North American Postmodern Fiction and Film, Spring 2000

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Prologue--Searches for the Bones;
1. [Kae Ying Woo] Waiting for Enlightment; pp. 19-Kae Ying and Mui Lan's early life (23-)--Fong Mei and letters(41-), and Ting An948-)
2. Ties Overseas--A Ticket In pp 57--arrangements to have a son; Morgan's search for history around the time of 1924-25 [Janet Smith](pp. 64)
3. Triangles --Fong Mei --Mui Lan-- Choy Fuk; Choy -Fuk -- Song Ann(90-104); Fong Mei-- Ting An(104-)
4. Ties to the Land--A Ticket Out  story after the two babies are born.  What's the ticket out?  Beatrice?  Hermia?  Chi?
5. Identity Crisis-- about Morgan and Sue (168); Fong Mei's 167;  Suzie's story told by Chi (Kae's 191)
6. The Writer--criticizes her own language 184;  I, the resolution, give the story some sense of purpose 209; creation not aborted 215
7. The Suicide -- Suzie's perspective before the suicide
Epilogue New Moon

A. The novel as a Historiographical Metafiction:

a. to understand the present sense of constraint and mystery by trying to understand the past 'histories.'
b. Histories re-written --adding a mythic frame, giving plural plotlines to show the parallel between racial/gender oppression in the public space and that in the private space
c. From achieving historical understanding to taking action in the present

I) the mythic frame: a. the importance of aborigenes and hybrid origins (e.g. Kelora and her family; Kelora pp. 3, 4, 7, 8-9-the Indian girl, half Chinese 3; who is uncivilized p. 3-4; K's soothing power 10); 

b. the meaning of searching for bones (pp. 2, 6, 12-13) --finding heroism in the history of oppression; understanding their loneliness (11); differences in generations (17)

c. source of Gwei-Chang's guilt -- his dream p. 6

II) history of China town centered on a family and a few houses:
1) the positioin of Disappearing Moon: p. 32; where Morgan lives p. 69;

2) historical problems: China town before the end Chinese Exclusion Act (in 1947)-- a bachelar society, with paper brides, maids and lonely men all suffering from separation from their larger families-- like derelicts, neither here nor there  77;
i. the historical problems of China town:

--isolated and constrained; men frustrated and absent-minded, leaving women fighting against each other; Mui Lan's and Fong Mei's loneliness 188;
-- lack of women--Keeman and Beatrice's Chinatown ties 164-65
-- claustrophobia: Sue's need to be out; Chinamen as outlaws 221; Ting Ann's sense of China Town (107)

ii. China town -- with its own hierarchy in the Chinese Benevolent Association, locked up and contraining: p/ 74; 77; extra floor; p. 78 heat;
iii. Generation differences:
a. Gwei-Chang's awareness of changes -- 79;

 
3) generations of Chinese immigrants:
a) Chinese laborers Kwei Chang meets pp. 11-12; Old Chen 5;   --dispersed in different camps, surly, lonely.
b) Kwei Chang as part of the young generation vs. the old chinamen (being called "old women" 17); Chinese Benevolent Association active, bone-picking for proper burial and, for Kwei Chang, re-living their history;
c) the older and younger generation in Chinatown 80; Choy-Fuk vs. his father 33;
d) generation differences shown in Janet Smith case: pp. 226-27 "With words [Gwei Chang] swept away the coolie generals, himself included" (227).

 4) the unknown part in history: pp. 20; Janet Smith case; its multiple interpretations 221 -
 
  5) multiple interpretation--(the narrator's interpretation) p. 66; p. 221-22 of JS event; Morgan's pp. 67-70; Chinamen's; Gwei Chang's

• Mui Lan vs. Fong Mei; Mui Lan vs. Song Ann (the waitress)
• Mui Lan--  her discontent--no baby, no friends 25, silence 26

-- bodiless, soulless, she became demanding and noisy
-- relies on him for her identity "merchant's wife" 28
-- see daughters-in-law as unidentified receptacles--her self-hatred
• grandmother (Fong Mei): and her sister;

-- her letter 45 (reveals what she feels about the family, the house, her experience of migration); 94;
-- the misery of young bride 49;
-- speaks 187
• Both migrate to join their husbands; both are lonely.
• Song Ann 92, 93-
• The Men:
• Gwei Chang mysterious; relaxed;
• Choy Fuk-- afraid of his mother; impatient with his wife 94-96; powerless outside 97-99; dependant on Song An 100-104
• Ting An's sympathy for Fong Mei  53-

 

3. The Metafictional: Kae Ying's perspectives --

historical perspectives of the family romance: e.g. Kae Ying's interpretation of his great granny: 31--"My dumb great-granny"--she becomes a tyrant; her view of Fong Mei 37.

