Railroad Standard Time
On page 2, the moment where the mother switches from Chinese to English, and the way the tone changes around that point is quite well conveyed. Specifically, the way the watch is described as having “turned to cheap.” It makes the importance of language very clear.
We begin to see elements of media, and the ways people connect with it in this story with mention of the “Chinatown book” on page 3, with reference that every example of them has the same things in common.
Media continues to play a role on page 4, with reference to people “learning English in a hurry from Daffy Duck.” This is especially interesting because the practice of learning English from consuming American media is something you still hear about today.
What is the significance of the railroad? We open on the railroad watch, and close on a mention of railroad tracks. Our perspective character and his grandfather both worked for railroads. Its in the title of the book even. For something to recur so many times I would think there’s another level of meaning to it that I’m missing.
The Eat and Run Midnight People
There’s more continuity between this and the previous story than I was expecting. The perspective, the style of writing, the railroad as a recurring element again. I had assumed these short stories would be more disconnected.
The title of this one refers to the character’s ancestry, of having come from “the dregs, the bandits, the killers.” (page 11) The way this is used is as something of a point of pride.
The sexual content in this story is overt, in a word. The way this is placed up against the railroad imagery we’ve been seeing so much of further suggests the importance of the railroad, although to what end I still don’t fully understand.
Like before we still have our character referring to older generations, his grandfather namely. While the previous story also mentioned children, it was more in passing and moreso to establish the fact that they are now gone. Here children are referred to more abstractly (“Listen children,” page 17), in the same manner as the grandfather.
The Chinatown Kid
The perspective change is immediately noticeable, if only for offering some of the changes I was expecting that the previous story did not.
I find the style of writing hard to follow but not unpleasant. When it comes to things written in this kind of stream of consciousness, breakneck pace I just kind of have to go along with it in a way that makes it very hard to stop and reflect at any point as opposed to just pushing forward. Rather train-like in fact.
That said having character names for the first time in this story makes things a little easier to track. Thankful for that at least.
Just as I was beginning to get used to our new perspective, it changes on page 31. We’re now back in first person (“my forehead… I’ve grown old.”) I’m immediately left wondering why, or if in fact this is a change and not a detail I missed earlier.
The Only Real Day
On page 47, Yuen mentions his boss as someone who is letting go of traditional ways, speaking only English and hiring American women to work at her restaurant. Yuen states that “people like her mean well, but don’t know what’s real and what’s phony.”
Page 63 has an interesting exchange between Yuen and Rose, a bit of a confrontation on Yuen’s feelings about her. Rose reveals some of her own motivation (“I’m just as much Chinese as you, but this is America”) while Yuen rejects her beliefs (“The truth is still the truth, in China, America, on Mars”).
Jimmy Chan’s explanation on page 69 of how Americans only “like the Chinese as novelties” bears some importance to the overall story. It fits in line with Rose’s efforts to Americanize herself, so as to be better accepted into American society, however slightly.
The constant struggle between Yuen and Dirigible to communicate is another way this story highlights the fractured relationship between different generations. Yuen speaks Chinese and doesn’t understand much English, while Dirigible speaks English but doesn’t understand much Chinese. This is most evident where Dirigible is trying to help Yuen through the immigrations office on page 74.
Yes, Young Daddy
Right away the use of Dirigible as a character again surprises me for the continuity between stories. I’m again wondering if I’m missing out on this kind of interconnectedness between the other stories and if it’s because I’m not paying close enough attention or if it’s just deliberately obtuse.
Following on from the last story, Dirigible’s grasp of the English language is immediately apparent in the response to his cousin. The tone reads as sort of disappointed that his cousin isn’t taking the care to learn the language the way he has.
On page 83, the line “Lena had such a happy way of writing her loneliness” is notable. For being a story largely made up of the communications between these two characters, and specifically the way Dirigible seems to look down on his cousin’s linguistic abilities, this line shows that even so, Lena is still perfectly capable of communicating what she’s feeling well enough for Dirigible to get the message.
How do you feel about the way the relationship between Dirigible and Lena is portrayed? Most striking to me is the way that the letters immediately following their visit almost completely brush past the incident, more than happy it seems to move on as quickly as possible.
“Give the Enemy Sweet Sissies and Women to Infatuate Him, and Jades and Silks to Blind Him with Greed”
At the top of page 100, “You really don’t know how Chinese you really are. That’s why I like you so.” What do you make of this quote? What does it say about Dirigible and the nature of this relationship?
What is the meaning of the title line, as it appears in the text on page 105, and what is its significance to Dirigible’s story at this stage?
The way that Dirigible conflates his experiences with Mrs. Hasman and Sharon seems like a kind of coping mechanism. He’s still dealing with a lot of complicated feelings about Sharon (“She had died at eighteen, not him,” page 107) and is trying to make sense of all that he feels towards her in his relationship with Mrs. Hasman.
The sort of seamless transition into a moment with Sharon and then back to the moment with Mrs. Hasman does an effective job at putting the reader in Dirigible’s place. The transition is hard to spot and creates an unclear sense of time and place in the story.
A Chinese Lady Dies
So, at this point Dirigible has been in these stories more often than not. If the idea is for him to be something of a central character here, I’m curious why we were left waiting so long before he was introduced. And again, I’m not convinced that I didn’t miss something in those earlier stories still that would better explain what keeps them in continuity with this whole section on Dirigible.
Lot of talk of machinery here, in a more vague, symbolic sense. Can’t help but be reminded of the train fascination in those earlier stories, as maybe an establishment for this theme to be built on.
The relationship between Dirigible and his mother seems like the most drastic generational gap in any of these stories. The whole time they’re talking past each other and only barely communicating. Despite all the words, it seems like they have very little to say, or at least any way of saying it effectively.
The technique that separates this story from the others is the frequent interjection of italicized portions throughout the text, that carry a more overtly fictionalized tone, as though of a movie the likes of which Dirigible references in the story. What is the effect of having these segments, and what does their contents add to the story?
The Sons of Chan
In keeping with the comparison with Dirigible and machinery in the previous story (it only just occurred to me as I wrote that that a dirigible literally is a machine), and the trains throughout the book, the perspective character using themselves as a radio antenna (page 131) brings this comparison of people and machines to its logical conclusion, with both now cooperating to fulfill their function.
Thinking about machines more generally now it comes to mind the historic use of automatons and robots as symbols for the labor class in fiction, and the likely racial makeup of those they stand in for. There’s also something of the model minority myth about this, that Asian-Americans are expected to function as efficient little machines for the ways that they are most often stereotyped.
Of course, as I finish writing that and keep reading Chin namedrops Frankenstein on page 133. Here I am in the last story of this book and just now starting to feel like I get it.
On page 143, the mention of Janet no longer being able to write her own name in her own language goes along with a lot of the themes of people becoming disconnected from their Chinese heritage in the book. Specifically, the way it deals with written communication bears similarities with Lena in the earlier story, although it was an incorrect form of the new language in that case and not a loss of the original language.