Welcome

This blog is an exercise on multiculturalism and Canadian literature.

We are a Toronto based group of three writers that are attending a program called Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers at Sheridan College.

We have very different backgrounds:

• Lina Grajales
  diplomat, writer
  Colombia


• Intikhab Amir
  journalist, writer
  Pakistan


• Fabio Marchioro
  journalist, writer
  Brazil

As part of an assignment to the Canadian Literature course, we chose a book to be the focus of this exercise: The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy (Douglas & McIntyre, 1995). We will read a chapter a day, everyday, and post each one of us, until 11:00PM, a comment on the section read.

The premise here is to verify how three different writers face the themes of the book and how they will express themselves about its contents on immigration in Canada.

The Process

This blog was a process, if you consider its creation, and will be a process, while readers comment on the posts that Lina, Intikhab and Fabio wrote on the book of Wayson Choy.

During the creation, and for the purpose of this exercise, the authors first considered Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family. After a quick read, it was decided that the book’s characteristics wouldn’t offer the same possibilities for debate. The group decided to try another book and eventually settled with Choy’s The Jade Peony.

In the meantime, Mayank Bahtt, a journalist, classmate of this blog's authors, read Running in the Family, wrote his impressions and even recorded an audio interpretation on the text.

The group considered important to share with the blog’s readers this moment of the process to get to Choy’s book.

The most poignant moment in Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family is when he finally gets hold of the photograph of his parents taken when they were on their honeymoon. Instead of having regular, posed photographs taken the couple indulges in horseplay and prefers the unconventional.

Ondaatje writes, “They both begin to make hideous faces. My father’s pupils droop to the south-west corner of his sockets. His jaw falls and resettles into a groan that is half idiot, half shock…My mother…has twisted her lovely features and stuck out her jaw and upper lip so that her profile is in the posture of a monkey…On the back my father has written “What we think of married life.”

By itself this would be mildly interesting and unusual, considering that such a photograph was taken in 1932, when the tendency was to take posed pictures. What makes it a shatteringly vivid memory for the writer is that, “It is the only photograph I have found of the two of them together.”

Despite the fact that his parents fought bitterly and divorced after 14 years of marriage, Ondaatje, who was very young when that incident happened, is forced to remember them forever at a time when they were enjoying their lives together like never before and never after.

Running in the Family is an unusual book and difficult to slot into any genre.

It’s a compelling and unstructured ensemble of fact, fiction, poetry, oral history, photographs and fading memories.

It’s a reconstructed biography of his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, half-sisters; and, of course, about himself.

It’s a potent brew of stories, incidents, accidents, despicable drunkenness, honourable sacrifices, loneliness and togetherness, falling in love and falling out of love, cruelty, destiny, fate and faith.

It’s the story of every family that is never told and that is because most families don’t have an Ondaatje to record it.

It’s replete with sensuous poetry. Sample this:

Seeing you
I want no other life
and turn around
to the sky
and everywhere below
jungle, waves of heat
secular love

Holding the new flowers
a circle of
first finger and thumb

which is a window

to your breast

pleasure of the skin
earring earring
curl
of the belly

In her afterword to the book Nicole Brossard aptly remarks: “Most often writers lose patience with their families, but Ondaatje dances with his…”

Ondaatje left Sri Lanka when he was 11 and returned twice for brief visits in 1978 and 1980 to the , the mystifying land that Ceylon was before 1983 when its peace was shattered forever as the Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils began a civil war that has spilled over to even reach downtown Toronto.

He returned to his homeland to reconstruct his own history and the only way in which he could do that was to reconfigure the stories of his family especially his mother and father. Actually, not so much the mother as the father; Ondaatje writes, “Words such as love, passion, duty, are so continually used they grow to have no meaning – except as coins or weapons. Hard language softens. I never knew what my father felt of these “things.” My loss was that I never spoke to him as an adult. Was he locked in the ceremony of being “a father”? He died before I even thought of such things.”

The book is lyrical, captivating and yet in a very specific way, enervating. It leaves one mysteriously sad for the writer.

This is the first Ondaatje book that I’ve read. People who’ve read more than one Ondaatje tell me that his best is English Patient.

Wayson Choy Biography

Wayson Choy was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1939. As a Chinese-Canadian he grew up and lived in Chinatown. He attended Gladstone secondary school, and then went on to attend the University of British Columbia studying creative writing.

He was the first writer of Chinese ancestry to study in creative writing. He studied under Earle Birney. He moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1962, he began teaching at Humber College in 1967 and ended in 2004. He currently continues to teach at the Humber school for writers. He also was the president of the Cahoots Theater company of Toronto from 1992 to 2002. In 2005 he was named a member of the Order of Canada.

His first novel The Jade Peony (1995) ,earned him two prestigious awards, the Trillium Book Award and the Vancouver Book award. His second and last novel to date is All that Matters and is the sequel to The Jade Peony, it was nominated for the Giller Prize.

His first memoir Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood was written in 1999 and won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and was nominated for a Governor General's Award. His second memoir Not Yet is excepted out in 2009.

(source - OPPapers)

Chapter 1 - by Lina Grajales

Will kids forget?

I wonder what will happen to Kim, Jung and Jook-Liang. Those kids are familiar with the Year of the Monkey, Chinese Operas in Canton Alley and stories of demons and spirits. However, at an early age they’re already far away from their homeland.

No doubt it was hard for all of them. Stepmother – Jook’s mother – had been taken away three times! First, as her family was killed in war-torn China. Later, she was sold to Father’s family. Finally, she was put in a steamship…to Canada.

Home was left behind. Now in Vancouver, they must move on. Kids are being taught things in the Western way, like sipping the soup. They’re also witnessing how the outside world works at their new home. A new home, that doesn't welcome them. It is the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1923.

Chapter 1 - by Intikhab Amir

Chaptor-1

Writer Wayson Choy sets the tone of his novel “The Jade Peony” right from its first chapter. The reader can feel - without being able to guess - what he is going to read in the following chapters.

The novel entails the story of a Chinese family living in Vancouver; covering multiple aspects of the immigrants’ lives, their feelings and attempts to preserve their language, native culture and family values in a foreign land to keep their cultural identity intact.

