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Issues for discussion:
1. History: CPR building, China town and the historical event of Janet Smith (1924)(1923, Chinese Exclusion Act )
1) the mythic frame: the importance of aborigenes (e.g. Kelora and her family; Kelora pp. 3, 4, 7, 8-9-the Indian girl, half Chinese 3; who is uncivilized p. 3-4; K''s soothing power 10); the meaning of searching for bones (pp. 2, 6, 12-13)
2) history of China town centered on a family and a few houses:
a) the positioin of Disappearing Moon: p. 32; where Morgan lives p. 69;
b) China town -- with its own hierarchy, locked up and contraining: p/ 74 extra floor; p. 78 heat;
c) Kae''s view of China town: 67; Kae in her room, her sense of space 122; Beatrice''s sense of space 144-45; Sue''s sense of the old house 212;
d) metaphors of house: the mother and daughter-in-law''s fight; p. 137; Ting An 184
3) generations of Chinese immigrants:
a) Chinese laborers Kwei Chang meets pp. 11-12; Old Chen 5; --dispersed in different camps, surly, lonely.
b) Kwei Chang''s generation: Chinese Benevolent Association active;
c) the older and younger generation 80; Choy-Fuk vs. his father 33;
d) China town: paper bride and family broken apart; like derelicts, neither here nor there 77;
e) the historical problems of China town:
--isolated and constrained; men frustrated and absent-minded, leaving women fighting against each other; Mui Lan''s and Fong Mei''s loneliness 188;
-- lack of women--Keeman and Beatrice''s Chinatown ties 164-65
-- claustrophobia: Sue''s need to be out; Chinamen as outlaws 221
4) the unknown part in history: pp. 20; Janet Smith case
5) multiple interpretation--(the narrator''s interpretation) p. 66; p. 221-22 of JS event; Morgan''s pp. 67-70; Chinamen''s; Gwei Chang''s
2. the positions of women in the Wong family and China town:
- Mui Lan vs. Fong Mei; Mui Lan vs. Song Ann (the waitress)
- Mui Lan-- her discontent--no baby, no friends 25, silence 26
-- bodiless, soulless, she became demanding and noisy
-- relies on him for her identity "merchant''s wife" 28
-- see daughters-in-law as unidentified receptacles--her self-hatred
- grandmother (Fong Mei): and her sister;
-- her letter 45 (reveals what she feels about the family, the house, her experience of migration); 94;
-- the misery of young bride 49;
-- speaks 187
- Both migrate to join their husbands; both are lonely.
- Song Ann 92, 93-
- The Men:
- Gwei Chang mysterious; relaxed;
- Choy Fuk-- afraid of his mother; impatient with his wife 94-96; powerless outside 97-99; dependant on Song An 100-104
- Ting An''s sympathy for Fong Mei 53-
- historical perspectives of the family romance: e.g. Kae Ying''s interpretation of his great granny: 31--"My dumb great-granny"--she becomes a tyrant; her view of Fong Mei 37.
- a great Chinese tragedy--caused by history 179; "we''re all related at the end" 69;
- Women''s position-- like orphan: "If you were a little child, desperately trying to cling to somebody who refuses to nurture you, you would get quite hysteric too." "Grown women are orphan --children" p. 138
- they were ungrounded women, living with displaced chinamen, and everyone trapped by circumstances. I prefer to romanticize them as a lineage of women with passion and fierceness in their veins. p. 145
- Beatrice and Chi 129-
p. 352 Suzanne''s ghost--"All this bondage we volunteer on ourselves! Untie them! Untie me!"
The narrator, Kae, exclaims her freedom: "after three generations of struggle, the daughters are free!"
3. the novel as a Kunstlerinroman (story of the growth of a female artist)
- reconstruction of four kinds of fragments: 1) bones, 2) broken family (revelation of secret: p. 32; 132; "lost babies 132), 3) unknown history (JS bill), 4) Kae Ying''s identity.
- the conscious use of romance elements:
- revelation p. 22;
- Morgan''s and Kae''s response to romance and mystery 66; 70
- Fong Mei and Ting An 184
- titles 208-209;
- the narrator''s self awareness:
- tries to break the mother''s silence180
- writing--In writing, I feel like a drunk weaving all over the road. ...How many ways are there to tell stories? 185-
- Kae Ying''s growth:
- at 17: 64-65;
- lost Morgan with his alcoholism;--> Morgan''s story 136 (about the fight);
- Kae Ying''s fear of risks 1971 p. 41
- disappointed at moment of birthing: kinship for enlightenment 19; her interpretation of "female-bang" 62-63.
- Disappearing Moon to New Moon
- K and Sue:
- K and the marginalized: Hermia and Chi
- Kae Ying''s self-reflexiveness and writing process: --
- fictional self-consciousness: history as reconstructions 136; reality lives are stories 209
- criticizes her own language 184;
- allow different women to speak
- listens to Morgan''s, the mother''s and Chi''s stories;
- write her own stories in which all the women speak and Morgan speak and offer their interpretations; pp. 185-
- present Sue''s story from her perspective.
- I, the resolution, give the story some sense of purpose 209;
- the letter to Hermia about "reality" 214-15.
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creation not aborted 215
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