Visions of a homeland in two recent Chinese American short story cycles: Andrea Louie's “Moon cakes” and Wang Ping's “American Visa”

Re\'IJ/a de Estudios Norteamerica 11 os , 11. '' 5 ( 199 7).p p. 57 -73 VISIONS OF A HOMELAND IN TWO REC ENT CHINESE AMERICAN SHORT STORY CYCLES: ANDREA LOUIE' S MOON CAKES AND W ANG PING' S AMERICAN VISA Ro cio G. D Av 1s Universidad de Navarra Th e p owe rful images an d th emes that ha ve emerged with the ri se of cthnic li tcratures h avc led to a necessary rcworking of traditional manncrs of viewing t he immígrant and minority situation in the Unitcd States. En trance into what had l ong bccn considered thc territory of thc «Üther» was made possible by the ever-expanding fiction of writers w ho have repeatcdly mc<litated on the situation of the between-world artist and pr csc nt ed us with a s earch for p erso nal and com munal identit y, through rctlections on a homeland a nd the active responses to the imm igra nfs « 11C W» world. Thc co rnplicated process of se lfhood and the inc sc a pable do ubleness of t he betwe cn - world subjc ct is the covct1 the rn e of mu ch of this ethníc fi ction, as the writers question wha t it is th at determin es both identíty and comrnunit y, signalí ng how gcogr ap hical, cthnic, politícal and cultural makcup and differcn cc s serve as sig nifying aspects to this compl ex se lf. The recr ca tion of this intricate self in fiction has, ínterestingly enoug h, broug ht ahout the devclopmcnt and cx pansion of a lit cra ry gcnrc that has proven itself cx ceptionally suited to the task of articulating and elaborating di stinctivencss. A surv ey of ct hn ic fi ction in the Unitcd States de mon st rates a prolif eration of the short s tor y cyclc, a hybrid fo nn that man y of thc p ri nci pa l ethníc writcrs ha ve ada pted and perfectcd as a t oo l through whi ch th ey enact thcír drama s. This papcr w ill ex plore the short story cycle as a vehícle for the dcve l opment of Ch ínese American fiction in pai1icul ar , and wíll analyzc the cyc l es of t wo Chin ese American wr iters in the Unit ed Statcs today, And rea Louic 's Moo11 Cakes (1995) ancl Wang Ping 's American Vi sa (1994 ), to show 58 Rocío G. Dm·is how the drama of the relationship with a homeland cxecuted by these writers finds its fulfillmcnt rhrough a gcnre that is p artiwla rly fitting to the themes they embody. To tap t he rcsources of memory ami turn to a homeland for the sources of cultural roots and idcntity, are a mo ng thc most reliable approach es to the qu cstions th ese Chinese American writers must dcal with. In this regard. Sa lman Rushdie 's 1982 cssay «lmaginary Homelands,» may be considered a paracligrn of the discoursc of writers in the betwcen-world conditio n. Here, Rushdic describ es and defines the situation ofthose writers who are, in the wo r ds of Michael Ondaatje's English pa t ie nt: «Fighting to ge t back to or get away from our homelands ali our lives» (1992, 1 76). Mor e spccifically. Rushdie analyzes the theme and presentation of the horneland in the works of th is type of writer, pointing out that the attempt to portray onc 's land of ethnic origin frorn tem - po ra l and spatial distance is inevitably co upled with th e inability to be faithful to objective reality. Although he speaks pr incipally about lndian wr it ers. his obs erva li on of the situation clearly applies to most writers who share the multicultural experiencc. lt may be that writers in rn y position, cxilcs or emi grants or expa triates, are haunt cd by sorne sense of loss, sorne urge to rcclaim, to look back. even at the risk of bcing mutat ed in to pillars of salt. B ut if wc do look back, we must also do so in the knowled ge-w hich gives rise to profound unc er taint ics-t hal our physical alienation from India almost inev it ably mcans that we wi ll not be capable of reclaiming prccisely the thing that was lost; that wc wi ll , in sho rt, crcate fictions, not actual cities or villagcs, but invisible ones, imagina ry home la nds, Indias of th e mind. (1992. 