N*W*C - For Share

N*W*C

N*W*C, when I first look at the title of the show, I came up with a felling that it would be a fancy, gorgeous theater which introducing the New York City life or the like. After done of research, however, I realized that it is the shortage of N*GGER WETB*CK CH*NK.

A: “Wait, what is this? Come on…! “

B: “Nigger”

C: “Wetback”

D: “Chink”

A: “OH-MY-GOD!” well, right and right, poor A.

            B, C, and D are close friends, former debate team champions who together attended community college and they the University of California, Los Angeles, and who set out to tell the story of race in contemporary America through their own life experiences with intolerance, immigration and integration. N*W*C show is their creative work, and it invites audiences to experience the catharsis of laughter while, presenting an inspiring vision of the world they’d like to see.

B, C and D are the three main actors in this show, all originally coming the third world, representing Asian, African-American, and Latino respectively. One of them said, “If we’ve been called these words, then we have the right to confront them. That’s what the show is about.” However, it’s hard to believe that after the show coming out, the three friends could realize those they’d all had experiences with these racist words. Of course, it’s their own painful, which would never want others to notice about. “No-no!” they don’t agree with me, and one said, “It’s the racism behind them,” rather than painful.            

I feel like they are further greater than me. The same like both coming from Asia, the Asian actor, Allan Axibal and I have difference points of view towards ethical racism. Allan Axibal created this show, and confronts issues of racial discrimination in a way that is personal, thought provoking, moving and insightful.

           While before studying abroad, my father had told me not to speak out in the United States. He also said that it would no longer be your country, and you should be careful to say anything, especially in the public. My father used to come to the US for business travel for numerous times, and it did last for at least 2 months for each time. So I think he would say those to me because he must have been offended by racial slurs in the past when he was in America. Therefore my father was protecting me away from the discrimination, something he had suffered. In China, some old Chinese people would tell their children living abroad that, the further you stay away from racial discussion, the saver you will be. This is about what my father had told me, and I have always been like that. But those words like “Chink, Chink” are substitutes for our cultural identity. I used to think that I am this and then maybe self-hated. While it wasn’t until I watched this show that I started to appreciate my own culture. Like N*W*C’s main actors, if we’ve been called these words, then we have the right to confront them. I am not an actor, nor I can’t debate upon immigration issue. But I am now writing my reflection after watching the show. Later on, I will also post it on my blog to share it with my friends. I want N*W*C would really make their dream come true to bring their show to Broadway or parts nearby, and to spin it into a television show. In that case, more people will realize the importance of this social racial problem, and act to protect the only human race.

              No matter where I come from, what color my eyes are, how skinny and short I am, what language I usually speak, what the outfit I am in like, my hair color, my living habits…I am a man and you are a man too. We are humans, in one world, and will be together forever, for sure! 

We Murder Who We Were

Ms. Jasmine

“Lifetimes ago, under a banyan tree in the village of Hasnapur, an astrologer cupped his ears – his satellite dish to the stars – and foretold my widowhood and exile. I was only seven then, fast and venturesome, scabrous – armed from leaves and thorns.”(Page NO.1) Given the traditional Hindu belief in the accuracy of such astrological forecasts, this is a grave moment in the young girl’s life. (At least it was proven by her first husband’s death and even her move to the isolated Iowa farm town of Baden.) As the title of this story “We murder who we were”, Jasmine, our title character and narrator of Bharati Mukherjee novel, again and again killed herself deliberately. She must have done something very bad and wanted to spoil that. And in this case, that something was always herself, and she might think that she murdered who she was so that she would be another Jasmine, who she expected to be like at that moment.


So have you ever thought about why she would complain about her life all the time? After reading some parts of her life, I realized that Jasmine had a very different life from others that her odyssey encompasses five distinct settings of two murders, at least one rape, a maiming, a suicide, and three love affairs. Additionally in chronological order, Jasmine moves from Hasnpur, Punjab, to Fowlers key, Florida, to Flushing, New York, to Manhattan, to Baden, Iowa, and lastly is off to California as the novel ends. She went through almost half of the earth during her life, and it’s not hard to imagine that her life shouldn’t be peaceful but with danger, unexpected curves, discouragement, and hopelessness. So applied to my question set at the beginning of this paragraph, she complained about her life and murdered who she was time and again because she wanted to find hope in despair about her life.


