The Paper Menagerie

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Written in 2011, “The Paper Menagerie” has won two major science fiction literary awards: the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. You can find the text here.

Summary

Jack, a little boy from Connecticut, enjoys playing with origami animals that his Chinese mother introduces him to. This paper menagerie comes to life when she blows into them. As Jack grows into a teenager, he tries to fit in with the surrounding American community. He begins to reject his mother's community, as represented by Jack’s mother, who tries very hard to speak English and changes her habits to satisfy him. After Jack's mother dies without reconciliation with her son, Jack finds a message from his mother in one of the origami animals, learns about her past, and reconnects with her by writing back to her on the message on the day of Qingming, the Chinese Festival for the Dead.

Analytical viewpoint: Jack is the focus of the story

“The Paper Menagerie” demonstrates how an individual can belong to a community, vanish from it, and get reconnected. In the story, Jack, who was born in the Year of the Tiger, is represented by Laohu, an origami tiger that becomes alive through Jack’s mother’s magic: “I didn't know this at the time, but Mom's kind was special. She breathed into them so that they shared her breath and thus moved with her life. That was her magic.” Laohu’s life starts in the menagerie, which represents the mother’s culture, and this community is introduced, accepted, and enjoyed by Jack when he is a child. These are the secure and comfortable years.

However, belonging to a community that gives one life and provides one with all sense of belonging can be destroyed. An origami tiger is fragile and easy to break out into pieces. When Jack’s family moves into a new town and Jack into a new school, he encounters new perspectives of what is acceptable. Laohu is introduced to Mark, an All-American boy who likes to play with Star Wars action figures. When Laohu accidentally breaks Mark’s action figure, Mark retaliates by tearing Laohu apart: “Mark grabbed Laohu, and his snarl was choked off as Mark crumpled him in his hand and tore him in half. He balled up the two pieces of paper and threw them at me. ‘Here's your stupid cheap Chinese garbage.’”

From this moment on, life for Laohu becomes difficult to the point that he never seems the same again. Jack tries to fix him back to what he was, but nothing seems to work. He is condemned to live in a box for a long time, even though the menagerie resists Jack’s rejection: “[t]he animals had escaped and took over their old favorite spots in my room. I caught them and put them back into the shoebox, taping the lid shut. But the animals made so much noise in the box that I finally shoved it into the corner of the attic as far away from my room as possible.” Jack forces himself to forget the community the menagerie represents and instead joins Mark’s all-American community.

Many years later, the fragile Laohu comes back from the darkness when Jack’s memory of her mother making an origami shark for him breathes new life into the paper tiger: “The ball of paper shifted, unfurled itself, and I saw that it was Laohu, who I hadn't thought about in a very long time. ‘Rawrr-sa.’ Mom must have put him back together after I had given up.” As we can see, Jack’s mom never gives up hope that her son may love her again and now Laohu carries a message within himself that helps Jack reconnect with his mother’s community. Because Jack does not know how to read Chinese, he needs to seek help from someone who does, and as he listens to the story of his mother’s life and her family, he gets back a sense of community. After communicating his love to his mother through the message written on Laohu, Jack’s final act is to accept his mother’s heritage: “Following the creases, I refolded the paper back into Laohu. I cradled him in the crook of my arm, and as he purred, we began the walk home.” Laohu is finally back where he has always belonged proving that even though we may ignore where we have come and try to reject our legacy for the rest of our lives, our roots and blood live in us.

For creative spirits: Build your own paper Laohu

In this first part, you will learn how to make the first section of the tiger. You will begin on a small piece of paper, but after the training, you can do it on a larger paper. Be patient and do this in stages.

In the second part, you will start with a more substantial piece of paper, and you can use colored paper to give a more realistic impression. Also, you will need something to help make the lines more perfect.

In the last part, the tutor will provide some tips to do a better job. Also, tell you that you may need glue to ensure some features stay in place and finally get the origami tiger.

For young readers: What could it mean to grow up in two cultures?

Watch this NBC report, "Defining Latino: Young People Talk Identity, Belonging," featuring Latinx youth discussing how living in the United States has defined their identity. As NBC emphasizes, Latinx youth is "one of the largest and fastest-growing youth populations in the country."

Critical thinking questions

• Could immigrant teenagers of any ethnicity identify with Jack's story? What is similar? What is different?
• Should Jack believe and respect his mother's traditions, beliefs, and language no matter what? Or should Jack's mother's not insist on asking her son to be like she is? What is lost and gained by choosing one option over the other? What would you do differently if you were Jack? Jack’s mother?  
• In your opinion, do bi-racial teenagers have an advantage in society? Why? Why not?

Share your view of the story

Click here to tell us how you feel about Jack's story and whether you relate to it. You could share a recommendation on how to manage being part of two cultures.

Analytical viewpoint: The mother is the focus of the story

“The Paper Menagerie” is about a nameless Chinese immigrant who is the mother of the story’s narrator, Jack. Jack’s mother was from a very poor farming family and born at a time of famine in China. Her own mother was self-sacrificing; she would eat mud so that she could give Jack’s mother the little bit of food that was left.  In the story, Jack’s mother represents the Chinese community and throughout the story she tries to present this culture to her American –born son. One example of her attempt to gift her culture to her son is the Zhizhi (origami) paper menagerie that she creates and gives to Jack when he was a toddler.  As Jack matured, he started to choose American culture over Chinese culture. This rejection of her culture by her son compounded her feeling of isolation in the English-speaking Connecticut community to which her white American husband had brought her.  As an adult, her son’s rejection of her culture caused isolation and was too much for her to handle.

