Review of The Way Back by Edward Gunawan
The Way Back by Edward Gunawan, a Chinese Indonesian, is a collection of poems rooted in trauma, queerness, queer love, and identity. It is a collection of memories, the ones lived and not lived, and the ones that will never be realized. They are poems of acceptance and rejection. What is perhaps amazing is how Edward intertwines queerness and the trauma experienced by the people of Chinese descent at the hands of the government or political landscape of that time together.
In both themes we see one outcome: where they sought acceptance, they received only rejection and an attempt to dilute their culture by inherently assimilating them fully into Indonesian culture and indoctrination. Poems that echo this are “Love Refugees and Insufferable Joy” and “LSOL: Love for Speakers of other Languages”.
In “Love Refugees”, Edward says,
“We
who broke our names to fit the contours and curls of their mouths;
who spoke our mother tongues with shame and celebrated our New Year in secret.
We
who rolled our windows up and shut the doors double-barred;
who kept them out by locking ourselves in.
We
who are spared of our dignity when it’s never theirs to give;
who belong to no nation where freedom has never been free. We are panhandlers really.
Begging for the loose change of democracy. Philosophers practicing the religious art of grateful resiliency,”(Page 2)
Edwards highlights how his people had to change their names, and how they spoke, to erase their identity to morph into the image or idea of what an Indonesian man should be.
“We who broke our names“
In this line, Edward talks of names. Shakespeare once asked, “What’s in a name?”. Edward tells us so much in just a few words, within a name lies identity and history, and having it changed or taken away was much like being stripped away of your heritage, being, and history. The Way Back is a bloodline to his ancestors which was broken, severing a connection.
He also talks about how his people fought to remain pure and authentically Chinese, he says,
“We
who rolled our windows up and shut the doors double-barred;
who kept them out by locking ourselves in.’’
He and his family had to suppress their own culture as if to hold one’s breath just to survive and preserve themselves.
“We who kept them out by locking ourselves in.”
They were keeping themselves in. They knew if they breathed they would be killed, them and their culture or what was left of it in a foreign country. Hence, they lived as if they were dead already; seen, but not heard.
“We
who spoke our mother tongues with shame and celebrated our New Year in secret.’’
They were forced to keep their heritage a secret, forced to live double lives. Emphasis was made even with how they talked. This is highlighted in two poems: “Love for Speakers of other languages” and “Love refugees”.
“We
who broke our names to fit the contours and curls of their mouths” (Love refugees)
“Teach me and I will learn to elongate every uh- and every ah- . I promise to practice and enunciate with no trace of an accent.” ( Love for Speakers of other Languages)
While Edward speaks of the struggles endured by his people, he intersects it with his struggles as a queer man.
“Systematic shame and hand me down traumas” (Insufferable joy)
People do not only inherit names, they also inherit trauma and they inherited the trauma that came from systematic shame. They passed on that shame to their son. Oppression passed down; he was a thought not allowed to think outside the box.
“I’d insert the memory of an 11-year-old boy, tearing his portfolio of fashion illustrations, in front of his mother who begged him in tears to do so. He stared at the women in puffy ball gowns from these pages. The drawings he had spent all summer on. They all landed in the trash.”
His mother, perhaps noticing his queerness at a tender age, tried to force it out of him by hurting him and systematically shaming him. She tried to steer his interest away from dresses in hopes of steering him into something more masculine rather than feminine. His parents had learned the art of shaming, a tactic used to subdue and control much like how they and so many Indonesian Chinese were forced to affirm an identity that was not their own. Edward was being suppressed and groomed to be ‘’unqueer’’ at an early age. A disappointment to his parents he was.
“Straddling the line between acceptance and surrender” (Insufferable Joy)
Much like his parents and Indonesian Chinese people, they were neither home nor away from it. Like Edward, they were displaced, owned, and disowned.
“We who belong to no nation…”
They were neither wanted by their country of birth nor their country of residence. They were in a trench warfare with both parts of themselves. They say home is where the heart is, but they had two homes and were torn apart, much like the relationship with their son, which wasn’t on good terms. They continue in a stalemate.
