Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

By Jamie Ford

Read in your best Estelle Getty:

Picture it. Seattle, 1942. Like most North American cities of the time, whites, blacks, Chinese and Japanese live in separate neighborhoods, their children attend different schools and prejudice is worn proudly on one's sleeve. Henry Lee’s father is a Chinese Nationalist with a deep rooted hatred for the Japanese, who are waging war in his former homeland. In Seattle, he sends 12 year-old Henry to an all-white school with an “I am Chinese” button pinned to his shirt. Naturally, he is the target of bullies who don't see the difference between Japanese and Chinese. His only deliverance is Keiko, a Japanese girl with whom he develops a lifelong bond. Although circumstances keep them apart, Henry never forgets her.

Picture it. Seattle, 1986. An older Henry, recently widowed reflects on the war years and his time with Keiko before and after her family's interment. The coincidental discovery of items left behind by Japanese-Americans in the basement of a downtown hotel inspires Henry to reveal the story of Keiko to his own son in an effort to repair their own fraying bond. 

/Estelle Getty

Jamie Ford's debut novel is a strong declaration of purpose from a promising writer. Although not without fault, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet deserves some applause its characterization of an era that doesn't get the attention it deserves from the literary community (The Japanese Internment) and deserves a certain measure of comparison to Julian Barnes's Booker Prize winning novel A Sense of an Ending in that both novels bookend of the protagonist's life via a story that begins in childhood and ends in old age (while, it would seem, stagnating during the middle part of life). In fact, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet reveals virtually nothing of Henry's forty year marriage to his wife, a two-dimensional character rendered with so little characterization that the reader is left confused as to whether Henry really ever had feelings for his wife at all. 

But that's okay because that is the sort of characterization that gets to the heart of the Chinese sense of familial duty and the complexity of the relationship between Chinese father and Chinese son. Ancestral obligations are often stronger than any personal bond one might make outside the family and Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, in that respect is an interesting examination of Chinese experience in America and the cultural shackles that stretch across the Pacific. Henry's father, though fiercely proud that he is able to live and educate his son in America, never once identifies himself or any member of his family as American. The button he forces his son to wear to school, ostensibly to keep him from being identified as a Japanese, speaks volumes about Henry's fathers ancestral and familial morality. It is equally important that Henry be identified as Not Japanese as it is for him to be identified as Not American, a point that causes more than a little friction between father and son.

Which brings us seamlessly to the subject of prejudice in this novel. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is, at its core, an interesting examination of the ingrained prejudice both within American society toward visible minorities (especially toward Japanese Americans) and the prejudices that were imported along with ethnic populations from abroad onto American soil. The racial tension not only between White Americans and Japanese Americans (which, retroactively speaking, makes a degree of sense) but also the tension between White Americans and Non-Japanese Asians (i.e. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese) and the tension between the Chinese and Japanese populations speaks volumes about the very real anxiety of the time and how very close it all came to boiling over on the home front. Though the inclusion of Sheldon, the black jazz musician did seem a tad contrived (one too many ethnicities in the literary melting pot spoils the broth, apparently). 

But not everything works in this novel. The tone is, at times, overly sentimental.

"I was so worried about my family. Worried about everything. I was confused. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what good-bye really was."

Emo during World War II? Apparently, yes. A good lesson: Let the reader feel rather than force the feeling.

As well, the prose is often repetitive. If an author employs a flashback it seems rather unnecessary to include the actual account of flashback to another character in the present, but that is precisely what Ford does at several points in this novel, giving Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet an unpolished feel. Also, Henry speaks in an unnatural, stilted manner that makes you wonder whether he was ever actually 12 years old.

But don't let saccharine sentimentality and wooden dialogue stand in the way of a decent debut. Jamie Ford's got a lot of promise as an author and overall, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is as good as any debut novel you're going to read this year or next. I mean, if you can't forgive an author a few transgressions for the sake of a good story and an interesting backdrop well, who are you anyway?

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

By Amy Chua

Ah, the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Reminds me of a story...

One Christmas during elementary school my parents bought me a guitar. I was ecstatic! My mother signed me up for lessons at a place downtown called Hi-Note and I hauled my new guitar in a pillowcase down there week after week to get private lessons with a teacher there. Problem was, I hated, hated, HATED my teacher. She scared me and didn't really inspire me to play. I was too embarrassed to tell my mom that my teacher scared me so I simply told her I wanted to quit.

She let me.

