"Eat a Bowl of Tea"

In the film, “Eat a Bowl of Tea” a Chinese-American man named Ben Hoy struggles to comply with traditional Chinese norms while harboring increasingly Americanized views of how his life should be. He and his father live in New York, and Ben Hoy travels to China to marry a Chinese woman of his parents’ choosing, Mei Oi. They return to America after their marriage and are immediately scrutinized by the Chinese-American community in New York. Ben Hoy’s father and his old friends are very proud of the marriage, but they are impatient for the couple to have children regardless of Ben Hoy’s struggle through his new job and marriage. The clash of interests between the elders of the community and Ben Hoy and Mei Oi represents the westernization of second-generation Chinese Americans that occurred in reality within the Chinese-American society at the time.

Takaki references the 1882 Exclusion Act in his book and explains how particularly Chinese women weren’t allowed to enter the U.S. for fear that the Chinese would settle and displace white Americans. In one scene in the film, Ben Hoy’s mother complains about the law and blames it for separating her from her son and husband for twenty years. In 1949, however, this ban is lifted due to the World War II, which allows Ben Hoy to take his new wife home with him to New York. Takaki mentions that this repeal of the Exclusion Act triggered a third wave of Chinese immigration to the U.S. and this is represented in Mei Oi’s eagerness to accompany her husband to America.

For me, the fifth CRT tenet, that everyone has a compound and complex identity, rings true in the film. Ben Hoy, having been raised in America, acquires many ideas about marriage and independence that differ from his father’s. Also, he perfectly fluent in English and—at the beginning of the film—has a white girlfriend. However, he still recognizes Chinese tradition by obeying his father and traveling to China to marry a woman that his parents chose for him via matchmaker. His identity is made up of several components both American and Chinese as he balances between his parents’ expectations and his Americanized life.

Later in the film, Ben Hoy displays double consciousness when his father confronts him about having children. Ben Hoy is caught up in his new job and, even though he wants kids himself, he is frustrated at his father for being so overbearing about his personal life. He realizes that his father is acting according to Chinese custom and he tries to fulfill his role as a proper Chinese husband, but he can’t help but foster the more American notion that his marriage is no one’s business but his. These two perspectives war with each other inside Ben Hoy in this confrontational scene.