Memoir project #4: The Jade Peony
I finished The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy last night, after having read it for only a few days (a quick read for me - I read slowly). It's a fiction book set at the end of the Depression in Vancouver's Chinatown, so basically it's historical fiction. Choy has done a LOT of research judging by the author's notes (and I've read - and own - one of the history books he references!). The narrative does NOT feel research-heavy, though; he does an excellent job of dropping you into the middle of this time period and this neighbourhood. As one of the reviews of the sequel (All That Matters) says, he does a good job of teaching readers without seeming like he's teaching.
The book is separated into three parts, each narrated by a different family member - one sister and two brothers. It is very much a character-driven story (and Chinatown is a character, too). The first part, focusing on the sister, is relatively light in subject matter compared to the last two; the second part goes a bit deeper; and then (just as I was wondering what the overall plot was), part three does an excellent job of describing escalating racial tensions during WWII, and the ending is very poignant reflection of what was going on at that time.
SPOILERS START.
More specifically, in the third part the author is describing inter-racial dating (a Chinese girl and a Japanese boy) and the narrator's observation of this - the narrator being an 8-year-old who has swallowed wholesale the anti-Japanese bigotry of his family, school, country (both old and new) and media, but who ends up questioning these judgments after getting to know Meiying's Japanese boyfriend. Choy's storytelling is very effective. I can definitely imagine classrooms of English and History students reading and writing engaging essays on this novel.
And the ending. OH GOD THE ENDING. I could not sleep last night because the ending was so poignant. I SHOULD NOT FINISH BOOKS LATE AT NIGHT ON A WORK NIGHT. Meiying is pregnant with her boyfriend's baby -- her boyfriend who is now on the run from the internment camps -- and, knowing shame will befall her and her love is gone, she uses two knitting needles to try to induce an abortion. She's found in a pool of blood, still alive (I had braced myself and then relaxed when she was still alive), and then they call 911, AND THE OFFICERS TAKE FOREVER TO GET THERE, BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE JUST CHINESE, and she EFFING DIES OH MY GOD. :'(
So: 1) a poignant story that is a wonderfully vivid historical lesson of what was going on at the time, and shows most people in Vancouver bought into the Japansese-as-enemy propaganda, and 2) also has an indirect message of what women used to do to themselves without legal access to safe abortions. I loved the way 2) was done, because most people might not even reflect on the message there -- but there it is, an example of what women did and will do to themselves if they can't access safe abortions. It's not a matter of criminalizing the procedure and saying, "There. Now people won't have abortions." Oh, they still will. Just now many of them are going to die for it.
END SPOILERS.
The three perspectives were an interesting way to tell the story of this family (and of 1930s Chinatown). I was a little grumpy when a new section started, because I had grown to love the last narrator, but soon the new voice would grow on me, and by the third section it is really, really neat to be able to guess what the other characters (the ones who were the earlier narrators) were thinking - the misunderstandings are really interesting in this light.
And - to relate this back to my memoir project - this illustrates (in a fictional but entirely realistic way) how even siblings will remember the same family member differently. For example, the youngest brother LOVES his grandmother, and the sister HATES her; but the grandmother dotes on the youngest brother while she constantly scolds the sister and thinks she's spoiled. I like the idea that it's not just the fallibility of memory that explains how siblings can remember parents and grandparents differently, but that in at least some cases, siblings are actually treated differently by these family members and so have different experiences. (If that sounds un-revelatory to you, well, maybe this is surprising to me since I don't have any siblings close to my age and haven't really thought about this before.) But I've heard of siblings getting into very nasty fights when one remembers mom being this great person and the other remembers mom in a more negative way, but they both think the other is "wrong" because they're close in age and they were both there -- but they're not considering that how the mom treats both kids can be different as well. It's not just perspective that can be different, but also experience.
As a final note, I was puzzled while reading it why it was included on my instructor's 'Life Writing' suggested reading list. Unlike Dreams of My Russian Summers, it does not fill the bill for 'autobiographical fiction.' It is much more historical fiction than anything autobiographical. But last night it occurred to me that the instructor was emphasizing writing based on life experience, not just memoir/autobiographical fiction, so when you think about it with a more expanded view, I can definitely see how it counts. And it was an excellent book, so regardless I'm glad it was on the list. I don't know how well-known The Jade Peony is in the U.S. or elsewhere, but it's pretty well-known here. I highly recommend it!