To this day, it is one of my greatest regrets. I wish I had had the vocabulary to express that it wasn't the guitar I wanted to quit but rather the teacher. But there is a part of me that also wishes that my mother had forced me to continue. I would have done so kicking and screaming, but it would have worked out in the end (or at least I imagine it would have). Long story short, with all due respect to my mum, I suspect that there are advantages to having a tiger mother.

I heard about this book about a year ago when the media circus surrounding Amy Chua's "defense of the Chinese parenting technique" sent Western parents into a feeding frenzy of contempt and scorn. Having spent the past decade living in Taiwan and dealing with parents of Chinese decent (Taiwan is 98% ethnically Chinese), I was more than a little intrigued about what Chua had to say and was curious to see how close she was to what I see from the parents of my students. More on that in a moment.

First, the nuts and bolts of this book have been discussed to death in the media and on blogs all over the Internet and I have no intention of summarizing the book here. The crux of Chua's argument (at least in the first two thirds of the book) is that, by and large, what she calls the "Chinese Parent" is far superior to the Western parent in producing math whizzes, musical prodigies and all-around model children. In the beginning, Chua lays out the checklist of things Chinese parents simply never allow their children to do:

• Attend a sleepover
• Have a play date
• Be in a school play
• Complain about being in a school play
• Watch TV or play computer games
• Choose their own extracurricular activities
• Get a Grade less than an A
• Not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• Play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• Not play the piano or violin

I can say with a degree of certainty that the above checklist describes a good number (though not all) Chinese parental expectations in Taiwan. So if anyone out there who doesn't live in or near a Chinese (or Taiwanese or Korean or Japanese) society and is appalled at that list, check yourself at the door. She's right. It's true. This is not tongue in cheek humor. This is very much the expectation for all Asian parents, more or less. Deal with that and let's move on. 

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a very interesting and often thought-provoking memoir about Chua's experiences as a Chinese-American mother raising her children (Sophia and Lulu) in the traditional Chinese fashion. Sophia and Lulu were brought up in a strict, no nonsense environment that stressed excellence and achievement over all else (happiness included). This included five to six hours of piano (or violin) per day, every day, even when they went on vacation and a strict and unbendable academic schedule that allowed the children absolutely no time for social engagements.

But one must remember that it is a memoir. A humorous memoir. A humorous memoir about parenting.  Sure, it's a humorous memoir rife with the sort of family tumult and turbulence that one only sees in the most dysfunctional families in film. But it is humor and it is a memoir. Furthermore, the last third of the book is an open admission that the Chinese parenting model isn't necessarily the best (I am a firm believer that theoretical models, especially those of the social science variety are best left in textbooks and classrooms. They never work in practice. See: communism, Chinese and Soviet application of, but I digress). It is not a guide on how to raise your child in the Chinese fashion no matter what .

Despite what so many media hounds and angry soccer moms seem to think, Chua's book, while often pretentious and snobby, isn't a validation of the Chinese model nor is it a crusade against Western methods. Rather it is one woman's experience as a mother. Chua started out with a particular goal for her children and dedicated herself and her children's childhood to achieving that goal and I believe her when she says that she did it all for her children. I know because I see it every day with the parents of my students. 

That being said, I think Chua went overboard, even by Chinese standards. I'm not vilifying her, I'm just expressing what I think based on what I've seen. While I have absolutely no doubts that Amy Chua is not even close to the most ambitious Tiger Mother in the world (the worst example most definitely lives somewhere in Mainland China and I would never, ever want to meet her or her mutant, freaky children) she is not a typical example of a Chinese mother, either. The checklist above is most certainly standard fare among Chinese parents, however I have never met a parent during my decade in Taiwan that took excellence, achievement and perfection so seriously or so far. Nor have I ever met any parent that has dedicated so much time, effort and money toward their children's education.

What Chua fails to mention is the aloofness that Chinese parents often have for their children. Succeed, yes. Parents will give children the resources in which to achieve that success. But children must do it by themselves. Parents are busy. They have jobs working for bosses that couldn't give a damn about Junior's piano recitals and I don't think I have to explain that Asians tend to work longer hours and take less vacations (if any). This system works because of the ingrained system of shame inherent in Asian cultures (guangxi). Parents push their children because they don't want to lose face among their friends and neighbors (also because until recently, there was no notion of pension in Asian countries and children were seen as insurance policies for aging parents. Push the children into high paying jobs so that the parents can live in relative comfort in their old age. Furthermore, children lose their hair and become suicidal while studying because they do not want to shame their parents or lose face among their peers. Simply put, Lulu (Chua's second, rebellious daughter) wouldn't exist in a traditional Chinese society. Lulu is a product of the west. And that's OK.

