Eat a Bowl of Tea

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of sexual assault and intimate partner violence, as well as anti-Chinese racism.

“The encounter made him uneasy. It brought back memories he wanted to forget. It was like the opening of an old wound. Even staying in this apartment seemed an affront to the purity of Mei Oi.”

Ben Loy’s struggle to be intimate with his wife Mei Oi as a result of his past with sex workers is a central conflict in the novel. This passage suggests that Ben Loy is incapable of having sex with his wife in their apartment because he sees her as purer than the sex workers who used to visit him there.

“Girls born in China are better. They are courteous and modest. Not like these jook sings born in New York. They can tell good from bad.”

The term jook sing is used throughout the book to describe Chinese Americans born in New York and Chinese-born immigrants who have abandoned their Chinese heritage. In this passage, Lee Gong insists that girls born in China, like his daughter Mei Oi, have better morals than American-born girls. He is later disappointed by Mei Oi’s behavior in the US.

“If Ben Loy should not like Lee Gong’s daughter, he could always get another girl and be married. A sense of male superiority came over him, and he almost laughed out loud.”

In the first part of the 20th century, Chinese immigrant communities in the US were often dominated by men, who immigrated before the passing of anti-Chinese immigration laws that made it nearly impossible for their families to join them. This passage suggests that a male-dominated environment led some men, like Wah Gay, to devalue women, whom they saw as interchangeable.