Third brother Sek-Lung is one of four siblings growing up "mo no" (without a brain) in Vancouver of the 1930s and '40s. Author to read from
‘Jade Peony’ TuesdayHe insists that he does so have a brain, though "mo no" is the phrase used by their immigrant Poh-poh (grandmother) to describe Chinese children born in Canada "neither this nor that," with no sense of their ethnic culture.
The Chinese experience in Canada is brought to life in Wayson Choy's, "The Jade Peony," through the eyes of Sek-Lung, only sister Jook-Liang and second brother Jung-Sum.
Choy will read from "The Jade Peony" Tuesday at Punahou School's Wo International Center. The work won Ontario's Trillium Award for Fiction in 1996.
The tale of this multi-generational immigrant family mirrors that of the Asian-American experience in America.
Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and World War II, small pleasures such as Shir-lee Tem-po and caring for the lucky turtle King George fill the family's home life, while outside, questions of nationalism and racism swirl ominously around them.
Sek-Lung doesn't know whether to like or hate the Japanese, whose mother country is at war with the world.
"I was trying to figure things out when the ballplayers on the field started shouting a chant in Japanese ... For a moment I forgot I was watching the enemy. And that one of them was standing too close to Meiying."
The facts
Who: Wayson Choy reads from "The Jade Peony"