Jump to the next four chapters of this novel, our narrator provides details about her current situation. Jasmine describes her introduction to Bud and their courtship, introduces her would-be mother-in- low, Mother Ripplemeyer, and Bud’s ex-wife Karin. She hints at sexual tension between her and Du, and her Darrel. When Jasmine makes love to the wheelchair-bound Bud, it illustrates the reversal of sexual power in her new life. Desire and control remain closely related throughout the novel. Du's glimpse of the lovemaking adds another dimension to the sexual politics: there are those in control, those who are helpless, and those bystanders waiting to become part of the action. As we know that Jasmine is originally from India, and this resonates with ideas later chronicled about Indian notions of love and marriage. And here, you must know that whenever we talk of Indian wedding, we try to associate it with arranged marriage. Due to the social structure (in India), the concept of arranged marriage is prevalent in the Indian wedding scenarios, since ages. On the other hand, love marriages were considered as a taboo among many Indian people who do not have a modern outlook of life. For them, two people should tie the wedding knot only with the consent of their parents and the blessing of their relatives.

A scene of a Punjabi village in India. Jasmine's title character, a widowed Punjabi peasant, creates a new life for herself in the United States.

It's 21st century arranged marriage, with an American twist. Tradition meets technology as young Indian singles log on to matrimonial websites like Shaadi.com to find a mate who might meet their parents' expectations. I would like to share a video about Indian wedding traditions and it talked about its relationship with social class. Please enjoy ~

Akiko: what happened to you?

The story “Beccah” is very interesting to me, especially, to many American people who don’t have too much knowledge about the Asian style of “communicating with ghost or spirit”. I wanted to address the first question that you suggested, which is about Akiko’s behavior. Before even starting to comment on this question, I wanted to say it is nearly impossible to answer this question because it involves certain unexplainable or mysterious aspects that I don’t want to judge for.



So, what I think about Akiko? Psychic, crazy, traumatized, or maybe all? I guess she could be categorized into all these descriptions, but in addition to that, I actually think she can be considered as normal sometimes.



Let’s look at her normal side, she actually able to act and think like normal human being. The author said “my mother did well, despite the oil burns on her arms and face” (p.195) , so it seems to me that she used to be a normal, hardworking lady. She is very independent, that she is able to take good care her daughter alone after her husband past away.



Unfortunately, tragedies always happened in an unexpected ways. Akiko started to act weird when the so-called “Spirits”, that the author mentioned, took over her. Beccah said “Then the spirit –Saja the Death Messenger and Induk the Birth Grandmother –descended upon her,…” Their lives started to change after that, and Akiko turns into a stage of “psychic” and “crazy” behavior. Akiko acted as psychic when “she’s sit and watch me do my homework, as if I were the TV, and mumble about how smart I was, so smart that could could I [Beccah] could really be her daughther?...”(p.194) She will do things that normal human wouldn’t like to do and her mind of thinking is very different at this point too. Then sometimes, Akiko acts like crazy when the so-called spirit took her body, which is what Beccah described “a spider‘s line of spittle swung from my mother’s gasping mouth as she swayed from the top of the coffee table.” (p.196) This kind of weird action can definitely defines a person as crazy or at least lunatic. Beccah even nervously said “She’s not crazy” (p.197) when she heard Reno said “Wow, I never seen that before.”(p.197) The reason that Beccah is over reacting is because in her inner mind, she agrees that her mother is a crazy woman, but she doesn’t want to admit to that, so she became panic when Reno said that line.



We never know what went wrong that caused Akiko suddenly changed into a totally new character or characters, psychologically it could probably be explained as a person creating several characteristics to disguise something that he/she doesn’t want to think about or face with, and this could possibly caused by the trauma of losing her husband.



The story could make more sense if we know more about Beccah’s father, since Beccah lost her father when she was five and she barely have memories of her father, so in this story, she describes him as an angel that can saves her mother and herself. However, I was confused why Akiko would want her husband to die? Please feel free to shoot out some assumptions.