It’s a story, partly, about an old lady, Grandmother or Poh-Poh. The old lady, in line with the Orient culture, holds the sway over the lives of others in the family. “That was the order of things in China,” is how Choy explains Poh-Poh’s omnipotence, particularly, when she decides that her grandchildren would call their mother as “Stepmother.” Her son obeyed


Building up the story around a six-year old Chinese girl, Jook Liang, in the first chapter Choy tries to describe a multicultural environment under which the second-generation immigrants get raised.

Jook-Liang experiences the dual discourse of diversity, something almost every immigrant undergoes, when she learns the Chinese way at home and gets exposed to the Canadian mannerism at school.

With her grandmother, Poh-Poh, making Jook to show respect to the family’s old friend Wong Bak during his visit to the house, the six-year old gets exposed to the Canadian mannerism at Sunday School. While at home she comprehends multiple Chinese urban and rural dialects with her grandmother conspicuous about preserving her native language, at Kingdom Church Kindergarten she learns the British Columbian slang, as she learns to say, “Fart face.”

Apart from providing a peep into the life of a second-generation immigrant of the Chinese origin, Choy also helps his readers to understand the circumstances under which thousands of Chinese selected to immigrate to Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and what actually happened to them in Canada.

Dreams of changing their lives by exploiting economic opportunities brought many Chinese to Canada when “in the 1880s every man who was able and capable left his farm and village to be indentured for dangerous work in the mountain ranges of the Rockies.”

“Go to Gold Mountain,” they told one another promising to send wages home, to return rich or die. Thousands coming the decades before 1920 when on July 1st the Dominion of Canada passes Chinese Exclusion Act and shut down all ordinary bachelor-men traffic between Canada and China, shut off any women from arriving and divided families.

What lied ahead for the scores of poverty-stricken Chinese men could only make them to mark July 1st, what Choy writes, as ‘the Day of Shame,’ and not celebrating the birth of Canada.

His description of the conditions and environs in which most of the Chinese bachelors were living, leaves one with an impression of today’s immigrants living in Ghettos.

Choy makes a case against the indifference on the part of the Canadian government, when describing the predicament of hapless Chinese rail worker, who were eventually deserted by their companies, he writes that “ there was a local Vancouver by-law against begging for food, a federal law against stealing food, but no law in any court against starving to death for lack of food.”

Chapter 1 - by Fabio Marchioro

Writing courses tell you that if you want to write a novel you should start it with a bang. That is the only way to grab (and keep) the readers’ attention. Wayson Choy in The Jade Peony does exactly the opposite. The book begins with a whisper. But it’s a melodic, loud whisper, full of colors, smells and nuances.

Most of the (in)action occurs in or around the kitchen of the protagonist’s house. She’s a small girl from a family that immigrated to Canada (Vancouver) from China. Reading this first chapter, getting acquainted with the family members, how they follow the rules of Poh-Poh the Old One (an unpleasant iron-fist-matriarch), how after some time living in Canada they still cling to old habits and speak a broken English, inevitably brings to mind the garrison mentality of the first Canadian explorations. Keep out otherness, keep away the unknown and stick to the old.

The family behaves... well, like any family would. Parents and grand-parents trying to make the new generations behave according to their own standards and, eventually having to face the reality that children are indomitable.

Cultural differences abound. From food preferences to some politically incorrectness, one thing prevails: kids will be kids. Ask the Monkey Man about it.

Chapter 2 - by Lina Grajales

What a relief.

At least, they’re now in peaceful Canada, not in war-torn China.

At least, children in Canada won’t be whipped as they worked as fields servants, like in Old China.

At least, Chinese girls could play-act in Canada. In China, they would be tied up.

At least, Jook -a born girl-child, useless for her family’s status purposes- had a beloved friend…Wong Suk, one of many discarded bachelor-men of Chinatown in Vancouver.

What a relief…

Chapter 2 - by Intikhab Amir

In continuation with the Chapter-I, Choy keeps the ball rolling in Chapter-II of ‘The Jade Peony.’ He brings to forth many delicate issues, which confront the first and second generation-immigrants in the adopted country.

The chapter starts with a strong dialogue between Poh-Poh, the grandmother, and her granddaughter, Jook-Liang. The dialogue exposes the reader to a varying set of social and cultural practices. These differences serve as a dilemma to every immigrant family, as the first generation immigrants try to make their children adhere to their native culture, whereas, the second generation girls and boys exposed to the new culture at school and at the work place find it difficult to practice what their elders told them at home.

Choy has successfully portrayed this cultural clash, amidst which the second-generation immigrants grow.

He catches the reader’s interest right from the beginning of Chapter-II: “Jook-Liang, if you want a place in this world,” Grandmother’s voice had that exasperating let-me-remind-you tone, “do not be born a girl-child.” That leaves the reader with an improved understanding of the Grandmother’s cultural background.

Jook-Liang’s answer, which she wanted to snap back at her grandmother but she avoided to because of her respect to the old lady (a reflection of the Orient family values), tells more than what the author has written over here. “This is Canada,” … “not Old China.” The dialogue, in itself, explains the cultural variation and tension that exists within the family, which applies to every immigrant family.

Choy keeps exposing this cultural divide. His reflection on the immigrants’ lives seems quite close to the real life. The first generation immigrants want to see their sons and daughters adhere to their native culture, whereas, the second-generation immigrants want to change because of the cultural influences they undergo outside the four walls of their house, which serves as a cultural garrison.

Jook-Liang’s grandmother tells her about the child labor, back in the country she came from. On the other hand, Jook is somebody who is growing up with movie-star dreams. She is learning dance, and goes out to watch movies.

Choy has also tried to exploit the literary theme of ‘otherness’ here, reflecting Canadian society’s unwillingness to absorb the newcomers. The reader comes across Choy’s reflection, in this respect, when he discusses how the entire family may experience segregation because of a minor disease like flu, which Jook’s younger brother suffers from.

Doctors suspect him to be suffering from TB. “Everyone was afraid his illness might be TB. Afraid Sekky might die. Then our two-story wooden house would be by law cursed by the Vancouver Health Inspection Board: a cardboard sign would be posted on our front door, a sign boldly visible from the street: CONDEMNED. Everyone would pass by our house, pointing at our family as if we were lepers, like the Chau Lims or the Negro Johnstons down the street.” Here, Choy is letting the reader to read what he wants to say between the lines: segregation on the basis of race and color.

