Eat a Bowl of Tea

In the film the plot takes place after WWII (around 1945) in which we can see that the Chinese people at that time have more freedom to do what they want including bringing their wives to America from China. But in the memories of the old Chinese Americans like Wah Gay, Ah Song and Lee Gong, they still remember the period of the time when the Chinese Exclusion Act was first passed in 1882, the Chinese people were the victims of violence and discrimination from the white people. Takaki described in his book the experience of the Chinese people when they first landed in San Francisco “Halfway through Chinatown white boys came up and started throwing rock at us”, “kids were making fun of our queue”, or “the heathen Chinee is peculiar”. Also there were many fees and laws against the Chinese people in America. The generation of Lee Gong was much luckier than his dad’s generation because after WWII America and China were being considered friends since they allied during WWII.

At the beginning of the movie Ben Loy listened to his dad and went back to China for an arranged marriage, he didn’t like the idea of arranged marriage but he still went to the restaurant with his mother and see Mei Oi to pleasure his parents. And same after they married, he feels weird when making love with his wife but his dad and his dad’s friends want them to give birth to a son or daughter because for Chinese people it is very important for a family to have inherits. All of these things that Ben Loy had done for his dad was what the Chinese people consider to be normal and living in Chinatown he wants to fit in the norm. Later in the film when he says things like “this is none of your business”, “this is the problem between us”, or when Ben Loy and Mei Oi move to San Francisco without their dads, these are what Chinese people consider to be not normal since they are a familism culture. I think this is why the film was titled “Eat a bowl of tea” instead of “Drink a cup of tea” since Ben Loy is a Chinese American but he is not the same Chinese American as his dad where his dad is more traditional.  I found that Ben Loy is similar to the Little One in the short story “In the land of the Free” by Sui Sin Far because they are doing things that they think are natural to them rather than do things that based on their culture. This film and the short story touch on the idea that the future Chinese Americans are assimilating to the American culture, and in the future they might not practice the same culture of their ancestors.