Chinese Canadians' Identity Construction As Shown In Midnight At The Dragon Café

With the coming of modern world the decolonization made the international situation and domestic situation complex and diverse, which shattered the original sense of a fixed, coherent and stable identity into pieces. Immigrants are confronted with a universal problem of identity crisis. In her novel Midnight at the Dragon CaféChinese Canadian author Judy Fong Bates presents a broader picture of the existence issues of all Chinese immigrants by tracing the life of a particular Chinese family. Under a mild and plain description of daily trifles of Hing-Wun Chou's family, the author reveals the ever deepening crisis of Chinese immigrants'identity. This thesis is a post-colonial reading of the novel, and aims to analyze how to construct Chinese immigrant's identity as a Chinese Canadian in terms of race, culture and gender. The first chapter explores what kind of attitude the three generation adopted toward racism from the mainstream society. The three generations were confronted with different circumstances in their process of integrating into the mainstream society, which had much to do with historical and social environment as well as the distinctive features embodied by each generation. The alienation of the first generation and the ambivalence of the second generation toward the mainstream society are not the answer to their identity problems, which only indicated that they did not attain a clear and effective identity in the new land. Yet the third generation participates actively into the mainstream society with a deep emotional attachment to it. They have a clear recognition that they are an integrate part of Canadian society. The second chapter focuses on the relationship between Chinese Canadian and Chinese traditional culture. The first generation's desperate hold on it and the second generation's vain attempt to break away from it are not the right way to deal with cultural conflict between Chinese traditional culture and WASP culture. The construction of Chinese immigrants'identity as Chinese Canadians must be based on a due recognition of their Chinese traditional cultural heritage. Besides, the Chinese traditional culture attaches importance to the harmonious relationship of man and nature, man and others as well as man and self. The opposite factors were always complementary. The normal, healthy, enduring existence of everything depended on the mutual enhancement and beneficial interaction of opposite forces. It has far-reaching significance to the contemporary world laden with the problems of cultural conflict and environmental issues. The third chapter examines the subtle change in gender relationship in the new land and the consensus as well as divergence of their interest. Chinese Canadian women lived under the pressure not only from the institutional racism but the dominance of Chinese patriarchy as well. And the self-assertion of Chinese Canadian women made another blow to Chinese Canadian men's sense of privilege and dominance in ancient China which was already assailed by the white patriarchy. Yet the gender issue is not an isolated one, and should be placed against a broad social background. Although their specific interests are divergent, their fundamental interests are consistent with each other. The process of constructing one's identity is time-consuming and pains-taking, during which new elements are continuously involved in and the old elements are always under change. Yet as to the concrete case of Chinese Canadians, the three aspects mentioned above should be the most important ones to construct their identity. Based on a right understanding of the three aspects, the Chinese immigrants are hoped to retrieve a wholesome sense of identity as Chinese Canadians.