Chapter 2 - by Fabio Marchioro

Despite some insights into the family past, we are still in the damp, musky, dark wood house, watching Poh-Poh speaking bad English, spitting on the floor and being nasty. I don’t like her. I don’t like her at all. Second chapter is Jook-Liang’s long wait for the Monkey Man. It’s a low whisper. No colors, some smells and few nuances.

This chapter made me wonder: is it really worth spending time reading this book right now? I immigrated to Canada a few months ago. Should I spend more time reading stories on immigrants or books on Canadian lore? So far, I’d rather be reading Canadian History for Dummies, by Will Ferguson.

Chapter 3 - by Lina Grajales

Solitudes

Jook, this nine year old girl doesn’t make questions about bachelor-men anymore. Maybe she did when she was younger, but not now. She’s used to it. These men who came from far away China to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad are all over her neighbourhood, walking about with scarred faces and limbs, waving hands with missing fingers. Her beloved Wong, had climb up the Rockies himself, and had seen others climb up the steepest mountain slopes, then come skidding down, legs and arms flying, to escape dynamite blasts and rock falls.

But at least they are in peaceful Canada, not in war-torn China…

Jook learned about the Chinese Head Tax Certificate issued to her friend, Wong Suk. And about the $50 he had to pay before entering Canada. That was a lifetime having ice cream with Wong!! …But it was a lifetime for bachelor-men to live far away from their families in China, too.

Being friends with Wong was all that mattered to Jook. It didn’t matter the stone-throwing white boys. That was something her brothers would deal with. She only cared about the stories Wong use to tell. Other stories were hidden within fortress walls in Chinatown…She knew that every brick in Chinatown’s three –and five-storey clan buildings lay like the Great Wall against anyone knowing everything.

It wasn’t war-torn China…but Jook use to hear whisperings of desperate voices coming from somewhere at night. They came from Jewish, Polish, Italian and Chinese voices…

Chapter 3 - by Intikhab Amir

"... bones must come to rest where they most belong."


Survival is what every immigrant strives for even after spending years in the adopted country.
They find integration difficult into the new society because of multiple reasons. In the case of Choy’s Chinese characters in the Jade Peony it seems their strong bonds with their native culture and society, economic hardships, and the language barrier hampered their assimilation. Grandmother and her old friend from China Wong Bak could not integrate because they could not remove themselves from their past.
Bak, who came to Canada as a rail worker, spent most of his youth and old age in British Columbia, but he returns to the place he belongs to. Even Grandmother, too, couldn’t shed her memories of the time she spent in China.
In their effort to preserve their past in the new country, immigrants maintain a storage of their documents, which keep reminding them who they were? where they came from? That’s what Choy has tried to build on his story in Chapter-3 of the Jade Peony. “Wong Suk liked to hear his own history, just like Grandmother; neither of them could read, but both liked to hear what the words on the papers could say.”
Only paper, he writes further, histories remained, histories blended with talk-story, which the immigrants keep telling again and again. Choy’s reflections on this topic are really close to every immigrant’s real life. Immigrants hold stacks of documents related to their education, career, birth certificates, etc. These documents keep their memories about their countries afresh. Whenever, they see these documents they, in their imagination, get to the place they belonged to.
Wong Bak’s journey back to main land China via Hong Kong with the ‘bone shipment,’ speaks more than what one reads over here. “… Understand how bones must come to rest where they most belong,” leaves little doubt what Choy implies here.

Chapter 3 - by Fabio Marchioro

On page 51 one of the few beautifully built sentences: I wondered if all the clapboard houses along the street harboured as many whispers as our home did.

Page 53 – Wong Suk beets Johnson, Number Two Boss Man.

Page 57 – reference to “real money, folding money”. I liked the image a lot.

Through the book signs, feelings, ghosts, spirits, gods of several different hierarchy levels mingle with simple superstitions conferring a Fortean atmosphere to the narrative. I find it sometimes distracting. I suppose this is not a book on Chinese beliefs on the supernatural.

Page 59 – Other distracting tool the author used: the broken English sentences. It’s very annoying.

Page 61 – “We are safe in Canada.” Sometimes I wonder if all the stories of hardships endured by immigrants in Canada are not warnings disguised in “red ribbons” like those wore by Liang. It sounds like a “brace for impact” kind of warning.

Page 63 – How easy it is to break the heart of an “almost nine years old.”

Chapter 4 - by Lina Grajales

English or Chinese?

In the meantime, kids grow up between English and Chinese schools. They’re no longer in China, but they live within fortress walls in Chinatown -where neighbours protect themselves from invading, clapping and joyful madness from kids listening to stories from somewhere else; where they’re also protected from the outside non-Chinese world-

They go to English schools …with stone throwing boys, tough.

Chapter 4 - by Intikhab Amir

"King George..........a Canadian name for a 'foreign' turtle"


In a foreign land, immigrants’ children grow up with questions and concerns different than the native kids. Caught between two cultures, they try to adapt to the new reality of their lives, which their parents find quite difficult to become accustomed to.

The second-generation immigrants’ transition to the new culture and adaptability to their surroundings happened to be quite smooth as compared to their elders. They accept the change, perhaps, because of the fact that they don’t carry any cultural baggage.

Choy makes the reader to understand this reality in a very simple manner.
Jung-Sum, the second of Jook-Liang’s two elder brothers, exchanges an interesting argument with his friend Bobby Steinberg, who is a ‘foreigner’ for Jung’s family-friend Dai Kew.

The foreigner between the two children insists that Jung’s turtle, arrived recently in Canada, must have a Canadian name. Poor Jung suggests an old fashioned Chinese name for the turtle: Lao Kwei (Old Turtle). Finally, they agree to Steinberg’s suggestion of giving calling the turtle with a Canadian name. A Canadian turtle must be called with a Canadian name. Doesn’t it sound amazing?

Why can’t an outsider turtle have a Canadian name? If a neighborhood can be named as ‘Chinatown’ only because Chinese community lives there, then a foreign turtle could be named as ‘King George.’ It reflects a dent to the garrison mentality.

