Ties that bind, Ties that break

LENSEY NAMIOKA                  

Book: Ties that bind, Ties that break.

Publisher:Bantman Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc

Date of Publication: January 1st 1999

Lensey Namioka is a prolific writer of books for young adults and children. 

She was born in Beijing, China, and came to America when she was 9 years old. 

she studied mathematics  at the University of California and  worked primarily as a mathematics instructor before beginning her career as a published writer in the mid-1970s.

Her husband, a college math professor, was born in Japan. 

The Namiokas live in Seattle, but Ms. Namioka has lived and traveled all over the world.

Namioka is perhaps best known for her series of exciting, adventure-mystery books about two sixteenth-century Japanese samurai warriors and for her humorous, juvenile novels about a family of Chinese immigrants living in Seattle.

Namioka's first book for young readers, The Samurai and the Long-nosed Devils, is set in sixteenth-century Japan

Namioka's first work of young-adult fiction set in contemporary times, Who's Hu?, was published in 1981

Ties That Bind, Ties That Break explores themes of cultural conflict and political unrest. Ailin is a young woman in 1920s China who is expected to prepare herself for marriage and a traditional family life. Unwilling to take the road expected of her, Ailin rebels and her journey of independence eventually takes her to America. Although the transition is a difficult one, in the end she is rewarded with happiness and self-respect.

Themes, The importance of the book and Significance of the title.

Themes

*Gender roles:  In the novel it is possible to identify gender roles. For example, women are meant to be uneducated, illiterate. They must not think by themselves and refuse to follow the traditions. Women, in contrast men can go to school, go to work and think further from to the statements established by traditions. Men were supposed to control everything Including family money. Within the text, the reader can notice how archetypal characters portrait the way Chinese culture considers the role of men and women in their society.

*Traditions: The novel reveals a critic point of view of the traditions that run a specific society, in this case, Chinese culture. The main character can notice how traditions can be wrong. In the text, traditions are shown as the base of their culture. Also, it is possible to analyze how people do not allow themselves to learn about other cultures because of their traditions.

*Marriage:  the novel shows marriage since the very beginning. Although the main character is aware of how marriage work, taking in account that when the novel starts she is a child. Therefore, this theme could be related with gender roles within Chinese culture

*Political issues: The novel has a political background that let the reader know about the novel’s context. This aspect considers how people react to their social environment and reality. Within this them, is possible to build characters’ perceptions to highlight the role they have and what they think about a social condition.

   

The importance of the book

The book won an ALA award for the Best Book for Young Adults. Far from that, the book has no a particular importance in the literary world. The author is recognized for giving the people who have experiences that kind of conflict the opportunity to find themselves in her literature.

 Significance of the title.

Ties that bind refers to both the ties that used to tie their feet, and the bonds that the girl feels to follow that tradition, to have to be submissive and not be able to be themselves because of the possible rejection of society. And ties that break, it's the same, a metaphor to the ties that broke, she broke those ties and was free in her way

Theme and significance

 1. Theme. Several themes may be dealt with in this book. List and explain them.


 This book deals with some strong themes such as:
 
Self-esteem and roles (man and woman): Those words are related thanks to the influence of culture that defines how you have to behave in certain circumstances or with determined people. Women are treated as inferiors that implicitly affects their self-esteem.   


Culture and traditions: As I wrote before, those aspects are extremely important because if this story would be developed in other country, the events will be really different. 


Politics: this book is developed at the moment China was having one of the most important transitions in terms of politics (the process from imperialism to a republic).

2. The significance of this book in the literary world, at the time it was published and thereafter

This book won the recognition of the ALA award for the Best Book for Young Adults. At the moment this book was released, it could be taken as controversial; nowadays is an inspiration for the people who feel tied and want to break those ties.

3. The significance of the title
For the people that accept their culture, those actions could bind them and develop their lives as normal as they think, but in other cases, for the people that feel trapped in a culture that forbid them to rise as they want, those ties could break you down.  

