She is a survivor

Tastes Like War: A Memoir

A woman, a mother, rises and falls amidst the violence of history. This award-winning nonfiction work by a Korean-American sociologist is a mother-daughter version of "Homecoming."
A life story connected by food, the pain and encounters of two generations of Asian women, a sharp reflection on the truth of schizophrenia and "comfort women", revealing the deep silence of complicity, taboo family history, and the erased lives of survivors🌊
Editor's Recommendation:
"Where am I in History" Series 001
A Korean-American sociologist's award-winning nonfiction masterpiece, "Return to Hometown," a mother-daughter version
1. A woman, a mother, her rise and fall amidst the violence of history - writing about an ordinary individual caught in the wheel of fate, and witnessing a woman's thorny life.
◆ She is a war refugee who survived on kimchi, a barmaid who is good at dealing with people,
A first-generation immigrant with the American dream in mind, a calm and orderly "community politician",
A mother who balances work and parenting, and the "Blackberry Lady" and "Mushroom Lady" who venture into the wilderness...
◆ She is also a prisoner of auditory hallucinations in an autistic home, a sensitive "madwoman" in the town,
No more talking to strangers, no more answering the phone, no more going out,
No more cooking, no more eating, no more moving, no more living.
◆ Her life was full of ups and downs,
It began with colonial rule and war.
Eventually he developed schizophrenia and was nearly homeless.
How could this once strong and bright woman become so destitute?
"I" wrote this story in the hope of understanding: what "killed" her.
2. During the days we ate together, I began to get closer to my mother’s scarred and complex heart.
◆ The more complex mother-daughter relationship in immigrant families, and the trauma and encounters of two generations of Asian women.
* She, a "typical" East Asian mother:
They struggled to establish themselves in a small foreign town, raised their children with great difficulty, and poured their life's love and homesickness into food;
The "innocence" and right to education that were forced to be lost during the war, the ideal that was never achieved in this life, continued as a deep expectation and support for his daughter - "Work with your mind, not your body!"
* “I”, a second-generation Asian immigrant from a small town:
From being bullied and discriminated against, to studying at Brown and Harvard, and then becoming a sociology scholar, his growth path was a response to his mother's difficulties;
From being troubled by intergenerational trauma and shackled by family shame, to facing the pain, writing about taboos, and regaining the autonomy and dignity of life through courageous questioning.
* The connection and rebirth of two women who transcend historical pain, and the vision and encounter of a mother and daughter in the intertwined destinies.
◆ The most painful memories, the most tender love, and life stories connected by food.
* “The world begins at the dinner table; it is a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun; a hiding place in the shadow of terror, a place to celebrate tragic triumph.”
[Milk Powder] A mother's memory of "the taste of war."
【Kimchi】"Eat more kimchi, Grace. We are survivors. You have the ability to endure anything."
[Mushrooms and Blackberries] In addition to trying to follow the rules and play the role of a good wife, the mother spiritually desires more.
* “Food can lead to assimilation, isolation, and forgetting, but it can also mean remembrance, connection, joy, and possibility.”
— “Baking, for my mother, was a way of being American, a way of forgetting.”
——"For my mother, cooking for others allowed her to transcend her own background. It was proof of her survival and her hope for the future."
"Visiting my mother was like taking a culinary history lesson, encountering Korea in the 1950s and 1960s. Every meal we ate together in those last years of her life must have brought back memories of her youth."
3. Revealing the depths of the silent conspiracy, the forbidden family history, and the erased lives of the survivors.
——A sociologist’s sharp thoughts on pursuing the truth about schizophrenia and “comfort women” ◆ Breaking the silence of complicity.
“What troubles people is not the trauma itself, but the silence they hold about it.”
◆ Diagnose the causes of schizophrenia.
“Schizophrenia is the story of how poverty, violence and positions of disempowerment drive us mad.”
◆ Analyze the situation faced by patients with schizophrenia.
[Prejudice] The avoidance of the word "schizophrenia", the difficulty of diagnosis at the time, and the lack of mental health care.
[Stereotype] In fact, the vast majority of patients do not have violent tendencies, and the vast majority of violent crimes are committed by people who do not have schizophrenia.
【Complications】In order to treat her schizophrenia, she was given a new disease.
【Medication】Medication is becoming a tool of prison control.
[Racial discrimination] As an Asian woman, her condition is "atypical" in the United States.
◆ Write it down to dispel the historical ghosts that linger in your soul.
* “Shame itself is a political tool used to silence the oppressed.”
Comfort Women
