Railroad Standard Time:
“Juk sing Chinamen from the royalty of pure-talking China-born Chinese”
It seems as though there is friction between the Chinese who were born in China vs. U.S. and those who speak Chinese fluently vs. those who don’t. From what we’ve learned in class, some consider you to be more Chinese if you were born in China and speak Chinese. Does this really make one more Chinese?
“I went to a matinee in a white neighborhood looking for the MOVIE ABOUT ME and was the only Chinaman in the house”
Unfortunately, the film industry is deeply rooted in racism and there is an extreme lack of Asian representation. Hopefully, the popularity of movies like Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys I’ve Ever Loved will turn things in a better direction.
The Eat and Run Midnight People:
“On restroom walls of Chinese restaurants and a few selected gas stations all over the American continent id passed my piss reading warnings against Chinaman’s watching too much tv on Maui. At the Greasy Chop Suey in Wailuku, the quarter-blooded Chinese cool said it was no good here for Chinese-blooded people to watch tv”
I thought this was interesting given the popularity of the show Hawaii 5-0.
“being a Chinaman’s okay if you love having been outlaw-born and raised to war and run your mother country like a virus staying a step ahead of a cure and can live that way, fine”
The Chinatown Kid:
“her oily Mexican hair, her mongrel eyes neither Oriental nor Mexican”
From what we’ve learned in class, it seems as though some Chinese disapprove of interracial marriage/children and look at them as less than, as they are not full Chinese.
“What is she, a dog? a voice asked and no one laughed. Glancing around the table, searching for the speaker, the faces were all alike, strenuously convivial and silent as if he had heard nothing”
The Only Real Day:
“Do these free peeks have bigger breasts than Chinese women? Do they have nipples as pink as calendar girls sweet suckies?”
Is there any validity to these statements, or are they just stereotypes?
Has this mentality caused Chinese women to be self conscious about their bodies?
“The truth is still the truth, in China, America, on Mars… Two and two don’t make four in America, just because you’re Chinese”
Yes, Young Daddy:
“Hello, Dirge, how’re you? she could write his make but still couldn’t get it out of her Chinaman mouth.”
Why is there tension between those who can speak English without issue, vs those who can’t? It seems as though some Chinese who speak English consider themselves to be greater than those who can’t.
“the silk of her cheongsam shining where she swelled but silk and sequins and lipstick could not change her eyes”
This made me think of the Asian women using cosmetics products and/or procedures to change their eye shape.
Give the Enemy Sweet Sissies and Women to Infatuate Him, and Jades and Silks to Blind Him with Greed:
“You know the Chinese I’ve heard, have a way of being alone, you know, uncrowded, I mean oblivious, you know?”
“like my old man, he could sit on a crowded bus just as easily and comfortably as if he was in a hot tub”
I thought these quotes were interesting. Why? Possibly crowds being normal in China and/or the Chinese forced to be on their own by oppression?
A Chinese Lady Dies:
“his droopy mustache don’t look very Mexican or Indian, but there nobody here with a Justin who a body is, or where a body comes from”
“You shouldn’t hit me in the face, his mother said somewhere in a Bette Davis movie, on the toilet”
I like how Frank Chin’s stories mention aspects of popular culture.
The Sons of Chan:
“It wasn’t every body that could grow up to this. Others who’d chose Ava Gardner, Betty Gable, Marilyn Monroe. Jayne Mansfield had grown up devoted to hags, grotesques, and suicides”
“In the twenties when Charlie Chan came into being, the Chinese in American pop culture was a sex joke. American was laughing off her fears of Chinese reproduction in American in energetic song and dance”
I thought that this was an interesting quote that tied into the program being, Asian American Pop Culture. Unfortunately, Asians were stereotyped as lacking in the genital region and were often the comedic relief.
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