10) Recognizing that thc distances of 1 ime and space distort facts, Rushdic has stated that remembcr cd experie nc es nced not be validated by objective realitics. Consequentl y, thc narratives th at arise ar e «Ímaginatively true» and that th e result wo uld be «a novel of me mory and about mcmory, so that my Ind ia wa-; just that: 'my· Ind ia. a version and no more than just onc of ali the hundrcds of millions of possible versions» (1992, 10 ). Any writcr who writes about his homeland from the outsid e. he claims. must ncccssarily «deal in brokcn mirrors, sorne of whosc fragments ha ve been irretricvably lost» ( l 992, 11 ). Nonetheless, it is preciscly thc fragrnentary nature of these memories, the in com plctc truths thcy contain. thc partial explanations thcy offer, that makc thcrn pmticularly cvocative for th c «transplanted» writer. For Rushdic, thcse «shards of memory acquired greater status, great er resonance, becausc thcy were remains; fragmentation ma de trivial things seem like symbols, and the mundane acquired nu minous qualities» ( 1992, 12). Th e attempt to build narratives about the homeland on thc basis of personal or co llectivc mernory has preve n to be an attractive pr ospect form an y exilcd or immigrant writers, who may evcn fccl that this is the only way to r ec oncile oneself to both one's past and pr cscnt. In relation to this. it may be noted that narratives of rnemory proliferatc in cthnic American literalure in general. This observation may correspond to a conscious Visio11s of a Homelund úz 1}rn Recellf Clzille.1·e American Short Story Cyclc. 1· 59 or even subconscious desire to establish or preserve connections with thc past. with onc's cultural roots, in order to allow one to act frcely on the present. As the editors of Memory, Narrative. mzd ldentity have explained: «Mcmory .. . shapcs narrativc forms and stratcgies toward rcclaiming a suppressed past and helps the process of re-visioning that is cssential to gaining control over one's life and future. The ethnic narrative thus becomes, in Stuart Halls' phrase, 'an act of cultural rccovery ,' and the emergent ethnicity embedded therein develops a new relationship with thc past, which is to be recovered through both memory and narrative»(l 994 , 19). This, perhaps, to support Rushdie 's claim that somehow, inescapably, «it's my present that is foreign. and that the past is home, albeit a lost home in a los! city in the mists of lost time» ( 1992, 9). The dynamics of the short story cycle make ita particularly appropriate form for those narrativcs of memory that articulate this imagi native qucst for a homeland. This hybrid li terary gcnre may be <lefined as « .. . a set of stories linked to cach othcr in such a way as to ma imain a balance between the individuality of each of the stories and t he necessities of the largcr unit ... (so) that the reader's successive experience in various lcvels of thc pattem of the whole significantly modifies his experience of each of its componen! parts» (lngram 1971, 15. 19). The experimental quality of this fonn is a fundamental constituent of the new definition of cultural pluralism that incorporates the immigrant legacies of Asían Americans, while adapti ng to the practices of the cultu re in which thesc works are created. The tenn «shon story cycle» implies, above all, a principie of organization, a structural scheme for the working out of an idea, characters, or themes , even a circular disposition in which the constituent narrativcs are simultancously independent and interdependent. The pivot a! challenge of each cyclc is twofold: the collection must, at one and the same time , assert the individuality and independence of cach of the componen! parts while crcating a necessary interdependence that cmphasizes the wholeness and essential unity of the work. T ngram has f urthcr pointed out that consistency ofthemc andan evolution from one story to the next are among the classic rcquirements of the form, with recurrence and development as the integrated moveme nts that cffect final co hesion (1971, 20). Short story cycles magnify the relationships between the separate stories to creatc a larger wh ole, without destroying the spccificities of each individual story. As a genre, the cycle looks back to Western oral traditions of narrative whilc cmbodying signs of modernity: they may be said to emulate the act of storytelling, th c effort of a speaker to establish solidarity with an implied audience by recounting a series of tales linked by their content or by the conditions in which they are re lated. Interestingly, Chinese American literature has revea le<l a tradition similar to this Western phenomenon, thc long folk tradition of song and story conventionally called «talkstory» (gong gu tsai) in immigrant circles, brou g ht to popular attention by Maxine Hong Kingston 's The Woman Wa rrior. This tradition, dating from the Sung dynasty storytellers in China and continually revitalized by Chinese arrivals in America, has been defined as «a conservative, communal folk art by and for the common people, 60 Rocío G. Davis pcrforrned in the various dialects of di verse