A meditation on finding the balance between preserving an individual sense of culture and assimilating into western standards of living, Adrienne Su’s poem “After The Dinner Party” employs a humble pair of chopsticks to embody the tension the speaker feels in these warring ideals.
In the opening stanza of the poem, the speaker describes “napkins, corks, and non-compostables” being discarded. With the title of the poem in mind, the reader is likely meant to envision the end of the dinner party, guests cleaning away the corks from wine or champagne bottles, soiled napkins, and other items of no value such as “non-compostables” to be thrown away. In lines 2 and 3, the speaker reveals that her “friends have mistaken [her] everyday chopsticks for disposables”. Here the speaker observes that her friends have misjudged her chopsticks to be of such little value they couldn’t possibly be used on a daily basis. However, there is no malice in the intention, considering the speaker’s choice to characterize the event as a “mistake”. Yet, this small action creates a divide between the speaker and her friends, who fail to understand the utility of the chopsticks.
By “helpfully” discarding the chopsticks “alongside inedibles: pork bones, shrimp shells, bitter melon,” the speaker’s friends genuinely believe they are aiding the speaker by tossing out the chopsticks among the valueless food scraps. Despite the disposable nature of the chopsticks, they do not fit exactly in either type of garbage: they are not quite fit for the non-compostable trash, (“corks and napkins”) and are not quite fit for the “compostable[s]”. The chopstick’s lack of a concrete place to be discarded may reflect the speaker’s own personal struggle between wanting to please her house guests and feeling a sense of loss for her chopsticks.
Stanza 3 provides a description of the chopsticks. Similar to their humble purpose and outward appearance, they are plainly described as “off white, wooden, warped from continual washing-no lacquer, no ornament.” The repetition of “no” emphasizes how truly ordinary and forgettable the chopsticks are. Despite this, they continue to be a fixture of the speaker’s routine. The divide between the speaker’s intimate understanding of chopsticks and her friends who mistook them for trash continues in lines 9-11, in which the speaker states “anyone who thinks these chopsticks are disposable doesn’t live with chopsticks in the comfortable way of a favorite robe, oversized, a bit broken”. Here, the speaker draws a parallel to an everyday object more commonly known to the Western world, a bathrobe, to illustrate the reasons for which the speaker uses these chopsticks. These lines serve to demonstrate the sentimental value that certain items carry despite having flaws. The speaker’s object is merely one that is not as well known to her friends, possibly alluding to a larger lack of cultural understanding among the speaker’s friends.
The end of Stanza three and the opening line of Stanza 4 describe the “thin paper napkins, plastic forks and non-compostable takeout boxes” which are often used to package carry-out food from restaurants. It is likely that the speaker is referring specifically to takeout from an Asian restaurant since another variety of cuisine would be unlikely to include chopsticks in their takeout boxes. Furthermore, a takeout box such as this “constitutes the chopstick’s natural habitat to many I hold dear.” Here, the speaker reveals that the pair of “everyday chopsticks” she uses are reused utensils from these takeout boxes. The people that the speaker holds dear are most likely her family members since these people are very accustomed to chopsticks being provided with their meal. Unlike the speaker’s dinner party guests, the family members of the speaker share the same cultural traditions, and therefore the speaker feels comfortable maintaining “with family or alone” that “chopsticks aren’t disposable”. In fact, the speaker’s family members likely also reuse chopsticks from restaurants.
In the final stanza, the speaker comes to terms with her personal dilemma of choosing between keeping in touch with her culture and assimilating to match the behavior and tendencies of her guests. The speaker wonders if she “can make peace with the loss of utensils when breaking bao with guests”. Bao is a steamed yeast-leavened bun, traditionally filled with pork, and originating in Northern China. They are a Chinese cuisine that is generally well known among people in the West. The speaker shares a dish with her guests that are part of her cultural identity, while still adhering to the mainstream idea of Chinese culture among Westerners. The speaker’s comfortability with losing her pair of chopsticks reveals that she has also made peace with losing a bit of her cultural identity. The speaker will be like her friends, “not digging in the napkins and corks’ ‘, meaning that she will not cherish her chopsticks in the same manner as previously, but instead purposefully choose to dispose of them, like her party guests. This choice perhaps reflects the speaker’s longing to separate herself from her culture and blend in with the mannerisms of her friends.
The last two lines of the poem present a solution to the speaker’s personal conflict. Instead of keeping a pair of reused chopsticks, or throwing them away completely, “compostable chopsticks are the answer: everyday and disposable”. The italicization of “and” emphasizes the duality of the speaker’s sense of identity. Much like the chopsticks, the speaker does not fall completely into one category or the other. The speaker still feels a strong connection to her heritage (everyday), and still assimilates into western culture (disposable).
Despite the seemingly mundane premise of the poem, Su expertly references the greater cultural value of an everyday item to create a compelling storyline that explores the dichotomy between an individual’s assimilation and cultural preservation.
Hi Willow! I thought that your explication essay was very insightful and truly dove into the nuances of this poem. I also really love the poem that you selected(and your blog title)! Upon my initial reading of the poem, I was struck by how the author repeats the words “compostable” and “non-compostable” to help emphasize the differences between the speaker and their peers. After considering your interpretation of the poem, I picked up more details from the poem I had not noticed before such as the use of the word “mistake”. I also liked how you talked more deeply about bao buns and the importance of family to the speaker. Overall, great job!
Hey Willow, thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed your analysis of the detailed imagery Su utilizes in her poem! I really could see through your analysis how each, intricate word adds to the juxtaposition of the “warring ideals” as you so eloquently described, a cultural collision and merger of sorts between Eastern and Western culture. I could definitely see some of my own personal experiences moving around these two cultures, and seeing some of the cultures I was born with slowly fade away and fuse with my environment. I marvel at how Su could create capture such a powerful and deep message around seemingly trivial objects like chopsticks!
What a great poem choice; it’s better than a regular E.E Cummings poem that everyone uses. I like how you have used a poem that also represents the same struggle many Asian kids go through. The explanation digs deep into what the author has gone through and her exact emotions throughout the stanzas. The journey it takes us on finally ends with her acceptance. I think the discarded food products also represent how Asian food is presented like trash to western people. In many Asian foods, we use pork bones in different broths and create other dishes; in other, the shrimp shell isn’t discarded but eaten as a whole, and the sour melon is a distinct taste that caucasian cultures see as inadequate. The meaning behind the chopsticks and other lines of this poem.