On the other hand, the first generation immigrant’s attempts to get their children education at an English as well as a Chinese school speaks volumes of their protectionists endeavors – a clear reflection of garrison mentality.
Grandmother Poh-Poh reflects the mindset of a typical immigrant. She reinforces her way of life ignoring the new cultural environs. She is deep into superstition; believing in ghosts; and false notions, which are part of her cultural baggage.

Chapter 4 - by Fabio Marchioro

It took me a long time to understand the author’s intentions regarding the book’s structure. In this chapter the narrator changes from Jook-Liang’s voice to Jung-Sum, one of her brothers. The problem is, I had to read the whole chapter, and half of the next to understand what was going on. Choy keeps the same voice throughout the book, but changes “the voice’s name”. In my opinion, it doesn’t work. The idea is interesting, but he didn’t achieve the effect he was aiming for. Out Monkey Man. In Turtle King.

Chapter 5 - by Lina Grajales

Belonging.

At this point, the voice narrating the accounts of Chinatown in Vancouver happens to be Jung-Sum’s, “Second Brother”, as called by Jook. The sense of belonging became true. At least, within the family that adopted him. He knew he belonged as he heard his name over and over again….

Chapter 5 - by Intikhab Amir

Immigrants remain immigrants

Cultural and social differences play a central role in igniting ‘otherness.’ These differences cause segregation by excluding some under the strange notion of ‘outsiders’ or ‘foreigners.’ Language plays an integral part in promoting such feelings. Choy conveys the same in a nice manner in the fifth chapter. Jung-Sum encounters somewhat the same feelings, when he hears something pronounced in an odd way, “a tone of dialect different from the way,” he had always heard it before. He feels excluded, not part of the same community. But, his strange feelings are subdued by the love and affection he gets from the family that embraces him as its adopted son.

Immigrants can be helped avoid segregation and seclusion in the same manner. If their host society accept the immigrants with all sincerity, their integration into the adopted country becomes easy.

The power of love is so strong that it helps to bridge the gap between rivals, brings people close to each other, cultivate cohesion, weed out hate, and make possible 'the impossible.' Jung-Sum’s story tells us the same. His integration into his new family comes smoothly because of the love and affection he gets. The cultural and social background also plays an important part in his case. His integration into the new family seems easy, because he is not an ‘outsider.’ He comes from a Chinese family, speaks Chinese, but in a different dialect.

The concept of ‘otherness’ appears to be so deep in Choy’s thoughts that it overwhelms him throughout this chapter of his novel ‘The Jade Peony.’ It is dominant at many places. “Families went to cemeteries to see graves dug up after seven years, to see bones gently washed and prepared, and wrapped by Bone Men who hummed blessings as they worked. These bones were to be returned to China, as promised.” He is referring to those Chinese rail workers who died and buried in Canada. Does not it sound strange? They could not become Canadia even after their burial. After seven years of their death the bones would be shifted to China. But, it is not unusual. These are the strange ways in which the immigrants act. We red earlier, ‘bones must come to rest where they most belong.’ Immigrants remain immigrants.

Chapter 5 - by Fabio Marchioro

When the characters talk about the habits in Old China, sometimes they sound like they are talking about mere animals. They are bought, sold and it is important how much a person will spend to fatten a boy. Much like livestock. Talk about cultural shock!

Monkey Man, Fox Lady, Turtle King and Head Fox. What demiurge will make a dramatic entrance on the next page?

During his boxing practices Jung-Sum says, at last: “I belong”. That is cool.

Marchioro's rule number 27 - In a book, if something deserves a capitalized name, it becomes an important character. In this book, it is very hard to keep up with all the “Capitalized Characters” that Choy throws our way. On page 98, paragraph 1, we have no less than 8 different ones: Kiam, First Son, Poh-Poh, First Wife, Old China, Old One, Sekky and Liang. Throw in a keg and you have a party.

Chapter 6 - by Lina Grajales

Reproduction of roles

The fortress walls in Chinatown can bring a sense of protection…but not from everything. Jook ends up emulating Frank Yuen, who, a young who grew up in work camps, was taught by his father, slaved beside him, and his fellow labourers...natives, Hindus, and runaway city men of all sorts, depression-broke and desperate…

He ends up absorbing the environment he is surrounded by. The building of his identity is clearly influenced by the fact that he spent his life within Chinatown, even tough Chinatown in Vancouver, but still Chinatown….let’s keep in mind the existence of those bachelor-men who were separated by a big ocean from their families. Many of them found new meanings for their lives in gambling and drinking, running away from their painful destinies.

Chapter 6 - by Intikhab Amir

“Survival”

Survival is in human instinct. Men and women make use of it as and when needed. The more it is relied upon it evolves into an art. No other than immigrants know this art the most.

They expose themselves to a host of new experiences and challenges in their new surroundings: their adopted country. Integration into a new social and cultural environment forms a challenge to the newcomers. Attaining economic stability, adjusting to harsh cold weather, and developing understanding about the new area all warrant the immigrants to make use of their vital characteristic.

In Canada, it has been a known phenomenon since the 16th century explorers stepped into this part of the world. Jacques Cartier and his men survived scurvy, harsh weather, and native population, whom he describes, in his narrations, as ‘savages,’ ‘uncivilized’ and ‘aggressors.’

Like the early explorers, in today’s Canada immigrants are putting great effort to survive the cultural and social differences, economic difficulties and harshness of the weather. First generation immigrants not only strive to survive, they make their children – the second-generation immigrants – to make use of their instincts.

The Jade Peony’s sixth chapter reinforces survival seeping deep into the hearts of immigrants. Choy’s novel’s major character Grandmother Poh-Poh’s tenant Old Yuen is also among those immigrants who nourish the art of survival in his next generation. He braces his son Frank to start work in quite an early age. In his native country it is no mean feat to resort to child labor by making one’s sons and daughters to earn livelihood for the family. He does this to better his own conditions. “The only luck he had left was his son, Frank, the boy he took with him to lumber camps and raised: the father taught the boy how to survive, how to fight, how to labor in the mills, how to avoid bad luck.”

Chapter 6 - by Fabio Marchioro

The whole chapter is about luck. Or the lack of. Suits the characters fine, especially Old Yuen.

