Eat a Bowl of Tea
...in China. Arguably, the arrange marriage represents a practical solution to the bachelor society's need to prolong its dying traditions and practices. This is indicated with Wah Gay's fear of his son marrying a "jook sing girl," who is a promiscuous, United States born, "heartless" Chinese American who would be unlikely or uninterested in preserving the traditional way, therefore is a threat to the continuity of the Chinese family traditional ways. Lau Shee, Wah Gay’s estranged wife, is the embodiment of a faithful Chinese wife who would uphold important traditional values and feel “no bitterness” but “sympathy and understanding” of the situation. Wah Gay finds this particular attitude to be “lacking in jook sing girls” (Chu 45) thereby idealizing the nature of Chinese born women. The novel also present a conflicting image of a exile laborer sending money home to his suffering family awaiting his day to return home. However the image of Wah Gay and Lee Gong illustrate them as fathers fulfilling their role of sacrificing home and hearth to work in a foreign land of the “Golden Mountain” but is in contrast to the reality of their lives surrounding gambling in club Money Come. This particular point can be seen as a shift of cultural identity within the “bachelor society.” Although the community attempts to hold onto to traditional mores, their actions are contradictory to the transformation. One of the main points Chu reveals in Eat a Bowl of Tea is the significant importance of one's duty. Wah Gay regarded his reunification with his wife in China a "sacred duty" (44). He also believed it was his "son's filial duty" (Chu 46) to let his parents decide on his marriage. In Ben Loy's case, it is imperative that the young man agree to be sent back to China to get married because it "marks a solemn obligation dutifully discharged on the part of the parents" (44). Mei Oi role in the story undermines the traditional role of a Chinese faithful, subordinate spouse who is the mother and guardian of the community values. Chu also illustrates a shifting of social expectation among the generation of Chinese women. Unlike Jung Shee who is totally bound by traditions and obligations to sacrifice her own need for the fulfillment of family duties, Mei Oi belongs to a generation of young women who possess a greater measure of self-determination resulting from her access to education which dares her to hope for greater freedom and the dream of marrying a “gimshumhok” husband. This attitude is further exemplified with her mother reminding her: “Mei Oi, I hope you marry a gimshuhok and go to America with him. You will see him morning and night” (Chu 65). These words completely undermine Wah Gay’s belief that these Chinese wives were sympathetic and understanding for their immigrant’s husbands who never return. To Mei Oi, the arranged marriage meant several things. It represented the simply fulfillment of a culturally prescribe duty and an expansion of opportunities that opens "before her a whole new panorama" (Chu 66). However, like immigrants that came before her, her arrival to New York China town confronted her with the limits of America promises. She finds herself in a racially marginalized community, jobless, subjected home alone while her husband works, no women companionship which would provide solace and advice, and is deeply hurt by her husband's "monk-like behavior in bed" (Chu 6). Mei Oi poses a threat to the political order of Chinatown by challenging the patriarchal control at both family and social level. When Ben Loy asserts male "authority" by slapping Mei Oi for her relations with Ah Song, she responds: "You wife-beater, that is the only thing you know how. What kind of a husband have you been? Why don't you ask you yourself that? ...I didn't do anything wrong" (Chu 145). Mei Oi's response to her husband signify the collapse of the marriage negotiated by Chinatown's old men and allows Mei Oi to position herself to renegotiate her relationship with Ben Loy by insisting that her interest be acknowledged. In a sense, it is a declaration that she will not submit to a male solely on terms of its relation to her husband's pride. It is from this particular position that Mei Oi argues: "a husband cannot force...his wife to stay with him if she doesn't want to" because "sometimes the husband is in error too" (Chu 166). Mei Oi's position rejects the bachelors’ traditional view of a submissive wife and illustrates their double standard which holds that "husbands are different.... They can go out and sleep with another woman and...Women folks can't do anything about it. It's different with a woman" (Chu 168). The essential foundation of the men's position is the need to maintain control over women is articulated by Chuck Ting, the president of the Wang Association: "Women cannot be trusted ... I've always told my son to run his family with a firm hand" (Chu 137). Similarly, Chuck Ting thinks that Lee Gong should "bring up his daughter right" (Chu 198); and when Ben Loy fails to control his wife, he logically seems "a renegade" in his father's eyes (Chu 141). New York Chinatown community response to the conflicting situation was to protect the reputation of the family association. The main purpose for these association found in the Chinese community served to strengthen ethnic ties within the community to resist racial hostility and maintain an internal cohesiveness among the members of the community. For this particular situation, the association promoted a peaceful resolution through family network. Their actions highlight the extent to which these family associations serve as a “power broker” to preventing external interference and insuring Chinatown political survival (Chu 9). Ah Song's defeat by the Wang Association and his banishment from New York Chinatown are signs of the persistence of Chinatown community's tradition, but Wah Gay and Lee Gong are similarly obliged to go to preserve their reputation. But their departure displays the disintegration of the old way of life in New York Chinatown, as marked by the sale of the Money Come C...