ethnic enclaves and never intended for the ears o fnon -Chinese ... it served to redefine an embattled immigrant culture by provi ding its memb ers immediate. ceremonial access to ancie nt lore (and) retained the struct ur es of Chincse oral wisdom (parables, proverbs. fmmu laic description, heroic biography, casuistical dialogue) long after other old-country traditions had died» (Sledge 19 90, 143). The fact that the original stories in both Western and Eas tern traditions arase from folk imagination, from the co ll ective cffort of many people, gave each a separate identity, a uniqueness, and an ind epe nden ce which th en was subsumed and integrated into a whole, by a single author who modified and retold the stories as he fitted them into his own design. Although it is obvious thal the existence of short story cycles is a global phenomenon, still the pragmatic affinity for shon stories that shaped the literature uf the Un it ed States decisively in the ninetccnth century seems to persist in the form of a national inclina ti on in the present cent ur y for organizcd sh on story collections: perhaps thc vcry detcrmination to build a unified republic out of divcrse sta tes, regions, and population groups, helps to account for this continuing passion for cycles (Kcnn edy 1995, viii). As such, the short story cycle may be viewcd as a formal manifcstation of the pluralistic culture in which it is created and nour is hcd. Thc fundamental structure of a cycle emerges from the interaction of the di verse clcmcnts in the relatively independent com pone nt s. At th e same t ime, connective patterns on ali l eve Is draw these together intu a totality strcngthened by varying types of interna! cohesion. In thc first place. thc tille of a volume may indicare an organizing concept that ac quir cs dcpth and rcsonance as the co ll ec ti on unfolds: titlcs that point to a particul ar locale orto a unifying el eme nt givc immediatc focus and direction to thc proc ess heing unveiled. The pr incipal approachcs to thc necessary co hesion may involvc, for instance, thc proccss of dcvclopment of a character; a dominant, explicit theme, such as a gcneration gap or search for identity, the delineation of a particular locale or commun it y, or the quest for a homeland. Since short story cycles do not usually requirc thc type of cnding expcctcd of a traditional novel. its typical concluding sec tion or sections t end to simply rou nd off the thcmcs. symbolism, and whatever pattcmed action the cyc le possesscs. In this manner, through the drawing togeth er in a final sto ri es or series of stories the thcmes and motifs. symbols, or the characters ami their communitics which havc been dcvcloping throughout, thc author places the fi nishing touchcs on the portrait being crcated. Nonetheless, as Ingram ha s emphasizcd. the most pervasivc unifying pattcrn of short story cyc le s appears to be the dynamic pattem of re curren! developmcnt ( 17). This affects ali the elcments ofthc narrative: the themes, /eitrnollfv, settings, characters. ami structurcs of the individual stories and, in consequence, the entire contexl of the collection as a unit. The repetition of a th emc from different angles, for instance, and its cnsuing growth in depth in the mind of thc reader, may unify a cycle al thc same time thal il individualizes ca ch story. The image of the Moon Cakes in Andrca Louie 's cycle emphasizcs her severed relationship with her father and her efforts to establish a Visions uf a Homl!lwul in Two Recent Chi11ese American Short Stor y Cydes 61 connection bctween herself and the la nd her family and her lover come from. In much the same way , Wang Ping 's American Visa outlincs the vaJious stages of her joumey to the United Statcs, with constant references to the start ing point of this trip: her life in China. The specificities of the fonn therefore work to make the short s tor y cycle an especially pertinent vchicle for thc distinc ti ve characteristics of ethnic fiction in general. The short story cycle itself is a hybrid, occupying an odd, indeterm in ate place w it hin t he lield of narrative, resembling the novel in its totality, yet composed of distinct stories. Such a fusion of modes «imposes new strategies of rcadin g in which the movement from one story to thc next necessitates reorientation, just as th e uneasy reciprocity between part and whole conditions the ongoing determination of meaning» (Kennedy 1988, 14}. Et hnic fiction has also obliged towards new strategies ofreading and h as caused a ncw awareness through a revisioning of thc between-world circumstancc. The short story cycle, which hovers bctween the novel and thc short story, is thus a particularly apt medium with which to enact the enigma of ethnicity, the feeling, in Rushdie 's word s, that onc falls «betwecn two stools» (1992, 21 }. Thc ethnic short story cycle may be considerc<l the formal materialization of the trope of doubl eness as th e betwecn-world condition is prescnted via a form that its elf vacillates between two gen res. The fact that short story cycles cx ist in ali the diffcrent ethnic l iteratures also signals thc appropriatencss ofthe fotm toportray a common experience. Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place, Louise Er<lr i ch's Love Medicine, Sandra Cisneros' Tire Hou se on Mango Street, and Julia Alvarcz·s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents are o nl y a small sampling of th e numbcr and variety of ethnic short story cycles to be found. Kingston's The Woman Warrior and Amy Tan's The Joy L11ck Cl11h may be considered the most emblematic Chincsc American short story cycles: th ey attempt to synthcsizc Asían heritage wi th American aspirations pr ese nting portraits of mother-daught er relationships that have to endure and bridge not only a generation gap but that creat ed by the waning influence of an ol der culture and thc overwhelming presence of another. Thc cycles to be analyzed in this paper , in so me way, look to Kingston's and Tan's narratives and stem from their exper imentation with the form. Patricia Lin Blinde, speaking of Maxine Hong Kingston, has pointed out how thc situation of th e individual w ho must ac hi eve the integration of heritage with the socio-cultural traditions of the adopted land finds it s formal rcpresentation in thc use of hybrid literary genres. As the barbarían melodies «translated well» whcn played on Chinese instruments, Kingston 's work, and in particular h er development of a very dis ti nct mode, is the result of her incorporation of elements unique to h er «exilcd» cxperience as a Chincse American woma n with the litcrary forms available to her ( 1979, 52). Th is is pcrhaps thc well spr ing of the n ec d to appropriate a hybrid form, as the blcnding of genres rnay also revea] uniquc sensibilities to o ut s ide realities. Experimenting with genre combina ti ons and discovering the utility of thesc is an intrinsic part of thc writer's task, more so when thc ex peri en ce to be cmbodied is charactcrized by its 62 Rocío G. Davis continua! crossi ng of boundaries. As such, to choose to writc a short story cycle is emblematic of the creativc position these ethnic writers choose, one that is almost an optical illusion, being two things at the sa mc time, and creating something totally ne w: a mctaphor for their task of negotiating idcntity. In thi s rcgard, Elizabeth Ordoñez h as poimed out that the « <l isruption of genre» is a common thre ad that links various ethnic tcxts: «the text itsclf bccomes both the means and embodiment of modifying and reshaping female history, myths, and ultimately personal and collective identity» ( 1982, 19). Moreover, th e cthn ic short story cycle, as a hybrid within a hybrid, ultimately offers divcrse leve Is of reading and understanding. and may hclp further the ethnographic purposes ofthc writers. On the one hand, there is the pattcrned closure ofthe individual storics which principally enact personal dramas of i de ntity and, on the othe r, the discovery of larger unifying stratcgies that transcends the gaps be tween the stories and serve to construct a larger sphere of action through imaginative recollections that serve to revision a homcland. Asian American writers, who may be conscious of a double liter ary inheritance or, at least, the rcality of an insider/outsider point of view, tend to contempla te how binary categories of cultural classification have worked in the produc ti on of knowledge and counter-knowledge within the framcwork of literary and cultural studies, a position from where they redefine and construct altemative identities and communities. Hybrid ity, an important characteristic of ali ethnic litcrary tcxts, can therefore be considered a strength rather rhan a weakness. It does not imply a denial of the traditions from which it springs, but rather focuses on a continua! and mutual development. In this manncr, thc text itself becomes both the means and embodiment of the histories, the mechanism for modifying and recreating personal and collective identity. On different levels, ethnic short story cycles may project a desire to come to te1ms with a past that is both personal