Important - The chapter introduces properly Frank, Old Yuen’s son, that generates a strong influence on Jung-Sum through boxing and gambling, what brings luck to the limelight again.

At this point, I wonder what the reference that Frank would be the Sun and Jung-Sum the Moon means. Knowing a bit of the author biography... I wonder.

Chapter 7 - by Lina Grajales

Old ways vs New ways.

“Your old ways are not the new ways. Your grandchildren have to live the new ways.” Father worried about the real integration of his family into Canadian society. He seems to understand the value of keeping up with their new reality. The old ways represent the life they left behind, in China. The new ways represent Canada.
Things are different at the new home. They’d better be opened to that. The kids are the first ones to understand it: “Jenny says we should all have real English names. When we’re outside of Chinatown, we should try not to be so different”. Liang (Jook, the girl) spoke out, in the middle of a dialogue about the old ways and the new ways.

They feel safe inside the fortress walls of Chinatown. They don’t have to worry about the new ways, about being what the host society expects from them. But once outside Chinatown, they understand that’s another reality. They should try not to be so different, but be more like Canadians. Their looks won’t help in this case. However, they should do their best to behave, to be alike Canadians at least in that respect.

Chapter 7 - by Intikhab Amir

"Language"

Immigrants resist their integration into their adopted country’s culture. They do so, in their effort, to conserve the social and cultural values of the area they belong to. Deep down, in their heart, they know the possible consequences that they may face because of their resistance to getting assimilated to the new culture. It leads them to face segregation. The adherence to their old ways, make them as ‘outsiders’ and ‘others’ for the host population.

However, they soon realize that conserving their culture in the adopted country might not be an easy task. It appears to them as a distant reality once they realize that their children are exposed to outside influences.

Choy makes this point explicit in the seventh chapter of the Jade Peony. Jung’s father tells his mother, Poh-Poh, “Stop all this die nonsense,” … “Your old ways are not the new wars. Your grandchildren have to live the new ways.” This shows that parents want to see their children succeed in the new place. That cannot be possible without integration into the new culture. They also realize that it would not be possible for them to protect their children from the outside influences.

In this respect, language plays an important role. Learning a new language sets the course the second-generation immigrants’ integration into the new country. They learn the new way of life, join the cultural mainstream, the second-generation immigrants open window of opportunities and get jobs by their command over the new country’s language. Frank found it easy, like any other English-speaking Chinese, to get better job. Frank went to Seattle to sign up with the U.S. Marines, who were welcoming English-speaking Chinese.

Chapter 7 - by Fabio Marchioro

The first mention to the Jade Peony. Finally!

Jung-Sum's feelings towards Frank are made clear. I was right.

On page 124 we have by the first time an expression of concern by Father about being accepted in Canada. Again... finally!

Chapter 8 - by Lina Grajales

Neither Chinese nor Canadian

The confrontation between old ways and new ways continues. It happens even at the simplest levels, like those recounted by Sek-Lung, Third Brother, the youngest of the family.

Little Sek himself is reached by this confrontation. Probably, the easiest thing was his name being changed at school, to get one more Canadian: Sekky.

Still, he wishes he would be expelled to live somewhere else. He is trapped between knowing just enough English and Chinese language to speak to people, but not to grasp the finer details. On top of that, he can’t understand the complexities of the relationships among the members of his own family. Poor boy! Those rankings for acquaintances and relatives were already complex enough.

Moreover, his mind wandered… Am I Chinese or Canadian? Chinese, it was the response he always got from his Grandmother, Poh –Poh. However, the discussion about his having been born-in-Canada children, with no old china history in his brain, born without understanding the boundaries between both worlds, was permanent in the family.

Furthermore, his mother expected a girlhood friend of hers to come to Canada one day, to teach Sek the right way to be Chinese. It prompted him to want to conquer his Second Language, English. If he wasn’t Chinese good enough, he would excel at being Canadian, at least through the mastering of language.

So, he wasn’t Chinese good enough. Neither was he Canadian. He couldn’t understand the perplexities of his own Chinese family relationships. But he was smart enough to understand that under the surface things were everything but simple. Despite Father insisted in keeping things simple.

He understood that he was a Canadian-born-child of unwanted immigrants. He understood the meaning of the words RESIDENT ALIEN, stamped in his birth certificate.

Chapter 8 - by Intikhab Amir

‘Canadians born in immigrant families: neither this nor that’

Canadians born in immigrant families happen to have their own strange problems. They usually are caught between two cultures. They find themselves between the devil and deep blue sea. They are caught between the cultural influences of their adopted country and their parents’ native country.

Sek-Lung is one such example, a Canadian born in a Chinese immigrant family. His Grade One teacher at Strathcona School calms him “Sekky,” because, “it was more Canadian.” He also seems convinced with the idea since he has not got ‘no Old China history in his brain.’ “Different root, different flowers,” Grandmother believes.

But, these children tend to have peculiar problems. They grow amidst an identity crisis. They are neither Chinese nor Canadian – born without understanding the boundaries, no brain.

Choy helps the reader to understand these children’s problems. They don’t enjoy good command over their parents’ native language, they lack the understanding about rankings for acquaintances and relatives used in their parents’ native language. In Sek-Lung’s case, the Chinese rankings were overwhelming and mind-boggling. “For every one term in English, like ‘First Cousin’ or ‘Aunt,’ there were ten Chinese terms. Jesus, for example, had something like eleven brothers and sisters whose Chinese kinship terms, as a footnote, took up half the page.”

“These rankings,” Kiam agreed, “they’re more confusing than Confucius.” For him Chinese is confusing, whereas English words seemed more forthright and blunt, but there were no English words to match the Chinese perplexities.

Sek-Lung’s Grandmother’s friend Mrs. Lim wants to make him believe that he was a Chinese. He considers himself a Canadian. At times, he gets so exhausted that he wishes that his skin would turn white, hair go brown, eyes widen and turn blew.

But cultural integration without economic prosperity remains a far cry. Learning English does not guarantee immigrants’ chances to get a good job. Despite learning English and going to universities immigrants remain unemployable ‘because only Canadian citizens could qualify as professionals.”

