Hi everyone!

These past few weeks my ASTU 100 class has been reading the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. This novel tells the story of Oskar, a nine year old boy still recovering from his father’s death from 9/11 a year later. He finds a key in his father’s closet and having this key, Oskar thinks that if he can find what the key opens, it will bring him closure from the trauma he experienced during September 11, 2001.

When I read this book, I was immediately reminded of my own experiences with 9/11. On the day 9/11 happened, one of my uncles was flying over from Hong Kong to Vancouver to visit my family and I. When the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, my uncle was still on his flight unaware to what was happening while my family was panicking, wondering if my uncle was on any of the downed planes. Being only three at the time, all I remember is my parents continuously on the phone frantically talking to my relatives over in Hong Kong, trying to figure out where my uncle was and thankfully he landed in YVR Airport that evening. Despite my uncle being safe, my parents would never tell me what happened that made them frantic like that whenever I asked them. It was only when they deemed me “mature enough” and “able to handle trauma” that they told me about 9/11 (I had no knowledge of this event prior to them telling me) when I was around 10 years old. Their reasoning not to tell me about 9/11 was to protect me and to keep having such a heavy knowledge burdening my young shoulders.

Now, as I think back, my parents’ need to protect me and not have me know such a traumatic and heavy event is reminiscent of Naomi’s mother in Obasan where she didn’t want Naomi and her brother Stephen to know that she was disfigured  by the atomic bomb. Her silence was protecting her children from the heavy knowledge just like my parents’ secret protected me until they thought I was old enough to handle the weight of the event. Which leads me to the question as to when is someone ready to handle such burdening knowledge? And who has to authority to judge someone ready to know such things as well?

These are just my thoughts and let me know what you guys think!

Fiona Tse