Everyone in America was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. You can fight me if you want, with your fists, or with your wits, but please hear me out until the end. We’re not all millionaires, but we are rich in that great, flawed equalizer we call education. Here we are told to follow our dreams, that nothing is impossible if we try. And can this not be seen in the huge amount of courses available to high school and college students around the country? Where else do you find a high school that offers aeronautics and ballet? In American society, we value individuality, and individuals we create.
But what about places that don’t mean to create individuals? What about that Japanese proverb, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down?” Well, what about it? Conformity, if that’s what it is, is only one way of looking at things. And conformity breeds a certain kind of individuality.
You’ve all heard of kawaii culture, right? In a nutshell, it’s the cuteness that’s so prevalent... everywhere in Japan. From facial expressions and way of speaking, to clothing and toys, to everyday items as plates and chopsticks, and even keychains on regulation book bags, kawaii is a way for people to express themselves in a culture that demands conformity. And the best part is, everyone is free to define kawaii in their own way, for while we take it to mean cute, kawaii quite literally means “the ability to be loved.” Everyone loves what they love, and they’ll show it to us, one way or another.
But why limit ourselves to reality? When it’s this late, why not take a fancy to Saleem Sinai and his belief in the mysterious powers of midnight? For do we not all know that our greatest inspirations (and our greatest fabrications) happen at that time of night when all we’d like to do is sleep and all that we can do is write? But I digress.
In Saleem’s story of India of generations prior, we see the usual things, of how men work to support their families, of how a woman’s place is in the home, of how she should be ashamed of showing her body in public. And as such, Reverend Mother has nothing but disdain for her actress daughter-in-law, Pia, and provokes thoughts of a certain line in her daughter, Amina, when she takes to betting on horse races to keep her family afloat. She herself admits that she shouldn’t be doing it, saying, “Gambling is a terrible thing; it would be so shaming if my mother found out” (Rushdie 160). But for Amina, a wife’s duty is to her husband and household. So to defend her family’s place in society, to save her husband’s pride and honor, it only makes sense to do what she did.
In breaking the mold to sustain the mold, Amina too helped to show us how people interact with society. Whether we realize it or not, whether it is the intention or not, society shapes individuals. And yet, despite it all, all we can really be is ourselves.
Works Cited
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children:. New York: Random House, 1981. Print.
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