Shadows Of Childhood

Increasing your knowledge in many cultural backgrounds can be beneficial to you and to understand how life is for other people with different cultural upbringing than you. Three stories I found that would be really interesting to not only the students but also to the other teachers that I could be working with are “From Shadows of a Childhood” by Elisabeth Gille, “From Catfish and Mandala: A Two-wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam; Last Gamble” by Andrew X. Pham and “Shadows on the Wall” by Charles Mungoshi. I have chosen some articles that will provide more information on the topics and to help understand and explain that learning about other cultures will help the children become more educated with other cultures that

The location of this story took place in a hotel in Paris, France. A young girl named Lèa has been staying with one of the Sisters at their church, since her mother and father were taken to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. After Lèa was finished with school, she and Sister-Saint Gabriel went to Hôtel Lutètia to see if her parents had returned. Lèa thought that her parents would stay here from returning from their “vacation” since she did not know what actually happened to them. They spoke with one of the ladies in the cubicle office setup to see if there was a way that she would be able to help find Lèa’s parents. The lady gave some papers to Sister Saint-Gabriel to place Lèa into an institution until she is old enough to be on her own, a family member comes along, or so that she receives her parents’ death certificates. The lady sent Lèa to go and wait while she and sister talked. As Lèa was waiting, she followed one of the staff that was bringing food to the people in the hotel. Lèa went into an empty room to eat her bread and chocolate. She sat on the bed ready to eat and suddenly someone’s fingers were touching her hands which appeared out of nowhere. She gave him the bread and chocolate and then he dumped her box of beads over her head. She told him why she was there and her name. Lèa asked him if he knew who her parents were. He did know who they were, he replied, “Gassed.

Pham. “Last Gamble” is about how a family wants to flee Vietnam and go to America since the father has escaped a labor camp in Saigon. The father was put into a re-education prison to learn the new ways of the government since South Vietnam was taken over by North Vietnam. One night the whole family was over at the Grandma’s house discussing how the escape was going to take place. An and Chi were sent outside so the adults could talk, so they went up on the roof to pick some star fruit and they made some wishes to the aliens. An wished for the aliens to take the family to America and Chi made a wish not to the aliens, but to the angels for them to take care of Grandma while they are away. While they were up on the roof the neighbor girl Hoa asked to talk to An. She had her speculations that the family was going to leave because of all the fisherman that go in and out and staying late in grandmother’s house. An did not want to admit it because he liked her, but he knew that he had to tell her the truth. That next morning very early Mom, Chi, Hien, Tuy and An took off in ragged clothing so that they would look like peasants. They were dressed like this because they were going to be walking in the country to meet the father and then meet the fishermen before dawn that