Sociology

Cultural differences are a privilege that should be celebrated in the contemporary society that incorporates a manifold of cultures and races. Chorus of the Mushroom by Hiromi Goto is a contemporary masterpiece that explores the numerous shifts and collisions through the lives of the Japanese women living in a small town. The author succinctly demonstrates the clash of cultures through her female characters in the novel. The grandmother, for example, refuses to speak English and hides some salted squids in the pocket, while the daughter refuses to speak Japanese and cooks ham and pineapples on different occasions. Similarly, the granddaughter struggles to find a cultural identity somewhere between the two characters. Sociologically, this is a representation of different generations. With a concise focus on the three generations of women in the novel the eighty year old grandmother, her daughter and the grandchild, highlight three different positions on immigration. This paper, seeks to conduct the sociological analysis of the novel focusing on the three different points of view of the grandmother, the daughter and the granddaughter on culture, territories, racism and how the subjectivism the novel takes on the phenomenon of immigration out of its demographic as well as political context.

The entire novel, Chorus of the Mushroom, highlights the different approaches evident to the immigrants lives in Canada. While some people feel that it is easier, safer and happier to assimilate within other ways of life and cultures by simultaneously giving up their roots, it is evident that others are unable to lead a normal life without an attachment to their roots. The three women in this novel point out different generations and how each one has her own way of dealing with the question of immigration, experiencing different opinions concerning what it takes to set new roots in a new country and how one should be happy as an immigrant in a new country with a series of racial discrimination cases. Chorus of the Mushroom, contains a concise innovative narration of a Japanese Canadian family living in Nanton, Alberta, which is forced to deal with the complexities of a diasporic identity. In this narrative story, Goto manages to employ characters who are able to spin a web of stories about their lives and family, thereby giving an effective thematically playful strategy, for articulating the radicalized identity of the other.

Summary of Chorus of the Mushroom
Chorus of the Mushroom has led to an enthusiastic critical reception and one factor behind this is the whimsical tone with which Muriel and Naoe relate their stories. Literary critics argue that although the Gotos style is effective and the narrative clearly articulates the obstacles that a Japanese Canadian woman faces in a homogeneously white culture, the novel is distinctly more affirmative in its characterization and plot (Libin, 1999). Stevenson (2001) further asserts that the effects of white Canadian racism are strongly recounted in a melancholy tone throughout the novel. For instance, Chorus of the Mushroom, with its rejoicing story telling as well as a variety of sensual pleasures on food and sex, provides a clever parody to the racism and the concept of whiteness that faces many immigrants even today.

Starting with the oldest member of the family, Naoe, it may be admitted that she behaves as someone who has had a very tough life. As a child, for instance, she led a sheltered and protected life due to her familys wealth and the respect they had from others. Accordingly, there is a sudden turn of events where she becomes a victim of insidious plot based on hatred and envy and they are forced to leave their home. Libin (1999) points out that Naoe is only aged five when her family has to face all these ugly episodes and they are forced o leave everything behind and begin a new life away from the familiar places and things around her.  Arguably, it is at this moment that Naoes long Odyssey starts and she gets pushed from one place to another. For example, she at first begins moving from city to city in her own country but later on immigrates to different countries until she ends up in Canada at the age of sixty five (Goto, 1994). In my opinion, migration of this nature entails leaving a better place behind in order to establish a new home somewhere and for some unclear reasons, it involves abandoning social as well as cultural attachments on top of a familiar geographical surrounding. For Naoe and her family, immigration meant starting all over again in the light of building a new home and turning towards new things. This is clearer and sometimes can be very difficult especially if one is forced to leave their home as pointed out by Naoe when she says Leaving what I know to explore what I dont (Goto, 1994, p. 76).

Naoes situation after landing in Canada twenty years later is described by Goto. For instance, she keeps sitting in her chair refusing to leave the house and this behavior clearly shows that she is not ready to live in the country. As a result, she does not feel that she belongs to Canada and still, she does not show any interest in the people, the language and the new culture. The element of whiteness seems very conspicuous here, because Naoe is expected to speak English, but there arises a conflict, as instead of speaking English, she insists on speaking Japanese loudly throughout the whole day. Although this is not the case with her granddaughter Muriel, there is confusion when Muriel cannot understand her grandmother and, in addition, her daughter Keiko also refuses to understand her. One can easily say that it is very difficult for an older person to embrace a dramatic change and learn a new set of things including the language. Stevenson (2001) portends that Naoe is extremely a stubborn person who tries to forcefully hold on to her roots. Ideally, she even admits that she knows a little bit of English although she refuses to speak it. For example, Naoe says, I could speak the other but my lips refuse and my tongue swells in revolt. (Goto, 1994, p. 15).

