Like Mother, Like Son - Continuation in "Paper Menagerie"

  In Ken Liu's Paper Menagerie, we witness the heartbreaking disconnection between the narrator, Paul, and his mother who passes away in the middle of the story. Although they never seemed like it, they were in fact mother and son and as a result of their disconnection, when she is on her death bed, his mind is elsewhere. But what's interesting to see is the unconditional love that the mother feels for her son and its power to persist into the afterlife. We see that the paper toys that she made for him, which we thought were to have died in parallel to the mother's death, persist with life and love Paul. Laohu, the most influential paper toy in Paul's life is still alive when he visits the house and is revealed to have a letter written in Chinese characters, by the mother, when unfolded. I'm not going to lie, the letter was so powerful and touching that I started to a cry a little bit. But an important take away for me was being able to relate the magical ability to bring origami to life and the real love that the mother felt. At one point in the story I was drawn to believe that the ability only came true because of the power of love.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty cheesy, right? But think about it, the mother admits that she couldn't wait to teach her son about making these paper toys and she was excited to pass on the tradition. Given the language barrier between the two, this would be one of their only ways to interact with each other. I thought about the idea of continuation and how there are certain things that are usually are only taught by the parents and is then a product of the culture that the parents set. It was interesting hearing about how the mother's parents passed down the skill of paper folding and she went through one hell of a journey to continue on that tradition. Because love persisted, the lives of the paper animals continued and with it, the mother.


  I do have a personal connection with this story to share, one that is very relevant to the story itself. My mother taught me how fold paper origami cranes and is something that proudly do for fun at times. In this practice, I feel the Japanese heritage in me and along with that, the moments that I shared with my mom when she taught me how to make them. Even though this was a skill that I could've learned out of a book, it made it all the more special coming from my mother.