Eat a Bowl of Tea

Since we've been studying many of the dynamics of Chinese-American life in the 19th and 20th centuries, watching "Eat a Bowl of Tea" in class today really brought to life some of the familial hardships Chinese Americans endured, which are also depicted in Takaki's book. One element of the film that stood out to me in particular was the struggle Mei Oi went through as her husband, Ben Loy, became increasingly absorbed in his job and reached a point where he couldn't spend much time with her. Moreover, the pressure from the first generation Chinese Americans to have children shortly after they got married weighed down upon the new couple. Distraught, Mei began having an affair with Ah Song, even though she was pregnant with Ben's child. To a lesser degree, this parallels the extreme working hours Chinese Americans were frequently subjected to in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and how it was extraordinarily difficult to raise a family during that time.

When Ben traveled to China to be set up in his arranged marriage with Mei, he paid a visit to his mother. While he was there, Ben's mother sadly recalled how it had been twenty years since she had last seen his father, who had moved to America and hadn't returned to China since then. It was due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that Ben's parents were unable to be together in America. However, Ben was exempt from the Act because, since he had just finished serving in the military during World War II, the G.I. Bill - which had recently been passed - allowed him to bring a wife from China to America.

In the end, Ben and Mei move from New York to San Francisco, and they re-connect with Ben's and Mei's fathers, and appear to be able to happily raise their family, following the birth of Ben's and Mei's child. This is relatively atypical for Chinese Americans of that time period, given how rarely Chinese American men were able to find a wife.