Moreover, Naoe is used by Goto to illuminate the question of social change. She is unable to change her attitudes to life and embrace a new way of life as necessitated by the situation. For example, she sits on her chair, telling stories all day long, thus, showing her protest. She eventually suffers a great deal due to her daughters behavior of reusing to communicate with her in their native Japanese language. Due to this, Keiko is a big disappointment to her mother, because she equally does not want to hold on to her Japanese culture and traditions. Keiko says, I speak my words in Japanese and my daughter will not hear them (Goto, 1999, p. 4). As a result, this seems to cause a lot of pain to Naoe to the extent that she tells Kieko that she is a child from her heart, and body but not from her mouth (Goto, 1994, p. 48).

The inability of Naoe to adjust to the new situations and environments, propels her sufferings and makes her feel alienated and isolated from others with the exception of Muriel whom she calls Murasaki just to give her a trace of Japanese identity. With regard to this, her granddaughter seems to be the only person who can listen to her, although in the irony that she can not understand the Japanese language. Goto wanted to underscore that irrespective of all odds, human beings can forge ahead and get deeper and stronger in their social circle. The stories Naoe tells are built around the Japanese myths as well as her own experiences. As they seem to strengthen in this connection, Naoe and Muriel make a sense of home regardless of where they are. According to Libin (1999), Naoe attempts to hold on to the old Japanese traditions to basically overcome the loneliness she experiences bound to the chair in a foreign country.

Criticism of Chorus of the Mushroom
Nonetheless, Chorus of the Mushroom acutely demonstrates the marginalized status of the Japanese Canadian, and Goto frames this novel by the desire to explore this status by analyzing the position of whiteness, immigration and racism in the contemporary society. Her characters are frequently confronted with situation that leaves them utteric of statements that demonstrates on acute angle of racism and essentialism as well as the white benevolence in which these statements are typically coughed. Examining the Chorus of the Mushroom leave the question on whether it is undoubtedly possible to escape the constraining territory of the whiteness or at least, its more violent side effects and thereby move closer to the marginalized space in which Goto writes. Recent studies on social and literary fields have focused on the role of Chorus of the Mushroom in constructing cultural identities within cultural frameworks in the contemporary western countries (Stevenson, 2001).

Because of the specific circumstance in Canada, its formation as well as the ethnic variety of its population, identity constructions are more clear and evident. In this novel, Hiromi Goto provides an interesting and yet fictional analysis of the eminent role of visual structures in the social construction of cultural differences in non native Canadians. Using the Asian Canadian subject, salient issues that are explored in the novel border the precepts of the problematic lack of coincidence between the actual realities of the cultural mosaic. Libin (1999) points out that a brief history of the multiculturalism in Canada in the last thirty years of the 20th century saw the transformation of the country from a more ethnocentric bilingual entity to a multiracial, multicultural and multiethnic one. Essentially, the novel captures how overcoming whiteness is an imperative approach towards multiculturalism in the modern world. A depicted problem is the multicultural policy that was enacted in Canada in 1971. Accordingly, it was constructed around the questions of bilingual frameworks guided under the principle of visible changes in the composition of the Canadian society. With regard to the novel, Chorus of the Mushroom is something closer to a non discriminatory policy which made the Canadians begin overcoming the construction of race among its immigrants. In the novel, Naoe begins doing what her family asks of her, assuming the subordinate position that she initially had in her family. They, finally, come to understand each other.

The Chorus of the Mushroom is therefore an interventionist text that decidedly sets itself to break the institutionalized expectations in a number of ways. To begin with, the asymmetries in the conditions of the cultural identities in Canada as well as the denouncement of the power of the codes of visibility in the cultural productions are coherently exposed. In addition, the novel recognizes appropriate and reverses the existing functioning of the cultural stereotypes (Lin, 1999). According to Stevenson (2001) the functioning of cultural stereotypes is synonymous to unveiling in the process, the whole concept of arbitrary nature of whiteness and immigration. The above aspects inscribes themselves right into the Canadian tradition that finally puts into question the concept of cultural identities, whiteness and racism within the precincts of the Asian Canadian tradition. Naoe and her family are subjected to a host of stereotypes with regard to their cultural orientation as foreigners from Japan and thus struggle in a more subtle way to recognize their identities and find a place for themselves in the Canadian white culture.

