Summary
The first part of the novel is narrated by Jook-Liang ("Only Sister," sometimes called Liang-Liang). It begins in 1933; at this time, Jook-Liang is 5 years old, and has two older brothers, Kiam (aged 10) and Jung (aged 7). Stepmother is also pregnant with another child. Stepmother is significantly younger than her husband (Father) and was born in China. As a small child, her entire family was killed in a violent attack, and after spending time at a Christian missionary school, Stepmother was purchased by Father's family to be groomed as his future concubine. When she was 20, she was sent to Canada to begin living with Father. Their relationship deepened, and Stepmother became his de facto second wife. Stepmother is (in spite of her name) Jook-Liang's biological mother. Kiam, the eldest son, is the son of Father's first wife, who has died, and Jung is adopted. Grandmother ("Poh-Poh") is Father's elderly mother, and holds a lot of authority within the family. She is the one to decide that Stepmother will be called Stepmother, and what her role in the family will be. Grandmother is in her 70s, and has lived in Canada for 35 years, but often tells stories of her past in China. She worked as a servant for a wealthy and cruel family.
On the night that the plot begins, a man named Wong Bak (sometimes known as "Old Wong", and later, as "Wong Suk") is coming to have dinner with the family. Wong Bak is an elderly man who knows Grandmother from their time in China; he immigrated to Canada and has been living in the small town of Yale, British Columbia. Now that he is growing too old to live alone, he has moved to Vancouver and been connected with Father's family, since he is from the same village. In the 1880s, many men began to emigrate from China to Western Canada to work on building the railroad. In 1923, the Canadian government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which severely limited and restricted the entry of Chinese immigrants into Canada. This meant that many men like Wong Bak were unable to either bring family members to Canada, or return to China. The Great Depression only made the situation worse for the men known as "Old China bachelor men," who often ended up living in poverty in Vancouver's Chinatown neighborhood.
Before Wong Bak arrives, Father sternly tells his children that they must act respectfully and not be startled by Wong's appearance. When Wong arrives, he is hunched and has an unusual face that many people might find ugly or grotesque. However, Jook-Liang is immediately intrigued; Wong Bak reminds her of the Monkey King in the stories that Grandmother sometimes tells her. He also reminds Jook-Liang of Cheetah, the monkey who is the companion to Tarzan in the popular film. Jook-Liang has been to see the Tarzan film, and she often plays games with her brothers in which one is Tarzan and one is Cheetah, while she is Jane. Jook-Liang horrifies her parents by reaching out to tug at Wong Bak's face, but he finds her charming. He does not mind when Jook-Liang comments on him resembling a monkey, and he invites her to call him Wong Suk, a more informal name that signifies closeness between them.
The narrative resumes three years later; Jook-Liang is now 9 years old, and her youngest brother, Sek-Lung, is almost 3. Sek-Lung is sickly, and Jook-Liang is often impatient with having to care for her little brother. She is also indignant when Grandmother tells her that girls are worthless in comparison to boys. Jook-Liang continues to be close to Wong-Suk, and when the story resumes, he has just purchased her beautiful red ribbons. Grandmother ties the ribbons to Jook-Liang's tap shoes. Grandmother learned to tie elaborate decorative knots while working as a servant when she was a young girl. However, she has not passed this skill down to her grandchildren. Jook-Liang dreams of becoming a famous movie star or performer, and she sometimes challenges her grandmother's more traditional beliefs.
Many of the adults around her are preoccupied with the war between China and Japan, but Jook-Liang is focused only on her own life. Jook-Liang interweaves stories about her own experiences with stories she has heard about her grandmother's childhood in China. Grandmother was born to a poor farming family in a small village, and her father was disappointed that she was a girl. She was also premature, but her mother insisted on caring for her. Against all odds, Grandmother grew up to be a beautiful woman; Father is her only child.
Jook-Liang and Wong Suk spend time together every week, and often go to see movies together. Jook-Liang has also learned to tap dance. When she goes out with Wong Suk, Jook-Liang is never embarrassed, even when other people make fun of Wong Suk's appearance. She loves hearing his stories, and she is very protective of their friendship. While attending mah-jong games with Stepmother and other women, Jook-Liang has heard them speculating about Wong Suk's appearance, as well as gossiping about sex, but Jook-Liang is still too young to understand many of these conversations.
One Saturday, Jook-Liang waits for Wong Suk to come and meet her so that the two can spend the day together. She is surprised that Wong Suk is late, and begins to think about the previous Saturday. On that day, Wong Suk came to the house, and he and Father went through many old documents, including employment and immigration records. Jook-Liang realized that the information on some of the different documents was contradictory, giving, for example, different birthdates for Wong Suk. The documents include information about how Wong Suk incurred debt for his immigration costs, which he then had to work off, and how he had to pay a head tax to the Canadian government in order to immigrate. Father and Wong Suk were creating some sort of plan that required the papers as documentation, but they were very guarded and made sure Jook-Liang did not know exactly what they were discussing. She was surprised that Father gave Wong Suk some money and encouraged Wong Suk to spend the money on their outing that day.
Jook-Liang is interested in thinking about Wong Suk's history; for example, she loves the story of how Wong Suk acquired an elegant wool cloak. The cloak was gift from a man named Roy Johnson, who was a supervisor and senior official when Wong Suk worked on the CPR railroad shortly after coming to Canada. One day, Wong Suk found Johnson passed out on the train tracks, in danger of either freezing to death or dying from his injuries (he had been badly beaten up in a fight). Wong Suk saved Johnson's life, but refused to accept any of the gifts that Johnson offered in thanks. When Johnson died years later, he left his cloak to Wong Suk, who accepted it and has worn it ever since.