——"My body is like a rotten pumpkin forgotten in the summer."
"She must have been consumed by messages that made her feel insignificant—that she was no longer seen as a person, but as an object. These messages came from those around her, from Korean society, and perhaps even from her own family. She fled South Korea only to find that American society also devalued her."
* The verbal taboos that govern the entire family history feed ghosts, and the best way to exorcise them is to "put the taboos on stage."
Freedom of Sex Work
"American feminists debate whether prostitution can be a free choice, but for women in third world countries, having the 'right not to be a prostitute' is more urgent."
"Even sex work, undertaken purely for survival, is a form of resistance to a power structure that might otherwise get you killed. But resistance within an imperialist order is not the same as 'voluntary prostitution.'"
* I want to change the meaning of "comfort women" through writing. I hope it will no longer be a shameful word. That woman is a hero.
🏆
Awards:
2022 Asian Pacific American Literature Award
2021 National Book Award Nonfiction Shortlist
Kirkus Nonfiction Shortlist for 2021
2021 Time and NPR's Best Books of the Year 📰
Media & Celebrity Comments:
"She Survived" offers an intimate account of the historical violence behind one mother's mental illness, where the ghosts of the past find a seat at the table. Grace Cho documents the psychological damage caused by racism while exploring the redemptive power of food—the language that became her mother's when other forms of language failed. This remarkable book showcases the innovative potential of the memoir genre and reimagines the role of scholarship in real-life situations.
—The National Book Award jury presents this requiem and love letter to a remarkable and difficult mother... It is also a story about appetite, longing, taste, smell, and feeling... and how it all ultimately led one daughter to a sense of belonging. This searingly honest and heartbreaking memoir shows how, in one immigrant family, food can be a channel for assimilation, segregation, and forgetting, but it can also mean remembrance, connection, joy, and possibility.
—Gayatri Gopinath, author of Unfettered Imaginations: Aesthetic Practices in Queer Diasporas In Grace Zhao’s She Survives, there’s an epic dialogue between legacy, history, intergenerational trauma, and the connective power of food in exploring a mother’s fractured past… This is both a memoir and a journey of spiritual transformation.
—Ellie Roberttom, author of Jelly Girl: A Family History She Survived is a moving tribute to all those for whom survival was never a given, and shows that healing trauma cannot always be achieved through individual effort, but requires collective reflection on the past.
—Dean Borsche Lin, director of "The First Person Plural," movingly and candidly explores how social factors, transcending time and space, invade our inner world and drive a person to schizophrenia, illustrating that mental illness is not only a biological disease but also a social problem.
—Wood Yao, co-author of "Racial Melancholy, Racial Divide: On the Social and Psychological Lives of Asian Americans" "She Survived" is a testament to one woman's resilient story of survival: a tribute to her mother, the women who died in the Korean War, the "comfort women" of war, and "hysterical women" throughout history. With a careful and questioning eye, Cho examines prevailing practices and diagnoses in the mental health field, and how women of color are overlooked, misdiagnosed, and mistreated.
—Michelle Maronzo In this book, Grace Zhao reveals her painfully symbiotic relationship with her elusive mother. Nearly twenty years after her mother's death, she brings her mother to life in this book, bringing her legacy to life on the page while also tracing her own life. This is a subtle book of remembrance and a powerful book of rebirth.
——Book List
Grace and her mother's life journeys, filled with autonomy, dignity, memory and love, are parallel...it is complex but inspiring.
--Sun Yongxin, Korean-American poet, editor, and author of "Unbearable Glory" This work about love and memories of specific people is real and close to everyone.
--"period"
📖
Introduction:
I have had at least three mothers in my life.
Throughout my childhood, my mother was a glamorous party hostess, the ambitious "Blackberry Lady" and "Mushroom Lady." By my adolescence, she had developed schizophrenia and was a prisoner of auditory hallucinations.
Having escaped war and immigrated to the United States, how did she, once a resilient and bright woman, become so transformed? I began to explore the roots of her mental pain, hoping to understand the force that "killed" her.
Thus, my third mother was born. I discovered not only what had brought this woman down, but also what she lived for. Deep within this search lay a hidden family past and the wandering lives of a generation of women.
I gathered the fragments about her and them and wrote this story about the survivors.
Some people want certain parts of history erased, but I know that "survival is never predetermined," and I must speak up for those whom society deems unworthy of our tears.

2024-06-01

九州出版社

Houlang, Houlang Literature

316

9787522528052