Although I have never seen a parent as involved as Chua, during my years in Taiwan I have seen glimpses of what she describes. Parents in Taiwan have the capacity to drive their children to levels of excellence that one rarely sees in Western children of the same age (especially in math, science and classical music). Much of this is rote learning, something that is very much shunned in the West in favor of making learning fun. As well, Taiwanese parents view their children as an investment for the future and therefore spend lavishly on their education. Parents enroll their children in endless after-school programs (cram schools) to give them a leg up among their classmates in everything from English, science and math to music, sports and logic. Due to this over-emphasis on study many Taiwanese children lack basic social skills and have trouble thinking critically, but that's a rant for another book.

But for every overachieving child prodigy I meet and teach in Taiwan there are dozens and dozens of entirely mediocre students. And beyond that there are just as many lazy, incompetent students who would rather sleep through class, flip the bird to their teachers and waste time until they can get home and play online games until they die in front of their computer screen at the age of 26. I would even hazard a guess that the proportion of overachievers, regular achievers and slackers is virtually the same in Asia as it is in the West. We often forget that China, alone, has over a billion people. It is over four times larger than America alone. Add Japan, Taiwan and Singapore to that mix and the numbers are staggering. Of course it produces more prodigies. It's a simple numbers game.

So I'm not sure whether Chua is entirely correct in her assertion that she raised her children in the traditional Chinese way. It is a Chinese way, but not the only way. There are variations. I would hazard a guess that what she has mistaken as the Chinese method is in actuality an immigrant method or a lower-class method. A section of parents who whether for geographical or social reasons feel the need to horse whip their children toward greatness in an attempt to drag their families from what they perceive as the margins of society into the limelight. I don't know. I'm not a social scientist, but I do know that I've never met a tiger mother of Chua proportions anywhere in Taiwan and there's more Chinese people here than anywhere in America.

But I liked this book and I learned a lot. And despite the fact that I am not the product of a tiger mother (far from it) nor do I see either myself or my (Taiwanese) wife being tiger parents I have taken a lesson or two from this book and intend to implement them, namely choosing their extracurricular activities and not allowing them to quit simply on a whim. A little pressure and a little coercion never hurt anyone and acquiring a skill is an invaluable asset later in life whether it's violin, tennis or flower arranging.

But if there is one single lesson I learned after finally reading Amy Chua's parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother it is that Americans (especially those in the news media industry) seem to have problems with reading comprehension, nuance and irony. The shit storm and fallout that pulsed, radiated and mutated from the pages of Tiger Mother seem so unwarranted and completely fabricated once you actually read the entire book (which leads me to assume that a good amount of people who did raise a fuss about this book didn't finish it). Chua's memoir is an truthful account of how she raised her children and she should be commended not only for her candid honestly but also for her ability to change gears mid-race. Furthermore, it is not a vilification of Western parents. I suspect that much of the furor this book garnered has more to do with Western fears about China than it does about Chinese parenting and that's a different issue altogether. If Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother had been written by Amitava Battacharya, it would not have generated the volume of bad press Chua's book did.

Toward the end of the book Chua seems to be obsessed with finding a  way in which to conclude, but I figure that her conclusion is embedded in the narrative. Aside from the fact that the book must have been a therapeutic exercise for Chua and her daughters, whether she intended it or not, Chua seems to suggest that parenting cannot be boiled down to models or tradition or theories. I couldn't agree more. Parenting (I imagine) is an organic process and it's fundamentally uneven, unjust and unscientific. You can impose certain ideals, but in the end each experience, each ordeal is going to be entirely different from the last. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has little to do with raising children the Chinese way and far more to do with the human adaptability, acceptance and love.

A Traveller in China

A Traveller in China

By Christina Dodwell

For anyone that is considering traveling in China (or anywhere in central or east Asia for that matter), you would be doing yourself a service by picking up a copy of Christina Dodwell's excellent travel book, A Traveller in China. Although the book is nearing thirty years of age, it is a wealth for information, and anecdotes by one of the world's most intrepid and fearless explorers. Furthermore, unlike many books on the subject of China, Dodwell dedicates the bulk of her journey to the more remote regions of the country rather than the well-worn tourist track of Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Kunming. The book resounds as much today as it may have when it was first published.

When this book was published in 1985, China was still in the midst of its gradual transition out from the disasters of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution. While it was still very much a cultural and political backwater, the machinations of things to come were already churning under the leadership of Deng, Xiao-Ping. Christina Dodwell provides a candid look at China at a crossroads: the last years prior to its Great Economic Explosion that would roll through the 1990s and continue unabated up until today.