and collective: this type of fiction will explore the ethnic character and history of a community as a reílection of a personal odyssey of displacement, and search for se lf and comrnunity. The between-world writer's situati on is the intense reworki ng of questions that ul timately refer to issues as oppositionality, marginality, boundaries, displacement, and authenticity: a process rather than a structure, requiring constant variation and review. This pr ocess is not different from that involved in the appreciation of a sto1y cycle, in which the evolution and gra du al unfolding of the themes, a discovery of a new kind of unity in disunity, integrate the essence of the form. Furthermore, insisting on a unitary identity can be a means of opposing and defending oneself from marginalization. Although there is no limit to the kinds of subjects or thcmes that are found in cycles, one repeatedly discovers that twentieth-century cycles are preoccupied with ccrtain themes, including isolation, disintegration, indeterminacy, the role of the artist, a nd the maturation process (Mann 19 89, 13 - 14 ). As Elaine H. Kim asscrts, the most recurren! theme in our writing is what l call claimingAmerica for Asían Americans. That does not mean disappearing li ke raindrops in the ocean of white \/isions of a Homeland in Two Recellf Chinese Amalean Short Story C yde s 63 America, fighting to become «normal,» losi ng oursclves in the process. It means inventing a new identity, <lefining ourselves according to the truth instead of a racial fantasy, so that we can be reconciled with one another in arder to celebrate our marginality. lt is this secming paradox, the Asian American claim on America, that is the oppositional quality of our discourse. (1987, 88) As such, she appears to suggest that thc need for a revalidation of the classic literary genres may be part ofthis «claim.» Notably, the most emblematicAsianAmerican works have challenged generic constraints, a phenomenon that Patricia Lin Blinde attributes to «the richness of bi-cultural life experience (which) cannot be contained within the limits of literary dictatcs» (1979, 53). The process of establishing Asian American identities from within, independcnt ly of imposed definitions, has reached a turning point clearly resonant with the phenomenological reality of the new Asian American. The experimentation with genre as a strategy of authorship manifests how these writers havc «moved beyond the conventional dichotomous, binary construct ion of white and Asian-national to a positioning of ethnic identity as interrogative, shifting, unstable, and heuristic» (Lirn 1993, 160). The two story cycles to be analyzed in this paper fulfill thc potential of the cycle fonn as a vehicle for the expression ofthe particular sensibility and experience of the Chincse American subject in di verse ways. These works may also be considered expressions of a new confidence demonstrated in a freer use of language and genres that stems from the Asian American 's increased appreciation of cultural pluralism in American society and the awareness that they have a place in the cano ns. Furthermore, the problems of race an<l adapting to the mainstream American life, as well as the consciousness of marginality, the between-world position, and the inescapable desirc to belong are rccurrent themes in both narrativcs. More specifically, the narrators of thc cycles address the enigma of their ethnicity through reflectio ns on China and their relationship with that land and its people. One of the principal aspects of each of thc cycles is thc dilemma of the main character 's relationship to China, represented in diverse ways. Somehow, each of the protagonist-narrators is obliged to deal with this question and resol ve the problem of the role their cultural heritage plays -or should playin thcir lives. Ali the points of view are US-based, but China, as country, as mother, as home, oras undeniable influence, looms large in the background. The collections are thus exercises in dcfinition of the relationship between China and the United States as embodied in the lives and perspectives of the different charac tc rs. Their re sults constitute an essential part of the development of the theme. Andrea Louie'sM omz Ca/.:es is acollection oftales that arise from the protagonistnarrator 's reílections while on a tour of China. Interspiced with stories of Maya's joumey, of what she sees ami experiences, are stories of her childhood, her family, and of th e men who most influenced her: h er Chinese father, her first ]ove and her Chinese