Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

Amy Tan’s short story “A Pair of Tickets,” has June May crossing an ocean to visit her family that she has never met, where she connects with her Chinese heritage in a way she was never able to before. On her trip, she discovers the depth and importance of her culture through her family members. The main character, June May, is a woman of Chinese heritage, from San Francisco, California. Growing up in the United States, in a very American environment, June May feels as though she never truly understood what it meant to be Chinese. As she soon learns, however, June May realizes that through her own family she can connect with the heritage that bonds them all together.

For Kingston, she had become separated from part of her heritage. She struggled in attempting to understand the meaning of this heritage in a world that is different from the older generations. She illustrates this confusion and difficulty in attempting to understand her cultural roots when she says, "Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese and what is the movies? (Kingston 5)." Kingston wants to tap into this old world her parents and ancestors belong to in order to

Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture.  As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.

The tale “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luch Wang depicts the story of three characters, Monkey, Jin, and Danny. They all have the problem of fitting into their new environments. Jin Wang has to deal with Asian stereotypes. Danny has to deal with embarrassment of his cousin. Lastly, Monkey has to deal with the fact that there is no position for him in the heavenly ranks. However, over time, these characters have to come together to fit in. Yet the question remains: what exactly about fitting in is the problem? Although Jin Wang takes the form of Danny to reject his Chinese roots, the embarrassment of Chin-Knee shows he cannot hide behind a false American identity, thereby delineating that race is the source of his problem.

Another question arises: what is a “narrative of ethnicity” in diasporic context? Choy explains how immigrants are to preserve their ethinic identity, yet they adapt to their social context. The children feel the same resentment and distaste for Chinese. Jook-Liang forces herself to speak English at home in her efforts to be more like Shirley Temple. She speaks to herself in English while practicing her dance routine (Choy, 36) and uses it as a tool to feel less Chinese. The children have jarring associations to learning and speaking

Frank Chin has been the most vocal critic of Kingston's who accused her "of reinforcing white fantasies about Chinese Americans" (Chin, 1991) and claimed that writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang who won approval of the American white readers deliberately distorted the image of Chinese American to reinforce stereotypes and cater to the fantasies of American readers about a traditionalist Chinese culture. (Frank Chin, 1991, pp. 3-29)

“Rules of the Game” written by Amy Tan is a short story that focuses on the conflict in identity that Chinese Americans face when growing up with influences from both the cultures. The physical and social settings of “Rules of the Game” create an atmosphere which helps to bring out the true essence of the story. Amy Tan’s “The

Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of

In the story “Two Kinds”, author Amy Tan, who is a Chinese-American, describes the conflicts in the relationship of a mother and daughter living in California. The protagonist in this story Jing-mei Woo’s mother is born and raised in China, and immigrates to the United States to escape from the Chinese Civil War. For many years she maintained complete Chinese traditional values, and has been abided by it deliberately. This kind of traditional Chinese culture has also affected her daughter profoundly. However, Jing-mei is born and raised in the United States. Despite she has a Chinese mother; she is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Chinese

     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,

At this point in her autobiography, Kingston remains disoriented about her position in the two enveloping cultures, and Ling suggests this idea by considering the significance of Kingston's two culturally different responses rather than only one- either American or Chinese.

In the mid 19th century, America was viewed as a hotspot for freedom and wealth. When the noise of the gold rush flooded the world, immigrants started to see America more appetizing than ever. The Chinese saw America as a place to have a fresh start and as a place of refuge because of it’s generosity, so they immigrated to the west in great numbers. There was a large Chinese population in Virginia and all along the Pacific coast. Writers Mark Twain and Maxine Hong Kingston both wrote in great detail about the Chinese Immigrants. They went into detail about the immigrants and how they came over and why. Although Twain and Kingston both wrote about the immigrants in a positive light, Twain was sympathetic of the immigrants and Kingston focused more on their image and her ancestors.

In Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Kingston, the main character Wittman is a highly educated artist who searches to find a way to simultaneously express himself as an artist and fit within a community. When we meet him, he has not yet discovered how to express his art in a way that is acceptable either to the Chinese American or American communities. He is a fourth generation Chinese American who finds himself marginalized by the American community because he is viewed as Chinese, but he is also not accepted by the Chinese American community for his art because it incorporates too much of American culture. Disgusted by his lack of acceptance, Wittman at first wants to withdraw into creating his art just for creation’s sake, but then sees a way to satisfy his artistic aspirations by exploiting the desires of other Chinese Americans who want a culture that celebrates their community. He writes a play that creates a new community that embraces all of the Chinese Americans, but also celebrates all of them as individuals. Ultimately, Wittman uses his own desire to be an acclaimed playwright and accepted individual to forge a new Chinese American society within the play that celebrates everyone’s individuality, highlighting Wittman’s.

The novel Typical American by Gish Jen primarily explores the complex nature of building an American identity as a Chinese immigrant. This novel is set post-World War II throughout the 1940s in both China and America, thus highlighting the cultural differences between these two settings. Ralph’s journey in China as a child and his move to America to pursue a doctorate degree in engineering is a key aspect of the start of the novel. This character then meets his sister, Theresa, and his future wife, Helen, later in the novel as he struggles to adjust to life in America. All three of these characters immigrate from China to America and therefore struggle to maintain their traditional Chinese values without becoming caught up in the mainstream

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston crafts a fictitious memoir of her girlhood among ghosts. The book’s classification as a memoir incited significant debate, and the authenticity of her representation of Chinese Americanism was contended by Asian American scholars and authors. The Woman Warrior is ingenuitive in its manipulation of the autobiographical genre. Kingston integrates the importance of storytelling in the evolution of her identity and relates her method of exploring self-discovery to the dominant themes about silence and the translation of tradition. Throughout her work, Kingston reaches a variety of conclusions about the stories her mother told her by performing her interpretation of talk-story. Consequently, there is inaccuracy in Kingston’s storytelling, which cultivates the sense that Kingston is reshaping and untangling the tales of her ancestral tradition to fulfill her personal narrative about identity. Kingston fictionalizes her memoir through storytelling in order to convey the thematic significance of defying silence, breaking from objectivity, and the translation of Chinese traditions to America.