Chi in Things Fall Apart

Igbo Maiden Spirit Mask

            The Igbo people are profoundly religious people who believe in the supreme god Chukwu.

Chi is one's personal god or guardian spirit. The supreme god Chukwu assigns one's chi before and at the time of birth and which remains with the person for the rest of his or her lives on Earth.

Chi in the Igbo society is similar to the guardian angel in the Christianity. Everyone has his or her personal chi from cradle to the coffin. Chi determins a person's successes, misfortunes and failures throughout his or her lifetime.

Chi can be good and people are successful. If something becomes wrong people blame their personal chi.For example, Okonkwo's second wife Ekwefi suffered a lot in her life with her babies' deaths and after her third child died, she became a very bitter woman. And when Okonkwo's first wife celebrated the birth of her three sons, Ekwefi was the only one person in the happy company who couldn't rejoice with others and "she didn't blame others for their good fortune but her own evil chi." In that way, Chi is very strong in belief of Igbo clan, and most people had given their fortunes to the God's decision.


Igbo culture picture

Indeed, we can see that chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof.

The concept of chi is discussed at various points throughout the novel and is important for our understanding of Okonkwo as a tragic hero. One can explain Okonkwo’s tragic fate as the result of a problematic chi. As we can read, clan believes that “...a man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi.” In spite of the fact that personal's chi is very important for the Igbo people, they don't believe that a man's chi controls his entire life.

However, chi could be a conflict with above-stated definition because individuals may decide owns destinies or they can have an influence on chi by their brave or good behaviour. The Igbo people consider that if a man is in peace with god and ancestors, his achievement will depend on himself. "The Igbo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chisays yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed." It means that they can't rely only on personal's chi in their life, they have to work hard. " And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands."

Igbo culture picture

We could realize that Okonkwo’s life was characterized by contradictions - success and failure, greatness and shameful death – and his chi was both successful and unsuccessful. One’s personal god can be affected by one's willpower, as it was demonstrated in Okonkwo's case. This means that a person does not live his life completely dictated by fate or chi they were born with.In short, chi identifies by philosophy or personal fortune in Igbo culture.

Strong people could determine their ideals and actions (like Okonkwo) or else the bad Chi would stamp down their life (like his father, Unoka), but they both could not decide on their fates.

Ibgo culture appears through the story and affects profoundly to the ethnic group. Chi is one important element in people’ lives because it caused many troubles and advantages lead to the success and failure in the life style. The spirit element is always emerged during details of story Things Fall Apart.

Group work

Anh Vo

Natalia

Ebisa

12/01/2011

Language can unify or divide us

Yes, I do agree that language can unify or divide us. For examples: English is the one of many commonly used languages in the world that allows people work together in any international areas. If Obama comes to my country or other Asia countries, he and the governors will use his English to work together or even they need translators but they are basic on English. However, English can divide us also because there is discrimination about language and the culture that the language belongs to it. In my country, if someone can speak influence English, they have admiration from people around them but they also get the ridicules from conservative people who just know only their native language. Today, many young generations were born and grown up in American, and most of them lost their mother language and had a strong English. Their grandparents or parents, who were lack of English, had a difficult time to teach them about their tradition culture or the native language. In this case, there are the speaking different languages and opinions cause the big distances in the family relationship. Therefore, language can unify or divide us.

My Immigration Experience

Hi everyone, my name is Anh. I am 29 years old, and I'm from Vietnam. I speak Vietnamese. I got married when I was 24 years old. Two years later after I graduated my college in my country, I followed my husband to the United States because we think America is the best country (about environment, education, opportunities of successful life) for our kids.

My husband and his family have been living the United States almost 20 years, in Minnesota because they had a political escape after Vietnam War. My husband told me many things mix up in their life by happiness and sadness since they came here. The most difficult time in their life was facing with an outlandish language and culture at beginning. My parents-in-law were hard to find a job, and their kids came to high school without English and got an ethnic discrimination from their friends. They had many paperwork problems to get their green card, citizen, insurance, and bank, etc. Contact to people was a challenge with them every day, for example, they had to use body language to buy the chicken wings, and that was the one of many memories in the hard time with full of fun and sadness.

Similarly, the first time I came here, I got many problems with my language, my career, the new food, the cold weather, etc. Even though I have some English background, learning English is a challenge of my new life in the US. I was so nervous to talk to people, and it was difficult to work with a lack of English, so I stayed at home and being a housewife. Moreover, I did not know how to drive a car. Therefore, all of my contact depended on my husband as a driver and a translator. Most of the food here are freeze foods, process foods. It takes time to adjust to the foods here, and I lost almost 15lbs in the first year. In addition, I came here at December, the subzero temperature and snow made me sick at the first days. I did not prepare enough the warm clothes, and I did not know the place to buy my clothes size. The option I had to choose was kid’s shops.

Of course, I have to deal with these problems by myself. I have learned many things from here. Now, my English is better, I know how to drive a car and stand in the middle Calhoun Lake with a buoyant feeling. More than that, I know some fresh food markets like the summer farm markets. Shopping is not my favorite, but I know some places to buy the stuff that I need or order online. I enjoy the BBQ food beside the lake, as I actually adjusted to the United States culture. However, I still prefer to keep my tradition culture, our customs and costumes, and the most important is preserving Vietnamese language for my kids.