boyfriend. She opens the narrative by saying she will tell a «lave story ... but not the kind you think ... (lt) has no beginning, no end. So 1 simply must start somewherc in 64 Rocío G. Davis rhe middle, which is now» (5-6). This introducti on im mediately sets the tone for the stories to follow: nostalgia and a sentimental looking back coup led with a search for a point of referencc. Thc dramatic setting of thc opcning sccn e, Maya looki ng out to th e sea from a moun tain in China, serves as the frarne for t hc rcst of thc stories as it sets off thc cha in of her recollections and h er analysis of the di verse circumstances that brought her to this spot. «I stand at the edge of China, which is li ke being at the end of the Earth. I want to step off the cdge. I want to step out i nto the water, know ing th at it wi ll n ot really suppo1t thc weight of a woman but instcad will cnve l opc me, hold me like the wa1m. safe embrace of a mother holding her daughter within the inner sea of her body»(7). In this mann er, China is set at the center of her collcction in a very particular way: the stories, thou gh mo stly flashbacks, arise from her experiencc of C hi na, from h er growing awarencss of fi nally being in the country that had subconsci ous ly molded her lile. The joumey Maya will un dertake is twofold: the voyage away from her familiar surroundings into the mystery that is China sets in motion another journcy -into th e past, into the uncharted waters of her emotions and the memorics she had tried so hard to suppress. This arrival in China awakens in Maya conflicting feel ings of belonging. and of sclf -awarcncss. «Perhaps I really am in the land of drcams: Ch ina is so earthy, so closc to the ground that I cannot believe it to be real ... l have been in China for barely six weeks, but already I have no concept of America. of what my lif e was likc there. 1 ha ve no scnse of rcality. of what is truth or fiction. present or past» (9). The strnggle for a dcfinition of a homeland, ultimately for the roots and the mcaning of belonging. is a th eme th at links the stories Maya tells. Central lo this is her grow i ng consciousness of the between-world situation. Nev er having doubted her American identity before. shc must now face the possibil it y of a bond with a heritagc shc had not been aware of or had not wished to recognize befare. This journ ey is prece ded by the story of a symbolic drea m of «a child of convic ti on» ( 11) -hersel fgoing out on a futilc adventurc to find moon cakes in her Midwestern neighborhood. The image of moon cakes is a clear reference to her f'ath e r, and her pain al having lost him befare being allowed to develop a mcaningful rclationship with hi m. This image is , more importantly, a spccific reference to a tradition the family observcd: «Every ye ar during the Mid-Au tu mn Festival my father would insist that wc ali sit down and eat a single moon cake together. Tha t was one old Chinese custom that was very important to him, and the C hi nese are big on food metaphors. Thc moon cake symboliz ed wholeness and roundne ss ancl completeness. The family. China. Thc universe» ( 137). The year Maya was eleven, h er fathcr died two weeks after the mid- Autumn Festival. This early loss would lat er awaken in Maya thc need to know China, as a manner of knowing her father. It wi 11 also make her aware of the impoltance of a pa st for herself, as a touchstone for idcntity and belonging. The memories she harbors of her father, of the little time she shared with him, are a cornerstone to the construction of her own identity, an idcntity she will try to build with tools she recognizes are unrcliable. «l lcarn cd carly on that memories could be a tricky th ing. It began with my Visions o.fa Home/ami i11 T1rn Recem Chi11cse American Short Storv Cycles 65 father, who had no past, no childhood. Orar lcast one that he cared to share» ( 115). In the story that centers on her father. Maya wi ll explore the relationship she had with him and the possihilities that might have been. Unasked and unanswered questions about bis past will haunt her. «l do not know if his youth in China was filled with pain or hungcr or blitzed with wartime fears . .. . I don 't know which filled his youth more, happiness or horror; he simply would not say ... lt was as if my father had deliherately misplaced his past when he was fourteen, as if he had left his boyhood on sorne San Fra ncisco sidc street and nevcr gone back to gct it» (116). Her father's apparent willingness or nced to forget the Chincsc pan ofhis lifc will only inspire Maya to want to