SilenceIn Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in elementary school. Kindergarten was where her silence was born because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed by her inability and when the times came when she had to speak, "self-disgust" filled her day because of that shrill voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that he never spoke to anyone at school during his first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese children in his class. Maxine's sister, who was even worse than her, remained almost completely silent for three years. They both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had failed kindergarten. The first time Kingston had to speak English in kindergarten was the moment silence crept into his world. A simple dialogue like "hello" or asking for directions was hell for her because people usually couldn't hear her the first time she asked and her voice got weaker every time she tried to repeat the question (422). Despite everything, speaking English shattered his self-esteem. Maxine covered her school drawings with black paint. In a sense, he was creating something beautiful that symbolized his futuristic ability to speak English well, then covering it with black paint that symbolized a curtain that, in time, would rise and reveal his work of art of exceptional English dialogues. His teachers informed his parents about the paintings, but they could not understand English. So Kingston's parents considered it something bad, given the seriousness of the teachers' expressions towards them. As his father said, "the parents and teachers of the criminals were executed" (423). Although Maxine was quiet in the American school, that didn't mean she was quiet in the Chinese school, which started after the American school at 5:00 pm and ended at 7:30 pm. This was his escape from English where most of the boys, including a couple of registered Negro boys, could talk, shout, sing, chant and joke without fear of embarrassment. During recess the children could do whatever they wanted. Chinese school was where well-behaved American school boys played tricks on girls, and where girls fought at recess because there were no rules. They played dangerous games in dangerous areas of the school and also wandered around the city while teachers sat in classrooms and “drank tea and warmed their hands at a stove”.” (425).