China Boy is a novel by Gus Lee that tells the story of Kai, a young Chinese boy living in 1950s San Francisco. It follows him as he grows up in a predominately black neighborhood, and struggles with various family issues. He learns through his struggles to push through the adversities he faces, such as: being an only son, being one of the few Asian people in a predominately black neighborhood, and an emotionally and physically abusive stepmother. By going through these struggles, Kai and Lee teach us that to truly live our lives to the fullest, we must overcome our struggles whether that means facing them head on in Kai’s case, or just letting them go. In Chinese culture, having a son is extremely important, if not one of the most important
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She seems nice at first glance, but soon turns out to be a living nightmare for the family. All of Kai’s sisters having graduated high school and moved out, it leaves Kai to fend for himself from the racial insensitivities of Edna. She locks him out, making him face the rough neighborhood all by himself. Edna also is very emotionally asbusive to the children, telling them that they are burdens. She slowly tries to strip the family from their culture by forcing them to eat only American-Irish food and insisting they only speak English. This later contributes to Kai losing his Shanghi. Edna clearly wants no relationship with these children to form, due to all the abuse she puts them through. At the end of the novel, Kai confronts Edna for all the abuse shes put hima and his siblings through, by telling her ““You not my Mah-mee…I ain’t fo’ yo’ pickin-on no mo’!”(Lee 322). Gus Lee tells the story of Kai, a young Asian boy who grows up in situations where he is an outlier. It takes us through his struggles of being the only boy out of 4 children, growing up in an area where his ethnicity isn’t well represented, and an abusive stepmother unwilling to accept his traditions. He overcomes most of these situations by facing them head first, and others by just accepting them, but the main lesson Lee is trying to convey is that we should always try to fix our situations even if the solutions seem out of
She seems nice at first glance, but soon turns out to be a living nightmare for the family. All of Kai’s sisters having graduated high school and moved out, it leaves Kai to fend for himself from the racial insensitivities of Edna. She locks him out, making him face the rough neighborhood all by himself. Edna also is very emotionally asbusive to the children, telling them that they are burdens. She slowly tries to strip the family from their culture by forcing them to eat only American-Irish food and insisting they only speak English. This later contributes to Kai losing his Shanghi. Edna clearly wants no relationship with these children to form, due to all the abuse she puts them through. At the end of the novel, Kai confronts Edna for all the abuse shes put hima and his siblings through, by telling her ““You not my Mah-mee…I ain’t fo’ yo’ pickin-on no mo’!”(Lee 322). Gus Lee tells the story of Kai, a young Asian boy who grows up in situations where he is an outlier. It takes us through his struggles of being the only boy out of 4 children, growing up in an area where his ethnicity isn’t well represented, and an abusive stepmother unwilling to accept his traditions. He overcomes most of these situations by facing them head first, and others by just accepting them, but the main lesson Lee is trying to convey is that we should always try to fix our situations even if the solutions seem out of