Chapter 2 Customs Houseboy of Banyaga: A Song of War (2006)

By Charlson Ong (July 4, 1960)

Huana – a person who is not Chinese

Lannang – ‘our own people’
Characters:
Ernesto Yu/Lee Ah Bun – a poor dye maker who is looking for an apprentice.
Lee Mo fan/Ah Fan: Ernesto’s cousin, father of Lee Hap Sun
See Co – village scribe
Yu Bien – Ernesto’s uncle
Margaret/Po Kim (precious lute) – Chinese lady from Xiamen who’s planning to become
a nun.
Pue An – Ernesto’s own teenage wife of three months, who did not have bound feet.
Aunt Mei Lu – niece by grandfather’s third wife, Po Lian (former maid servant)
Fr. Andechaga – the priest who is with Margaret
Martin – Customs house boy who refused to accept Ah Tin.
Melissa – Martin’s wife
World Literature
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - German literary critic that predicted the rapid transit and
transmission of literary data
- Coined the term ‘weltliteratur’ meaning world literature
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan and tells the story of
two women who are placed in a situation that leaves them no choice but to depend on
each other.
Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle tells the story of a man searching for
something and his tales of another world; and Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart
is all about a tribe in Africa that chronicles its societal issues and battles against outside
colonizing forces.
New Historicism
Michel Foucault and Stephen Green – gave rise to New Historicism in the early 1980s
The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance – Stephen Greenblatt (1982)
New Historicism – emphasizes cultural context rather than simply the formal structure of
the text
-means to understand cultural and intellectual history
To understand the literary text, we need to understand the:
 Author’s biography and social background – age, occupation, citizenship, social
status, family background, education
 Ideas circulating at the time – societal opinions, ideology, perception
 Cultural environment – societal and cultural setting
Example
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Age when he wrote the novel: 37 years old
Social Status: Middle Class
Family Background: Leonard Huxley – writer/teacher, brothers – biologist
Occupation: writer and teacher
Audio Visual Presentations
France – largest country in Western Europe, has been a gateway between the continent’s
northern and southern regions. North: Germany and Belgium, West: Atlantic Ocean,
South: Pyrenees Mountains and Spain.
Official Name: French Republic Money: Euro
Form of Government: Republic Major Mountain Ranges: Alps, Pyrenees,
Massif Centra
Capital: Paris (The city of lights)
Major Rivers: Seine, Rhine, and Rhone
Official Language: French