I admire Dodwell's travel technique. She traveled China alone in the early 80s, a time when foreign travelers were a rarity, solo foreign travelers even rarer still, and solo female travelers a virtual non-entity. Having traveled through Asia extensively myself (though not China, I must admit), I can say that Dodwell was never in any real danger among the people, but certainly this trip took a lot of guts. Traveling amongst Chinese populations can be a very lonely experience if you aren't prepared.

Furthermore, Dodwell tends to stray away from the traditional hotel, restaurant, bus, hotel circuit, opting for a more granola approach. She hefts her inflatable canoe along with her and is always keen to put in along a river, lake or stream. She is also keen to stay with local people whenever it is offered, which gives her a keen insight into the lives of some of China's most misunderstood minority groups. And while she is careful not to cross paths with police or other government officials, she makes every attempt to visit places that are still "officially closed" to tourists. Dodwell makes her way to Ju Jie Shan, Lake Er Hai and Tibet.... all closed to tourists in the early 80s. In that respect, Dodwell is an intrepid, fearless explorer who provides a unique perspective on this part of Asia.

Certainly she had the pedigree. Dodwell's grandmother was a journalist during the tumultuous days prior to the Second World War and spent over ten years in China traveling and writing. Dodwell makes some effort to retrace her grandmother's path, starting in Beijing but finds that much of what existed in the 1930s had been destroyed or torn down. In her hunt for footprints left by her family, she is left disappointed.

Despite this constant flux, what Dodwell discovers on her travels through the western and southern provinces (Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Gansu and Tibet... not in that order) is a land that is not far removed from the 19th (or 18th, or 17th) century. Uighur people living in yurts, Hui people hunting and cultivating in their traditional ways, Miao people sporting their traditional dress and Tibetans dining on yak meat stew (with a bit too much animal hair). The presence and influence of the Han Chinese at the time of writing was still very much tenuous. This book was written long before the Chinese government got vigilant about relocating hordes of Han settlers into these territories in an effort to Sinicize them, a strategy that I am lead to believe is working, much to the detriment of these cultures. To be certain, Dodwell does encounter Han racism along the way. A truck driver who picks her up on the road to Lhasa is puzzled as to why she might want to spend time with Tibetans, calling them dirty and lazy.

Dodwell doesn't get much involved in editorializing her travels and never falls into the trap of cultural relativism, which is refreshing considering the majority of books I have read over the past few years on the subject of China have been largely condescending. She offers some cursory history and other essential information if it pertains to her travels but rarely strays from her own travelogue. She does, however, say enough to allow her readers to formulate their own opinions. That's a fine line, to say the least, and she walks it well, although she did make me laugh heartily when she made reference to a fellow European's fashion choices:

"The girl was wearing short shorts, which many of the younger Western travelers in China seem to wear, not realizing how this offends the local people's customs. What kind of Chinese woman would walk with bare thighs in public?"

Oh boy, Ms. Dodwell, how times change. The question today would read: "What self-respecting Chinese girl doesn't own at least two dozen pair of ultra-revealing short shorts and a multitude of miniskirts that leave little to the imagination?" I got a kick out of that line so much so that I woke my (Taiwanese) wife up just to share it with her. She failed to see the humor at 1:30am. Too bad, I guffawed.

While much of the book focuses on her travels through the vast expanse of nature in China's western provinces, paddling the lakes and rivers in and around the Tienshan Mountain Range and the Tibetan Plateau, it is the time she spends with the people that makes this book timeless. She is invited into yurts, eats everything that is offered to her, travels by horse, donkey, mule and camel and generally has a knack for familiarizing herself with shy communities. Her experiences truly feel as if they were from another century. It is a virtual certainty that she encountered communities who had never seen white people before (it is suspected that Dodwell is the first outsider to ever witness the Dragon Boat races at Lake Er Hai). There's something to say for that.

For those who are interested in the rapid transformation happening in China since the early 80s, this book offers an interesting bookend to the rise of China. It's a solo traveler's account of the country on the eve of major social and economic change. It is extraordinary to read about the cultural and economic values of China prior to the current variation. What's more, due to the rapid influx of Han people into these far flung areas has turned many of these populations into minorities in their own land. We only need to look at the state of unrest and displeasure in Xinjiang and Tibet to see the growing concern over the future of these populations.

In this respect, A Traveller in China is a book that couldn't and wouldn't get written today, which is a shame. It's the sort of book that reminds the reader of the travelogues of explorers such as Ibn Battuta or Stanley or Livingstone. Travelers who are treading new ground, seeing things from an stranger's perspective for the first time. In 2012, there are so vary few places and communities left on the planet untouched or unseen. It's awesome that Dodwell had the chance to cover ground so few outsiders had seen since (dare I say) the days of Marco Polo.

