Pomegranates and English Education Shirley Geok-Lin Lim the Women's

Pomegranates and English Education Shirley Geok-lin Lim The Women's Review of Books, Vol. 13, No. 10/11. (Jul., 1996), pp. 9-11. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0738-1433%28199607%2913%3A10%2F11%3C9%3APAEE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F The Women's Review of Books is currently published by Old City Publishing, Inc.. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/ocp.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Wed Apr 2 21:51:01 2008 "He's so smart!" my mother replied sweetly. "I don't know what to do about Malcolm. I got another call from school today. The principal says he's smart. He scores high on the IQ tests, but he doesn't try. And rude! No me digar." "Pomegranates and Then Esmerelda would put her two cents in. "He misses his father, manita," she would say, "Boys need their fathers." "I know," my mother would say, "I know." There was never any talk about me or what I needed. I was just a quick rest stop in English education" their marathon conversations. "And Veronica?" they would say eventually. by Shirley Geok-lin Lim "She's fine. All A's as usual," she would say. And I could tell from her voice that she was sad, thinking about Malcolm. She never used the proud, bragging tone that P~MEGRANATETREE grew in a pot on the open-air balcony at the back of the Delores did when she spoke about Ernesto. second floor. It was a small skinny tree, even to a small skinny child like me. It I almost would have preferred if they just ignored me altogether. Esmerelda would Ahad many fruits, marble-sized, dark green, shiny like overwaxed coats. Few take it upon herself to start bossing me around. She never called on my brother to do grew to any size. The branches were sparse and graceful, as were the tear-shaped leaves anything, because like most Panamanian women, she thought housework was a girl's that fluttered in the slightest breeze. Once a fruit grew round and large, we watched it domain. every day. It grew lighter, then streaked with yellow and red. Finally we ate it, the "Veronica! !!" she would scream, even though the apartment was only so big. And most purple and crimson seeds bursting with a tart liquid as we cracked the dry tough skin of the time I would be sitting behind the kitchen door eavesdropping, as she well knew. into segments to be shared by our many hands and mouths. "Yes," I would say politely. My mother hated it when I said, Yeah? We were many. Looking back it seems to me that we had always been many. Beng "Come take these glasses and put them in the sink. You've got to start helping was the fierce brother, the growly eldest son. Chien was the gentle second brother, born around the house now. You're a big girl and your mother could use a break," Esmerelda with a squint eye. Seven other children followed after me: Jen, Wun, Wilson, Hui, Lui. would go on and on. She reminded me of the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoon* Seng, and Marie, the last four my half-siblings. I was third, the only daughter through after a while her voice would just tum into gibberish in my head. a succession of eight boys and, as far as real life goes, measured in rice bowls and in What really worked my nerves was how my mother never objected to what they the bones of morning, I have remained an only daughter in my memory. said. After they left, when I would complain, my mother would say, "In Panama, every We were as many as the blood-seeds we chewed, sucked, and spat out, the indigest- elder is considered the parent of the child. You could be walking down the street and ible cores pulped and gray while their juice ran down our chins and stained our mouths if someone asked you to carry home a bag of groceries, you'd have to do it." with triumphant color. I still hold that crimson in memary, the original color of Chinese "Oh yeah, well, this isn't Panama," I'd say, giving her my most evil look. "And if prosperity and health, now transformed to the beny shine of wine, the pump of blood your friend isn't careful, I'm going to call Immigration on her." in test tubes and smeared on glass plates to prophesy one's future from the wriggles of "That isn't funny!" she would say, but I could see the smile on her face. a virus. My Chinese life in Malaysia up to 1%9 was a pomegranate, thickly seeded. "Try me," I would say, mischievously. It was an idle threat, mostly because by this When Beng and Chien began attending the Bandar Hilir Primary School, they time, all of my mother's friends were citizens. But the thought of shipping those bossy brought home textbooks, British readers with thick linen-rag covers, strong slick paper, women back to Panama, especially Esmerelda, was always a tantalizing daydream. and lots of short stories and poems accompanied by colorful pictures in the style of Aubrey Beardsley. The story of the three Billy Goats Gruff who killed the Troll under WANIED MY MOTHER to talk to me like she talked to these women. There was so much the bridge was stark and compressed, illustrated by golden kids daintily trotting over a going on and because I didn't speak Spanish, I could only make out bits and pieces. rope bridge and a dark squat figure peering from the ravine below. Wee Willie Winkie II knew that besides the fact that he hardly ever showed up for his scheduled Saturday ran through a starry night wearing only a white night cap and gown. The goats, the troll; visits, my father had not paid one single child-support check and my mother had already and Willie Winkie were equally phantasms to me, for whoever saw anything like a taken him to court once. I wanted my mother to know that I was brave enough to hear flowing white gown on a boy or a pointy night cap in Malaya? her problems, courageous enough to face the severity that defined our day-to-day lives. How to explain the disorienting power of story and picture? Things never seen or That December, I heard my mother tell Esmerelda that she was only going to be able thought of in Malayan experience took on a vividness that ordinary life could not to spend a hundred dollars on presents for my brother and me. She'd have to spend the possess. These British childhood texts materialized for me, a five- and six-year-old rest of her Christmas bonus on bills. child, the kind of hyper-reality that television images hold for a later a I sat down with the Sears Christmas catalog. Every year my brother and I would flip reality, moreover, that was consolidated by colonial education. through it in search of presents until the pages started to fall out. But this year, I decided At five, I memorized the melody and lyrics to "The Jolly Miller" from my brother's to make a list of presents that totaled exactly fifty dollars or less. This did not take a school rendition: very long time. So I made another list, then another, with different combinations of There lived a jolly miller once presents. Along the River Dee. Barbie dolls (1 Barbie, 1 Ken) and a Holly Hobby Bake Set = $50, or He worked and sang from mom till night, No lark more blithe than he. One Christie (the black Barbie doll) plus a Barbie Corvette = $36, or And this the burden of his song One Operation board game and the Holly Hobby Bake set = $45. As always used to be, I care for nobody, no not I, I must have come up with ten different combinations. One night before I went to And nobody cares for me. bed, I gave it to my mother. She looked horrified. I was scared she was mad at me. So often she was so quick and cruel in the way she said no to our requests. "I will not beg, It was my first English poem, my first English song, and my first English lesson. borrow. or steal for you kids," she would say.

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