Heaven by Cathy Song

 “Heaven” by Cathy Song

        The poem “Heaven” is about Chinese American longing to go China, their homeland which was their ancestor came from. I know that the speaker is a Chinese American, because the first line is that “He thinks when we die we’ll go to china.” To the speaker’s son, he believes heaven is in China, heaven is that place where everyone will look like him, but except for his blond hair because he has inherited his father’s blond hair. Their ancestors had immigrated to the United States to work on the railroad and had never returned to China. Although she and her son have never been there, but their blood is the longing to return home.

        Every country has its own culture and the culture is deeply affecting its people’s mine. In this poetry, even though Cathy and her son are born in America and never been China, but they are Chinese American, their ancestor was from China. In their family, some China's traditional culture will inevitably to pass down generation to generation. This is one of Chinese traditional culture that “leaves fall, then back to the roots.” It means when people die, their body or ashes have to come back to their original place because they call that place as home. When they got home, their souls can go to heaven. Also many people want to go back to their original place when they are alive. They want to see what is it changed, how is it looks like, and feel the local culture because they want to know more about their home. In this poetry says that “China, that blue flower on the map, bluer than the sea, his hand must span like a bridge to reach it.” We can see that Cathy’s son is really want to go to China to know more about their home, even though his father is American. In their family, a few generations lived in America. In that time, whatever you come to America or go back to China is not that easy. When their ancestors came to America to work on building the railroads, they never planned to stay, but for some reasons, they just stay here. However they never forgot about China, they passed Chinese traditional culture to their next generation to generation. In the poetry line 59 to the last is that “If you look really hard says my son the dreamer, leaning out from the laundry’s rigging, the work shirts fluttering like sails, you can see all the way to heaven.”  The son thinks if you want to go to heaven, you must to return home, the original place of your family from and the place for their family is China. He imagines to sailing to China because their ancestors were come to America by took boat and no airplane at that time. He is seeing all the way to China, their home, the Heaven.