I'm a big believer in recycling. It just makes sense to me that if we can reuse things, we really should. I mean, why create more of whatever it is if we can just reuse what we have. I've been taught the maxim, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" my whole life, along with a healthy does of "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle." (Here's Jack Johnson, cuz he's awesome...lol!)
So pretty much I'm a believer in recycling. It's good for our planet (and, I firmly believe, our health) in so many ways.
So you can imagine that when I'm driving home one day and I see a billboard that claimed that plastic recycling doesn't work, I kind-of go "pish!" of course it works. Then I saw a headline that claimed the same thing on one of the many places that headlines come flashing at me. Since I had seen it two different places, I decided to investigate. (Because that's what you do when people make what seem to be outlandish claims...or even not outlandish claims...these days. You investigate as best you can.)
Here is a short list of things that depress me about plastic recycling:
~ Only about 9% of plastic gets recycled
~ Oil and gas companies (the makers of plastic) pretty much led us to believe recycling would work even though they knew it wouldn't work.
~Manufacturers put that awesome triangle on everything, even plastics that cannot be recycled.
~Plastic consumption went up as a result, and will continue to rise in the foreseeable future.
So pretty much my efforts have been largely wasted.
It's always a bit painful to have my ideas shattered a bit
My question is, what do I do now?
Here are my current answers:
1-Buy less plastic. If I can get it in cardboard, I go that route, because unlike plastic, about 68% of cardboard is recycled.* That's a much better number than plastic.
1-A-Find alternatives to the single-use plastic options.
~I try to use fabric shopping bags (if you were really clever, you could make your own).
~I try to use sandwich containers instead of sandwich baggies.
~I also try to use every plastic grocery bag I get at least once or twice more (usually as garbage bags, which, while not ideal, does mean that I'm not buying garbage bags).
~When I forget my reusable shopping bags, I get paper if they are available. They hold my carboard recycling until we can make a trip to drop it.
~If I'm buying one thing, or it's something I can easily carry, I forego the bag altogether.
2-Start cooking from scratch again. The amount of plastic garbage I'm tossing has lessened, and more of the garbage I'm tossing is biodegradable since I started this, and that makes me happy.
3-Find ways to reuse the plastic I have.
~Bags to Beds and other organizations teach you how to take those plastic shopping bags and turn them into sleeping mats for the homeless.
4-Buy products made from recycled plastic. The main reason plastic doesn't get recycled is that it's not economically viable to do so. If we buy more post-consumer-products, then that money will funnel back into recycling.
Here are couple of companies that I think are awesome in that regard:
Green Toys makes awesome toys for young kids that are made of 100% recycled materials, and as a toy expert, these are solid, durable toys. If you want to support local, you can find them at The Red Balloon Toy Store. (Yes, that's my store. I am neither sorry, nor getting a kick-back.) If I had kids that age, these are toys I would be buying.
&Collar makes amazing dress shirts that are, in fact, made from recycled bottles. All of my boys find them comfortable and sweat-free. I would buy their pants, but the store we bought them from didn't have anything small enough in the waist for my beanpoles.
I can't fix the recycling problem by myself. I don't the manpower, the money, or the know-how. But I can support people who can. And I can live more fully by the two maxims:
Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
and
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
*Regarding recycling cardboard: If it has been stained with food or chemicals, it's not recyclable--so don't toss those greasy pizza boxes or used paper plates in!
One of Maxine Hong Kingston’s most prominent themes in The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is that of identity creation, and while many academics have examined the theme of identity creation in the book, there is a surprising lack of research into how Kingston’s use of color underscores that theme. This seems surprising given that color surrounds us and influences our daily lives, even when we may not think about it. This video shows color symbolism and how it is used in marketing.
There are critics who discuss color in Maxine Hong Kingston’s work, usually in reference to race and race relations. Mita Banerjee uses Maxine Hong Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey and August Wilson’s Ma Rainy’s Black Bottom to illustrate that a minority will take on personality traits based on the color of their skin—though this is an empty concept. Other authors have also discussed specifically Kingston’s work from a racial point of view with emphasis on color taking the form of mentions of black or yellow skin (Myer; Schueller).
However, analyzing The Woman Warrior and its colors from only a racial point of view leaves a lot of color unexplored. Kingston herself states, in reference to the many reviews that approach The Woman Warrior, from a only racial perspective: “…I believed that I had written with such power that the reality and humanity of my characters would bust through any stereotype of them” (Cultural Misreadings, 55). Kingston wanted the reader to look at the whole of her work and to understand that there are many ways of looking at her work. We will see that color-as-racism does play a part in Kingston’s narrative. However, when we analyze all of the colors in The Woman Warrior, we find that Kingston uses color in other fascinating ways to underscore her theme of identity creation.