Edward speaks of the estranged relationship with his father, subtly highlighting the distance and closeness of their relationship and how though they may be somewhat close, they will never see eye to eye. They were so close to each other yet so far.
“We come here almost every morning in the summer. It’s the only activity we do together. Yet he is in his lane, and I’m in mine,
Yet he is in his lane and I’m in mine.”
The lanes represent the thinking or mindset of father and son, which will never intersect simply because old age and youth never agree. His father would never come to fully accept the way his son had decided to live his life. It is also important to note that according to the pieces that touch on his childhood and adulthood in regard to queerness, it was mostly his mother who interacted with him. Even going as far as trying to make Edward’s partner Jake convert. It seems his mother was his father’s mouthpiece, enforcer, and mediator.
“If conversion is what she’s looking for, I’m not for you…” (Insufferable Joy)
Where Edward sought acceptance, he received rejection. He was being forced to surrender and perhaps even thought of denouncing his queerness. ‘’Straddling’’ suggests that he thought deeply about his identity, going back and forth on it. Could it be something that could be easily erased as tearing down a fashion portfolio and being forgotten? In this way, we find that Edward, growing up in such a household, automatically did the same thing his parents did when their oppressors tried to mutate them into something they were not. He locked himself in to keep them out much like his parents who,
“…kept them out by locking ourselves in.”
Though they never vocalized their rejection, it made it hurt that much more when he went back to his parent’s house, only to find out that his wedding invitation had not made it on the rack with others. This is how his parents declined his invitation.
“I’d slip in next that I went back to my parents’ house the following day. Ours never did make it on the rack of other invitations they received from their friends and our relatives.” (Insufferable Joy)
Safe to say that Edward was all alone and it is highlighted when he says,
“How I have always survived. With or without them. I had and can still make it on my own.”
This is also emphasized on the cover of the book as well. On the cover, we see Edwards’s face depicted 3 times, signifying the Me, Myself, and I rhetoric. One face is looking ahead, while the other two are looking sideways or elsewhere, meaning to say he is or will always look out for himself, as he is alone in the fight to keep his identity as a queer man.
He was no longer seeking approval to be happy, to be who he was. He wanted them to be present at such an important moment in his life but not at the expense of his happiness. He wasn’t going to be blackmailed emotionally or have them manipulate his partner.
“If conversion is what she’s looking for, I’m not for you…”
The love of their son was conditional so much so that this line shows that at any rate they were willing to accept Jake if he converted to their religion, but Edward dared to accept the situation for what it was. He wanted to get their blessings and avoid getting their curses but was brave enough to forge his path. In the end, he left it up to them if they wanted to be a part of his happiness or not.
“Gallantly substituting I want them to come with I would like them to come”
He no longer gave them power over his happiness, he took it back. His relationship with his parents echoes the relationship he and his parents have with their own culture and identity. It is there but nonexistent, strained. They neither accept him nor do they reject him. He is displaced much like a victim of war.
Perhaps his parents, rather than disappointed, are jealous of the courage their son had, while they are unsure of their identity, their son knows who he is: an Indonesian Chinese queer man.
It hurts to be rejected and not be accepted by the people you thought would understand rejection and what it means to not truly live authentically as yourself. It is almost as if those who experienced pain only know how to give it.
The Way Back talks about reconciliation. Edward does not speak of abandoning or disowning his parents, rather he gives it time. That is why there always has to be a way back; he is “The Way Back” to reconciliation, to breaking trauma-filled bonds healing, both physical and mental wounds, and healing the past to have a healthy bright future.
Review by Racheal Chie. Racheal Chie is a Writer from Zimbabwe. Her work has appeared in The Blue Marble Review, Eureka Street, Wet Dreamz Journal, East Wave Magazine, Sage Ciggarettes, Stick Figure Journal, CloutBase Magazine, Africangn.net/poetry-platform, and New Myths. She currently writes for Strange Horizons and Lucky Jefferson as a book reviewer.
