Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice

The article "Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice" is about an author's narration of his experience as an Asian American and how his identity shapes his relationships with the people around him. Some of the challenges that the author must face is need to prove his authenticity as an Asian to the American public and the decision of whether or not to use his father's experiences in the Vietnam War to write a book. This short story poses very philosophical questions, as it addresses the notion of individuality or conformity to society's standards in order to survive. Today, Asian Americans are bounded by societal expectations and consumer demands to relate some part of their story to the culture that their ancestors have identified with rather than utilizing their own experiences. Although the Asian identity does influence the narrative and play a pivotal role in defining the Asian American experience, it should not bound the narrative of the individual. Even with the association of culture, everyone has their own ideas, interpretations, mottos, and lifestyle that they choose to live by. Within the distinguishments of beliefs and narrative, it would be detrimental and offensive to categorize and place all Asian Americans under the umbrella term of Asian. The author make's light of the narrative by poking fun of his past for making foolish desperate decisions to compromise his own narrative and ideas for the sake of appeasing his consumers. If he wanted to write about his father's experiences in the Vietnam war, he would have asked his father if it was okay writing and hearing about the story. Of course, when an author asks another to tell of a personal narrative, it is within the writer's obligation to respect the wishes of the storyteller, since the author has no ownership over the story. In a way, the author hints of his father's disapproval for his son publishing the father's experiences in the Vietnam war, for he has already pardoned his past and forgave those who have wronged him. I also speculate that the father could already observe that this desire to write the Vietnam story was more of a desperate plea to get a story finished in order to submit it to a publishing company rather than a genuine interest of the experience itself. Although the culture does contribute to the narrative and life experiences it should not be the only experience or narrative that defines the story or the author's writing style.