Significance and themes

1. Theme. Several themes may be dealt with in this book. List and explain them.

While reading the book I found some themes that influenced the story:

-CULTURE: 

This theme is very important in the story because it represenst the main characteristics from the  place,, specially from China. It also shows how traditions are strong and marked in each generation. 


FAMILY: we can perceive that the concept of the family is about respect. Also the relationship among the members of the family is different with each one. 

The role of men and women: in the story , the role of both  , men and women is stritc and influenced the behavior of the society. It also places Women in a lower position and destinate her to certain tasks in society.  

2. The significance of this bookte in the literary world, at the time it was published and thereafter

 Among the prizes its author has been awarded with the (American Library Association) ALA Best Books for Young Adults in 2000, the California Young Reader Medal in 2004, the Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List in 2001 and a nomination for the Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award in 2002

3. The significance of the title

 The significance of the title represents many things about the story, for example how  the girls suffer for this cultural background . Also shows marriage arrangements .

Theme and Significance

Ties that bind, ties that break

Themes

• Traditions: there are a lot of traditions mentioned along the story, as arranged marriages or "being all fixed up" (pg.9), "embroidering" that means women just sitting for hours while poking a needle through a piece of cloth (pg.12), education allowed only for men, family school for women, impediment to women for dinner with men in the same table, traditional thinking imposition when Ailin's father said that he considered not all new ideas were strange (pg.23) and the most important: bound feet only imposed for women.

• Gender role: Chinese history has had a big difference related to the gender role. Women have always been considered lower than men. Men have always had education, family and economic privileges. Also, women are the only ones who have to change their behavior and even support some painful physical changes in order to find a wealthy family or more specifically a wealthy husband.

• Determination: Ailin's determination for become an educated woman and not a follower of her country traditions is the real meaning of the story. Since she was a child she was thinking about the injustices for women and the real reasons for it and thanks to her determination she could become a talented and recognized Chinese woman.

• Family and Social class: being a wealthy or model family in the Chinese society is the most significant there because each family history has been kept through the years. For this reason, they continue their traditions to preserve a status or a "perfect" family.

The significance of this book in the literary world

It has had some awards as:

ALA Best Books for Young AdultsWINNER 2000

California Young Reader MedalWINNER 2004

Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading ListWINNER 2001

Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers AwardNOMINEE 2002

The significance of the title

The title refers to the process that women have to do for being considered a respectful woman, which is bind their feet. However, the word "break" means that this ties can be overcame. 

Source

* http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/119716/ties-that-bind-ties-that-break-by-lensey-namioka/9780440415992/

Significance and Themes

Main Themes

Culture and Traditions: the book shows the impact that the social traditions have in people beloging in a determinated community, how it represents the behaviour among members. How the act of participating and agree with the traditions make a person aceptated in the community, and how desagree and not participate of the traditions make a person rejected and descredited whitin the community. In the book, for example: A woman with bound foot is considered a good woman because she follows the ancient traditions, and a woman with unbound foot is considered a social outcast.

The importance of free decisions: the main character do not accept the ancient traditions and the social constructions that her family and society require her. She decides to think in a different way because she doesn't follow the traditons with her close eyes. She questions the culture where she was born despite of it brings many troubles to her.

Xenophobia: some characters of the book show their reject and contempt of diffentes languages and culture.

Critic point of view about women and men rol inside society: the author judges how the woman rol inside the ancient china culture is limited and infriged.

Significance of the book:

The book's story is an inspiration for people who don't feel identified with the own culture and own tradition. Also the book is an invitation to reflect on the idea that the culture where a perosn was born is not the only perceptions people can take into account, people should open mind to others cultures and traditions.

Themes, Title and Significance

So far, I can think about a couple of themes (at least the most important ones) the book Ties that Bind, Ties that Break, will be dealing with. First, there is culture; just by looking at the issues with the bound feet situation, we know the book is heavy charged -culturally speaking-. Other examples of this theme are the arranged marriages and all the behavior and manners existing in the book. The second would be friendship and love, this in regard with Ailin's friend Hanwei and the relationship developed between them along the chapters of the story. A third one is freedom, since the first pages one can see that Ailin is sort of a free spirit. She likes to run free, she is not that interested in the things or duties her older sisters carry but she is mesmerized by the new and let's say uncommon things she talks with Hanwei in their first meeting, And of course she does not want her feet to be bounded, like the old tradition dictates. She wants to be free from the regulations and conventions of her environment.