“For if you were Chinese, even if you were born in Canada, you were an educated alien – never to be a citizen, never a Canadian with right to vote –‘an educated fool’ in the words of some old China men, or a ‘hopeful fool’ in the words of those who knew the world would soon change.” There seems to be no shortage of ‘hopeful fools’ even in today’s Canada.

Chapter 8 - by Fabio Marchioro

Now I knew what to expect regarding the change in the narrator. It’s Seek-Lung time, the Third Brother. But unfortunately the voice is the same. The same narrator with a different name. It’s like changing the name of a food. Call it whatever you want but bacon still smells and tastes like bacon. In the book Choy’s voice is the only voice we hear. All characters sound the same. If only it all were so tasty as some slices of steaming, golden, crispy bacon.

On page 133 the family still struggles with doubts and Stepmother is categorical: “You are Chinese”. To what Father answers: “We are also Canadians”.

We have in this chapter Suling’s first appearance.

Chapter 9 - by Lina Grajales

Chinese-Canadian.

“What would white people think of us? We were Canadians now, Chinese-Canadians, a hyphenated reality that our parents could hardly accept.”

Kids were embarrassed by their parents’ behaviour as they followed Old China traditions. Father resisted to behave according to was acceptable in Chinatown Vancouver: Stop this all of you!...how could he dare tell the Old One, his ageing mother, that what was appropriate in a poor village in China was shameful here?” …Still, he wanted his children to have both the old ways and the new ways.

Poh-Poh wasn’t told anything about peering into the neighbours’ garbage cans, as she looked for glass fragments to do her chimes. She was stubborn and had the respect and consideration of her family. But being a Chinese elderly woman, she never enjoyed consideration from Canadian society…before dying, she was taken to the basement of St.Paul’s hospital, where the sick Chinese were allowed to stay…

Chapter 9 - by Intikhab Amir

‘Hyphenated reality, cultural mingling’

The more they live in their adopted country the second-generation immigrants seep deep into its culture. It deepens their parents’ predicament. They want to see their children have both the old and new ways, while the children think more in the new ways. The more the first-generation immigrants spend time in their new setting, the greater they realize the new reality of their life: changed identity. Once, with the passage of time, the second-generation immigrants integrate into the new culture, they dissent with the old ways. Their elders’ way of doing daily chores causes them inconvenience. They get unsettled with their elders’ behavior and attitude. ‘What would white people in Vancouver think of us?’ Choy’s grasps the predicament of immigrants, as over a period of time every immigrant shed part of past, realize the new reality of life, get mentally prepared to adopt the change and accept their new identity. ‘We are Canadian now, Chinese-Canadian – a hyphenated reality – that our parents could never accept.’

Their integration, a hyphenated reality, does not come without a price for the adopted country’s culture. It takes effect under a mutual bargain. As the immigrants agree to their hyphenated reality, the host culture undergoes influences from the immigrants’ culture. Places like Vancouver’s Chinatown serves as a confluence of two cultures. A cultural mingling takes place. A new culture of tolerance and coherence takes roots. Lifestyles of both, the natives and the immigrants, experience change accepting outside influences.

Chinese chimes, whose rattling noises might drive someone mad, get access to natives’ living rooms and drying rooms. Chinese ghost stories and superstition, bearing strong influences on Chinese life, do not confine only to Chinatown forever. They, too, become acceptable for the host culture, with the passage of time.

Chapter 9 - by Fabio Marchioro

Poh-Poh dies of pneumonia. Pardon my bluntness but not a moment too soon. She was, so far, just an acid, destructive presence in the book. She has no redeeming value but tending for Seek-Lung special needs.

On page 149 the jade peony makes its first real entrance. I think it should have been written capitalized.

Chapter 10 - by Lina Grajales

The school nurse efficiently wiped the blood of Sek’s legs; the Vancouver City Medical officer visited the family home and poked about their rooms: Is it always this damp? Only rich not damp, said Father in the broken English he used with white authorities…They’re the authority. And they’re doing their job. It sounds familiar nowadays. Generalization is unfair, tough.

Good. The teacher at school didn’t mind Sek’s accent, either. He wasn’t any different from the Japanese, Ukranian, Russian, Jewish and Italian boys and girls in her class.

Chapter 10 - by Intikhab Amir

“Superstition”

“If vision and good sense didn’t combine to make us pay attention, what then was the meaning of anything? Grandmama would have understood perfectly: signs and portents were her lifeblood. She had always said to her friend Mrs. Lim, “You only need to pay attention.”

Even after living in Canada for years Grandmother could not alter the way she thinks. She continues to believe in superfluous and false notions. Her strong beliefs in superstition leave sharp imprints on the minds of other family members. Among all, Sek hampers from the false notions the most. His close attachment with Poh-Poh leaves him with strong beliefs in ghosts and superstition. “My actually seeing Grandmama (after her death) on our staircase and in the hallway became the subject of debate in the family. No one wanted to believe me, though, no one really wanted to doubt me either, for the world of Chinatown was the world of what if…”

Sek’s family is not unique. Other Chinese families living in Vancouver’s Chinatown are imbued with superfluous notions and superstition: educated, young and old.

“Why is he (Sek) wheezing so much?” Father asked (from a herbalist). “Too much damp these days,” herbalist said, as if it were obvious. “Some children breathe like this until they grow up.” I was given an extract of powdered lotus leaf and eucalyptus oil, mixed with a honey base, to coat my throat. When Father asked about my seeing the Old One, the herbalist shrugged. “Is the boy hurting anyone?”

When she was alive, Grandmama had taught Sek that spirits and ghosts were everywhere because the Chinese were such an ancient people; so many Chinese people had died that there ten thousand million ghosts in Old China inhabited “the ways of the Han people.” Whether one was a peasant or royalty, Grandmama said, Old China people took it for granted that these ghosts lived constantly alongside them. They were mischievous spirits and frightening demons, these good and bad ghosts. They could upset, or bring into harmony, the yin and yang forces – the fung-suih, the wind-water elements that helped to balance our “hot” and “cold” natures.

The host culture cannot protect itself from the penetration of such false notions amidst persistent adherence to superstitious practices.

