Eat A Bowl of Tea - Setting and Historical Context

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.