~ Number One Chinese Restaurant, by Lillian Li ~
Joining other recent debut novels by Asian/Chinese American authors such as Jenny Zhang (Sour Heart, 2017) Lily Wang (Family Trust, 2018), Lillian Li’s novel also purports to examine relationships and family dynamics of Chinese Americans by lifting the curtain to reveal the story behind how Chinese restaurants are run and function. She depicts the lives and interactions of employers and employees of the Beijing Duck House restaurant in Maryland.
Opened by Bobby Han and owned by the Han Family, the Duck House attracts celebrities and does a brisk trade, particularly in crispy dusks of course, which are carved at tables (exactly 28 slices per duck), staffed by both Chinese and Latin Americans. There are managers and front of house (mostly family members), chefs, hostesses, carvers, waiters, busboys, just to mention some of the staff in this complex set up which has to function as a fully synthesised machine to deliver the food and service that mainstream America has come to expect from such Chinese restaurants. In fact, a very telling part of this ‘unveiling of the behind-the-scenes’ is when Jimmy Han tries to set up a new Chinese restaurant in upmarket Georgetown. Many things go wrong on opening night, which exemplifies how the successful running of such restaurants depend on a lot more than just financial investment, and that know-how and staff connections are key.
The plotline ties together quite effectively the employers’ families (Bobby Han’s widow, Feng Fei, her sons Johnny and Jimmy, and Annie, her grand daughter) and the employees’ families (Nan, the long time manager of Duck House, Jack, her paramour and a waiter at Duck House, Nan’s delinquent son, Pat (also Annie’s lover), Jack’s wife Mary and Mary’s lover, Gary.) There is a menacing godfather figure, Uncle Pang, looming over them more, more a narrative device than a believable character in the story. However, some of the other characters are better depicted, multi-faceted, interesting, original, with curious motivations and good back stories making them both realistic and sympathetic to some degree.
The novel begins rather slowly and perhaps a touch unpromisingly, with action, dialogue, and characters being a little wooden. However, perseverance is rewarded by the story finding its rhythm and the characters beginning to emerge more fully. There is very little which is actually linguistically Chinese in this novel – apart from the fact the characters are always saying ‘Gan bei’ – why that should be the only phrase rendered in Mandarin, is puzzling. And occasionally, there is a mention of characters who are first generation Chinese Americans slipping into broken, stilted English or Mandarin when under pressure emotionally. However, even if the dialogue has little cultural flavour, the interaction of the characters are a little more true to type. They are pragmatic to the point of being painfully so, unsentimental for most part but by no means unemotional. They have a particular humour and banter which is clearly unique to their cultural background, they have expectations and values which are certainly not mainstream American ones, but at the same time, also not necessarily Chinese per se.
Nan is the key protagonist, if there is one, who tries to look after others, works extremely hard and stoically, adores her only son, is sensible and responsible, and ethical almost to a fault. She has a strange and long standing devotion to Jack (or Ah Jack as she cannot stop thinking of him as), who is depicted as old, physically unattractive, but jolly, comic, generous in spirit. There are oddly tender moments in this novel in unexpected places, which lends this read a little charm.
Jimmy and Johnny’s sibling rivalry is not unexpected, nor is the ever present shadow of their dead father, but their mother is a strange invention indeed, a most whimsical and overbearing character, difficult to regard more than a caricature because she is first portrayed as sunk in depression, then the next moment, scheming, manipulative, all but cacklingly evil. She seems to detest and disdain both sons, while said to be loving them obsessively too. One of the oddest portrayals of motherhood, of any culture. That said, there is a lovely angle about Feng Fei which Li has brought to the fore – about storytelling. Feng Fei regards her role as the storyteller of her family as key, and as a creative force which brings things into being. Her perspective places storytelling centre stage, emphasising its oft sidelined role, and its significance. Johnny’s retelling of the story of the Hans and Duck House is also depicted as creating its success, its identity. Provenance is even shown to alter history, and therefore reality.
Although for most part the writing style is somewhat pedestrian, there are little gems and flashes of originality of thought and interesting turns of phrases, very lightly sprinkled throughout it is true, but holding the promise of greater things to come from this author. For example, when Jimmy is drunk and driving:
“He hit both cars, but what were bumpers for? He was tired of apologizing for what was clearly his fault. […] It was like controlling his own roller coaster, feeling safe because he kept forgetting the presence of danger.”
There is still a bit too much telling rather than showing, so the characters are still rendered rather enigmatic and distanced from the reader, inaccessible at most levels, but the giving of characters good background stories and histories helps to make them stronger, and more well rounded.
If this novel wanted to get away from clichés and stereotypes of Chinese Americans, it has done a pretty good job. It is certainly depicting a most unusual set of relationships amongst the Hans and their employees, Chinese and yet not quite Chinese in dynamics, perhaps Chinese-American of a particular class of Chinese Americans, perhaps.
Number One Chinese Restaurant, by Lillian Li. Henry Holt, 2018
Lisa, I read this book too, but enjoyed it less than you did. I had hopes for this book, it’s set in my part of the world, and would, I thought, add something distinctive to American immigrant literature. With good writing, the reader gets a wonderfully pleasurable mental image of the situation, and I was looking forward to that, but was disappointed. I often came across sentences that were simply puzzling, e.g:
‘revealed a chest that was at once too broad and too thin’.
‘The meaning of his small, queer moment broke over Pat’s head like an egg’.
I agree with you that there was rather too much telling instead of showing.
I didn’t entirely dislike it; there were some bits that were interesting, but I never got invested in any of the characters.