Many people have explored identity creation as a theme in The Woman Warrior. E.D. Huntley lists constructing identity as a major theme in The Woman Warrior. Huntley describes two specific types of identity; “the immigrant identity, exemplified by Brave Orchid; and the Asian American identity, embodied by the narrator” (104). Her viewpoint suggests that both Brave Orchid and the narrator are navigating the paths of biculturalism. In contrast to Huntley, Naveen Ahmad examines The Woman Warrior from an autobiographical perspective. He suggests that it is through the context of writing her stories that Kingston finds her identity. Ahmad posits that Kingston is creating herself “…through the textuality of fictions, fables, dreams and myths. It is through the autobiographical discourse in particular and language in general that the self is brought into being” (181). Like Huntley, Ahmad finds finds identity formation in Kingston’s work, but neither of them make any mention of how color might underscore those themes.
That is not to say that no-one picks up on color symbolism in The Woman Warrior. Gayle Sato points out the the narrator’s all black drawings that represent the black curtains of the stage and infers that the story of Fa Mu Lan, which explodes with color, is what is really going on inside the child’s head (139). Soltysik Monnet Agnieszka takes this one step further and argues that the Fa Mu Lan story is really a “…drug enhanced daydream…” (10). Most people who notice color in The Woman Warrior talk about the Fa Mu Lan story because it's a riot of all the colors of the rainbow. People don't seem to notice that the reason the Fa Mu Lan story stands out is the lack of color in the stories before and after.
But honestly, we shouldn’t be surprised that no-one has analyzed The Woman Warrior from a color symbolism perspective. Color symbolism is underrepresented in literature analysis. For a clue why we can look at an argument in the art world that has lasted for hundreds of years: what is more important, color or form? Kassia St. Clair, in The Secret Lives of Color, states that anciently people felt that “Color was a distraction from the true glories of art: line and form. It was seen as self-indulgent…” (29).
This prejudice against color has seeped into how literature is examined. Literary analysis emphasizes “line and form” or, as I’ll call it “theme and word.” However, there is more to a written work than "theme and word". Weller Embler argues that, “…meaning is not always conveyed by words…” and suggests that symbols should never be overlooked (48). While Embler does not necessarily talk about color as symbolism, the fact that symbols can form their own ideas of communication, and that colors have their own culturally symbolic meanings means that color symbolism should not be ignored. So let's take a look at each of the colors associated with the five major female characters in The Woman Warrior; No Name Aunt, Fa Mu Lan, Brave Orchid, Moon Orchid, and the girl who doesn’t talk, and see what those colors say about how the narrator feels about these women along with how they end up influencing her identity.
First, it is worth looking at the differences in color symbolism between traditional Chinese and American cultures. For lessons in cultural color connotations, these websites are great: Alizzi, Hang, He, or Li.
Color in The Woman Warrior starts out in a gut-punching, almost horror movie fashion. In “No Name Woman” there are only three stated colors: red, black, and white.
Black is for loneliness. When the aunt is giving birth, alone and outside the narrator states, “The black well of sky and stars went out and out and out forever; her body and her complexity seemed to disappear” (14). The black sky stretching on forever accentuates the aunt’s loneliness. Black is also used as the narrator imagines her aunt trying to attract a man. Her aunt tries to make her black hair pretty (9). But here also, is implied loneliness. The aunt is alone. Her husband is gone. The aunt making changes to her black hair is the only way that she can reach out to another to fight that emptiness.
Red is mentioned only twice. When the villagers enter into the yard and start killing the animals of the aunt’s family, they leave red handprints on the windows, and one woman swings a “chicken, whose throat she had slit, splattering blood in red arcs about her” (4). This gruesome scene implies a power structure: the villagers are powerful, the family is not. The aunt has given away her power by her actions. The red blood also foreshadows the painful birth of the child.
The color white symbolizes disguise and falseness. When the villagers enter the yard and house to wreak their vengeance, they come wearing white masks (4). The other two times white is mentioned are about the no name woman and her husband. The first is when the narrator’s mother realizes the aunt is pregnant because of the “…white tops of her black pants showing…” (3). The other is about the absent husband whom the aunt can’t really remember, whom she only spent one night with, possibly only seeing the “…black and white face in the group photograph…” (7). Associating the colors of black/loneliness and white/disguise to these two people who don’t know each other at all makes them both feel unreal. The fact that white is associated with these two also underscores the concept of falseness as it is the No Name Woman who is false to her husband.
