Uncle Wang: Ben Loy, your uncle is going to do you a favor. I have an opening at my factory out in Jersey. It is a good job, with a great future. You know, you’ll be doing a smart thing if you accept this offer.
Mei Oi: Let’s go home.
Ben Loy Wang: We can't. (Eat a Bowl of Tea, 1:17:15)
The rise of Asian American cinema in the 1980s and 1990s has been a previously unexplored topic, and I had very little knowledge about Asian American cinema before coming across the film Eat a Bowl of Tea, which deeply impacted me as it was the first time writing about an Asian American film for an academic assignment. The nuances of gender and sexuality are especially touched upon in this movie as they coalesce with historically significant times in Manhattan's Chinatown, in the same city of my residence and the same borough of my high school. Beautiful visuals of locations ranging from a bustling wedding reception in downtown Manhattan to a fortune cookie factory in Jersey and the populated rooms and fresh fields of China enhanced my viewing experience, and helped me understand several messages I believe the film tries to convey.
For example, Ben Loy's homecoming to China moves me because of the sharp contrast between his life in America, objectified as a war hero by an oppressed population even as he is welcomed home, and the airy, nature-infused traditional scenes filled with crowds of children in China where he meets his future wife Mei Oi. Scenes involving the dwindling fortunes and marriage prospects of the Chinese American immigrants the longer they remain in America, even as they work to the bone to make a living and become spiritually distant from China, refreshingly transitions into a fresh vision of the people they left behind, one that is heartrending to me in its accuracy to what I have always thought the atmosphere would be during my grandparents' youth. The divides between family members such as Ben Loy's mother and father marked by long absences across oceans and continents are endured with resilience, yet the fact that their distance is never resolved is a sobering conclusion as Ben Loy and his family move further and further away from their homeland.
In the film Eat a Bowl of Tea directed by Wayne Wang, finding work is deeply associated with Asian American identity, as many immigrants arrived in America to become financially well-off before moving back to their homeland. The inclusion of the history of Chinese American participation in the second World War and the discriminatory legislation of the Chinese Exclusion Act was fascinating to me. Even more fascinating was the main characters' stagnation in both capitalistic worth and personal relationships are initially unclear. Even after the strict immigration laws have been changed, Ben Loy’s father still does not visit his wife living in China who longs for him to visit, and is later shown having taken a vacation to Cuba and moving to San Francisco with his daughter-in-law and son, who has found a job there in radio broadcasting. Ultimately, it seems that American racism has shaped mentalities where even after immigration laws are relaxed Chinese men feel as if they cannot visit China and must stay in the United States, abandoning the people they left behind in China and eventually assimilating to their local surroundings beyond the ethnic enclave of New York City’s Chinatown.
During an exchange at a post office, Ben Loy’s father comments that “Business is...No, no. So-so. Otherwise, I gotta send her more money” (Eat a Bowl of Tea, 6:16). His refusal to support his wife with more wealth, and lack of interactions with her throughout the film marks a complete severance of his relationship with his wife, a reminder of his past in China, and his full focus on his son and daughter-in-law’s new child by the end of the film on the other side of the nation. As a result, the pressures of racism have transformed Ben Loy’s father’s relationship with his past in the Chinese motherland, represented by him refusing to spend more money on his kin. Ben Loy’s father has become disconnected with his pre-immigration past due to internalized racism, and demonstrates this by stagnating on sharing his wealth with extended family as a form of connection.
More nuanced cultural traditions are preserved in scenes that depict the power of family connections in New York City’s Chinatown, such as an uncle doing Ben Loy a favor due to the shame and loss of face Mei Oi’s affair with Ah Song has caused their family. However, the reality is that Ben Loy gives up his job as restaurant manager for a much simpler yet stressful and lower status job as a fortune cookie maker, exchanging money and status for the sake of his human relationships. By giving up a proportion of capitalistic value, Ben Loy helps his family’s reputation by removing himself from the Chinese American community and receives more time spent with Mei Oi, but he does not think he has a choice in the decision. Cultural stigma against infidelity forces Ben Loy out of the ethnic community, and despite exchanging wealth for greater time spent with his wife Mei Oi, his relationships remain broken as he and Mei Oi fight during their extra time together and his father later commits violence in the Asian American community against Mei Oi’s suitor Ah Song.
The constraints of capitalism and culture intersect to make Ben Loy think he has no choice in changing his work location to be outside of the Chinese community, and leave Ben Loy and Mei Oi feeling without a home just as the previous generation feel they cannot return to China even after immigration laws are relaxed. A focus on accumulating capitalistic wealth within a racially discriminatory society that frequently limits Chinese individuals to the lowest status jobs has first weakened Ben Loy’s personal relationship with his wife, then his earning potential and relationships with his ethnic community. As a result, Ben Loy experiences paralysis in both his career and human relationships. Family traumas, cultural tradition, and historical prejudice seem to all combine to deeply constrain each individual immigrant's personal path, in ways beyond understanding, even as new opportunities open wide.
Many themes depicted in the film exist today in different manifestations as well, and can be observed in other Asian American cinema, by using resources such as the especially extensive history on this private blog. Some decisions in the film make more sense with context, such as seeing the choice of the half-white Russell Wong for the Chinese lead as an exaggerated reaction to historical emasculation, or Ben Loy's father traveling as a metaphor for detachment from preimmigration family, but also slightly flawed in their exaggeration and humor that makes the main concept seem less important. Some parts enforce existing biases and questionable takeaways such as the lack of consequences for behavior that hurts others and a vast geographical and mental divide between the homeland and America, which may no longer be true insofar as the world is "smaller" today through our forms of digital connection and the recession of unquestioned white dominance through awareness of racial discrimination in younger generations. From what I have observed there has been improvement, yet not extending everywhere, or very far beyond the boundaries of colleges and big cities.
Scrolling through the seemingly endless list of Asian American films, promotional material, actors, and actresses, I felt a sense of awe and acceptance at the existence of many more figures of Asian American cinema that I could have ever imagined or known about, and at a solid and extensive history that seems conceptually to take the pressure off creative workers such as writers to produce the next best thing that pleases enough people to be made, and to fend off criticism from all sides as per Maxine Hong Kingston last week. As a newcomer to Asian American cinema who has been pleased by the works I have encountered, and influenced by the company of films to a point where I felt my identity shift to something new, modern, and less anxiety-ridden about the isolation of creative work, I am inspired to fill in the potential missteps and triumphs of forebears with my own thoughts.
This week's materials:
The Wedding Banquet (Amazon Prime)
Citations:
Eat a Bowl of Tea. Dir. Wayne Wang. Columbia Pictures, 1989.
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