On Asian Stereotyping

Hi readers,

It's been 10 days. Oops, I'm missing deadlines.

Today I'll be writing a bit on conformity within On Such a Full Sea and its relation to the Asian "model minority" stereotype.

Chang-Rae Lee, as many Asian-American authors do, writes his book centered around Asian (in this case Chinese) characters. We discussed in class that "Chinese" is an essentially meaningless description; given how little we know of the history of OSAF, "China" could very well be Europe renamed. Knowing that readers, myself included, tend to associate the word "Chinese" with its definition in our own world, I still suspect that Chang-Rae Lee is referring to a very similar, if not the same, group of people that we think of as Chinese.

The role of the Chinese in this novel is as the colonizers, a role reversal in which Asians take over major cities in the United States such as Baltimore (B-Mor). The very nature of this role seems to antagonize the reader toward the Chinese, a seemingly counterintuitive action considering that most Asian-American authors seek to improve readers' opinions of Asians.

In addition, examine the role of conformity in the novel. In B-Mor, citizens live in strict order, where every (Chinese) citizen acts to benefit the community. Compare this to the "model minority" stereotype, where Asian-Americans are expected to be docile and obedient workers. In an even more obvious comparison, perhaps Chang-Rae Lee is again painting the Chinese in Red/Yellow Peril terms (communism and conformity, get the hint?).

In these two examples, Asian-Americans seem to be viewed in a negative light, alluding to historically relevant Asian stereotypes that describe them as a dangerous hive-mind that could potentially invade and conquer the United States. I'm out of words, so I end with this: Why does Chang-Rae Lee, an Asian-American author, describe Asian-Americans in such a manner in OSAF?

On Such a Full Sea - First Impressions

The assumption when opening a book is that it takes place in a realistic setting. Thus, the moment you see something out of the ordinary, something that indicates a departure from normality, all of your assumptions get thrown out the window. In Chang-Rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea, I didn't have that sudden realization that the novel was science-fiction. Sure, when B-Mor was mentioned, I thought to myself that the setting was not in our own world. However, foreign names don't necessarily imply an unrealistic setting. The mention of unfamiliar vocabulary like Charter villages also tipped me off, but again, nomenclature is not very telling. It wasn't until the description of Fan and her job involving diving in tanks and nurturing the "valuable fish" that I was certain that this world was unlike our own.

I'm still not quite sure what I think of the novel. While highly descriptive, I feel that the pacing of the plot is too slow for me to truly enjoy. On the other hand, I do enjoy the cryptic nature of the introduction. There's something oddly enticing about descriptions that leave the reader with more questions than answers. I suppose only time will tell whether or not I enjoy this book.

Toodles.