Barros, Corina 07-78921 September 29, 2010 Prof.

Jose Y Dalisay Jr CL 111 The Image of Displacement when East Meets West Palmistry or the characterization and foretelling of the future from the lines, contours, patterns and marks on the palm is regarded today as pseudoscience. The practice of foretelling, not rooted on the empirical and suffocating objectivity of science is perceived with skepticism by those who know better. But not long ago, in Vietnam, mired in tradition and provincial thinking, people consulted fortune tellers and ouija boards before making significant decisions, incorporating the occult, the pseudoscience into everyday life. The Palmist by Andrew Lam explores the Vietnamese-American Diaspora as a result of the Vietnam War and the preoccupation with the past and the uncertain possibilities of the future as seen in the juxtaposition of two opposing characters: the palmist/the old man versus the teenager. This short story is originally published in Manoa Journal 16:2 (2004). It is later anthologized in New Sudden Fiction: Short-short stories from America and Beyond in 2007. Being categorize in the sub-genre of Sudden Fiction or Flash Fiction, The Palmist in seven concise pages (pgs. 78-84) creates subdued conflict, which inevitably forces the characters to confront their fears, while on a short but metaphorically long bus ride. The story is set in modern day San Francisco. The palmist, a refugee (possibly turned immigrant) from Vietnam, ends his day, weary of reading peoples palms with a ride on the 38 Geary. With the bus ride and the splatter of rain on the windows, the characters are, for the meantime, trapped in a situationan enforced or necessary crucible. The inclusion of rain increases the dramatic scenario, a conducive setting for soul-searching. The rain also reveals character as the palmist looking at the dripping wet teenager states, this was the face of someone who hadnt yet learned to be fearful of the weather (p.79). The weather and elements of nature crop up in the narrators description and characterization. The narrator uses references and similes like he felt as if hed been caught inside a moving greenhouse and that he had somehow turned into one of its most conspicuous plants (p.80) when referring to the teenager on the bus. Another example, then he opened his fist like a flower (p.81). Also, he watched until the people and storefront windows streaked into green: pine trees, fern groves, placid lakes, and well-tended grass meadows (p.83). The engrossment with nature and greenness points back to Vietnams agrarian and earthly ties. It is nostalgic of the old way of life the palmist seems to have lost when he crosses over to the West. The story is told in third person omniscient point of view. It jumps from flashback to present to flash-forward (later he would also perceive the palmist as the first of many true seers in his life p.83). The third person point of view has access to both the palmist and the teenagers thoughts. The narrator has the option to switch point of view, which empowers the readers by showing pieces of information only the readers can know. The omniscient narrator also strengthens characterization by revealing more character in less time. The plot of the story is simple. The palmist, while riding the bus notices the hands of a teenager and asks if he could read the teenagers palms. Skeptical and even afraid at first, the teenager diverts the palmists attention by asking, can you read your own future? (p.80) The effect then is introspection and character revelation. In my hand here, I read only good thing Now I know better: all hands affect each other, all lines run into each other, tell a big story (pgs. 80-81). The palmist shares lessons he has learned in life. He reminisces about the war and history and similar to the patterns in palms, the lines become interconnected and woven into a larger narrative. Then there is an intersection between the plot and setting. The setting immediately pushes the story forward to the climaxthe reading of the teenagers palmbecause the palmist is about to get

