mi lu de jie mei.

Lost Sister.


Lost: Mi Lu De (Road+ __+ particle= Lost)
Sister: JieMei(Older+Younger Sister= Sister)

In English class, we had a "Lost Sister" Quiz. It has two parts to it.

Part One:

You find you need China:

your one fragile identification,

a jade link

handcuffed to your wrist.

(Lost Sister. Part 2. Paragraph 3. Lines 1-4.)

The Lost Sister in this poem has rebelled against what was her pre-determined future. But in the midst of this rebellion and going far away from her Chinese heritage and familiar settings, she figures out that no matter how hard she tries, she is connected to her Chinese Heritage and Culture. In the first line, this is what she is talking about. Without your past, your future is non-existent.

"your one fragile identification." This means there aren't a lot of connections between her and her ocean-away home in China. Perhaps she doesn't keep in touch with her relatives, she just has herself. Being yourself, you are one identification. You define who you are, what you will become, where you came from. Fragile might mean, that this link binding the Lost Sister from her China is very thin. It could be gone in an instant. Maybe its fading as the Lost Sister becomes familiarized with the American landscape. She is giving up being Chinese to be American. So in this process she is losing her Chinese culture. The way her mindset works, the way she talks, the way she walks, the way she holds herself, the values she upholds.

"a jade link." Jade, in Part one is the name of the Lost Sister. It describes in the poem about how many daughters in China are named Jade and that Jade is: the positive in the negative life, the one who makes miracles happen, the stronghold in the family, the glue that puts a million little pieces into one masterpieces. There is a lot of referral to the color of green, the standard color for jade, although there is purple jade too. The Lost Sister is the link. Maybe the link would refer to the jade bracelets that many Chinese people wear. Many wear jade bracelets for a lifetime.

"handcuffed to your wrist." Handcuffed is by force, chained. It is not by choice. When you are born you are not allowed to choose what you want to be. "I want to be Irish." No, it doesn't work that way. It is like the hospital ID bracelet the medical staff attaches to your wrist soon after you are born. You are handcuffed to this bracelet. There are some pros to this bracelet. For one, this is for security reasons. What if the baby is misplaced in another room? Not a problem; because the staff can read your identification bracelet and bring you back to your mommy and daddy. I think that the jade bracelet, or her face, her identity; her Chinese identity is one she has by force. It is sometimes not something wanted. But it is necessary to find your way back to your native roots.

I have an interesting story about "jade links." My grandmother is Chinese. She wears a beautiful jade bracelet all the time. There is not a moment that she is not wearing this jade bracelet. Even when I was a babe, she wore this bracelet. Why? I asked her many times. She laughs, she smiles, she frowns, she looks, but she always says, "it's stuck on my wrist." A lifetime of wear, and Grandmother doesn't mind. Or does she? My Grandmother's story seems quite similar to Lost Sister's.