China Boy (1991) – Gus Lee

Structure: Told in the first-person past from the perspective of an adult Kai.  There are thirty numbered and named chapters followed by a brief epilogue (that picks up only hours after the preceding chapter).  Page breaks inside chapters sometime separate sections.  A family tree precedes the title page.  Chinese (Songhai or Mandarin) is represented in English with Kai noting that a character is not speaking in English.  Spanish is often represented in italics, but it is brief and seldom.

Setting: In the Panhandle (an urban neighborhood near the narrowing of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA).  This neighborhood has a near one hundred percent black population.  The first chapter begins when he is seven years-old and is being beat by Big Willie Mack.  The second chapter begins the narrative proper by telling the stories of his family’s arrival to San Francisco, their stories in China (often sprinkled with storytelling moments such as Kai asking Mah-mee what the name of the dog was), his early childhood, then Mah-mee’s death, the arrival of Edna, and his negotiation with the streets.  In the middle of talking about the YMCA, the narrator sometimes refers to the time he would spend there or how well he would know the men he introduces.

Characters:

Kai Ting – The main character (age 7 and sometimes younger in the beginning) and narrator (an adult voice reflecting on his growing up).  He is the youngest and only son of a family with three daughters.  He is the only American-born child yet the only one who struggles with English because the others had had formal teachers.  Mah-mee considers him very special because he is the first-born son, yet after she dies he has absolutely no advantages.  He can’t see very well, is small, and get’s beaten up a lot even by small kids who want to prove they’re tough.  Kai had learned from Mah-mee that fighting was bad for his karma, so he struggles with fighting back and learning to fight.

Mah-mee – She and her daughters arrive in San Francisco in 1944 after traveling mostly by cart from Rangoon to Free China (which the family calls “The Run”) to India (where the girls are able to practice their Imperial English) and then to the US.  Despite the cultural pressure to be quiet, she asserted her independence.  She drove terribly, was superstitious, and seemed to do many eccentric things like turn on all the lights (because she thought electricity was rather miraculous, comparison of kitchen god vs. General Electric), sit in the bathtub and talk to her father (she felt great filial duty toward him and used that devotion as evidence that she was traditional despite her refusal to be governed), pull over on the side of the highway to go to the beach and light joss sticks to her father.

Father (Baba, TK, the Colonel) – A second-born son of a wealthy family in 1906.  His father was an opium addict who embarrassed the family and died terribly in a re-education camp after the war.  A Former National Army Officer, a masculine figure compared to American male movie stars.  His best friend is Norman Schwarzt, an American missionary’s son and army officer.  He embraces the traditionlessness of America and resists his roots.  He recognizes the debt owed the peasantry by the likes of his father.  He works at China Lights Bank in Chinatown.  He travels much of the time and is entrusted to transport money.  He never steals, though others do.  His destiny was to be a soldier, but because of his children and wife, he did not go to war again (everyone was being sent to Korea at the time).

Jennifer – Kai’s sister.  The first-born of the family.  She and her two sisters were named by Tutor Luke on their last night at their grandparents’ house.  She and Megan are in college by the time Mah-mee dies.

Megan – Because she disappointed Mah-mee by being a girl and didn’t have the protection of being first-born (Jennifer) or having been sick as an infant (Janie), Megan is not treated well by Mah-mee.  She doesn’t seem to hold a grudge.

Janie – Was sick as an infant in China.  During the Run, she was so young, she was lucky to have resisted all the diseases and dangers.  When Mah-mee dies, her older sisters can’t decide if they’re supposed to tell Janie, so they decide not to.  Janie figures it out, but out of respect, holds on to the fiction.  When Edna arrives, Janie eventually resists the physical abuse and tells Edna she will kill her if she hits her again (she tells Kai she might drive the car over her).  Kai acknowledges that Jaine has it the worst as far as Edna’s treatment goes.

Edna – Originally from Philadelphia.  Still mourning the death of her first husband, a poor law student, whom she disowned her rich family for, she marries TK.  She seemed not to want children and insists the children call her stepmother Edna.  She slowly strips the family of all their Chinese-ness from food (insists on Irish American food) to language (English only).  She beats the children and makes Kai stay out of doors at all times except during dinner and at night.

Toussaint LaRue (Toos) – A kid Kai’s age, who gives him some fighting pointers, tells him fighting has roots in slavery because men could prove their manhood, and wants to hear stories about his father because his died in WWII.  Toussaint’s mother is a maternal figure for Kai.  She is very poor, but shares her food and love.  Toos tries to help Kai talk in a way more appropriate for his neighborhood.

