Objective Summary: The story is about a child's expectance of a family life
filled with love and comforts, which is contrast with his real working class
family life. Subjective Evaluation: Soto, back to his age of nine, dreamed to
live in a family life that was uncomplicated in its routine. In reality, Soto
lived in a working class family; he tried to change his family to imitate the
perfect families he absorbed from television. I think many people have done what
Soto did to fulfill the dream of a perfect family they wanted. I am not excluded
from this either. I have an experience of attempting to change my family life.
It was one year later after my family first came to the US in 1995. I learned
many new things in this country that I never knew in China, and I appreciated
some living styles in American culture. As I tended to like the styles of
American life, I expected my family like them, too. The thing I wanted my family
to change was the cooking style. I hated to cook Chinese dinner because it took
so long to prepare. There are four kinds of food which are considered essential
parts of Chinese dinner: rice, soup, vegetable, and meat; they are usually
cooked separately.
I was not the one who was good at cooking in my family, but I did have
to cook when I came home earlier than my parents and two sisters still at work.
One day, when we were sitting together at the dinning table for dinner, I
suggested to my family that we could have sandwiches and precooked food from the
supermarket as our dinner since many American families do. My parents looked at
me in bewilderment. Son, you must be kidding, right? Those sandwiches and
precooked food do not give you enough nutrition for growing up, my dad said. And
precooked food is not good for your health, my mother kept on. My elder sisters
showed no interest in my idea. I grew frustrated from their reaction, but I did
not give up. Evening after evening, I kept bringing up the idea at the dinning
table. My mother finally permitted me to make one American dinner for the
family. That day, I went to the supermarket to buy bread, ham, and chicken soup
right after school. I planned on making ham sandwiches and chicken soup for the
dinner. The dinner was ready and served at our usual dinnertime. My mother
tasted a spoon of the chicken soup and said, It tastes like brine, nothing but
salty. Why don't they put some shark fins in it? She refused to have another
spoon. My sisters only had a small bite of their sandwiches and then put them
down; my father barely finished one. Even I could not have another one after
finishing two. That night, my parents and sisters had instant noodle for dinner.
Such a result was out of my expectation, but I had to accept it. From then on,
the subject of changing cooking style is never brought up to the family
conversation. I think Soto had the same feeling as I did when he found out that
there was no way to change his family to be the perfect family he expected. When
he realized that, he went out to look for work; being different from him, I
tried to bring up another subject to the family conversation.
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