• a great Chinese tragedy--caused by history 179; "we're all related at the end" 69;
• Women's position-- like orphan: "If you were a little child, desperately trying to cling to somebody who refuses to nurture you, you would get quite hysteric too."  "Grown women are orphan --children" p. 138
•  tthey rwee ungrounded women, living with displaced chinamen, and everyone trapped by circumstances.  I prefer to romanticize them as a lineage of women with passion and fierceness in their veins.  p. 145
• Beatrice and Chi  129-

p. 352  Suzanne's ghost--"All this bondage we volunteer on ourselves!  Untie them!  Untie me!"
The narrator, Kae, exclaims her freedom: "after three generations of struggle, the daughters are free!"

1. reconstruction of four kinds of fragments--historical and personal: 1) bones, 2) broken family (revelation of secret: p. 32; 132; the return of the "lost babies 132), 3) unknown history (JS bill), 4) Kae Ying's identity.
2. Kae's reconstruction of histories: the parallel and intersections of public and private histories, with Kae as the final answer (209)
3. Kae's writing --

• the conscious use of romance elements
• A use of romance:
• revelation p. 22;
• Morgan's and Kae's response to romance and mystery  66 (history as mystery); 70 (need of romance)
• Fong Mei and Ting An 184 (different ways of writing)
• titles 208-209
• Romance explained -- see above pp. 138, 145
• the narrator's self awareness:
• tries to break the mother's silence180
• writing--In writing, I feel like a drunk weaving all over the road.  ...How many ways are there to tell stories? 185-
• Kae Ying's growth beyond her personal "problems":
  1. at 17:  attracted to Morgan -- 64-65; feel something was going on 121 --> lost Morgan with his alcoholism;--> Morgan's story 136 (about the fight);
  2. Kae Ying's sense of family lineage and fear of risks 1971 p. 41; disappointed at moment of birthing: kinship for enlightenment 19; --> walk out of her marriage
  3. her interpretation of "female-bag" 62-63. --> need Chi and mother's support
  4. her understanding of the Chinese men and women
  5. I, the resolution, give the story some sense of purpose 209
• K and Sue:
• look like Sue 87;
• creation not aborted 215
• K and the marginalized: Hermia and Chi
• -the misplaced bastard daughter of a gangster and his moll 41
• Hermia 38- 39  a bare and newborn baby; loves and understands Kae Ying; wants her to write 138;
• "legitimate, traditional and conventional were the adjectives to wear in those days, esp. when I suspected my own identity might be as defective."  -dual personality
• mutual comfort 210
• Chi--not a pure Chinese; the one to help Beatrice and Kae Ying. pp. 127 -
• Kae Ying's self-reflexiveness and writing process:  --
• use of spatial metaphors and those of house/home: i. Kae's view of China town: 67; Kae in her room, her sense of space 122; Beatrice's sense of space 144-45; Sue's sense of the old house 212;
  ii. the mother and daughter-in-law's fight; p. 137; 

iii. Ting An 184 (--> metaphor of writing as taking different routes)

• fictional self-consciousness: history as reconstructions 136; reality-- lives are stories 209
• criticizes her own language 184;
• Dialogism: allow different women to speak
• listens to Morgan's, the mother's and Chi's stories;
• write her own stories in which all the women speak and Morgan speak and offer their interpretations; pp. 185-; Fong Mei's perspective pp. 186-
• present Sue's story from her perspective. p. 211--
• final letters: the letter to Hermia about "reality" 214-15.
• The Endings (Disappearing Moon to New Moon) -- 1) with her action; 2) broader understanding of the historical circumstances of the Chinese women's and men's conflicts and sense of oppression. 3) Gwei Chang's repentence and mythic reunion with Kelora

• Theories of melodrama

   The Transnational China Project