Chapter 10 - by Fabio Marchioro

Seek-Lung has to continue his homeschooling because of his respiratory problems. And suddenly, to my bitter disappointment, Poh-Poh is back.

From Seek-Lung point of view she returns as a ghost. At least I’m not alone. Stepmother and Father, as the author suggests on page 159, had little sympathy for Seek-Lung clinging to the “Old One’s” presence.

By the way, I just realized that this chapter’s narrator had respiratory problems and the author calls him Seek-Lung. Doesn’t it almost sound like “sick lung”? Or I’m just seeing ghosts here?

Chapter 11 - by Lina Grajales

Divergence between old ways and new ways continues. Father and Kiam insisted it was necessary to move forward, be modern, and throw away the old.

Since Poh-Poh had died, modern Father was told he should pay his respects to her, no matter they were in Canada, no matter the new ways, because they still were Chinese. Besides, white people bowed all the time at church and ran electric motors!

Chapter 11 - by Intikhab Amir

‘First-generation immigrant: roots intact,’ ‘second-generation immigrants: integration brings progress.’
‘Dai Goh – First Brother Kiam – had won a prize in science at King Edward High School.’ As the second generation immigrants integrate, they make progress and start leaving an impression. Over a period of time, the first generation immigrants start acknowledging the reality and accept the change. ‘New ways’ become acceptable for them.
“I knew, if I had said, ‘Grandmama told me, Old Way, best way,’ the family would laugh at me. Father and Kiam had been saying how we must all change, be modern, move forward, throw away the old. After all the dirty wars are finished,’ Father lectured to Third Uncle,’ those who understand the new ways will survive’.” Even the first generation starts realizing that to survive they have to adopt the new ways: they have to adopt Canadian way of life.
Even old fashioned from among the women immigrants accept the change. Mrs. Lim told Mrs. Chang she thought she saw Grandmama, after her death. Mrs. Chang reported this to Stepmother, whose spontaneous reaction to that was, “Just old-fashioned talk.”
While everybody in the Chinese immigrant’s family (in Choy’s novel) favoured new ways over the old, they shed their initial rejection to the new culture. They willingly wanted to adopt the new way, the children learned English, they excelled in studies, but they couldn’t improve their financial condition, which hampers the family’s integration. Without attaining economic stability, integration remains a far cry.
Even after living for years in their adopted country, immigrants find difficult to detach from their roots. Their native country remains high always in their thoughts. People left peaceful Canada to fight Japanese forces and defend China. “The war changed a lot of things. Now such back-to-Chine bone shipments were discouraged. Overseas shipping space was restricted to war munitions and emergency supplies, and to transport of living men for the purpose of killing other men.”

Chapter 11 - by Fabio Marchioro

This chapter starts with one more debate on the possibility of Poh-Poh’s ghost beeing around or not. Enough already!

Of course we could talk about how important, not to say scarring, Poh-Poh’s influence was on Sek-Lung, with all her “White Demons” and “Old China”, but where would the fun be?

Chapters 12-13 - by Lina Grajales

Molding

As days pass at school, Chinese kids are molded into that ideal collective functioning together with the purpose of conquering the King’s English. Miss Doyle, the General of the class, teaches kids to have their feet flat as an iron against the floor, pro-nun-ci-a-tion lessons and brings the world to them trough a Neilson Chocolate Map of the World….They learned about wars and victories taking place far away, where nobody killed each other, but where those involved in the battles dealt with “rescue”, “courage” and “kindness”.

Sek-Lung experiences that there weren’t many chances for anyone living in Canada to be truly brave, since the bombs were falling down in London, not in Vancouver…he dreamed about killing the enemy himself someday….as well as Kiam, the day he became Canadian, the day he wasn’t a resident alien anymore.

Children at Miss Doyle’s class needed extra attention, the class was meant for immigrant kids who knew too little English, or who could understand English but not read it or speak it well, or who for whatever reason were starting late…therefore, they needed extra attention…but for how long?

Miss Doyle also wanted to protect that mixed bunch of immigrants and displaced persons, to teach them to be bravery…the outside world mocked them, ignored them, and urged them to “say it again”: What? What’s that you say? Can’t you speak English?...so that they belong at last to an including-all-country. They were equals within the class. That’s what they believed.

Chapter 12 - by Intikhab Amir

‘Canadian mentality’

Miss Doyle’s class does not aim at helping immigrants’ kids to learn English. It aimed at instilling Canadian mentality, politeness, mannerism, and compassionate terror as the teacher acted as a military commander to discipline a bunch of disorderly folks to indirectly attain a cohesive Canada. “We were an unruly, untidy mixed bunch of immigrants and displaced persons, legal or otherwise, and it was her duty to take out varying fears and insecurities and mold us into some ideal collective functioning together as a military unit with one purpose: to conquer the King’s English, to belong at last to a country that she envisioned including all of us.”

In her class, students are not even supposed to bring in their caps. She wants them to leave their caps in a designated area: cloakroom. Doesn’t it mean implanting Canadian way of life and mannerism by way of teaching immigrant kids King’s English. Miss Doyle looked around and nodded at one or two familiar faces. She noticed my aviator’s cap folded neatly on my lap. “Next time, Sek-Lung,” she said, “that stays in the cloakroom. ”The boys at recess called him Sekky, Miss Doyle.” A red haired girl with braces on her legs smiled at the teacher. “Thank you, Darlene,” Miss Doyle smiled back, “but you remember from last year how you should raise your hand and wait for permission before speaking out in class.”

Miss Doyle adopts more than one way to inject Canadian lifestyle into her target group. She wants the kids to accept responsibilities and perform roles for a common good. “Perhaps, Sek-Lung,” Miss Doyle said, looking directly at me, “you might like to help Darlene with the watering jug on Monday.” “Yes, Miss Doyle.” Joe Eng snickered. “--- and Joe Eng will help on Thursdays and dust the windows as well…yes, Joe?” “Yes, Miss Doyle.”

“Day after day, we absorbed her enunciated syllables, the syllables of a King and Queen. Without our fully realizing what was happening, our English vocabulary multiplied and blossomed.”

