Synopses & Reviews
Set in the 1960s, Judy Fong Batess much-talked-about debut novel is the story of a young girl, the daughter of a small Ontario towns solitary Chinese family, whose life is changed over the course of one summer when she learns the burden of secrets. Through Su-Jens eyes, the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café unfolds. As Su-Jens father works continually for a better future, her mother, a beautiful but embittered woman, settles uneasily into their new life. Su-Jen feels the weight of her mothers unhappiness as Su-Jens life takes her outside the restaurant and far from the customs of the traditional past. When Su-Jens half-brother arrives, smouldering under the responsibilities he must bear as the dutiful Chinese son, he forms an alliance with Su-Jens mother, one that will have devastating consequences. Written in spare, intimate prose,
Midnight at the Dragon Café is a vivid portrait of a childhood divided by two cultures and touched by unfulfilled longings and unspoken secrets.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Judy Fong Bates came to Canada from China as a young girl and grew up in several small Ontario towns. She is the author of a collection of short stories,
China Dog, and a novel,
Midnight at the Dragon Café. Her stories have been broadcast on CBC Radio and published in literary journals and anthologies.
Judy Fong Bates lives in Toronto.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
1. With
Midnight at the Dragon Café, Judy Fong Bates produces a work that is both quintessentially Canadian and yet powerfully conveys the Chinese immigrant perspective. What makes the novel feel as classically Canadian as anything by Margaret Laurence or Alice Munro? Consider setting (where the story unfolds) and character.
2. What details does Bates use to allow the reader to fully enter the particular point of view of a newly settled Chinese family? How does the mother, Lai-Jing, view her new surroundings? How does she feel about her neighbours, the lo fons (white people), of Irvine?
3. How does Su-Jen see her new community? The school, the river, the stores, her fathers restaurant and her schoolmates? Are your feelings about small-town Canada modified in any way by experiencing it through the eyes of the Chou family?
4. What overt acts of racism does Su-Jen endure among her female peers? What are the more subtle forms? Consider the school play: Was it realistic or racist for Su-Jens friends to dissuade her from auditioning for the lead role? Why? How do name-calling and racist assumptions affect Su-Jen?
5. In what ways is Su-Jen a child caught between two cultures? How does this affect her world view?
6. By what means do Su-Jens father, Hing-Wun, mother, Lai-Jing, and Uncle Yat keep Chinese culture alive in Canada? Consider their beliefs, values, and daily activities.
7. What role do the arts — stories and music — play in the novel, particularly in the lives of Hing-Wun and Su-Jen?
8. Sacrifice is an important theme in the novel. How does each characters understanding of sacrifice affect the lives of Su-Jens father, mother, and brother? How does Su-Jens own understanding of sacrifice change over the course of the novel?
9. How are the events in the story influenced by the Chou familys isolation from the larger urban Chinese community?
10. Why do the Chinese characters in the novel seem so obsessed with money? Give some examples from the novel of the characters absorption with money and status. Consider Aunt Hai-Lan and also the Chongs (the family interested in arranging a marriage for their daughter). What does this tell the reader about how the Chou family sees itself in their new home?
11. What are some of the ways in which the Chou family reveals their preoccupation with money? How do these concerns shape their lives? Are their fiscal and social concerns realistic? Is the Chou family more money conscious than their Canadian-born neighbours? To what extent are the residents of Irvine also conscious of money and status?
12. What qualities draw Su-Jen to Charlotte Heighington? What does this tell us about Su-Jen?
13. Su-Jen is attracted not only to Charlotte, but to the entire Heighington household, particularly Charlottes mother. Why might the Heighingtons be considered odd by the rest of the town? In what ways does Mrs. Heighington differ from Su-Jens mother? What qualities, if any, do the two women share?
14. A love affair between a married woman and her stepson would be shocking regardless of the circumstances. What makes it feel even more so in Midnight at the Dragon Café? How does the inclusion of Lai-Jing and Lee Kungs affair allow the novel to transcend the category of “immigrant story”?
15. Does the affair cause you to identify more with the family, or less? Do you sympathize with Lai-Jings behaviour? How do you feel about Lee-Kung? Is anyone to blame? Does Hing-Wun deserve a portion of the blame?
16. Did the affair cause you to question Lai-Jings love for Su-Jen? Are these two separate but parallel kinds of love, or two competing ones? Is Lai-Jing really as trapped as she feels?