know more. Ultimatcly. she will come to rcscnt his holding back thc shards ofheritage she might have inhcritcd frorn him. Her journcy to China will then take on thc aspect of filling in thc gaps. The story of her father and thc rccollection of the family tradition he fost cred ernphasizcs her spccial relationship with hirn and. convcrscly, the distance that separat es her from her mothcr and sister. Relationships. moslly failcd ones, recur in the cycle, as Maya seeks to identify hersclf with the people around her. Man y of thc characters M aya rcflccts on are cponymous hcroes or heroines in her diverse stories. Her !ove for her father, tumed early on to bitter grief. will make her seck out other men against whom to measurc hcrself and frorn whom she can gain a sensc of security. This rnay be because her relationships with worncn only seem to hinder her process of sclf-identification. Thc stories that deal with thc mcn in her life have !ove in diverse forms as their central theme, and her search for herself through that !ove. «Father ,» «Lance,» and «Alex» describe her developing relationships with the rnen who, in a way. mo ld her and against whom she rneasures hcrscl f. «Men run through my lite like a kind of undertow, both gentle and insistent, occasionally unsafe, but always thcre .. . it is hy men that I kcep time: they are thc ones who punctuatc, who give rhythmic and forward rnovemcnt to my years. Perhaps it is because they have caused more of a disturhance, have l ef t mor e chaos in thcir wake. No woman, not even my mothcr, has caused me as rnuch pain or joy as a man. There is no happy medium in their prescnce» (239). Ultimately it is the memory of these rncn, particularly that of her father and of Alex that will take her to China. in an attempt to rccover th em by knowing lheir homelands. Maya's failed relationships seem to be those with the women who play the most important roles in h er life. The storícs entitled «Childhood» and « Womanhood» reiterate the themc of the fruslration she feels in her dealings with these: «there is my mother, who has the tautness and precision of an iron wirc, and my sistcr, who is something of an alter ego -the pretticr, smarter, more vampish self I never was ... » (239). The nairntor can neither confide in nor undcrstand her cold mother. « M y mother is an amazing woman, and I regard her with equal measurcs ofreverence, fcar, and resentment. Early on, I learned it was wise neither to cross my mother nor to expect too much from her» ( J 9). Her sister Maura was, for most ofher childhood, Ma ya 's principal point of rcfcrencc. «I was perfcctly happy being the younger sister; in my eyes it was the p er fecl position. 72 Rocío G. Davis Nonetheless, the mysterious pul! of America is stronger, and shc continues to help her family come over, lacten with hope. With her unhlinkercd vicw of both China and America, shc still feels the tug- of - war between hoth in her own self. This highly personal drama is enacted on two stagcs, both which are more similar than they originally appe ar. As such, the drama is co nverted into a highly personal one, in which thc true land of dreams is thc protagonist hcrself, and her will to kecp living and striving. Scaweed no longer r ea lly dreams, nor is her lifc a fulfillment of any of the drearns she had: li fe for her is con verted into simple living. lnterestingly, the last story, «Song of the Four Scasons» cnds the collection with the suggestion of a return to China anda reaffinnation of personal idcntity and what one ca n achieve through this: « What mattered was my intention, my will to keep trying, always kcep trying, no matter whal» ( 179). Th ese short story cyclcs, as discourses on Chinese American self-definition havc r ec olleclions and personal ex periences of China asan important aspee! of the creation of self. The qucstions the characters ask themse lv es are an swerc d through narrat ives that articulate stories of survivors. Th e writers ha ve tumed to roots -fami l y, community, and ethni cityas sources of personal identity and crea ti ve expression. More importantly, these cycles show how the development or thc preservation of an imaginative relationship with a homcland serves an a signifying factor towards growth and identity. Thc manner in which they, as other ethnic writcrs, have appropriated the short story cycle as a metaph or for the fragmentation and multiplicity of ethnic lives is it sclf an articulation ofthe betwccn-culture position and the complex process towards self-idenlification. 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