Lost Sister By Cathy Song

There is a specific design of words, images, and metaphors involved in the creation of a poem, and this stands true for Cathy Song’s poem Lost Sister.  Even the title of the work suggests to the reader the importance of family, for the poem is a dedication to heritage in the word ‘sister’ and the idea that the sister is somehow lost (here with the title of the poem the reader does not yet know in what way the sister is lost) the poet Song suggests an idea of Diaspora, but in this instance not necessary a separation from place but a definite separation from home since the sister is lost.

  The poem then, at the very beginning tells of family and the poem itself extrapolates the concept of Diaspora of home tied in with family.The poem tells of heritage, of two generations of Chinese women.  This is a common theme in many other Chinese works of literature as in Gish Jen’s work and Amy Tan, and in Song’s case, the theme of family and Diaspora is what wields power in the poem and allows the readers to feel a sense of empathy for the characters.

  The characters in Song’s poem are dichotomized between the generation of women who have chosen to leave China in hopes of finding a new life in a different land, and the group of women who choose to stay in China, to maintain their heritage in their native land.

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  Thus it is clear that the poem exemplifies how these two groups of women, although separated by time, and distance somehow stay true to their heritage and thus they maintain their familial ties with one another through their culture.The poem goes on to mark the difference between lifestyles of these two generations of women who have made different choices:  in China, the women are treated as second class citizens, and they maintain their culture through icons such as being quiet as in the line “gathered patience” (Song Lost Sister).  In the next generation, and the continuation of Song’s poem, the women break away from this traditional Chinese way of thinking, and their lives are westernized from living in America.  This westernization evolves into the women being treated as equals, as having a voice finally (this is very important in Song’s poem, the concept of a Chinese woman having a voice).  However, tension does arise in the poem between these two generations and the judgments the former more traditional Chinese cultured women make on these westernized women as can be read in Song’s line, “diluting jade green with the blue of the Pacific” (Song Lost Sister).The poem further dichotomizes as Song tells of the difference between these two generations and how the first generation compromised freedom for their traditional Chinese lifestyle and how the second generation however loses some of their culture because of their lack of exposure to traditional Chinese ways, as Song writes, “to walk in shoes the size of teacups, without breaking” in respect to the Chinese American woman gaining freedom and she simultaneously states that these women are lost from their familial ties.One main motif of the poem can be found in the element of jade which is referenced many times in Song’s poem, “even the peasants named their first daughters Jade” (Song Lost Sister) and again, “a jade link”  (Song Lost Sister) which is in reference to the tie between these two generations.  Thus, both generations are lost to one another and in Song’s poem there seems to be no restitution between the two.  They are both lost from their culture, from their needed experience of finding freedom and stepping out of their ‘teacup’ shoes and walking in the same line as men instead of maintaining their silence.Song’s poem gives the reader a dichotomized view of Chinese women in a generational sense, a culture, and the space in between the two of not only an ocean but the change of thoughts in the exposure of new western traditions.  The ‘jade link’ between these two women is their strongest bond, despite their differences, the expansion of time between them and the distance of an ocean.BibliographySong, Cathy.  “Lost Sister” Online.  http://mclibrary.nhmccd.edu/lit/catsong.html 

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