Ties that Bind, Ties that Break has received some critical acclaim from various magazines and was well received from readers all around the world; specially for its amazing atmosphere, setting and its power and intensity. Among the prizes its author has been awarded with the (American Library Association) ALA Best Books for Young Adults in 2000, the California Young Reader Medal in 2004, the Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List in 2001 and a nomination for the Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award in 2002.

For me, the title says -aside from the "obvious" relation with the bound feet and the way its practice could torn apart Ailin's family.- that there are some relationships that at some point will cause you to "break" or to stop yourself from being with other persons as important as that one. It is not necessarily something bad, but it happens. I think the title will reflect itself in the story by showing that there are some (kinds of) unions that sunder.

***

Theme and significance

Themes

Traditions and customs 

I think this is the most remarkable theme in the book: Chinese old traditions and customs. In my opinion, everything in the story goes around this. We can see a society that has a strong relation with their traditions. The first tradition we face is within the first chapters of the book: the bound feet. This tradition started in the 10^th century and basically consisted in deforming upper social classes young girls’ feet as a matter of beauty and social status. Eventually it spread to all social classes. In the book, Ailin belongs to a wealthy family and her mother and sisters have their feet bound. The society and her family create a pressure on the little girl to submit to this painful practice. Nevertheless, despite of her short age, she decides that she wants to have regular feet. 

Gender roles 

This is was too obvious to skip it. Sexist customs and behaviors are well known in Asian societies like China and Japan, and this is innocently showed in the book. As Ailin is a little girl, her family traditions are normal for her, but as she grows up she realizes that as a girl she should have the same rights that boys have. One of the things that shocked me more was the fact that when a family has a male visitor, the females have to eat somewhere else but the dining room. Another sexist tradition was the fact that only boys get to go to the school, girls are educated at home. The role of the women in this Chinese society was a passive role. They were expected to serve their husbands, have children, learn “educated girls” hobbies (like tailoring), and be submissive. 

Close-minded people, xenophobia. 

Big Uncle is the perfect example of this vast population of people that resisted to globalization. He criticized foreigner customs and appearance (calling skits inappropriate clothing and Americans “big noses”) and argues that Chinese market should stay local, this means, not to trade with foreigners. He even states that he prefers to buy Chinese expensive clothing instead of foreigners’ economic products. Ailin’s father is the other face of the coin: despite he looks like a wise conservative man, he says that letting in foreigners can bring good things for the country.

Life decision

This is something I consider is worth talking about. It’s well known that Asian cultures have really strong beliefs regarding religion and luck. They have principles about accepting one’s destiny and those kind of things, but we can see in the book this little Chinese girl that is completely decided to fight against imposed traditions of her culture.

Significance of the book

The tradition of the bound feet ended in the early 20^th century thanks to the Chinese anti-bound feet campaigns. That means the practice of deforming little girls feet lasted for 10 centuries. I think that when the book was published (2000) had no other intention than showing this “hidden” or “secret” part of Chinese traditions from a Chinese girl perspective. As I mentioned in the themes in the Life Choices subtitle, I do think that the book addresses also to the belief that the place where you come from may say a lot of things about you. Namioka goes against this belief with the character Ailin.

The book was well received, and was nominee and earned some prizes: Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award Nominee (2002), Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis Nominee for Preis der Jugendjury (2005), Washington State Book Award (2000)

              

Significance of the title

I haven’t finished the book, so it’s kind of hard to figure it out. For what I’ve read, I relate the title to the relation between personal choices and traditions. As we can see in the book, Ailin’s family and the society she lives when want her to follow things that are imposed to her, like feet binding, the place in the society as a woman, etc. And “ties that break” may talk about the things a person can do for him or herself, like personal choices. The way to space those imposed things.

Sources

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/962767.Ties_That_Bind_Ties_That_Break