Toisan Boy

A discussion on an online food board on the topic of food related novels led to the mention of a recently published book called The Family Chao about a family of Chinese-American immigrants who've run a Chinese-American restaurant in a small town in the Midwest for decades. This prompted me to search for reviews for the book, many which laud the work for the author channeling Dostoevsky in this depiction of the family. However, one of the first reviews I read started thusly: " Whenever I come across a story about the Chinese American immigrant experience, I must read it. I'm forever trying to find that connection with others like myself, with people and characters who can somehow put into words a confounding experience, one I am still trying to figure out, even after so many years." and the reviewer goes on to express disappointment with how this particular novel fails miserably in this regard.  I posted a comment on this review, suggesting that the target audience wa...

Han is a concept allegedly unique to Korean culture, collective feelings of oppression and isolation, loss of identity in the face of overwhelming odds resulting from unavenged injustice. It is a relatively new phenomenon which was recognized by Westerners in the early 20th century, and many attribute its development as being a consequence of the Japanese occupation of Korea and Japan's subsequent belittlement of Korean culture. The point is that t he idea that  han  is a specifically Korean characteristic was adopted and popularized by Koreans in the 20th century. Furthermore, it's difficult to describ e or quantify as  Koreans will forgive even the gravest sins, kill even for the smallest slights, or lament endlessly over a past han that one has endured or was subjected to, all depending on the shifting reminders of han.  While han may be a uniquely Korean characteristic, I personally felt a strong resonance the first time I heard han described to me and  I su...

By 1989, I had decided to leave Ohio and I moved to Los Angeles. Looking back, I can see that I was motivated by a desire to 'find my people',  to be an Asian Kunta Kinte (from "Roots") and be reunited with my 'tribe'. What I didn't realize was that no such 'tribe' with its own heritage and sense of tradition exists. (More on that in another post.) I managed to connect with some Toisan who like me were born of Chinese immigrants, who had grown up in Chinatown and were still attending the First Baptist Church in Chinatown, and in the initial conversations I had with them, one question/topic stuck out: "Have you seen the movie Living in Tokyo Time?". The movie was a romantic comedy about a Nisei (American born Japanese) aspiring rock musician who agrees to marry a Japanese immigre who would otherwise be deported because her visa had expired. While the movie explores the culture clash between Japanese and American culture, the dynamics were ...

The punishment for dishonor is excommunication. It may be easier to understand the strength of that threat when one better understands the community/holistic world view that exists in Chinese culture (and all other asian cultures in general) and how it differs from western cultures, where personal liberty and autonomy get a lot of moral emphasis. The concept of community is not explicitly taught, but then it doesn't need to be, as the concept of community is reinforced in daily behavior, starting with how we greet one another in Chinese. The word/term used to greet one another also specifies whether you are younger or older than the person you are greeting. With immediate family, it also identifies grandparents, aunts and uncles as being maternal or fraternal and in the cases of aunts and uncles, also identifies if the aunt/uncle is older or younger than your parent. The point of all this is to show how this reinforces the idea that one is part of something better than themselves a...

 My mother accompanied to school my first day to get me registered. It was a pretty long walk (for an elementary schoolkid); Our house was on the exact border between two schools. If we'd been another street to the west, I would have attended both a different elementary school and a different junior high school and certain details of my life might have been very very different.  The class was already prepared to expect a new student from the Middle East, a girl named Fatim, who enrolled that same day. I think it helped that I wasn't the FNG by myself. Once it warmed up a little bit. I started leaving for school a little early so I could hang out with other classmates on the playground, using playing softball. I'd never had a chance to play while living in the inner city, and I was awful at the plate for a while. I think that helped balance out my ability to do well in school and helped me get accepted. The problems with gasoline and Japanese imports flooding the automotive ...

NOTE: the details are not necessarily in chronological order We moved to 1599 E. 33rd St shortly after I started kindergarden. I think it was in large part to get me closer to school. We lived there until we moved when I was in fourth grade. It was a duplex back house and we had the bottom floor. The upstairs was rented to a biracial couple named Parker who had a son (Willie) my age and a girl (Sandy) a few years younger. The front house had some rednecks downstairs and a caucasian family upstairs (the Ratliffs) who had one son (Robby) a year or two older than me, and a boy (Ricky) a few years younger.  The rednecks (I think they said that they were from West Virginia) in the front house eventually moved out, but not before they tried to break into the house once while my sister and I were home alone. They knocked on the back door pretending to be a plumber. My sister opened the door but kept the chain on which kept them from forcing their way in. I grabbed a meat cleaver and was m...

Despite Cleveland being one of the largest cities in the US 100 years ago, not that many Chinese elected to immigrate to NE Ohio  and so Chinatown wasn't that large. It occupied a stretch of Rockwell Ave between E 24th & E 26th but only the north side. There were maybe two or three restaurants and a few other storefronts including a grocery store of sorts. The south side of the street across from Chinatown was a trucking depot. The surrounding neighborhood was largely industrial. In general, you'll find Chinatown locations in the US to be in the inner city near downtown; with limited incomes immigrants tend to rely on public transportation. When my family lived in Chinatown, there were a few other families with children my age. We all eventually moved out of Chinatown and we lost track of those who didn't eventually join the Chinese church that was founded during the late 60's. The families who did included the Chan's: an older sister named Betty close to my sis...