What do we learn, and what can we inferabout Hatsue and Ishmael’s relationship from chapters 7 and 8?

What do we learn, and what can we infer about Hatsue and Ishmael’s relationship from chapters 7 and 8?

Hatsue and Ishmael’s childhood relationship emerges at the beginning of chapter eight, with them both on an empty beach at the age of fourteen digging for geoducks, and swimming in the sea. When they find their first geoduck, it appears to me like a films stereotypical dig, with one person, Hatsue, caring about the animal its size, and its condition “He’ll break if we start pulling. Lets be patient…” “Easy is the way. Don’t hurry it. Slow is best.” With the other person wanting to dig it out straight away, only caring what they get out of it “My turn to dig.” “Lets pull it now.” This I think is the first comparison of the difference, a metaphor, of Hatsue and Ishmael’s personalities. I see this as how they will treat their relationship to come. This can be seen as how men and women see relationships as general. Ishmael wanting to dig straight away and pull at the goal as soon as it is seen not caring if it breaks, and Hatsue wanting to be patient dig away at the foundations to reach a better goal, not just for the short term. Then in the conversation they have on the oceans, the roles, to me, have been reversed, Ishmael seeing the oceans as one big ocean with different areas, and Hatsue seeing the oceans as not just different areas but as different temperatures, colour, and amounts of salt. Ishmael says you cannot tell a change when you cross them, Hatsue knows they are different colours and should be considered different because of this. Hatsue’s views on the oceans and her personality as a young Japanese woman arises from her lessons from Mrs. Shigemura in how to take care of her skin, how to sing, stand, sit, and walk. In the lessons I think Mrs. Shigemura blinds Hatsue of racial equality, Japanese for Japanese, not to mix with Americans. This is only because Mrs. Shigemura and/or her relatives would have been treated as lower to Americans, which we see in the first four pages of chapter seven. The Japanese people labelled as Jap1, Old Jap Sam. Even in the Island County Historical Archives it is said that “Jap number 107 lost his hand to a ripping blade on March 12th and received injury payment of $7.80.” The fact that a county historical book refers to the Japanese as numbers, and compensation for loss of hand is seventy-one hours work at their eleven cents an hour. From the jobs like sweeping sawdust, or oiling machines, you can understand why the Japanese must stay together and treat others differently. Others like Ishmael.