Searching for Identity - Reclaiming the Old Ways

Marie Hara’s “Old Kimono” and Nora Okja Keller’s “The Brilliance of Diamonds” both explore loss of identity amongst the children of migrant workers in Hawai‘i. In Hara’s short story a second-hand kimono restores a young Japanese woman’s pride in her cultural heritage, while Keller’s work explores a teenage girl’s search for an American identity though the rejection of her Korean name. This essay will explore themes of cultural shame and loss and the eventual re-emergence of ethnic pride through the symbols of the culture, which had once been rejected.

The protagonist in “Old Kimono” is scornful of the robe’s traditional use and wants only to use it as a robe or cut it up into a suit. She is dismissive of the old Japanese way of doing things, in which conforming to the norm is everything. She wishes to rebel against the: “long line of Japanese mothers, aunties and other older women, lecturing young girls relentlessly about how to do things correctly, what they meant was perfectly”(105). In her dissertation Identity Formation in Japanese American College Students of Hawaii: The Role of Ethnic and Cultural Identification Sharon Seidman explains the significance of Japanese identity that the character in the story has rejected. She never attends the Buddhist temple and does not recognise the name of the family who have donated the Kimono. Seidman explains that Japanese sense of identity is based on the group, therefore by moving away from social and religious practices, seeing the old market women as “crazy women” and the old temple as only good for “Bon dances” she has made a conscious choice to move away from Japanese tradition in order to become more American:

Asians’ experience of themselves in the world differs drastically from the

experience of those in Western countries. Stated most simply and generally, the

Asian self is organized around a collectivist orientation, whereas the Western

self is organized around an individualist orientation…. The self is realized in

role behavior, and identity is located in loyalty to a group— such as a company

or family; following personal proclivities is dangerous. The Japanese find

satisfaction in belonging to a group. (Seidman 16)

Seidman further explains that the second class status of women in Japanese society would have affected an immigrant Japanese female’s ability to adhere to the rigid social code of the ancestral country:

With respect to Japanese ethnicity, if males are considered superior to females

within Japanese culture (e.g., fathers and eldest sons being served first,

followed by younger sons, and then the daughters and mother; eldest sons

being heir to the family fortune), and independence and rebelliousness is

expected and tolerated from the male and not so much from the female

(Ogawa, 1978), there is both more incentive and less conflict to maintaining

ties to Japanese culture for males than for females. (148)

With less to be gained from staying within the bounds of Japanese culture, we can see the appeal for the character in “Old Kimono” to erase old stereotypes and seize her new freedom as a chic Japanese-American in Hawai‘i, someone who is “bold and new, Asian, not Oriental. Sexy, not cute” (Hara 106). However, with this freedom, something is lost; she does not know the customs of her ancestors and so invokes a ghost by wearing the robe in the style of a dead person. She is irritated at the many demands that wearing the kimono will make on her, for instance she is not sure exactly how to wear a kimono in the traditional style and doesn’t want the “tiresome task” of learning about hair styles, feet positions and undergarments. However it is ironic that as soon as she wears the kimono she is possessed by it and naturally bends to these rules as: “her body began to fit the kimono” (109).

The story uses the motif of perfection to illustrate an aspect of Japanese culture; the appreciation of aesthetics and a heightened attention to detail that imbues even the simplest task with beauty. The word perfection, perfect, perfectly occurs at least five times throughout the story, as though it were a fine thread connecting all the disparate elements of the protagonist’s knowledge of her identity as a Japanese woman and sewing them into a continuous line that will connect her back to her roots. This line of perfect words is reminiscent of the immaculately sewn seams of the kimono, so skilfully handcrafted it holds the robe together with invisible knots. It is this connection to aesthetics that acts as the bridge between the protagonist and her Japanese identity. In a parallel scene we are alerted to the young woman’s enhanced sense of beauty by her distaste at her mother’s flower arrangement, anthuriums which: “were ordinary and not placed in any particular order…they were in no way fragile or aesthetic.” (106). The young woman feels she is more sophisticated than her mother as she sees herself as someone who: “appreciated the aesthetic above all” and this awareness of beauty and delicacy has allowed her to reimagine an ancient Japan of lanterns and cobbled streets in which she feels at home, creating her own version of her ancestral homeland and thereby forging a link with a culture she had previously ignored (109). Pleased by the skilled craftsmanship of the kimono, she is seduced by its beauty and her aesthetic appreciation of the beautiful designs and hand sewing act as a bridge that connects her to her Japanese identity. For her, Japan is an idealised place from the past, and is perhaps the only version of her Japanese self that she can tolerate, as it lives in a mystical un-American dream world, that cannot interfere with her modern Hawaiian island lifestyle.

In the end, purchasing the kimono has achieved the opposite effect to the one she intended. Far from fulfilling her expectations of making her look chic and sophisticated the kimono has guided her home, and as she fingers the beautiful border pattern, initially appreciated only for its art, she begins to translate the language of the robe: “She fingered the cranes and tortoises and felt at home, no longer lost somewhere where the symbols meant nothing…..Here lay the world where every fine line of distinguishing detail existed to make a difference (106-108).