What's more, Dodwell has incited within me the first inclinations to travel in China, a country I had previously had no interest in visiting. I only fear that much like her attempts to retrace the travels of her grandmother, I would find that much of what she wrote about has been altered beyond recognition. Shame.

Classic travel literature. Highly recommended.

Why China Will Never Rule the World: Travels in the Two Chinas

Why China Will Never Rule The World: Travels in the Two Chinas

By Troy Parfitt

This is actually two books in one.

Good and bad.

At its best, Parfitt has written a readable, often witty account of his travels through China and Taiwan. His prose is decidedly readable and I found the book difficult to put down once I settled in. Each chapter catalogues a particular leg of the journey and provides fascinating historical subtext that fits the narrative. Some of the highlights include profiles of both Chiang Kai-Chek and Mao Zedong, a riveting account of cannibalism during the cultural revolution and the revolting account of Chen Chin-hsing, Taiwan's most notorious criminal. His travels include stops in Hong Kong, Macao, Lhasa, Shanghai, Harbin, Beijing, Chongqing, Kunming and Xiamen in china and virtually everywhere (except, mysteriously, Kaohsiung) in Taiwan over a span of a few years. The breadth of travel gives Parfitt a unique perspective on the wider Chinese world.

Parfitt pulls absolutely no punches when it comes to what he sees as the deficiencies inherent in Chinese culture. He refuses to accept the "you just don't understand the Chinese way of life" argument that gets bandied about by Sino-apologists (both Chinese and Western). He seems little interested in accepting Confucian ideals, communist rhetoric and the over-used "5000 years of tradition can't be wrong" argument. Instead, he attacks it head on and often comes to very erudite conclusions, many of which I have arrived as well (especially on the third of the book that pertains to Taiwan). I appreciate the no-holds-barred approach to writing and I got the feeling that if this book had been about 100 pages shorter, it would have been a really good book.

Unfortunately it's not....

Well, not entirely....

At its worst, Parfitt has written a nit-picky tract that seems to hold no real purpose beyond vilifying two nations of people. I felt like he could have written a similar book about Canadians or Finnish people or the Masai tribe. It's easy (if not cathartic) to be critical. If he had stuck to his larger, more sweeping conclusions and left his day-to-day irritants out it would have struck a grander chord. The ninth time he complains about being solicited for a massage in the middle of the night I just wanted to grab him and tell him to unplug his damned phone and quit complaining about non-issues. It lessened the impact of his valid conclusions.

Indeed, much of his writing comes across as an exhaustive rant against China (and sometimes Taiwan) which left a slightly foul taste in the my mouth. I understand that it is difficult to write a book such as this without falling foul of the politically correct crowd (of which I am not a member). But there are moments in this book where I found Parfitt flirting far too close to the line of what is acceptable to print and what should be better left unsaid. Parfitt is a classic example of an author lacking in subtlety. I realize that this book was aiming for the jugular, but there are a few instances that felt as if he was hitting below the belt.

Ofttimes, I found that Parfitt allowed his subject matter to get away from him and he allowed far too much emotion to seep into his narrative. As someone who, in a former life, worked in the publishing industry, I wonder about his editorial process. His editor was either unqualified or entirely unfamiliar with the subject matter. A good editor would have checked his emotional tirades and reigned in his rants (sorry if you read this Troy Parfitt's editor).

Overall, I recommend this book, but with a caveat. If you only plan to ever read one book about traveling through China and Taiwan, don't bother with this one. It's hardly objective. But if the subjects of China and Taiwan are of particular interest to you, it's worth the read. As an example of one man's journey through this part of the world and his frustration, it deserves a place among the growing bibliography of travel literature on the subject of the Chinese world.

In the beginning Parfitt implies that because he has no vested interest in China, his take on the subject would not be skewed by agenda. He's but a simple English teacher who lived and worked in Taipei who wanted to see for himself the rise of a global player. As a long-time resident of Taiwan I must challenge this notion. It is really difficult to live in Taiwan for an extended period of time (and be as well read as Parfitt seems to be) without having some preconceived notions about the Mainland. It's simply not possible.

In the end, I didn't expect any clear answer as to why China will never rule the world and I didn't get one. You won't get one either, but you'll probably enjoy a lot of the stories along the way. For anyone who has spent any time living inside the Chinese world, there will be much in this book to make you nod in agreement, and just as much that will make you furrow your brow in consternation.