The immigrant kids learn more than merely English, Canadian manners or lifestyle at school. They accept the political perceptions, ideology and concepts prevalent in the adopted country. Canada’s enemies become their foe, and its allies are their friends.
Japan is an enemy for the second-generation immigrants because their elders think, since Japan is at war with China. Similarly, Nazis are villains, because that is what the immigrant children learn at school. “We were, of course, all “good guys” fighting dirty Nazis and Japanese. We broke into threes and fours and soared into snarling, arm-stretching, attack-and-dive flight patterns, loudly dropping brick and concrete bombs down the grassy slopes of Maclean Park.”

Chapter 12 - by Fabio Marchioro

And... surprise!! The chapter starts with a reference to... you guessed: Poh-Poh.
But at least Sek-Lung says on page 169: “I flung myself into life without her”. Good boy. Good for you!

Now is 1941. War and tension cover their lives.

Sek-Lung goes to school. Classmates, teacher and assignments.

Miss Doyle, the teacher, and her war analogies: she’s the general, the students are soldiers, and obedience is paramount.

On page 184, Choy introduces in that classroom of so many immigrants, the Canadian mosaic. It works.

Chapter 13 - by Intikhab Amir

‘Resident alien’

Despite spending years in Vancouver’s Chinatown and learning the ‘new way,’ even the younger generation continues to be regarded as ‘resident aliens.’ They were not entitled to get employment in the Canadian military. Kiam, the first brother, wanted to join the military, but his hopes dashed after Father told me that he couldn’t. “You were registered in Victoria as a resident alien. We’ve had this talk before. When the Dominion says we are Canadian, then we will all join up!”

For immigrants, the door to success lies in their economic integration. Without achieving economic prosperity they cannot assimilate. Choy grasps immigrants’ predicament very well.

“Father, stepmother, brothers Kiam and Jung, and even sister Liang, were all working wherever and whenever they could. Our household was constantly short of money.”

Chapter 13 - by Fabio Marchioro

It seems Sek-Lung transferred part of his affection by Poh-Poh to Big General Miss Doyle.

War games, bombings and smoke; boredom, matches and papers on an alley: “You are grounded”.

Here comes Mrs. Lim. And here comes the battle against Japan. This time, the real one.

Chapter 14 - by Lina Grajales

The war…and the unity within Chinatown. Every Chinese sees Japanese (Japs) as the enemy. Let’s remember the unquestionable values of garrison mentality, those which hold people together, protected from outer threats and enemies. The terror comes when any individual thinks different from the rest…

Chapter 14 - by Intikhab Amir

‘War’

War causes destruction. It disrupts life and entails huge consequences for mankind. It devastates cities and leaves numerous marooned. Nonetheless, it bridges the gap between one’s self and his country. It implants unity in a nation under attack, bringing people closer, particularly, those who live away from their homeland. While arousing feelings of love for immigrants’ native country, it may add to immigrants’ multifaceted problems. The war between Japan and China may not confine to the battleground. Its increasing scope may even engulf ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Japtown.’ “I tried my best whisper discreetly to Meiying. ‘This is Japtown – we shouldn’t be here.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘We’re not Japs,’ I said.”

Chapter 14 - by Fabio Marchioro

Sek-Lung faces yet another strong female presence in the book: 1st Poh-Poh; 2nd Miss Doyle; 3rd Mrs Lim, and, of course, Meyiyng, her daughter.

He faces “the japs” and feels brave, all through the relationship between Myiyng and Kazuo.

Chapter 15 - by Lina Grajales

Life goes on. Poor Meiying couldn’t resist the pain. Survival is meant for those who decide to stay. No matter that the ambulance takes its time to come, just because they’re Chinese.

Chapter 15 - by Intikhab Amir

“’Hills’ and ‘bridges’ made of books”

At times, it becomes immensely difficult to cross the “ ‘hills and Brides’ made of books,” because of deep-rooted hatred and abhorrence. Poor Meiying fell victim to hate, as she could not cross the ‘hills’ and ‘bridges’ that lie between her and her Japanese boy friend. They fell victim to a war, which was being fought thousands of miles away from Canada. The war between China and Japan had overshadowed Vancouver’s Chinatown and Little Tokyo. The battleground was different, but the sentiments of hatred were as intense as the war in the far away battlefields. Perhaps, Poor Meiying couldn’t learn from the lesson she taught Sek and his friends. “When the two Jenson boys, Ronny and Rick, deigned to play with us, and we had arguments, she taught us how to form alliances. “Fight against a common enemy,” she said. “That’s what friends do.” She could not form the right of an alliance. She wanted to share her life with an enemy: a Jap. Immigrants’ native land does not stop following him or her even thousands of miles away.

“Stepmother, Stepmother!” I heard Father yell, “The Americans are going to have to fight the Japs!” Strange bedfellows: yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends. Alliances keep changing, but immigrants’ destiny doesn’t.

Chapter 15 - by Fabio Marchioro

On page 225 (it is not funny anymore) Poh-Poh returns.

Pearl Harbour was attacked bringing the war still closer to their home.

Kiam announces that wants to join the Canadian army. His father is so preoccupied with the news that he doesn’t even answer.

The war, through Kazuo, breaks Myiyng’s heart and she commits suicide. The impact in Sek-Lung’s family is very powerful. But on Stepmother it is devastating. The last paragraph portrays a lyric scene:

Her eyes were wet.
“Mother,” I said. “I’m here.”
She reached out to me. I took her hand and pressed into her palm the carved pendant Grandmama had left to me.


Conclusion:

On the second post I made for this blog, on the second chapter, I wrote:

This chapter made me wonder: is it really worth spending time reading this book right now? I immigrated to Canada a few months ago. Should I spend more time reading stories on immigrants or books on Canadian lore? So far, I’d rather be reading Canadian History for Dummies, by Will Ferguson.


Well, 238 pages and several hours later I hate to admit, but I was right.

Let’s put Ferguson’s book aside for a while and consider other possibilities: what about Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business? Or Yann Martel’s Life of Pi? Or any book by Atwood? I understand the idea behind reading a book like The Jade Peony, but at this time in my life it was neither worth the time nor the effort. The insights into Canadian life, how to improve my prospects in this country, how to better and deeper understand the Canadian mind and culture are close to zero.The writing techniques Choy employs are basic and ineffective. The vocabulary was plain and the characters bland.

Onto Ferguson’s book.