The young girl in Keller’s “The Brilliance of Diamonds” is also keen to shed her Asian roots and become fully American. Her mother names her “Myung Ja” translated as the brilliance of diamonds, but with an absent American father and an American boyfriend in elementary school, she is keen to ditch any signs of otherness. In her mind, having a Korean name reflects on her poor self-image, and she believes changing her name will improve her self-esteem:

I spent most of elementary school trying on different names, popular names

that the Cheerleaders and May Day princesses had – “Kelli, Barbi, Suzi, Staci.” I

practised for the time I could change my name into something less “weird,”

believing that a better name could transform - or at least mask – the

abnormalities in my self. (Keller 137)

Seidman points out that: “Immigrants not only take their culture with them, but in subtle and in obvious ways, they pass it on to their children as well” (15). The mother in the story has given her only child this jewel inspired Korean name as a good luck charm against poverty: “I wanted to give you prosperity…Something that my family couldn’t give to me” (132). She believes in the power of names, that: “A name can determine your life, who you will be. Each letter had a certain power, each person a special name, told in the stars” (132). Here we see the mother’s Korean folk religious beliefs in numerology and astronomy and her faith in the superstitions of the old country being practised and inadvertently passed on to her daughter, against the backdrop of life in Hawai‘i. For the mother they provide a sense of safety, security and identity in the new land, however Myung Ja does not feel the same, she feels lost and without an identity. She feels her name does not belong to her and stops answering to it from a young age. When Myung is older and has a childhood “boyfriend” she learns from his family that her name is just a way to announce her otherness and non-belonging in white America. Her friend’s parents find it amusing and a little threatening that their son has a history of choosing Asian girlfriends: “My baby likes Oriental girls,” Tommy’s mother smiled. “I try not to take it personally” (137). This insult is then followed by a family meal in which the father consistently calls her by another name, a mistake Myung Ja feels powerless to correct. She has realised that in this new land she is not a brilliant diamond, just exotic and alien:

I realized that if I myself could not even say my name, that if when I whispered

to myself, “My name is Myung Ja,” my voice wavered, struggling in my throat

as if with a lie, then my name was a lie. Myung Ja was not, could not, be my

true name. My mother had made a mistake. I was not a diamond in America,

just different. (137)

In her text “Enculturation of Korean American Adolescents”, Irene Park describes the divide that exists between second generation immigrants and their Korean born parents: “Tensions between immigrant parents and adolescents are often accentuated as they negotiate cultural priorities such as independence versus interdependence or autonomy versus embeddedness” (Park 5). In the story Myung Ja finally resolves these tensions by choosing to change her name: “I want to be American now, so please find me an American name” (139). There is however an irony in the method she opts for, visiting a Vietnamese numerologist who for fifty dollars will give her a new American name. In a hilarious twist she is given a piece of paper on which she had written her Korean name and told to hand over the money and that she should be happy she has been allowed to buy her name back. Reading between the lines, it appears her mother has arranged this trick, as she is friends with the numerologist. Also her mother has unwittingly given her the gift of language by arranging for her to keep her name. In her paper Bank points out that: “It may be that positive family relationships lead to greater native language fluency, but it is also possible that the acquisition of native language skills facilitates stronger parent-child relationships and perhaps other related ethnic behaviors” (Bank 10). By passively insisting Myung Ja keeps her Korean name, her mother is creating a bond between them that incorporates the importance of Korean naming customs and a belief in the influence of stars and numbers.

In both stories we can see an impatience with the older generation’s Asian values and customs and unwillingness to adhere to them, instead embracing Hawaiian/American culture in order to assimilate and “be American.” Ultimately, it is the very culture they have rejected which ends up coming to their salvation and providing a sense of self, reclaiming them, despite their reluctance to be claimed. Both stories also maintain a sense of cultural identity via the older females present in the plot. In “Old Kimono” the market women represent the old Japan the young woman despises, while her mother laughs at her attempts to wear the kimono and “was ready to explain more and give examples from her experience” (Hara 110). In “Brilliance of Diamonds” the Korean mother does not try to dissuade her daughter from changing her name, but instead explains: “I tried my best, but of course I didn’t know anything about stars and numbers and letters” (138). She is sympathetic to her daughter’s request to visit a numerologist to buy a new name, but also recognises that without a name that has roots and personal meaning, a name is worthless and you become invisible: “If you can find your secret name, you can unlock the universe” (132).

In this essay I have attempted to show the value of retaining some aspects of one’s native culture while assimilating into a new country with a new cultural framework. In the two short stories discussed, the protagonists struggle with the reality of being Asian-American and feeling conflicted about their Asian heritage. Through the quiet wisdom of their mothers they are both able to reconnect with their respective backgrounds in Japan and Korea and embrace a lost world which in turn leads them to a greater sense of self-worth and a growing respect and appreciation of their roots.

Works Cited

Hara, Marie. "Old Kimono." In Island Fire: An Anthology of Literature from Hawai‘i. Ed. Cheryl A Harstad and James R Harstad. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002. Print. 103-110.

Keller, Okja, Nora. "The Brilliance of Diamonds." In The best of Honolulu Fiction; Stories from the Honolulu Magazine Fiction Writing Contest. Ed. Eric Chock and Darrell Lum. Honolulu: Bamboo Ridge Press. 1999. Print. 132- 139.

Park, J. Kim Irene. "Enculturation of Korean American Adolescents within Familial and Cultural Contexts: The mediating Role of Ethnic Identity." In Family Relations. Vol. 56, No. 4 (Oct, 2007), 403- 412. National Council on Family Relations. http://www.jstor.org.stable/4541681

Electronic. Accessed 26 April 2015.

Seidman Sharon J. Identity Formation in Japanese American College Students of

Hawaii: The Role of Ethnic and Cultural Identification. Adelphi University, 1995. Electronic. Accessed 20 April 2015.