I'm starting the sequel now, which is told from the point-of-view of the final sibling, and apparently it's even better than the first (it seems to go more in depth, so I can see how that could be the case). (No spoilers for All That Matters in the comments, please!)
The book is separated into three parts, each narrated by a different family member - one sister and two brothers. It is very much a character-driven story (and Chinatown is a character, too). The first part, focusing on the sister, is relatively light in subject matter compared to the last two; the second part goes a bit deeper; and then (just as I was wondering what the overall plot was), part three does an excellent job of describing escalating racial tensions during WWII, and the ending is very poignant reflection of what was going on at that time.
SPOILERS START.
More specifically, in the third part the author is describing inter-racial dating (a Chinese girl and a Japanese boy) and the narrator's observation of this - the narrator being an 8-year-old who has swallowed wholesale the anti-Japanese bigotry of his family, school, country (both old and new) and media, but who ends up questioning these judgments after getting to know Meiying's Japanese boyfriend. Choy's storytelling is very effective. I can definitely imagine classrooms of English and History students reading and writing engaging essays on this novel.
And the ending. OH GOD THE ENDING. I could not sleep last night because the ending was so poignant. I SHOULD NOT FINISH BOOKS LATE AT NIGHT ON A WORK NIGHT. Meiying is pregnant with her boyfriend's baby -- her boyfriend who is now on the run from the internment camps -- and, knowing shame will befall her and her love is gone, she uses two knitting needles to try to induce an abortion. She's found in a pool of blood, still alive (I had braced myself and then relaxed when she was still alive), and then they call 911, AND THE OFFICERS TAKE FOREVER TO GET THERE, BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE JUST CHINESE, and she EFFING DIES OH MY GOD. :'(
So: 1) a poignant story that is a wonderfully vivid historical lesson of what was going on at the time, and shows most people in Vancouver bought into the Japansese-as-enemy propaganda, and 2) also has an indirect message of what women used to do to themselves without legal access to safe abortions. I loved the way 2) was done, because most people might not even reflect on the message there -- but there it is, an example of what women did and will do to themselves if they can't access safe abortions. It's not a matter of criminalizing the procedure and saying, "There. Now people won't have abortions." Oh, they still will. Just now many of them are going to die for it.
END SPOILERS.
The three perspectives were an interesting way to tell the story of this family (and of 1930s Chinatown). I was a little grumpy when a new section started, because I had grown to love the last narrator, but soon the new voice would grow on me, and by the third section it is really, really neat to be able to guess what the other characters (the ones who were the earlier narrators) were thinking - the misunderstandings are really interesting in this light.
And - to relate this back to my memoir project - this illustrates (in a fictional but entirely realistic way) how even siblings will remember the same family member differently. For example, the youngest brother LOVES his grandmother, and the sister HATES her; but the grandmother dotes on the youngest brother while she constantly scolds the sister and thinks she's spoiled. I like the idea that it's not just the fallibility of memory that explains how siblings can remember parents and grandparents differently, but that in at least some cases, siblings are actually treated differently by these family members and so have different experiences. (If that sounds un-revelatory to you, well, maybe this is surprising to me since I don't have any siblings close to my age and haven't really thought about this before.) But I've heard of siblings getting into very nasty fights when one remembers mom being this great person and the other remembers mom in a more negative way, but they both think the other is "wrong" because they're close in age and they were both there -- but they're not considering that how the mom treats both kids can be different as well. It's not just perspective that can be different, but also experience.
As a final note, I was puzzled while reading it why it was included on my instructor's 'Life Writing' suggested reading list. Unlike Dreams of My Russian Summers, it does not fill the bill for 'autobiographical fiction.' It is much more historical fiction than anything autobiographical. But last night it occurred to me that the instructor was emphasizing writing based on life experience, not just memoir/autobiographical fiction, so when you think about it with a more expanded view, I can definitely see how it counts. And it was an excellent book, so regardless I'm glad it was on the list. I don't know how well-known The Jade Peony is in the U.S. or elsewhere, but it's pretty well-known here. I highly recommend it!
I'm starting the sequel now, which is told from the point-of-view of the final sibling, and apparently it's even better than the first (it seems to go more in depth, so I can see how that could be the case). (No spoilers for All That Matters in the comments, please!)