欧巴桑--一个日裔加人的视点（附英文书评作业）

《欧巴桑》是一部著名的加拿大文学作品，经常是本地学校的必读书籍之一。欧巴桑是日语发音，即阿姨的意思。作者Joy Kogawa是个诗人，欧巴桑几乎可算是她唯一的小说。这部作品之所以受到重视，是因为它揭露了加拿大现代史上黑暗的一面：日裔加人被关入集中营的事件。

日军偷袭珍珠港之后，在北美的日裔的处境越来越艰难。尽管有调查表明大多数日本移民对新的国家是忠诚的，但出于两面的原因：一是战争的警惕，害怕日军从西 海岸登陆；二则是种族歧视了，这和19世纪末开始的黄祸论和针对中国人的人头税倒是一脉相承的。在1942年2月19日，罗斯福总统签署了9066号总统 令，认定军部有权基于国防安全的考虑可以将外国人隔离起来。虽说这是对所有敌对国出身的居民而言，但被紧急收容的一半以上是日本裔，特别是在西海岸，对于 第一代日本移民以及含1/16以上血统的，都被关入了集中营。美国的确有德裔和意大利裔的居民有和纳粹相关的破坏行动的发生，但这些人即使被临时居留，很 快就被释放。只有日裔，无辜的被长期的关押。在美国影响力极大的中南美国家，不少日裔移民更是被交到美国海军的手中，强行送往美国，却因非法进入美国而被 逮捕关押。

加拿大也不例外，而且做得比美国还要过分：将日裔按男女分开关押，将家庭拆散。和美国一样，将日裔的财产以保全为名拍卖，实际上和掠夺毫无两样。如小说中 说的，主人公的祖父的凯迪拉克的汽车拍卖了32元，其中的30元作为手续费被扣除，到手仅2元。加拿大做得更糟的是，二战结束，集中营关闭后，以怕日裔闹 事为由（影响和谐？），仍然禁止他们回到原来的居住地，将他们强制迁移到更偏僻的地区居住。

《欧巴桑》正是反映了这一段经历对作者幼小心灵的创伤。她的对童年的美好回忆仅限于一张发黄的旧相片，那是一张全家福，包含了两个日裔移民的大家庭。他们 应该是成功的移民，有医生，音乐家和造船的。此后不久，战争的乌云开始笼罩着他们，她母亲因家庭原因不得不回日本一段时间，结果这成了永别。随着战争气氛 越来越浓，她的家人纷纷失去了工作，开始不得不到政府指定的地点报到，财产也被拍卖一空。作者以她擅长的诗人的手法，描述了这一段黑暗的时间。我读的时候 的确感受到了这种绝望，灰暗的心情。以致于他们全家被分离（她病弱的父亲被送到一处，她、弟弟以及叔叔一家则被送到内地一个小村子里）的一刻到来之时，反 而有些平静了，好像觉得这些打击早晚会到来似的。

在内地生活的时间里，唯一的明亮点是她和父亲的短暂重逢，她用了大段文字表示心情愉快。可惜这并不持久，她父亲在二战后仍被发配到异地，临终都不能和她见 上一面。而叔叔一家则收养了她和弟弟，从此生活在更荒凉的内地。从文中感受到的是，这一次的打击远远重于最初的发配。因为原先他们还有梦，希望战争结束后 一切回到从前，但严酷的现实无疑打破了这最后的一丝希望。她叔叔原来是造木船的匠人，喜欢海上的生活，一直想，总有一天，可以再次回到海上。第二次迁移 后，他变得沉默，绝口不提此事了，只是偶尔看着草原，会说：这就像海一样。

Joy Kogawa是诗人，这部小说的构成并不严谨，多余和杂乱的情节不少。不时出现的日语对话对读者而言也是一种挑战，即使有英文译文，但很难表达清楚日语中 真正的含义。但她成功的表达了她对遭到政府社会迫害时的迷茫，困惑，伤感甚至愤怒的心情。就揭露事实和展露心情而言，应该是成功的。书中出现了两个欧巴桑 （阿姨），一个是一直照顾她的阿雅欧巴桑，典型的日本人，谦恭善良，和她叔叔一样，沉默寡言；另一个是艾米莉欧巴桑，在北美长大，一直要和命运抗争，也是 她一再为要求给日裔平反而奔波。我认为这二人都是作者杜撰的人物，其实代表了作者的两种性格，也体现了两种文化背景的冲突。生活中的作者应该是更像艾米莉 一些吧。

