“Freedom means not being part of a pecking order. Freedom means being your own boss.”(34)

The conversation between Tubby and Mr. Snook in this book really got my attention. Tubby represent the traditional Japanese character who believe in traditional Japanese thoughts like pecking order and filial duty is important in the society, where as Mr. Snook represent a character form new world who believe in western enlightenment of individual development and removing social misbelieves like pecking order.

Japanese people and people from different part of Asia and Europe came to Hawaii in 1930s started migrate to work on the sugar cane plantation. Traditional Japanese believed in the pecking order which is the social hierarchy within the people of certain group. Due to this reason they did not support the Filipino workers of the Frontier Mill Plantation during strike for the proper pay rate. When the plantations are unable to pay them new rates, other people will be able to get their jobs. Here, we can see the total selfishness among the people and contend to earn money in expense of others. People are accustomed to humiliation from top and to humiliate less fortunate. Mr. Snook wants his students to see these immoral practices of the society and improve them.

Mr. Snook believed that the big bosses of the plantation are like the feudal lords who divide the workers and make them work for less. They forbid the process of bargaining for pay. Since there are more people than job, people are willing to work for less. This is the point when these feudal lords like bosses exploits them and keep them underpaid. He just wants his students to become active and point out where things are wrong. Not just sit around and become happy with the minimum pay they get. He wants them to fight for then rate of bay they were suppose to get, not by pulling each other’s leg but by helping each other by disregarding the pecking order.

Why does Kiyoshi believed Obaban is a substitute for his mom?

Kiyoshi’s mother had always been frail and was always sick. This time it was different, her illness was so bad that Kiyoshi thought she was about to die. Besides being sick she was also too superstitious and pessimistic towards her life. On one occasion she said to Kiyoshi “A bad wife is fifty years of bad crops (16),” by which she meant to say that even though she was not a bad wife she had always had a bad luck in her life. She also believed that they are suffering for the sin they had not committed. She thought that if someone does wrong deed, they will suffer; in other word she believed in Karma. However, the karma they were suffering form was not their own, it was someone else’s sin they are being punished for. “We can get punished as the substitute (17),” in this conversation, Kiyoshi’s mother told him that it was someone close to them who had done something bad and instead of them, her family is being punished.   

Obaban, Kiyoshi’s grandfather’s elder sister was very close with his family. She had helped Kiyoshi’s mother in many occasions. When his mother got sick, she was the first person Kiyoshi want to bring home. Obaban was spiritual but also quite superstitious like Kiyoshi’s mother. When Kiyoshi and Obaban was talking about bachi (punishment for wrong deeds which could also affect someone close to you instead), Obaban said “If she can find another substitute, then she’d be freed (20).” However, who knew that she was the one who was about to become the substitute for Kiyoshi’s mother. Few days after Obaban’s visit, Kiyoshi heard the news about her stroke. At that point Kiyoshi thought that Obaban has become the substitute for his mother and she has put an end to the cycle of bad luck in the family. The relief Kiyoshi felt when he heard it was Obaban who is dying of stroke not his mother was little inappropriate in the sense that Obaban was the closest one in his family. Instead of feeling sorrow, he felt joy at first. One ugly truth about our life is, we don’t even hesitate to sacrifice other for your loved one no matter how generous they had been to you. Kiyoshi became quite selfish at this moment and believed that Obaban was the perfect substitute for his mother as she was too old and there are not much people who are going to miss her. He also remarked that a family will be happy only if death takes place chronologically form elder to younger members of the family. Here, Obaban was the elder one, so Kiyoshi did not lament much for her. Instead of lamentation he said “I’d assumed Obaban was dead, I’d wanted her dead, just to be mother’s substitute (24).”