Do you enjoy reading Amy Tan, Gish Jen, and other Chinese-American or American-Chinese authors? Are you interested in the history of Chinese communities in the USA? And do you, like me, occasionally enjoy escaping from the pressure of having to keep up with "what's new" on the book market and sit down with a slightly dusty volume that was last borrowed from your local library more than ten years ago? If your answer is "yes" to all of the above, you might want to have a look at Chinatown Family by Lin Yutang (1895-1976).

Lin Yutang was a unique figure on the Chinese literary scene of the 1930s. Whereas most Chinese literary publications of that decade were, in one way or other, deeply involved with pressing political issues of the time, such as the conflicts between Nationalists and Communists, or the mounting Japanese invasion, Lin Yutang made his name as editor of and contributor to a number of literary magazines that featured stylish personal essays and advocated, before anything else, a good sense of humour (youmo in Chinese). Meanwhile Lin, who had studied at Harvard and whose English was impeccable, regularly published in English and obtained best-selling author status in the USA after the publication of My Country and My People in 1935. Lin moved to the US in 1936 and continued to publish books in English, most of them intended to foster understanding for China and Chinese culture among the American people.

Chinatown Family was first published in English in 1948 and recounts the life of a Chinese laundryman (Tom Fong) and his family, living in New York's Chinatown in the 1930s. The story begins with the arrival in the US of Mother Fong (although she is a central character in the book, she is never given a first name) and her two youngest children (Tom Jr. and Eva), where they join Tom Sr. and his two oldest sons, Daiko ("Big Brother") and Yiko ("Second Brother", who calls himself "Freddie"). Tom Sr. has been in the States for years, having arrived in the years of the goldrush, worked on the railways, and finally settled down as a laundryman in New York. The story focuses on the experiences of the younger children, especially Tom Jr., as they slowly find their place in American society.

Although the family goes through various ups and downs, including the tragic death of Tom Sr. halfway through the book, the narrative remains generally upbeat and in the end, the family's (especially the mother's) hard work and frugality pay off: the Fongs are able to get out of the laundry business, open a restaurant in Chinatown and become respected members of the Chinese community. Moreover, Tom Jr. gets to marry his beloved Elsie Tsai, the young Mandarin teacher in the Chinatown school.

Lin Yutang shows a keen eye for cultural differences, illustrated by the different ways in which members of the Fong family adjust to their environment. Tom Jr., for instance, even though soon after his arrival he learns English and comes to appreciate much of what his new country has to offer, continues to represent throughout the novel the traditional Chinese gentleman's virtues of politeness and non-violence, as in the following scene, where he is accosted by a classmate at school:

"You're not going to get away like this. You Chinaman."
Tom turned round. "What's wrong with Chinamen?"
"You're a furriner."
"And you?"
"I'm an American."
"And your father, Hruschka?"
"I won't let you say anything about my father. He came to America."
"So did I, like your father."
Ziffy was furious. But Tom was out of reach already. Holding Eva's hand, he walked out of the school yard, to the amazement of all the boys.
"What was the matter?" asked Eva.
"It's nothing. He called me Chinaman. I don't see what's wrong with that. It's like Englishman, Frenchman, Dutchman, laundryman. I don't see what's wrong with the word."

In contrast, Tom's older brother Freddie appears to do his best to become a perfect American, to the extent that he even speaks to his siblings in English (with a mixture of a Chinese and New York accent faithfully reproduced by the author). Freddie's reaction to the scene above is typical:

"De trouble wit' us Chinese," said Yiko, speaking now in English to them, "is dat we don't stand up for ourselves. You stand up and fight, dey like you. If you don't fight, dey don't. Hold your chin up and face de world. Dat's what I do. I see an Amelican. I go up to him and slap him on the shoulder and say hello. He act kinda scared and wonder who you are. See? If you stand up for your right, he t'inks you're right. If you don't stand up for your right and say nutting, he t'inks you're wrong. So long as you don't hit a lady, it's all right."

In Tom Jr.'s courtship of Elsie Tsai, the greatest stumbling block is also of a cultural kind: Elsie is from a scholar's family in Shanghai and fascinates Tom with her speech and behaviour, but at the same time makes him ashamed of his laundryman's background, which leads to a number of misunderstandings. Tom's oldest brother, Daiko, is married to Clara, who is Italian and a Catholic, which leads to some more amusing scenes, such as Mother Fong putting sacrifices in front of an image of the Virgin Mary to thank her for blessing Clara with a son. The family also has an absurd yet funny run-in with the iconic Mayor of New York Fiorello La Guardia.

All in all, Chinatown Family, though thoroughly melodramatic and certainly not the greatest of literature, provides an interesting, at times funny, and generally sensitive picture of Chinese-American life in the 1930s, written by a gifted author who knew both cultures inside out

Copies of Chinatown Family can be purchased online through Bookfinder.com.

Michel Hockx teaches modern Chinese literature and language in the East Asia Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of A Snowy Morning: Eight Chinese Poets on the Road to Modernity (Leiden: CNWS, 1994) and editor of The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China (University of Hawaii Press, 1999). He can be reached via email at: mh17@soas.ac.uk