Exploration of the Text

1. Notice the author's choice of the word "cauldron" in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chosen "cauldron" rather than "pot"?

~~> The Cauldron symbolize the inheritance of the Chinese culture. The author use a "cauldron rather than pot" because the cauldron is one of the way to cook in the Chinese Era and her mother is a typical ancient Chinese, she believe that the food will become healthier and long lasting.

2. Chin refers to "the Wei," "the Yellow", "the Yangtze." Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?

~~~> The author use this 3 biggest rivers in the China because the poems is about the Chinese culture tradition and the turtle symbolize the longevity also the poems must be related to the geographical in China. Other than that, the turtle seems have been travelling in all the rivers in China.

3. What is the tone of the poem?

  ~~> The author use the angry tone because the persona feeling angry to his/her mother because she cooks the turtle that symbolize the longevity in the Chinese culture, for the persona what he/she understand by doing that he/she thinks that it is some kind of disrespectful to the culture but the persona never realize the sacrifice that his/her mother done for the sake of his health.

Ideas for Writing 

1. "Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice." Write about this quote within the context of an immigrant family. What might a family gain or lose by moving to  a new land?

~~> Immigrating is the meaning of someone who immigrate to a new place or what we can say that someone who settle down in a country or a region which is not a native. The poem, this situation happened to the persona and his or her family. The poems is mainly about the Chinese culture heritage and also a mother sacrifice something precious in her culture for the sake of her daughter. As we can see in the poems, “sometimes you’re the life sometimes, you’re sacrifice this quotes from the poem this somehow when we immigrate we might gain or lose something in our self and others. From this immigration, we might face a new situation in life and also cultures in the place. The reason for those who always immigrate to a new place whether further study or got promoted in job.

The first thing that when we immigrate to a new place we can learn about their cultures, their lifestyle, see many new things and we can also sharing our culture with them. For example, we can know their kinds of food whether they eat spicy or western or something new for us so that we what they eat that can become a new knowledge for us. In addition, for example in the poem the persona and his mother are the one who immigrate to a new place, the mother is a very typical women and cared about her Chinese as we can see in the poem the mother the one who cooks the soup turtle for the persona sake of life but the persona never realize there is an effect for his mother future life if she cooks the turtle, the persona never feel grateful what the persona mother try to do. Other than that, we can also learned what their social life is, how they respect people, how they communicate with people, we learned a lot of new things in their life and also how they become friends to someone from other countries.

However moving to new place will sometimes cause a big problem or something that we can never imagine, for instance in the poem “You say, “Ma, you’ve poached the symbol of long life, that turtle lived four thousand years” its means here we can see that the persona is very angry with the mother because she cooks the turtle and this cause a disrespectful things to their culture but the mother’s action is for her child sake of life.