Task 1: Critical Reading Check
Read the story below and answer the questions that follow.
Shimenawa
Naoko Kumagai
This is a story I was told.
It was August 1973. My brother Jiro was four, sitting at dinner.
“E tadaki mas,” my uncle said. Jiro picked up onigiri, a rice ball, with his hands and
mashed it into his mouth. Fish and rice on his plate, untouched. He stuffed another onigiri
in his mouth, bits of rice falling.
“Jiro-chan…” A warning from my mother. Jiro opened his mouth wide, splayed his
tongue covered in tiny white beads of rice. Kazuya stood up and roughly pulled Jiro out of
his chair.
“What are you doing?” My mother asked, getting up. Kazuya went out the back door,
carrying Jiro firmly under his arm. With the other hand, he picked up a circle of rope hanging on
the fence by the shed. In the yard was a large oak tree with heavy, twisted branches. He
wrapped the rope around my brother once, then pushed him to the trunk of the oak, winding the
rope around and around.
“He must eat his dinner properly.” My uncle tied a thick knot at the end. “He needs to
learn to be a man.”
My mother was shouting at my uncle; Jiro was screaming, the sound flooding the sky.
Kazuya went back into the house, relaxed and entitled, as if he had just finished a long day’s
work.
No one remembers the rest. My mother never forgave my uncle. My father wasn’t there.
Jiro can’t recall any of it. He jokes that the incident is possibly the reason he always,
intuitively eats everything on his plate.
Answer the questions below:
1. Shimenawa is rice straw or hemp. It is festooned in some sacred landmark. The short
story is entitled that way because _________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2. Onigiri may be wrapped with seaweed and could be similar to sandwich by the West.
Onigiri is a __________________________________________________________
3. The main characters in the story were _____________________________________
4. “E tadaki mas,” my uncle said. Jiro picked up onigiri, a rice ball, with his hands and
mashed it into his mouth. The one telling the story was _________________________
___________________________________________________________________
5. The setting of the story was in East Asia. Specifically, the setting was in Japan because
(prove your answer by extracting the text to justify your answer) __________________
___________________________________________________________________
6. Asia is known for having a closed family ties. The family tradition being presented in the
story was _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
7. The story shared a specific culture in the country. The culture shared was __________
___________________________________________________________________
8. In the story, Jiro was not eating properly, so Kazuya stood up and roughly pulled Jiro.
Write what Kazuya did to Jiro. ____________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
9. Kazuya did something hard to Jiro. Write the reason why Kazuya did that kind of
punishment to Jiro. ____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
10. Years had passed. And Jiro could not recall what happened before. Write what positive
effect the incident has brought to Jiro. _____________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
