(no subject)
Lately I've been into reading books that contains or about different cultures. I started with "The God of small things" I like how it was written and i like how I learned a lot about cultures in India. And then i thought I'd read about the country where I live. So i picked up this book Noli Me Tangere (Touch me not). I studied it in high school and in our native tongue but I always have a hard time reading in tagalog so I picked up this book translated in english. It was originally written in Spanish. It was about our country with a love story mixed in. I love how precious women are to filipinos back then. They put women in high pedestal. Then right now I'm reading "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" by Lisa See. I'm chinese so I thought I'd read about my race. I already know how women are treated in my race. In our culture, women are like slave to men. My grandmother always tells me that Men are like Heaven, they should be treated like gods and women are dirt. I never accepted that but she said that's the way it was. Then reading this book just confirms everything my grandmother says. I cannot believe how women are treated. It was so unfair. There's this line in the book that's exactly what my grandmother said that as women we go by a rule which is "when a girl obey your father, when a wife obey your husband, when a widow obey your son" This made me snort out loud. I haven't finished the book yet but I came across a line that really outraged me that I had to write it down. The line was...Women are considered the worthless part of the family tree.
I like my race, I like knowing about the customs, I already knew women's standing in my custom I just never thought it was really this low. When my grandmother said that women are dirt in our custom, I think I was in denial to admit that, that's really how we are supposed to be treated. It made me so grateful that I live here in the Philippines where women has more value and more respected. Hey our country's President is a woman! I know at this time, this century that women are not treated as badly as before in chinese customs but it still angers me that they were treated that way.
This book also opened my eye to what women go through just to get married. Foot Binding...my God reading about it makes me hurl. It was written so beautifully and vividly that I actually sort of felt the bones of my toes breaking.
Oh well, still I love the book and will finish it because it's my roots and It's my history. Though I was only on page 59 now, I still have a long way to go, I will probably write some more entries about it just to get it all out.
I like my race, I like knowing about the customs, I already knew women's standing in my custom I just never thought it was really this low. When my grandmother said that women are dirt in our custom, I think I was in denial to admit that, that's really how we are supposed to be treated. It made me so grateful that I live here in the Philippines where women has more value and more respected. Hey our country's President is a woman! I know at this time, this century that women are not treated as badly as before in chinese customs but it still angers me that they were treated that way.
This book also opened my eye to what women go through just to get married. Foot Binding...my God reading about it makes me hurl. It was written so beautifully and vividly that I actually sort of felt the bones of my toes breaking.
Oh well, still I love the book and will finish it because it's my roots and It's my history. Though I was only on page 59 now, I still have a long way to go, I will probably write some more entries about it just to get it all out.