The stark colors in this chapter underscore the tension and conflict that will become broader themes in the story. The narrator notices the lack of color in the chapter, and ties it to her questions about growing up when she says, “…newly men and women, had to efface their sexual color” (Kingston, 11). As youth, we often wonder who we are, and it’s easy to see the world in stark colors, and the narrator of The Woman Warrior is no different. Here we have a narrator, through the symbolic use of color, beginning to question who she is. She is a youth entering the world of womanhood—a womanhood that seems stark, painful, and lonely.
Our narrator moves from youthful black and white into a gorgeous teenage fantasy world.
She tries to make sense of her life as she fantasizes herself as Fa Mu Lan. In contrast to the few stark colors of the previous chapter, the tale of Fa Mu Lan explodes with every color of the rainbow. The old couple who are her teachers is gold (27). There are nods to earth tones: brown, green, and yellow (21, 23). Red is mentioned as life-giving fire that “…is stored in trees that grow red flowers or red berries in the spring or whose leaves turn red in the fall” (24). Even some of Fa Mu Lan's emotions are colored. “Oh, green joyous rush…” (25). “I nodded, orange and warm” (26).
White plays a large role in this section, starting with the white tigers referenced in the chapter title. In Chinese culture, tigers are considered the king of the beasts and the guardians of the west. Fa Mu Lan is forced to spend the night with the white tigers alone, symbolizing the narrator’s lonely move into American “western” culture. White, in Chinese culture, also symbolizes death. As Fa Mu Lan takes this journey into the mountains, Kingston may be examining her own loneliness as she confronts the death of her Chinese heritage, much in the way a teenager often seeks to throw off the values and beliefs of their parents. After Fa Mu Lan conquers the mountains, the colors become even more poignant. The earth is a blue and green pearl (33). The gifts the villagers give to Fa Mu Lan when she comes to save them are bright and colorful. She uses the power color of red to inspire her army, playing into the traditional Chinese belief that red is a color of luck. She prevails.
Then reality intrudes. One quickly realizes that the “White Tigers” chapter is a tale of two color stories. “My American life has been such a disappointment” the narrator states, and the struggle of trying to become self-aware is brutally shown in the remaining colors in the chapter (45).
There are only three actual color words in the last half of the chapter, and they are not used in a positive fashion. Yellow is used in a racist comment in reference to black people (and, perhaps, a jab at the narrator herself) by one of her employers (48). (It should be noted that while Kingston disavowed the racial overtones of her work in favor of a more humanistic approach, we see here that even she cannot avoid the reality of how strongly color, ethnicity, and racism are tied together in America.) Blue is the color of an envelope. Red is used to reference communistic China and as the color of the hair of a medium. Neither of those red references are people that the narrator trusts. It is almost as if the narrator is saying that real life is horrible and colorless.
This chapter is a bit like a teenager’s mood swings; high as a kite one day when the world is full and beautiful, and then low in the dumps the next day, with no color and no power; a contrast of dreams and reality. It is also interesting to note that the first two chapters the narrator looks at people who exist only in a fantasy world. In the next three chapters she grows up and turns her focus to living beings.
A new, fascinating color contrast comes as Kingston contrasts Brave Orchid, the narrator’s mother, and Moon Orchid, the narrator’s aunt. The color most associated with Brave Orchid is black, but it is not an absence of color, nor is it the lonely black of the no name woman. It is a powerful black. A black of leadership and strength. The story takes place in China, which is ironic, because the illustrated black is more of an American-type black. In “Shaman,” Brave Orchid goes to school to become a doctor/midwife. She confronts black ghosts in her black uniform, and with the help of her classmates, a “circle of little black women,” eliminates them (75). She tames monsters and has a fabulous reputation as a doctor.
Brave Orchid sees herself as a dragon (another powerful symbol in Chinese culture) with “…red sequin scales and…coiling green stripes” (67). In China, Brave Orchid is a woman of confidence and power. While we see fewer colors associated with Brave Orchid in America, she is still strong, in a very Chinese fashion.
In contrast, Moon Orchid is described as a “tiny, tiny lady, very thin, with little fluttering hands, and her hair was in a gray knot. She was dressed in a gray wool suit…so old, so gray” (117). That's it, aside from being reminded that her white hair proves she is old. There is color surrounding Moon Orchid; the “yellow and pink plastic beads, sequins, and turquoise blue flowers” that she gives as gifts, but she herself comes across colorless.
