China Joe is the white man's scapegoat, but he is also Kingston's collective hero [in China Men]. The great-grandfather indentured to clear the Hawaiian jungle is a proud, determined man, a leader among the other Chinese there. His work in the canefields and the lashings he receives are rendered in sharp detail. But in Kingston's account his individuality seems to fall away, and we are left with a story more like a folk tale or an epic legend than an account of one man's life. It is also the story of "every great grandfather on every island."

Historical events, too, seem transmuted here, robbed of factual precision but somehow brightened and clarified. (pp. 10-11)

In between the longer stories about her family, Kingston tells a number of ancient Chinese tales: parables about mortality and exile and persisting in the face of difficulty. Her uncles look for natural omens before setting out on a trip; and at the Immigration Station in San Francisco her father consoles the other Chinese with songs of the Heavenly Poet, Li Po. Kingston can be impertinent about these stories and superstitions, but not about her relatives's faith in them. [China Men] is a celebration of their traditional values: hard work and cunning and education and a certain salty toughness.

But for all that Kingston's account has a distinctly American ring. Perhaps it is the way she comments on the legends she tells: "Fancy lovers never last," she adds at the end of one moral tale. Or perhaps the way she speaks to her mother, answering with a brisk "Sure, Mom. Okay." Or maybe it is simply the clarity of her prose, her plain American voice…. (p. 11)