Vancouver: Filled With Tradition

Incorporated Asian Traditions

It is interesting to read about Vancouver from an Asian perspective. This point of view allows the author to incorporate their own traditions into Vancouver, itemizing the city’s multiculturalism. Author Wayson Choy does this by mentioning the nostalgic times Sek-Lung spent at Chinatown with his grandmother in “The Jade Peony.” The peony was made from items bought in Chinatown and represented the preservation of the family’s cultural roots. By looking at the jade peony, Sek-Lung “saw Grandmama smile and heard, softly,” about not forgetting who he is and where his origins are (Choy 125). However, the daily events of Japanese ESL student Takahashi are not quite the same, as written in Takahashi’s Blog (http://kentako.zombie.jp/blog/). Living alone, he spends his time with other fellow classmates doing touristy activities as they try to immerse into Canadian culture, rather than try to bring their own culture into Vancouver. In the blog entry titled “TOEIC…,” Takahashi and his friends celebrated the end of an exam by going to some places including the “Public Library, Gas Town, Canada Place and so on” (Takahashi, TOEIC para. 1). His Western influences are further articulated in the post “Bon Jovi” where he idolizes the popular rock band (Takahashi, Jovi para. 1). Takahashi never mentions anything about his home country, Japan, indicating that it is more important for him to learn the English language and adapt to Canadian customs. This contrasts Choy’s writing, as the message he wants to send is that one’s cultural roots should be preserved across generations.

Rhetorically speaking, Choy’s work is more successful than Takahashi’s. The three components of rhetoric (ethos, pathos, and logos) exist in “The Jade Peony.” Told in a chronological ordering of events, this story affirms a logical ordering, which describes logos. At the end of the story, Sek-Lung cries in response to grandma’s imminent death. This is an example of pathos because it conveys emotional feelings to the reader about Sek-Lung’s love and bond with Grandma. Also, Choy has literary credibility, as he has won the Trillium Book Award and attended UBC to study creative writing. Thus, this is an example of ethos. Choy has all these components present in the writing of “The Jade Peony,” but Takahashi does not display all of them in his works. Each post is about his day in Vancouver as an ESL student, in one easy to read paragraph. This coherent ordering implies logos. However, these posts do not have emotional impact on the reader (no pathos). The credibility of the author, Takahashi, is questioned because he is still learning English and therefore may be capable of providing more expressive thoughts, otherwise known as pathos.