Setting and Historical Context
The novel takes place in the 1940s, and the majority of the plot takes place in New York's Chinatown. Segments of the plot occur in other locations as well, including:
- Sunwei, China
- Stanton, Connecticut (possibly a reference to Stamford, Connecticut?)
- Washington, D.C.
- Newark, New Jersey
- San Francisco, CA
Chu's novel begins right after the close of World War II. Numerous references are made to the Asian American soldiers represented by Ben Loy. After the war, many elderly men were confined to the cities of San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, and New York City, as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and Immigration Act of 1924 had prevented them from returning to their wives and family in China and also from bringing these family members to the United States. For this reason, many Chinatowns in the USA were "bachelor societies." This unfortunate predicament is depicted through the old men of the novel, such as Wah Gay and Lee Gong, but it also plays out in the way Mei Oi's arrival affects the entire community. In fact, the conflict of the novel arises from the repeal of the Exclusion Act in 1943, for Mei Oi could not have come to the States before then.
Another aspect of the novel is the effect of Chinese American men on life back in China. Chinese men who had emigrated to the United States were known as gimshunhocks, or "sojourner in Gold Mountain" from the Chinese name for America. These men were highly desirable husbands for young women in China, as is seen in Mei Oi's willingness to marry Ben Loy.
Read more about this topic: Eat A Bowl Of Tea
Famous quotes containing the words setting and, setting, historical and/or context:
“Teaching Black Studies, I find that students are quick to label a black person who has grown up in a predominantly white setting and attended similar schools as “not black enough.” ...Our concept of black experience has been too narrow and constricting.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“Love is at the root of all healthy discipline. The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways that give their parents pleasure rather than displeasure. it may even be our own long-ago fear of losing our parents’ love that now sometimes makes us uneasy about setting and maintaining limits. We’re afraid we’ll lose the love of our children when we don’t let them have their way.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)