Unit6-FeathersFromaThousandLiAway英語課件

1、高等學(xué)校研究生英語綜合教程（上）-Unit 6主編：熊海虹What do Chinese immigrants and their descendents seek in America? Read the extract below taken from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. It is the story of four Chinese women born and raised in China before 1949 and their four America-born daughters.FEATHERS FROM A THOUSAND LI

2、AWAYAmy Tan1 The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look! It is too beautiful to eat.2 Then the woman and the swan sailed across a

3、n ocean many thousands ofli wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: "In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. Over there nobody will look down on he

4、r, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan - a creature that became more than what was hoped for."3 But when she arrived in the new country, the imm

5、igration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.4 Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speakin

6、g only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, "This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions." And she waited, year after yea

7、r, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.Jing-Mei Woo5 My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You

8、 could become rich. You could becomeinstantlyfamous.6 " Of course, you can be a prodigy, too," my mother told me when I was nine.can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky. ”7 Am erica was where all my mother ' s hopes lay. She had come to

9、San Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret.There are so many ways for things to get better.8 We didn t immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mo

10、ther thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple. We'd watch Shirley s movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, Ni kan ” You watch. And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while sayin

11、g, Oh my goodness:'9 Ni kan, " said my mother as Shirley s eyes flooded with tears. You already know how. Don't need talent for crying!”10 Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to a beauty training school in the Mission district and put me in the hands of

12、a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair as if I had done this on purpose.11 The instructor of the beauty training school

13、 had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. Peter Pan is very popular these days," the instructor assured my mother. I now had hair the length of a boy s, with straight-across bangs that hung at a slant two inches above my eyebrows. I liked the haircut and it made me actually

14、 look forward to my future fame.12 In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying each one on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtains, waiting to hear the right music that

15、would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity. I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air.13 In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become

16、perfect. My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk for anything.14 But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. If you don't hurry up and get me out of here, I m disappearing for good,“ it warned. 'And then you 'll always be

17、 nothing.”15 Every night after dinner my mother and I would sit at the Formica kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children that she read in Ripleys 'Believe It or Not, Good Housekeeping, Reader s Digest, o r any of a dozen other magazines she

18、kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.16 The first night she brought out a story abou

19、t a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying that the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign cities correctly.17 "What' tse capital of Finland? ”my mother asked me, looking at the sto

20、ry.18 All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of thestreet we lived on in Chinatown.“ Nairobi! ” I guessed, saying the most foreign word Icould think of. She checked to see if that was possibly one way to pronounce“Helsinki “ before showing me the answer.19 The test

21、s got harden multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London.everything I could remember.and -that ' s all I21 And after seeing my mother20 On

22、e night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then reportNow Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundanceremember, Ma," I said.'s disappointecdnfacagain, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to

23、 bed that night, I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and when I saw only my face staring back - and that it would always be this ordinary face - I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.22 And the

24、n I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me - a face I had never seen before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so that I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. She and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts or rather thoughts filled with lots of won 'I wso n 'let her change me, I promised myself. I won' t be what I ' m not.Critical thinking:Step OneWork together with your partner to answer the following questions based on the