"Eat a Bowl of Tea"

Part of what makes the relationship between Ben Loy Wang and Mei Oi so complex is that they themselves are unaware of the hybrid consciousness produced by two conflicting cultures. When Ben meets Mei Oi for the first time, he feels awkward because he does not know how to communicate geniality towards her in a way that will be meaningful to Mei Oi. Confused, he asks her out on a "date"--a distinctly American custom that Mei Oi does not quite understand. However, Mei Oi is very eager to embrace America and wants to impress Ben by answering his Chinese greeting in English. In the next scene, the two of them watch a film about Western couple "falling in love," and both of them become enraptured by the American idea of "romance." The filmmakers artistically communicate this double consciousness by showing Ben and Mei Oi kiss while the Caucasian couple in the film kisses in the background behind them. Both of them wish to vicariously live the romantic rapture supposedly experienced by the couple in the film.

Ben does not understand at first that his idea of "romance" is not compatible with the Chinese view of marriage. Ben's father makes it clear, in classic Chinese bluntness, that the purpose of the penis is for making children.  When Ben brings Mei Oi to a Chinese dinner, the couple is congratulated and celebrated, but the real significance of Mei Oi's presence is that she represents the potential for expanding and reinforcing the Chinese race. Second-wave Chinese immigrants in the latter half of the 20th century were particularly enthusiastic about this idea, especially since the ban against female immigrants had just recently been lifted. Takiki also shows how the Chinese were reinforcing their heritage through the construction of  "Chinatowns" that began popping up around the U.S., "creating the illusion that Chinatown was "really China." Takiki quotes an Asian immigrant encouraging his son to move up in the American social structure: "If you can not be better than they [whites] are, try to be their equal anyway, because that way, one of these days, you can be up there too."

Thus Ben expresses the sentiment to Mei Oi that he feels like "everybody is watching them" because they are. Ben and Mei Oi want to experience a romance, but their family sees their union on purely practical grounds. Part of the reason for the tension in their relationship was because the couple could not reconcile their desire for romance with the external social pressures around them to "preserve the Chinese race." The Chinese take great pride in their own culture, and Chinese pride became even more self-conscious and intentional when they experienced racist treatment in America.  As a mother says in Takiki's book: "Don't pay attention to the names the white children call you. They're just barbarians! Just be as nice as possible to them, because you have a superior culture." Ben and Mei Oi's narrative is believable because it fits in to the first tenet of Critical Race Theory: "racism is ordinary, and it is difficult or impossible to eradicate." Therefore, it was a natural response for the Chinese immigrants to put such pressure on the young couple to bear Chinese children. The pressure Ben and Mei Oi experienced is an act Chinese retaliation to the racist attacks brought on them during the First Wave, and an attempt to "naturalize" themselves as true American citizens.