Family: A Unity Of A Family In Lang Samantha Chang's 'Hangzhou'

Family: A Unity to Conserve Throughout centuries, regardless of race or age, there have been dilemmas that identify a family’s true union. In “Hangzhou” (1925), author Lang Samantha Chang illustrates the story of a Japanese family whose mother is trapped in her beliefs. While Alice Walker in her story “Everyday Use” (1944) presents the readers with an African American family whose dilemma is mainly revolving around Dee’s ego, the narrator’s daughter. Although exhibiting different ethnicity, the reader should meditate that both families commonly share the attachment of a legacy, a tradition and the adaptation to a new generation. It is often ignored that legacy is responsible for the unity of a family. As Walker lightens the reader with the importance of quilts in “Everyday Use”, she amplifies the significance of it by presenting Maggie, the younger of two sisters. Maggie’s strong attachment to these quilts

In many scenarios, it is the younger generations who represent new times and challenge old tradition to be left in the past. Considering the reading of “Hangzhou” by Chang, Shitai, the fortune teller exhorts Chanyi, the illustrator grandma, to adapt to modern generation where their “own ideas of love and power” (Chang 103) will decide the faith of their future. Taken by surprise, Chanyi disagrees, rationalizing and remaining silent on the topic. In similarity, Alice Walker relates to this reaction by echoing the illustrator of “Everyday Use” as she is informed of her daughter’s name change from Dee to Wangero. Asserted by Dee, it was a burden to be named “after the people who oppress her” (Walker 318). This proves to the reader that in both families an adaptation is required by the mother. Therefore, both families have been driven to the similar situations regardless of their origin or ethnicity. Modern times request for new changes, a difficulty that families must