17. In what very specific ways do politics and history influence the Chou family? Consider World War I, World War II, Canadas immigration policies, and Japans 1937 Invasion of China. Has coming to Canada freed the Chou family from its past? Is anyone ever free of the past?
Author Q&A
McClelland & Stewart (M&S): Midnight at the Dragon Café is both a portrait of an immigrant family and the unique story of a young girl. In the novel, complications arise within the family due to tensions often linked to resentment over personal sacrifices. This creates terrific narrative tension. Can you discuss the theme of sacrifice within the novel, and how it comes to eventually redeem and connect the characters?
Judy Fong Bates (JFB): Like most children growing up in immigrant families Su-Jen is aware of her position in the family and the sacrifices her parents have made for the sake of her future. At first she tries hard to live up to their expectations by being a model Chinese daughter: quiet and obedient. But as Su-Jen watches the secret alliance between her mother and her brother deepen, she becomes increasingly angry, not just with them, but with her father. It isn’t until she unwittingly betrays her family by revealing their secrets that she begins to understand the many faces of sacrifice – in the nobility of her father’s behaviour, in the cost of this new life on her mother, in her brother’s inability to escape his own fate – and become able to forgive.
M&S: There are characters in your novel that seem to be pulled in different directions, caught between responsibility and desire, or between traditional and new world ways. Can you tell us the differences, as you see them, in the situations of Lee-Kung, the older son, and Su-Jen, the young daughter?
JFB: The most obvious difference is, of course, their age. In immigrant families in which there are linguistic and cultural divides between new world and old world, the chances for integrating into mainstream society are always best for those who are born in the new country or arrive early enough to be a part of the school system. The lives of siblings can differ drastically between those who arrive as adults and those whose arrive as children. When Lee-Kung comes to Canada he is already an adult, raised in China, bound by traditional values of duty and filial piety. With little formal education and only some spoken English, his options in his adopted country are relatively narrow and his responsibility is the financial security of the family. Whereas for Su-Jen who will probably go on to higher education, the possibilities for her future are limitless. The danger, though, for her, being raised in western society is that her understanding of Chinese traditions and its labyrinth of unspoken yet expected social behaviours is only partially developed, which ultimately leads her to confront her family in a way that a “ good Chinese girl” would never do. Ultimately the conflict is between one culture that emphasizes the family above all else while the other emphasizes the individual.
M&S: Further to the question above, Su-Jen is the only member of the family to have a daily life that plays out both within and beyond the restaurant. She seems to have a foot in two worlds, and is not entirely comfortable in either. And while Su-Jen has formed ties to the community, she lacks someone who can relate to her experiences. Can you discuss this division within Su-Jen and the effect it has on her and the decisions she makes?
JFB: As a child growing up in two cultures, 1960s Canadian at school and traditional Chinese at home, Su-Jen’s search for place is both difficult and circuitous. Although the values of the two cultures overlap in many ways, the differences are significant and Su-Jen’s situation is compounded further by the fact that there is so little understanding between them. In her desire for acceptance by her friends at school, she makes decisions that perhaps a more secure child would not make. And because of her lack of fluency in the complexities of her family, she inadvertently betrays them by speaking the truth out loud. It is only at the end of the book when she decides to join her mother in Toronto that we see a glimpse of someone beginning to make sense of her two disparate worlds and learning to find her way in both, of someone beginning to understand the uniqueness of the space she inhabits, and perhaps ultimately finding comfort in being neither “fish nor fowl.”
M&S: Secrets play a large role in your novel, among members of the family, about the family’s past, between Su-Jen and her friends. Please discuss the prominence of secrets in the book and why you have tied them so closely to the concept of ‘face’ in Chinese culture.
JFB: I have always been intrigued by the role that secrets play in Chinese families. When I was young it seemed that face was maintained, within the family and externally, by not publicly acknowledging things that might cause embarrassment or anger or a loss of respect. In certain situations, living with deception was preferable to dealing with the truth.
A betrayal that occurs early in this novel becomes an open secret for Su-Jen’s family. In this particular situation, the desire to maintain this secret and save face has to do with culture, but it also has to do with the family’s isolation. Exposing the truth would mean a dismantling of their lives, and, for most of the characters, the thought of having to start again in the outside world is terrifying. For the father, the desire for face extends beyond his immediate world at the Dragon Café. What is most important for him is the preservation of the family, whatever the personal cost. All considered, there is little choice but to pretend and to obey the unspoken rules that maintain order. It is Su-Jen, with a foot in each world and lacking a clear understanding of either, who upsets this precarious balance.
From the Hardcover edition.