Many immigrants have dealt with the issue of isolation presented in Lui’s story. They had to leave all that was familiar to them and assimilate into a new country, oftentimes without the comfort of family and friends. They have even tried to incorporate their culture into their new homeland. Some have even created families of their own with the intent of passing on family culture and values. This effort has sometimes led to disappointment in that some children of immigrants reject the culture of their parents.

Jack's mother cherishes her culture because it is the only thing remaining from her family. The rejection of her heritage would lead her to feel isolated, because there is no one else she can interact with freely about her own culture. Nevertheless, in the story she is rejected multiple times just for being different. When the family moves to Connecticut, two white neighbors visit them, and express disgust towards her ancestry. They’re blatantly racist remarks are insulting to  the physical attributes of Jack’s mixed ancestry. “Something about the mixing never seems right. The child looks unfinished. Slanty eyes, white face. A little monster."

It is not clear if the neighbors’ contempt planted a seed of doubt and anger in Jack towards his mother's heritage, causing him to act out against his mother but as the narrator, he vividly remembers them calling him “a monster” for being biracial. What is clear is that Jack’s rejection of his mother’s culture begins when Jack’s American classmates bully him and call him a racist name (“chink”), so he decides to avoid anything that would identify him as Chinese. When his mother cooks a Chinese meal, he refuses to eat it, he also refuses to respond to his mother when she speaks to him in her native tongue. Jack and his father then force the mother to embrace American culture in ways that would try to overwrite her Asian heritage and make her feel alienated: “I pushed the chopsticks and the bowl before me away; stir fry green peppers with five spice beef ‘we should eat American food’." Even though Jack’s mother tries to fit in, her efforts are not enough for her son, leading him to show contempt and later indifference towards his mother. Jack’s behavior was very painful for the mother because she was experiencing rejection from the one person she loves. Symbolically, this rejection leads to her death; though the story does not indicate what her illness is, we are to understand that she dies of a broken heart.

At the end of the story, Jack realizes that his mother’s death caused him to feel isolated because he had lost a person who loved him dearly. Her death also represented the loss of a part of his cultural identity and heritage. The rejection of his mother’s culture is also a rejection of part of his own identity, and he now has no opportunity to know this culture hands on. This is most evident at the end of the story when Jack reads a letter that was left for him by his mother in Laohu, the paper tiger that symbolizes his own self, and tries to reconnect with her by refolding Laohu, referring to it as “we.” By following the creases of Laohu, he is finally following his mother’s way of teaching. Jack ends the story with “[w]e began to walk home." This “we” shows a level of acceptance, reconnection, and rebirth.

Jack's mother's story is my story

I am the fourth of eleven brothers and sisters. We lived in extreme poverty as my mother struggled to care for us. When the opportunity came to come to America, my mother was happy because I would now be able to help myself and them. It was one of my biggest dreams going up. I believed I would have the opportunity to work hard and help myself and my family. I arrived at JFK in the summer of ‘88. I came to America to attend school. My plans for school did not workout. I wanted to fulfill a dream of going to college--which would make me the first of my eleven brothers and sisters to go to college. When I arrived, I lived with my aunt. She told me she did not have money and I would have to seek employment. She allowed me to work at her beauty parlor business as I tried to save up money to attend school.

Upon arrival, I felt that the people were cold and unfriendly towards me. This was a big change for me. In Trinidad, I lived in a village where most people were related. I remember being given a key to my aunt’s apartment. I was shocked by the number of locks that were on the door. It was scary for me to see this. In my community there was a sense of relative safety. My accent made it difficult to communicate. I had to repeat myself often. I was also met with bias and stereotypes often. I once recall a woman ask me if “you all wear grass skirts.” My husband’s southern family would ask me if I wanted a “Beef patty,” or call me “coconut.” I felt like I was a joke because I was different.

I married an American person and our cultural barriers made it difficult for us to relate to one another. At first it appeared to me that he was interested in the Trinidadian culture. However, within the household, he didn’t seem interested in my cultural foods. When I prepared these meals for him, he would taste it and push it aside. I did try to cook American foods as well; I once remember buying “cold cuts” for a sandwich. When he asked me to prepare him a sandwich, I began cooking the cold cuts in a pan on the stove, because I did not know better. This was not expected. He was upset by this and made me feel bad. His mother is from the South and was able to cook him more American meals.

This rejection of my culture also made it difficult for my children to assimilate to my culture. When the children did not want my food, my husband would quickly substitute it with American food and asked me not to force them to eat it. My kids would begin to prefer American food over my traditional Trinidadian dishes. Ultimately, I felt useless within my household by not being able to contribute in the ways that I knew how. This caused me to feel isolated. Ultimately, my marriage was dissolved. It seemed to me that my ideas were never good in the eyes of my children. But we were able to bond during a time that I was very sick. They began to realize they were taking me for granted. They then began inquiring about my past, and about my home country and culture and attempting to cook me some traditional dishes from Trinidad. I believe my illness was a wake-up call to them and they began to appreciate me and everything I have to offer a lot more.