe that Lee wants us to relate our own experiences to his family and tries to teach us from his experiences, as he chooses Exeter and does not spend enough time with his mother. Lee's story really expresses the idea that people always need to give up something cherishing to gain something valuable, as he says, at the end of the essay, "Sometimes I still think about what she said, about having made a mistake" (Lee).
Similar to Lee, I chose to attend a boarding school in U.S. and to sacrifice the time to spend with my family. When I think about the first time I arrived at U.S., it is still a fresh and...