Module 3: "The Lost Garden" by Laurence Yep (excerpts)

However, I was a bunch of different pieces that had been dumped together in a box by sheer circumstance.

However, I was a bunch of different pieces that had been dumped together in a box by sheer circumstance.

I could take these different elements, each of which belonged to something else, and dip them into my imagination where they were melted down and cast into new shapes so that they became uniquely mine.

I could take these different elements, each of which belonged to something else, and dip them into my imagination where they were melted down and cast into new shapes so that they became uniquely mine.

As I said, he had come to America at the age of ten but he did not like to talk much about the tough time he had had adjusting to life here.

In their inexperience, the boys lingered on and so my father caught the would-be burglar.

The gang members frantically blustered and threatened.

The gang members frantically blustered and threatened.

After about ten agonizing minutes, the boy broke free and the whole gang ran off.

In it, he quarreled with a group of Chinese laundrymen so that he and they got into a comic-pitched battle.

The caricatures with the exaggerated slanted eyes and characters clad in black pajamas seemed fantasy creatures; and I remember putting my fingers up by the sides of my eyes to slant them like characters in the cartoon and running around making high, sing-song noises.

The caricatures with the exaggerated slanted eyes and characters clad in black pajamas seemed fantasy creatures; and I remember putting my fingers up by the sides of my eyes to slant them like characters in the cartoon and running around making high, sing-song noises.

The caricatures with the exaggerated slanted eyes and characters clad in black pajamas seemed fantasy creatures; and I remember putting my fingers up by the sides of my eyes to slant them like characters in the cartoon and running around making high, sing-song noises.

Since that amounted to harsh words for my mother, I slunk off ashamed.

I stopped doing imitations of cartoon laundrymen; but I still didn’t particularly want to be Chinese.

I did my best to show that I was different, becoming one of those obnoxious children who had to have a fork instead of chopsticks at a banquet in Chinatown—I didn’t learn how to use chopsticks until I was twelve.

I did my best to show that I was different, becoming one of those obnoxious children who had to have a fork instead of chopsticks at a banquet in Chinatown—I didn’t learn how to use chopsticks until I was twelve.