书中说她父亲病死异乡，生活中她父亲似乎仍然健在，而且在内地的生活并不是如小说中所说，事实上她一直和父母在一起。既然声称是她半自传性的小说，这些情 节的改动未免减少了真实性。最重要的，她花费了整整一个章节去描述母亲回日本后在长崎被原子弹炸伤后病死的情景，却完全是出于杜撰。小说中提到了这么多的 历史事实，她却偏偏略去了当年日军所犯的罪行，我觉得这不是无意的，事实上她也把对日裔的迫害和纳粹的罪行相提并论，却绝口不提当时和纳粹站在一条战线上 的日本。这些都应该是重要的情节，否则怎么让读者理解整篇小说要表达的意思？片面强调受害者的一面，一是有损于小说的真实性，二来也显示出作者并没有摆脱 日裔身份的局限性。

（注：我12年级学习的一个重要内容是写一篇书评。我选择了OBASAN即欧巴桑，英文作业附录如下。）

A Touching Story by a Japanese-Canadian

Obasan is a famous Canadian novel. It revealed a dark page in modern Canadian history: the internment of Japanese-Canadian.

The novel’s narrator is Naomi who is a Sansei, which means the 3rd Generation of Japanese-Canadian in Japanese. The story started from her uncle’s death in 1972 when Naomi was 36. Obasan means aunt in Japanese. Here it refers to her uncle’s wife Aya. During the time when Naomi returned to Obasan’s home and participated her uncle’s funeral, there were lots of flash back to her childhood.

Her childhood memory started from age 5, 1941. At that time, Naomi lived in a very successful middle class immigrants’ family. But everything was changed since the WWII started. Her mother went to Japan for family emergencies and never returned back. Then under the infamous War Measures Act, 20 thousands Japanese-Canadian were sent to internment camp. Naomi’s family was among those people. Naomi was forced to live with her uncle and aunt (Obasan) and was separated from her father and her grandparents. Her family’s property was also confiscated by the government. They almost lost everything. After several years living in BC interior, the WWII ended. However, their miserable life was not over yet. They were forced to move to Alberta’s rural area and were forbidden to return back to their home in British Columbia. Life became even harder. The hardship was so severe that Naomi’s family became more and more silent.

The unfair treatment to a specific group of ethic origin people can only be considered as racism. And it was done by a civilized democratic country. This was indeed a sad story.

The author used her poet skills to tell the whole story. The words were rich and powerful. They expressed her feeling perfectly and struck reader’s heart.

The author used the poem like paragraph expressed her happiness when Naomi reunited with her father: I am Minnie and Winnie in a sea shell, resting on a calm sea-shore. I am Goldilocks, I am Momotaro returning. I am leaf in the wind restored to its branch, child of my father come home. The world is safe once more and Chicken Little is wrong. The sky is not falling down after all.

The author used almost one chapter to describe Naomi’s anger on how unfairly they were treated in such a long time. Here is one paragraph: It’s hard, Aunt Emily, with my hoe, the blade getting dull and mud-caked as I slash out the Canada thistle, dandelions, crab grass, and other nameless non-beet plants, then on my knees, pulling out the extra beets from the cluster, leaving just one to mature, then three hand spans to the next plant, whack whack, and down on my knees again, pull, flick flick, and on to the end of the long long row and the next and the next and it will never be done thinning and weeding and weeding and weeding. It’s so hard and so hot that my tear glands burn out.

I could feel the color theme that the author wanted to express. From the beginning of her childhood memory, it was faded yellow, but still bright; then it turned to darker and darker color, there was one moment of brightness when Naomi’s father returned for several days; after the WWII, it was the darkest moment; until her uncle died in 1972, it was still greyish color although there were occasionally lighting of anger.

This story is very toughing. I learnt that although Canadian government and the society had done such horrible things to Japanese-Canadian, they still kept the faith and considered themselves as Canadian. I could feel their sadness, slience and anger. We should never let those things happen again.

The author was very successful in telling this story. But she was still limited in a Japanese-Canadian point of view. In the whole book, the author mentioned several times about the terrible crimes Nazis had committed and compared the internment to Naziism by using some historical document. She even used the fictional story about how Naomi’s mother was suffered in Nagasaki’s Atomic Bombing. But throughout the book, there was no single word about how Nazis ally, Japanese Empire and its army, had done to Asian people and their role in the WWII. This made reader pay more attention to Japan as a victim rather than a criminal. I believe that the author’s background limited her ability to make this book even greater.

Ernest Renan said, “Man does not belong to his language or to his race, he belongs to himself alone, for he is a free being, a moral being.” It sounds great, but it would really hard for anyone to achieve this.

However, I still think this book is worth reading. It provides a distinctive view for Canadian modern history and makes us more appreciate to current multi-cultural society.