essay 4

                    In the story All I Asking For Is My Body, we learn about the struggles of a Japanese American
 family. How they lived when the children were young, following them until the become young adults.  We
learn that the the children are responsible for the parents debt.  In their culture it was expected that the oldest
male child would pay back the debt of his parents.  the reason for this repayment is, in my opinion,  not
warranted.   If it is OK for your child to repay your debt, some parents may loose the drive to make an effort
to repay the debt themselves. In turn, this passes on to the next person in the family, the oldest son.  Now
that his son has the debt, he can not provide for his family, and then the debt may be passed yet again.
                  Tosh's parents expect him to repay their debt of six thousand  dollars.  After working only one
year to repay their debt, Tosh is no longer happy to work.  This makes the father very angry, and when
telling Tosh to do what is expected of him no longer works, he changes his tactics to using guilt.  He tells
Tosh that someday he too will have a bad son.  To me, this was sad.  The way that he communicates with his
children is wrong in so many ways.  This is not uncommon in Japanese culture, so it was hard for anyone to
speak up or to disagree with what he telling them.   When he first starts to question his duty,  he only asks for
how long, and how much does he owe.  This makes his parents very angry, even saying they cant depend on
him, and that they will depend on Kiyoshi instead. 


           When Tosh finally states the obvious, that he will never be able to repay all of this debt,  his father
tries to throw him out.  This was absurd to Tosh, he knew that his father could not keep the family fed
without the contribution of his money, yet his father treated him like dirt. This sense of entitlement that his
parents have is mid boggling. I don't agree with how the parents believe that the children should be
responsible for the debt that they agreed to.  If anything we as parents owe our children, we should never
charge or put our children into debt.



           

The Ending

I really enjoyed this story.  The ending at first felt like it was hurried.  But after reflecting on the rest of the story, it made sense. The way that Kiyoshi is dealing with being gone from home.  The way that he made all the money that his family needs to get out of debt, and how is ready, or maybe not so ready for war.  I thought that this is good way to end a story about superstition, and stories of bad luck, and what seemed a life of hardship.
 In the ending of the story it was like he was obsessed with  money and how he could padroll to win. When he was a child, all he heard about was bad luck and superstition, and now, on his way to war, he is making his own luck.  The way that he feels about taking the money of others was a little twisted, " besides if I didn't take their money another padroller would have".  What a common way of making it OK.  I liked how the last lines of the story, Take care the body.  In the last pages of the story we find him going to war, but he really never talks about how he feels, only the gambling.