After Jook-Liang grows more and more confused, Wong Suk finally arrives at her house. He explains that he is going to be sailing back to China later that day: he is going to accompany a shipment of bones. The bones belong to men who died in Canada but wished to be repatriated back to China. Jook-Liang is confused, and can't fully process what is happening. The whole family—including Jook-Liang, her parents, and her brothers—accompany Wong Suk to the harbor where he will be boarding his ship. Jook-Liang watches as Wong Suk boards the ship, and sails away. She feels a deep sense of loss and sadness as she watches her dearest friend sail away.
Analysis
Choy's writing makes use of a precise setting, vividly conjuring up the world of Vancouver's Chinatown at a specific moment in history. Throughout the novel, there will be two kinds of history at play: the geopolitical history of events such as World War II, the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), and the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, as well as the deeply personal history of individuals. For Jook-Liang, her experience of a friendship with Wong Suk is just as significant as her experience of war; in fact, because she is a child at the time, she is much more preoccupied with her personal experiences and memories. Throughout the novel, Choy utilizes a pattern in which the child-protagonists hint at the context of large-scale historical events, but also display a more immediate preoccupation with events occurring in their own lives and families.
The retrospective narration and use of the past tense situates Jook-Liang as reflecting back on her childhood memories. There is thus a doubled narration in which the reader has access to both Jook-Liang's emotions and reactions as a child, and also to her older voice providing context for the subsequent meaning these events had. The retrospective narration of childhood experiences is particularly powerful when paired with historical fiction because both work to reconstruct the past based on memories and narrative. Readers interested in a specific time period are often drawn to read fiction set in that time rather than non-fiction works of history because novelists provide a more immersive experience of imagining what individuals living at that time thought, felt, and encountered. While Choy's work can be read to provide insight into the Chinese-Canadian experience at a particular point in time, it also focuses on more universal themes of family, coming-of-age, and conflict between traditions and modernity.
Jook-Liang's story focuses on the transformative experience of establishing a bond with someone outside of her immediate family; because she is so young, meeting Wong Suk and establishing a friendship with him is one of Jook-Liang's first acts of independence. She acts completely contrary to her parents' expectations, since they fear that she will be frightened by Wong Suk's appearance. Jook-Liang does not care that Wong Suk looks different from most people; in fact, she finds his appearance fascinating. In a novel with many examples of xenophobia and racially-motivated discrimination, Jook-Liang's reaction to Wong Suk reveals an example of innocent curiosity and wonder in the face of difference; she doesn't pretend not to notice that Wong Suk looks different, but she truly sees that difference as captivating. Jook-Liang's fearless affection for him marks a moment of healing for Wong Suk, who has encountered a lot of suffering and prejudice in his life. Unlike the many people who have discriminated against him for a variety of reasons, Jook-Liang shows unconditional love and acceptance. Michelle Hartley points out that the surprising bond between the two may be explained by the fact that both have low social status within their community: "neither of them, bachelor man or little girl, is otherwise valued within the community" (71). Jook-Liang is too young to have value (she cannot yet marry and produce children), and Wong Suk is too old (he is not going to have a family or achieve prosperity).
While Jook-Liang and Wong Suk's friendship brings them both much joy, it also creates the first moment of real grief and loss in Jook-Liang's life. In all of the three narratives, Choy will show how loss can catalyze the process of growing up. Jook-Liang is extremely upset that Wong Suk is leaving, especially because his departure is so sudden, but the separation is symbolic of future moments where loved ones will depart, such as the subsequent death of her grandmother. Wong Suk's departure reveals the inevitability of change, and also challenges Jook-Liang's childish self-absorption. When Wong Suk leaves her, she is only capable of feeling grief and frustration in the moment, but the retrospective narration makes it possible for Choy to show that she subsequently looks back on the moment with compassion and empathy.
In addition to the specific plotline concerning her friendship with Wong Suk, Jook-Liang's section introduces important themes around the tension between tradition and modernity, and between different cultures. Because Jook-Liang is the only daughter in the family, Grandmother places particular cultural expectations on her, and also sees a different affinity between them than what she shares with her son or grandsons. Grandmother's history is slowly revealed over the course of the three narratives, acting as an overarching element in the novel's three distinct sections. While Jook-Liang's childish perspective often focuses on her complaints about Grandmother, readers can infer that Grandmother has led an extremely hard life and has coped with resilience and strength. While she can sometimes be harsh with her grandchildren, she wants to equip them with skills to survive, and also to maintain pride and dignity in their cultural heritage.
Because Jook-Liang was born in Canada, she has been exposed to North American culture, even while living in a fairly sheltered community and mostly interacting with other individuals of Chinese descent. Her fascination with Hollywood movies reflects the pervasive influence of American culture; in contrast with her day-to-day life, movies provide Jook-Liang with escapism, glamor, and fantasies of what her life could be like. Nonetheless, she also synthesizes her exposure to Hollywood culture with the more traditional Chinese stories she has learned in her home. Part of why Jook-Liang is drawn to Wong Suk is because he fuses in her imagination the Chinese myth of the Monkey King, and the western Hollywood character of Cheetah (a monkey). While Jook-Liang wants to be able to explore Western culture and form her own ideals and fantasies, she is also able to fuse and hybridize this cultural intake with her own heritage.
