Eat a Bowl of Tea | Eat a Bowl of Tea

At a glance:

Author: Louis H. Chu
First Published: 1961
Type of Work: Novel
Type of Plot: Domestic realism
Time of Work: 1941-1949
Setting: Chinatown, New York, and Chinatown, San Francisco
Principal Characters: Wang Ben Loy, Wang Wah Gay, Lee Mei Oi, Lee Gong, Ah Song
Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Domestic realism, Satire
Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Parents and children, Love or romance, New York City, 1940’s, American Dream, Asia or Asians, Immigration or emigration, Fathers, Barbershops or barbers, Multiculturalism, San Francisco, Asian Americans, China or Chinese people, Chinese Americans, Confucianism
Locales: Chinatown, San Francisco, CA, Chinatown, New York

The Story:

Early one morning in New York’s Chinatown, two newlyweds were awakened by the sound of their doorbell. Wang Ben Loy, the young husband, opened their door to find an undesirable figure, a prostitute, from his past. The woman did not believe he was married and only became convinced when shown a pair of his wife’s underwear on a clothesline. Ben Loy returned to bed with his beautiful wife, Mei Oi, but not to rest. Instead, thoughts of his recent impotence tormented him.

Ben Loy had been a young, hardworking Chinese American waiter in “Stanton,”...

Eat a Bowl of Tea | Eat a Bowl of Tea

At a glance:

The Story:

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