Big Willie Mack – The biggest and meanest among many bullies Kai has to deal with.  After a significant fight with Jerome “Lucky” Washington, whom Kai beats (The book details Jerome’s story–his family and abusive father), Big Willie Mack beats Kai to a pulp, which causes Kai to lose all confidence.  Kai’s teachers at the Y find out this is the source of his disconnection with boxing, so they train him to beat him in an epic battle.  Of course Kai is victorious.

Hector Pueblo – A mechanic at Cutty’s garage, one of the first non-black and non-Chinese people Kai meets.  He tells Kai to call him tío, influences him to go to the YMCA, teaches him some Spanish and to walk in a more appropriate way.  He believes you should never hide from a fight.  He’s a war vet and has tattoos.

Mr. (Tony) Barraza – A former heavyweight fighter, who had known a lot of success, but after his wife left him and took away his young son, moving eventually to an unknown place in Italy, he allowed his characteristic power punch to disappear.  Though he could have taught at a boxing gym and made real money, he works at the Y and lives in the Y’s hotel out of penance for not being faithful to his wife.

Uncle Shim – A good friend of Kai’s father, but a closer friend with Mah-mee.  He was to be Kai’s tutor (like Tutor Luke had been to the girls) and when TK was gone, he’d come to stay with the family.  Uncle Shim is a traditional Chinese intellect and calls Kai Haushehen (able student), which is a great honor.

Miss Angie Costello– Mr. Barraza convinces her to let Kai eat on his card, and she feeds Kai, gives him a job, which provides spending money for Chinese food though he has to give the majority to Edna.  Miss Costello is kind, and Kai looks to her as a maternal figure.

Mr. Miller – White boss at the Y, promises Kai’s father they can teach Kai.  Mr. Miller used to be an instructor

Mr. Punsalong – An instructor at the Y, teaches Kai to let pain pass through him.  He takes a tougher approach with Kai, teaches him the dirty moves like throat punching.  Kai and his friends watch him practicing some sort of martial arts on the Y’s roof.

Mr. Lewis – African American instructor at the Y, supervisor over the other instructors.  He believes in a mind-first approach to boxing.  Encourages Kai to speak clearly.

Key moments in text in chronological order:

