From Publishers Weekly
Freelance writer Hall, a fourth-generation Chinese American, has two wonderful stories to tell here: the history of New York City's Chinatown and the intertwined lives of his own family going back to their days in the Chinese village of Hor Lup Chui. Incidents such as his grandfather's wedding come vividly to life with feasting, firecrackers and suckling pigs, but this book suffers from overcrowding. There are just too many friends of friends and cousins back in China for the reader to connect with any one story. The overall feeling is one of frustration at characters who are never quite realized and a unique culture just beyond reach, depriving the narrative of the dynamism it deserves. Nevertheless, the history of the early Chinese immigrants emerges from the crowded pages: the widespread discrimination against these people who were denied the right to obtain citizenship and persecuted by the indigenous population. Chinese communities like New York City's Chinatown became culturally and geographically isolated, lacking language skills and being almost without women. No wonder the men turned to "the tea that burns," orAless poeticallyA"a teapot full of bootleg Scotch." Hall shows that only in their own community could Chinese find some security, and that turning inward gave rise to gang wars and turf battles, further isolating Chinatown from the rest of Manhattan. Sadly, in the end, Hall's lack of narrative skill and his irritating use of the running present tense that ends up merging all eras deprives us of what should have been a wonderful and exotic tale.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Part history, part family chronicle, part personal reminiscence, this saga by fourth-generation Chinese American Hall (Diamond Street, Black Dome, 1994) follows the Hall family (whose surname was once transliterated "Hor") from the 19th-century in Hor Lup Chui, a village outside Canton, to late-20th-century America. While the extensive bibliography lists only one set of documents pertaining to the Hor family, Hall consulted hundreds of publications and papers on Chinese Americans and Chinatown in New York City, a sizable research effort for a family memoir. The Hor family history is full of colorful characters, including grandfather "Hock Shop," the bookie and bon vivant, whose scotch ("tea that burns") was served by the pot. Highly entertaining and quite informative, this excellent mix of Chinese tradition and Asian American history reads somewhat like Maxine Hong Kingston with footnotes. Recommended for all public libraries.?D.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
