A Responsible Citizen of the Floating World

The floating world is not something that until this year I fully understood, let alone to know what it was to be a citizen in the floating world.  I was once a citizen of Mexico and now a citizen of the United States but other than those two countries, I have never visited any other.  The transition from becoming a citizen from one county to another was a confusing and frustrating one for me; I did not feel like a citizen of the floating world, I felt like a citizen floating from one world to another.  I would like to state that a person who has not explored the world is not exempt from being a citizen of the floating world.   Reading about individuals from other countries and their cultures not only give us a sense of what it is like outside of the U.S. it also gives us a better understanding of the types of experiences others go through.

First of all I would like to address what it means to be a responsible citizen of the floating world.  According to Rob Burton’s, Artists of the Floating World, to be a responsible citizen of the floating world we need four things but I would like to focus on one specifically.  Burton that to be the responsible citizen “is to recognize and acknowledge the narratives that constitute our identity… ” and that “…these narratives are constantly in the process of being reshaped and rewritten…” (pg. 131).  Great examples of explaining this come from my favorite two books which we read in class.; Kazu Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World, and Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine. 

In Ishiguro’s novel, the main character, Masuji Ono, is an artist form Japan who at one point of his life painted beautiful pieces of art depicting the life of Japanese culture; geishas and landscapes.  Once the war began, Ono felt that it was his duty to be a responsible citizen and support his country in the time of great need so he shifted from his traditional painting to propaganda paintings.  Later in his life, when Ono is older, he looks back and reflects on his life and feels that making propaganda art may not have been the right thing to do at the time.  Memories of the past will not allow Ono to fully let go and live in the present; he constantly drifts from reality and thinks back to his early years in life.  At the end of the novel Ono finally admits that he made a mistake by taking too much pride for his country during the war. 

Ono began his life as a responsible citizen of the floating world but his pride took over and he lost that responsibility during the war.  As Ono, looks back in his life and realizes that he made mistakes, I believe that he gained back that responsibly of a citizen.  Ono was able to rewrite his narratives by letting go of the past and focusing on the future.

In Mukherjee’s novel, Jasmine, the main character, Jasmine, goes through many phases of her life and every time she shifts from one phase to another, her name and personality also change.  Jasmine was an Indian citizen but moved to the United States where she lives permanently from there on.  Jasmine begins to assimilate in the U.S. and she marries her first husband in the U.S., Taylor.  Unlike other men in Jasmine’s life, Taylor accepts Jasmine the way that she by understanding that she is Indian-American. 

In the past, every time that Jasmine was married to a man, he seemed to forget that she was Indian, forcing Jasmine to take on a new identity along with the various names that the other men give her, “I have had a husband for each of the women I have been.  Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane.  Half-Face for Kali.”  (pg. 197).  As Burton describes, “A citizen of the floating world recognizes and acknowledges that the subaltern is actually a part of themselves… when they are listening to the subaltern, they are actually listening and talking to parts of themselves that may have been ignored for a long time” (pg. 131-132).  Jasmine was able to recognize this later in her life.

Through my transition of citizenships, I have leaned to become a responsible citizen of the floating world and not allow myself to float in the world.  I have learned that the decisions that I am making now will have a great impact on how I perceive the world tomorrow.  Through Ono and Jasmine I have learned to not become stuck in the past and focus on the future and also to not allow one country’s culture make me change my past culture and only then will I truly be content with who I am today and who I will be tomorrow.  Being a responsible citizen of the floating world means to respect yourself and others.