Grandmothers and Granddaughters Project - First Post!

This blog will focus primarily on the progress of my research project, which is centered on documenting the oral history of my grandmother's life. The blog will detail my process, from the preliminary research into gender and the Chinese Republic, the history of the Sino-Japanese war, and China pre and post Cultural Revolution, to the experience of living in China with my grandmother to document her story through recording, video, and photography. I intend to culminate the project in an artistic representation inspired by the materials that I will gather. So hopefully through this process, I will grow as a writer, record my grandmother's story, and learn about my family history in a socio-historical context.

The blog will also include my musings on the art of writing, oral history, and storytelling.

I will also post selections of poetry/prose from the Asian American Studies Grandmothers and Granddaughters writing workshop occasionally. This workshop was the inspiration for this project.

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Now that I face making my project a reality, I have a million questions. There's the logistics of the project: Am I really going to transcribe a lifetime of stories into Chinese and then English? (No use doubting my competency now, it will be done anyway.) How will her words retain their original meaning after being twisted and distilled to fit in the mold of a foreign language (that she's only seen on TVs and heard on telephones and from her granddaughter's awkward mishaps?) Will I even have enough material to transcribe? What if she doesn't really want to talk to me? What if she doesn't want to remember? What if it changes my memory of her forever? What if it doesn't?

I'm apprehensive, glad, grateful that I'll have this opportunity to get to know my grandmother because though I believed I knew her so well, I was never close enough to learn what she loved, what she was like as a young girl, what made her cry, if she was happy with her marriage, what gave her joy. Though I suppose I'm luckier than many who don't know their grandmas because I know things like what her favorite fruit is (peach), and that she would recycle the water from the shower three times before throwing it away and wouldn't turn on the heat in the winter to save money. I knew that she's seen and brought up three generations of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. But I don't know if she got presents from her parents, if she loved her mother, if she was scared to leave home as a teenager, if she was resentful that she was born a girl (though I'm pretty sure she was), or if she was angry that the war, and then the revolution came to her door. Or did she rejoice secretly?

I don't know if the project would mean as much to her. I don't even know if she's especially happy to talk about her life with me (though I know that she's willing and excited about my visit, which makes me happy). I don't know if she'll hide secrets from me, if she would want to seem strong, if she would give me her version of the truth rather than carefully crafted stories--or if that truth even matters? After all, the process of oral history is giving the subject/interviewee/whatever you call the person the chance to dictate her own life. And for my grandmother, whose life seems to revolve around serving others when it could have been so much more, isn't it finally time for her to dictate her own life and determine her own truths?

But hasn't she been dictating her life for the past few decades? Hasn't all the choices that have been made been completely her own? (Was she ever afraid?)

(What were your dreams? What advice would you give an insecure, selfish, unoriginal young woman? Did you ever find out who you truly are amidst the violence---and silence? Were you lonely once? Now?)