She is shown to be the opposite of Brave Orchid in every way. She only meets her husband at Brave Orchid’s insistence, and when that even finally happens, she sits in silence and tears (153). Unlike Brave Orchid’s desire to learn, both in China and in America, Moon Orchid cannot learn anything new. Brave Orchid tries to put her to work, but the best Moon Orchid can do is fold towels and that not very well (140). We end Moon Orchid’s chapter, “At the Western Palace,” with Moon Orchid’s death and with a feeling that she lived a useless, colorless life.
The last female that Kingston examines in The Woman Warrior is herself. In the chapter “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe,” the narrator has a symbolic confrontation with herself as she abuses the girl who won’t speak. The girl is everything that the narrator hates about herself. She describes the girl as having pink and white cheeks, and blue clothes and responds with saying “I hated pastels” (177). The girl doesn't fight back as the narrator abuses her and the narrator thinks, “I hated fragility” (176) As the narrator hits and pulls the hair of the girl with no voice, the narrator is fighting herself, her desire to speak, and her desire to grow up. The narrator becomes the antithesis of this girl when she finally says what she feels to her parents (201-202). She finds her voice and rebels and in that moment she begins to discover herself.
After so many colors and stories, what are the colors of adulthood and womanhood? In a moment of understanding and surrender, the narrator states, “…colors are gentler and fewer…” (205). This pivotal moment in the book shows the narrator understanding that life is neither the stark red, black, and white conflict of the “No Name Woman” nor the fantasy multi-colored brilliance of the Fa Mu Lan Story in “White Tigers.” It is also not colorless. She has examined the stories of Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid. She has faced herself, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense. Becoming a Chinese American woman means seeing her past, coming to terms with her stories, and fusing them into herself.
This is beautifully illustrated in the tonal color of the story of Ts’ai Yen. At first, Ts’ai Yen cannot understand the music of the barbarian culture. “The music disturbed Ts’ai Yen; it’s sharpness and it’s cold made her ache. It disturbed her so that she could not concentrate on her own thoughts” (208). But in time, she started to sing, not the song of the barbarians, but her own words. “Her words seemed to be Chinese, but the barbarians understood their sadness and anger. Sometimes they thought they could catch barbarian phrases about forever wandering” (209). In the gold of the desert, Kingston finds a fusing of the old and the new in her own womanhood in the musical color of the barbarian reed pipe.
When I was about 12-ish, we went to Las Vegas for a family reunion and to visit my grandma Ruby**. She was ninety-something, and suffered from dementia. All of her children and many of her grandchildren were there. (It's even possible there were some great grandchildren. The oldest great-grandchild is just two years younger than I am....) We went hiking at Mount Charleston and wandered downtown Vegas as it was thirty-plus years ago--a very different place than today.
There are songs that work their way into our everyday life and even national consciousness. Danny Boy is one of them. Whether you love it, or find it annoyingly sentimental slop (and I know people on both sides of the argument) you know it, as so does pretty much everyone else. Personally, I associate it with loss, two world wars, and my parents and grandparents. For my grandmother, who was young when this particular version of Londonderry Air exploded into popularity, and who lived through both of those wars, this association would have been especially strong.
It's been a long time since that family reunion, and I don't have many solid memories about it, but one. One night we all went to my uncle's church building and used the gym to have a little family performance night for my grandma. There was a lot of singing and other types of talents displayed. At one point during the evening, all my uncles and my dad sang Danny Boy to her.
I was surprised to learn in my research that the Irish consider this their song. I mean, I knew that the original tune was Irish, but I didn't realize that it's a symbol of Irish national pride. The lyrics were actually written by an Englishman, Frederick Weatherly. He set the lyrics to another tune, but it flopped. His sister heard this melody and sent a notation to him. He realized that his lyrics would fit beautifully and the rest, as they say, is history.
That moment, with those boys singing, was the first time that I truly began to understand the power of music. My grandmother, who didn't even remember that she had children, suddenly perked up and began telling stories about that song and how much Reese (her husband) loved it. I remember being excited that she was responding to people. There were murmurs of words like "miracle" and "blessing." It was so beautiful. It didn't last long, but it was enough that a 12-year-old girl who generally lived in her own fantasy world, would remember it thirty-something years later.
My grandmother died at 96. My memories are more about what I knew about her. She once drank so much carrot juice that the doctor thought she had jaundice, and couldn't figure out why she never got better. She put nuts on her pizza, and loved to drive crazy fast with one of my cousins. She always wore polyester paisley skirts and outfits, and nude nylons. I never got to know her as a person. But she lives on in this song for me.
*We played this version of this song in 2018 as part of our Musical tour Through Europe concert. So, so beautiful! **Grandpa Reese died of cancer before I was born. Grandma Ruby lived with my aunt and uncle*** for years before she died. ***I'm pretty sure my aunt and uncle, and their kids qualified for sainthood on those years alone. Remind me one day and I'll tell you about another song that reminds me of my grandma, for very different reasons!