• 3 – Street Fighting like menstruation for men—an effort to fix identity
• 4 – Kai wants to become an accepted black male youth
• 11 – in the run, the girls are dressed like peasant boys
• 13 – Mah-mee carries from China a book written by Tutor Luke of philosophy written from a female perspective
• 13 – Kai always anticipates an epic journey
• 14 – The Handle’s population changed because of migration and economics
• 18 – Mah-mee refused silence and acted like a male
• 19 – war brings peace which invites colonization
• 20 – Kai’s father a masculine army officer in an army that centuries before was hyper masculine then feminized, welcoming colonization
• 24 – Mah-mee resists attitude of women being worthless
• 26 – The family loved escapism provided by going to the movies
• 29 – The Handle is a refugee camp
• 31 – Kai’s father says it’s a good thing Americans are without traditions
• 42 – Chinatown is Cantonese (they speak Songhai and Mandarin), and they’re not even very near it
• 49 – Mah-mee dies of Cancer when Kai is 6, but he’s sent away for a month and not told.
• 51 – The rituals of mourning are confused and forgotten because there’s no elder women there to advise the sisters.
• 55 – Edna arrives
• 65 – Edna tells Janie and Kai they are burdens—the first of much emotional abuse and then physical abuse
• 68 – Mah-mee had valued and used facial expressions to communicate especially with Kai.  Edna hates Kai’s facial expressions.
• 68 – Kai wanted to be black, but when he met some white girls (Edna’s nieces), he thought they were better because they were better fed and had nicer clothes.
• 69 – Edna had been captivated by stories of TK’s former wealth and had not realized the family’s finances were waning.  When it becomes obvious, she tells the children it must be a secret.  They should tell others the family is saving up for something.
• 69 – TK’s boss, Madame Amethyst Jade Cheng, had escaped from China with ample wealth.  She is invigorated everyday by her freedom, brought about by wealth.
• 70-71 – Victoria Lum Ting, a leader at the local family association, stops by the house, purposely talks only Songhai to alienate Edna.
• 85 – Edna burns Mah-mee’s crate, which contained all the family’s treasures and was miraculously brought in the Run from China.  Everyone including Kai’s father is angry.  Edna tells Kai his mother is dead.
• 87 – Kai realizes he’s losing his Songhai
• 97-100 – Kai becomes friends with Toussaint
• 111 – Janie reads the neighborhood kids (including the ones who want to taunt Kai) Hansel and Gretel (though Edna had thrown it out)
• 113 – Kai tries to run away again (the first time, Edna stopped him), goes to Toussaint’s building but leaves after finding Suds (the drunk who used to be a fighter)
• 121 – When Kai tries to fight back for the first time, the kid runs away with a bloody nose, but his older sister finds him and beats him badly in a garbage can.  Hector has to say something to convince her to stop.
• 123 – Hector cleans him up in Cutty’s garage (a masculine domain) then talks to Kai’s dad about him needing to learn to box at the YMCA.  Edna is very judgmental.
• 125 – Kai and his father have the best talk to date about having been in the war, his brother Han being a Chinese boxer, and how he (TK) is American, but maybe China would be better for Kai (because he’s apparently more delicate).
• 126 – Kai’s father pulls out the gun Norman (Na-men) gave him when he was to come to the US as “an invitation to survive in the New World”
• 125, 127 – Kai is intoxicated with having communicated with his father
• 166 – Kai understands that he’s at the Y to make a man out of himself
• 182 – Kai’s father takes him out of school to go with him to the bank to deliver the money he had been trusted to transport.  He wants to teach him honesty and work ethic, but they communicate poorly.
• 195 – Mr. Lewis says not to fight with gonads.
• 209 – Studying Chinese philosophy (a la Uncle Shim) compared to boxing (a la Mr. Barazza and Mr. Lewis)
• 210 – in a scene told of the past, Mahmee tells Uncle Shim he needn’t pretend a famous poet was a male.  In the US, they can acknowledge that she was female.
• 212 – Kai’s father tells him he must choose to be Chinese or American and never change his mind.
• 215 – Kai visits Uncle Shim
• 227 – Kai visits Mr. Barraza’s room when he freaks out over his wife.
• 246-251 – Uncle Shim buys Kai new clothes, which make him look very Chinese, and takes him to the chess association meeting, where they fawn over him because they are men without families.  Shim who discouraged boxing now gloats about it.  Kai feels like a first-born son.
• 252 – Uncle Shim says Kai is their collective only son, and the hope for a new China.
• 253 – Uncle Shim compared to Hector
• 273 – after fighting against Jerome (Lucky) Washington and winning, Kai realizes it’s all so stupid but is relieved he won.
• 275 – reference to soldiers coming back from Korea after killing gooks, chinks, and commies
• 278 – Kai discovers gender difference when he realizes his sisters won’t learn to box
• 279-280 – Big Willie Mack then Jerome beat him up.  He’s depressed and skips the first Y lesson of the new year to go to the beach and remember his mother
• 284-292 – Christian images/biblical passages invoked.  Mr. Lewis finds out Kai is upset because he was beat up and because he can’t remember his mother’s face.  Kai’s fight with Big Willie is to be a baptism of boyhood
• 304 – The night before the fight, Kai sleeps with his talisman (his blankie, a picture of his mother, Hector’s Yankees hat, the tractor oil Hector gave him to throw on Willie to make him angry) in the bathtub.
• 317 – Kai beats Willie so badly he looks like Jerome’s mother after she was almost killed by her husband.  Parts of the description of the fight is in present tense
• 319 – after win, he says “Tsou gou wan ba dan” ?
• 319 – In his emotional recovery from the fight he wants to thank his coaches—Fathers.
• 322 – After the fight and having gotten cleaned up by Toos’s mom, Kai goes home, rings the doorbell, and when Edna won’t let him in, he puts up his dukes and says, “You not my Mah-mee…I ain’t fo’ yo’ pickin-on no mo’!”

Notes:

• War as an impetus to displacement, diaspora, migration, resettlement – From China, From the Handle, to the Handle, to Korea, to Europe.  Bringing Kai’s family to the Handle and Edna to them, bringing blacks to the Handle.  Fighting as an impetus of Kai leaving the Handle, finding friends, finding some economic independence which provides Chinese food and recreation.
• Gender difference.  The negative attitudes toward women and the revisions of traditions that give specific women agency.
• Obviously: masculinities, race, culture, coming of age, manhood vs. boyhood.  Feminized masculinity vs. masculinized masculinity.
• Violence: War, boxing, fighting, domestic violence, child abuse, guns, fists.  Who negotiates each, what rules exist, who’s an agent and who’s a victim, what terms are agreed upon and what terms are asserted by the party with the most power?

What Some Critics are Saying:

• The book rewrites the story of the typical American underdog by using the tension that comes from mixing races and ethnicities to produce humor (So 143).
• Lee’s novel as an example proving the following.  “In the Chinese American novel, Asian American masculinity Americanized itself in the most ironic fashion, by affirming patriarchy through violence that had previously been directed at Asian Americans en masse” (Nguyen 134).
• Cheryl Alexander Malcolm sees Edna as a representative white American figure to whom Kai rebels.
• Yichin Shen explores the relationship between domestic violence and intrafamilial power politics and the emasculation of the Chinese immigrant father figure.

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