1968- Eye Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita

Author:Karen Tei Yamashita [Yamashita, Karen Tei]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Asian American, Fiction, Historical, Political
ISBN: 9781566893886
Google: DsM3BAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2014-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

6: Tofu Tigers

For those born after the liberation, it is necessary to attend speak-bitterness sessions and to listen to the old folks talk about the old days, what they suffered and how they were abused by the old system. The new generation does not know this past; they only know about the days after liberation. Chairman Mao says that the world and China’s future belong to the youth, but because of their inexperience they cannot comprehend the hardships of the past and the struggle required to establish a happy socialist society. This must also be true of overseas Chinese people. Although they may confront hardships, their struggles have not yet led to socialism. Lately, many overseas Chinese citizens return to visit the motherland. They come in the spirit of pride and learning and are welcomed as compatriots and comrades. They are quickly infected with the energy and spirit of the people, and they acknowledge their industry and progress.

This return coincides with the visit last year of the American President Nixon to the People’s Republic of China. This is a momentous event that signals a new era of exchange and equal standing between great nations. The People’s Republic of China in a short time accomplishes the unification of the country. This is a long and arduous road for which millions of Chinese sacrifice their lives. Since May 4, 1919 the Chinese people fight bravely for three decades to expel the Japanese imperialists and defeat reactionary nationalists. This struggle is won through the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the revolutionary army it commands. Thirty years later on October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao stands on the rostrum of Tiananmen Square and announces a new era for the Chinese people. This is a great victory for the worker and peasant masses, who together bring about this great proletarian socialist revolution. Now in fewer than twenty-five years since the liberation, the Chinese people demonstrate their ability to change the social, political, and physical landscape of China by removing, one by one, the three big mountains of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism.

Chen Wen-guang and Lee Yat Min are such overseas Chinese returnees; they are traveling in China to experience for themselves the great changes that have occurred in their absence. Chen is invited to continue his study of Chinese literature since the liberation. For six months, he is actively collecting newly published books and interviewing writers. Lee, who is Chen’s student, has come for a shorter period of one month with a group of Chinese American journalists. Since Lee is fluent in several dialects of the Chinese language, he is the interpreter for his group. Not all returning overseas Chinese are so fluent in the language or so knowledgeable about China. Understandably their memories of the China they left behind mix with new realities. Such a leap in time may be a shock. For Chen it is more than twenty years. For Lee it is only a decade, but for the young man as for the older, this leap in time represents almost half of their lifetimes.

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