Interview with Alice and Jip Chun for Eat a Bowl of Tea, August 21, 1984
Abstract
This interview with Alice and Jip Chun, conducted by Ernest Abuba on August 21, 1984 for the Chinatown History Project, discusses Louis Chu’s novel Eat a Bowl of Tea as adapted for stage by Ernest Abuba. Alice Chun worked with Chinese-speaking patients as a public health nurse employed by the Community Service Society. Jip Chun came from a transnational merchants’ family with early roots in New York Chinatown. In the interview, Abuba asks Alice and Jip to help provide a general Chinese cultural perspective or their own perspective on situations and characters presented in the novel or play such as Ben Loy’s acceptance of an illegitimate son, his father Way Gay’s feelings about this, why Way Gay would be upset at his son for visiting prostitutes when he himself did so, the strong female character of Jung Shee, and women being abused. Alice and Jip bring their personal experience and knowledge to bear in discussing the actual instances of prostitution, venereal diseases, sterility, infidelity, illegitimacy, and domestic abuse in postwar Chinatown society. Overall, they paint a picture of how relationships and family dynamics on both sides of the Pacific were directly shaped by extended family separation and gender imbalances resulting from Chinese Exclusion. In the conclusion, they discuss what they perceive might be a large generational or cultural knowledge gap that perhaps renders Chinese customs and practices of the past as represented in the play or novel as foreign or not easily understandable to younger audiences inculcated in contemporary, westernized norms.
Dates
- Creation: August 21, 1984
Conditions Governing Use
All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, belong to the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). Interview can only be reproduced with permission from the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA).
Extent
0.482 Gigabytes
Language of Materials
English
Genre / Form
Geographic
Topical
- Abuba, Ernest
- Abuse
- Chinese American literature
- Chinese American women
- Father and child
- Illegitimate children
- Prostitution
Uniform Title
Repository Details
Part of the Museum of Chinese in America Repository