Is there a more popular Christmas carol/song than Silent Night?
Possibly not.
Silent Night was written in 1818 with lyrics by Joseph Mohr and music by Fanz Xavier Gruber.
Dresden Choir
The Bing Crosby version recorded in 1935 is the fourth best-selling single of all time.
The Mannheim Steamroller version has always been my favorite. I'm not really sure why, but it speaks to me. Every year when I hear it that first time at Christmas, I'm in love all over again.
This version of the song is full of good memories. It takes me back to my childhood. I listened to it with my family. It's not Christmas for me until I've heard this whole album. Then we got to play an orchestral version in high school. When I found out I was so excited because the whole second half of the song is violin solo! I was concertmaster at the time and that was going to be me!
Except it wasn't. The orchestral version gives that solo to the cello. I was so mad. I still love the song, though.
One of my favorite Christmas stories begins with Silent Night. Here is a beautiful Sainsbury's ad that shows what happened one Christmas Eve during World War One.
There are Christmas songs that I love, and Christmas songs that I hate. And sometimes they are the same song. It entirely depends on the arrangement. The Twelve Days of Christmas is one of those. When sung straight, it's horribly boring*. But when people do fun things with it, I love it! Here are some of my favorite versions!
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Craig Courtney's A Musicological Journey through Christmas via the Twelve Days of Christmas. I would love to perform this...
In one 19th century version of the song, it's "my mother" that gave the gifts, not "my true love".
Straight No Chaser
The 1780 version of the song says "four colly birds". Colly means coal black.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir with The Count from Sesame Street!
In old English days, the 12 Days of Christmas was actually often played as a game. Here's a quote from Wikipedia from someone playing the game.
"Lady Gomme wrote in 1898:[42]
"The Twelve Days" was a Christmas game. It was a customary thing in a friend's house to play "The Twelve Days," or "My Lady's Lap Dog," every Twelfth Day night. The party was usually a mixed gathering of juveniles and adults, mostly relatives, and before supper — that is, before eating mince pies and twelfth cake — this game and the cushion dance were played, and the forfeits consequent upon them always cried. The company were all seated round the room. The leader of the game commenced by saying the first line. […] The lines for the "first day" of Christmas was said by each of the company in turn ; then the first "day" was repeated, with the addition of the "second" by the leader, and then this was said all round the circle in turn. This was continued until the lines for the "twelve days" were said by every player. For every mistake a forfeit — a small article belonging to the person — had to be given up. These forfeits were afterwards "cried" in the usual way, and were not returned to the owner until they had been redeemed by the penalty inflicted being performed."
In all those versions, how many different classical songs did you hear? Can you name them?
There is some debate out there about what constitutes "Classical Music". One of the biggest questions is, "Does movie music count?" It's big! It's orchestral. It seems like it should work.
Movie music is often referred to as modern classical music. My local classical radio station even has a show called The Score that is all about movie music. But it is really considered classical music?
The most compelling argument against movie music being classical is context.
Classical music is written for it's own sake. When you come to our concerts, you come expecting to hear music...and nothing else. Sometimes we put on a show (like when we played the Planets and showed you video), but mostly it's about the music.
Movie music is about what's on the screen. The music is written to enhance what you are visually enjoying. Even played in a concert hall, because of the movie, the patron comes in with preconceived ideas about what they should think about while listening. We played music from The Polar Express at our Christmas concert, and while the music is orchestral and wonderful, it's the associations with what's on the screen that gives it it's meaning.
Another way to look at it is the concept of how a musical idea is examined. In a classical piece, a musical idea will be expressed in the song, and then often composers will take that little idea, turn it on it's head, then inside out, and dance around it a bit in one movement of a piece. The most famous example of this is the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Everyone knows the first four notes.
Beethoven takes those first four notes and turns them upside down and all around, leaves them for a while, then comes back to them. You as the listener are taken on a musical ride. But there is, in Beethoven's music, no prior association (except one that you may have on your own).
So no, movie music isn't "classical music".
But it's fun, and it can be a gateway into the world of classical music. So listen guilt free and enjoy it all.
For some Christmas fun, here is the opening of the 2018 movie, The Grinch. If you are familiar with the 1960s version, you'll enjoy a lot of the musical nods wrapped into Danny Elfman's soundtrack.
I made this to go with a research paper. The quotes on the front of the pictures are superimposed on top of pictures that show the opposite of the quotes. The female conductor is Marin Alsop and the male flute player is Emmanuel Pahud.