Literary critics argue that Chorus of the Mushroom presents the life of a family in a mushroom farm in Alberta. Accordingly, the novel uses a narrative framework where the granddaughter tells a story to her lover a newly arrived Japanese teacher of flower arrangements. Those stories coincide with what is happening in Nanton in terms of her family trying to exploit the mushrooms. This has a sociological significance of the nature of family lives where irrespective of what happens, members of the family will always stand for each other. Naoe and her granddaughter Murasaki come together, collapses into each other and finally become confused in the midst of memories and myths all in an tempt to bond and support each other (Goto, 1994). The Canadian folk tales often transpose the Japanese traditions onto the Canadian prairies. Stevenson (2001) further asserts that Chorus of the Mushroom stresses the increasing lack of coincidence between place and identity as well as nation and culture. Thus, the novel looks at these issues not as problems but as source of cultural empowerment as well as enrichment.

In addressing racism and the concept of whiteness, Goto succeeded in her novel which grounds in literary sense and acknowledges the power of story telling to root realities and frame cultures as well as identities. The various stories told by Naoe and her grandchild are invariably triggered by their desire to narrate and their demand to listen as evidenced in their growing sense of belonging a factor that overcome the concept of whiteness. Libin (1999) postulates that the repetition of the words Mukashi in the novel marks the beginning of cultural tolerance in the contemporary world. However, this still remains the center in post colonial terms as a well as a canonical center of the quickly emerging field of Asian Canadian writing. With regard to this, the entire novel, Chorus of the Mushroom contests the pressures for realism associated with multiculturalism in the country with emerging with diverse cultural outlooks in the face of immigration. Cultural exchange seems imperative towards the overcoming of whiteness and racism.

It is also arguable that this novel embodies what critics call alienethic poetics. For instance, it is a kind of literature that does not operate in the limelight of a colonized and inherited form of awareness as it investigates the individual enactment of character in terms of their intermittent as well as migration. As such, the story goes a notch higher in attempting to portray formal innovative possibilities that are just not limited to an ethnic project but runs through questions of global migration, racism and what should be done to reduce and fight the concept of whiteness that is embedded in racism.

One of the most telling moments in Chorus of the Mushroom in terms of representing cultural conflict is succinct in the scene of the supermarket whereby after finding herself shopping in the most ethnic vegetable section, Murasaki is interrupted by a white Canadian who goes to the lengths of kindly demanding information about the products traded in the section (Got, 1994).This episode is analogous to the ethnocentric attitude that often underlies the white Canadians readiness to open up to other cultures. The fact that it happens in the supermarket is not a coincidence, but a deliberate attempt to draw implicit parallels between food and culture, the acts of buying and selling products as well as the marketing of the ethnic other. In essence, this points out the fruits and benefits of consuming cultural differences in the contemporary Canada.

In addition, Stevenson (2001) notes that Chorus of the Mushroom clearly sets itself off from a multicultural category whose major objective are to delineate the boundaries into which the cultural differences are tolerable. It is worth to point out that the possibility of seeing multicultural policies as the strategy to cushion the excess of otherness and eventually ensuring that there is respect for the dominant groups position of power, is surely the stepping stone towards enriching the position of cultural tolerance and mutual co-existence. Accordingly, these aim at reducing the circumstances under which racism can be applicable. For example, the case of our Asian Canadian family, acts as the defining codes of otherness and allotting them a place which is already outside the discourses of power may be single most factors to racism.

Gotos novel combats the question of whiteness and otherness in an important way by constantly appropriating and playing with the eminent lack of coincidence between the visual constructions of the characters identities. For instance, the character of Naoe unsettles the expectation of the reader in a myriad of possible ways. One, she leads a double life that is evidenced by her sitting down on her immobile chair, deliberately disappearing into the priare wind, hitchhiking in the middle of the snow storm and being picked up  by a truck driver with  whom she has sex after all. From these brief accounts of her deeds, she is a symbol of the sociological interpretation. Life to her is full of beginnings. This is true from how she defies everything and all identity codes attached to her culture, age and her status as an immigrant. Moreover, her deliberate refusal to speak English, although she crudely understands it, shows how she is not ready to accept the fact that she is an immigrant.

Conclusion
Judging from the  foregoing discussion, it is evident that Chorus of the Mushroom could be said to be about the possibility of putting on and off different culture  and about the impersonation in a bid towards moving on to fight whiteness in Canada. In fact, the novel plays endlessly with the constructed nature of identity categories and insists on the possibilities of learning and unlearning identities in the same way that we learn and unlearn languages. Goto has indeed left us a timeless commentary on the social aspects of status of immigrants in different cultures.