off the bus. The bus ride itself is a grand metaphor symbolizing the journey through life. The old man gets off the bus first, while the teenager lived near the end of line the bus nearly empty (p.83). The old man has completed his travel while the teenager has ways to go. If there is an instruction to rank the elements of fiction according to importance in this particular story, character and character development will have to be ranked as number one. The main characters are real, their actions are inevitable, the motives are clear. From the dialogue between the palmist and the teenager, the author has given each character a distinct style of speakingthe broken English of the palmist against the slang of the teenager. There are two different personalities that will react to trials in two different ways. The juxtaposition of the two opposing main characters is apparent from the beginning by making one character old and the other young. The dual quality that the two characters represent are numerous: Vietnamese and American, past and future, death and life. The palmist is revealed in the narrators text and subtext as old, appeared to be a few years short of senior citizenship (p.79) with wrinkled, bony hands and nauseating tobacco breath (p.80). He has a heavy accent, owns a shop, and is constantly tormented by literal and symbolic pains. On the second page (p. 79), the palmists penchant for dwelling in the past comes from the loss of his wife and three children, who drowned while crossing the South China Sea. After the fall of Saigon in April 1975 marking the end of the Vietnam War, mass exodus of Vietnamese numbering hundreds of thousands aboard rickety boats is described in history as the mass exodus of boat people. The family of the palmist was one of its many casualties. The palmist is guilty that his family never experienced the American dream. He is guilty that he did not die with them. To punish himself, the palmist lives in the past, carrying the burden of memory and remembering the golden rice field, a beatific smile, a face long gone: his first kiss (p.79). In addition to guilt, another side effect of living on foreign land is loneliness. Without family, the palmist is bound to experience depression. Alone, thought the palmist and sighed. Alone (p.79). The Philippines, as a country of migrant workers easily adapts to foreign situation (both a positive and negative quality). Bouts of depression are inevitable but place-making, familiarization, and eventual assimilation follows. But in the case of the palmist, he never truly embraced his new way of life going as far as clinging to his heavy accent. The age of the palmist (few years short of senior citizenship) might have a part in his nostalgia and stubborn adherence to his old ways. A younger Vietnamese refugee might have fully assimilated to the new culture but then it would not have had the same impact and depth that comes with experience and staying true to self when faced with impossible decisions and choices. The narrator refers to the palmist as the palmist while the teenager refers to the palmist as the old man. His name is not important because as consequence of war, the names have become fluid. The actual name of the palmist is never given because his identity is not certain anymore. He is not just a Vietnamese, but a Vietnamese living in America. His identity is in flux.When he moved across the world, the palmist also moved from one psyche to another. His traditional, most probably agrarian lifestyle, provincial mentality of hard work and being bound to the land became only a memory as he takes on a hybrid identity. He is now a participant in globalization where in the American way of life people are identified by their jobs and not their names. If the palmist represents the old, traditional way of life, the past, the teenager then represents the youth, modern life, and the future. The palmist reads the teenagers palm and reveals, you will become an artist (p.81). The teenager retrieved his hand and looked at it. It seemed heavy and foreign (p.82). The burden the teenager feels is not of the past haunting him but the numerous possibilities the future has for him. He will become an artist. A singer? Maybe a computer graphic artist? Maybe a movie star? He didnt know. Everything was still possible (p.82). The teenager, day-dreaming of the future draws on the befogged window a sailor standing on a

sloop and holding a bottle. The ocean was full of dangerous waves. The boat, it seemed, was headed toward a girl (p.83). This particular scene is significant. It deviates from the preoccupation of the palmist with the past and offers a glimpse at a plausible future that awaits the palmist. As the travels of the palmist comes to a close, his journey might end in reunion with his pasthis wife and kids, and a return to his homeland. The ending of the story is also a defining event. With repeated circular movements of his hands, he wiped away sailor, boat, waves, and girl (p.84). The act of wiping the drawing on the bus window is akin to wiping away his dream of becoming an artist. The teenager did not stop with wiping the drawing and takes it further by wiping it [palm] clean on his faded Levis (p.84) It is as if wiping his palm could erase his destiny or future. The Palmist touches important issues like the displacement of a refugee in a world of globalization. It tests the strength and resolve of characters and shows readers the values they believe. It puts the past and future on the same field and evaluates which is more important. The palmist states, Never be afraid. Move forward (p.81). If moving forward is important, maybe he should have taken his own advice. It addresses the importance of clinging to tradition while also becoming open to change, and the consequence that awaits if the marriage of the East and West ends in divorce. Palmistry and the motif of prediction becomes symbolic of Eastern tradition and belief in occult. But when the East crosses over to the West, will the same belief carry over in the move? With the Vietnamese belief in spirits and ghosts, when they move across the world, do spirits travel with them? Do they become incorporated into the new world or left in the ancestral land? The Palmist answers a few questions but like great stories it places a premium on thinking for ourselves and interrogating that which comes easily. Rather than providing solutions to perennial questions regarding society, it opens up more questions. It comes to an understanding of human life and reality but it is not afraid to inquire about uncertainty and the impermanence of what lies ahead. We will never know if a prediction is real unless we have the courage to face the future head on.