“The Brother in Vietnam” illustrates another identity problem for Chinese Americans and clearly presents Kingston’s pacifist message. Stationed in various Asian countries during the Vietnam War, he feels lost and tries to find a “center” of identity for himself. His anxiety turns into nightmares and muttering in his sleep, which wins him the title of “Champion Complainer.” The brother feels ambivalent when he passes the military-security check, which serves as evidence of his Americanness: “The government was clarifying that the family was really American, not precariously American but super-American, extraordinary secure Clearance Americans.” Yet he refuses to be trained as a language specialist for fear of being made to interrogate prisoners of wars. His refusal of linguistic exploitation by the military reinforces his kinship with his sister word warrior.
The epilogue, “On Listening,” circles back to the prologue, “On Discovery.” The narrator recounts a warm discussion among young Filipino Americans about the whereabouts of the real Gold Mountain. Together with “The Brother in Vietnam,” this finale extends the text to the next generation of Asian Americans, as the spirit of inquiry and the ability to listen are passed on. Furthermore, Kingston illustrates how the daughter-narrator, in her attentiveness to the heteroglossic “voices” around her. blossoms into an expert storyteller.
For years Kingston was reluctant to visit China for fear that what she discovered there might invalidate everything she was thinking and writing. Her impression of China was also colored by the misogynist Chinese sayings she had heard as a child. In an 1978 essay, “Reservations about China,” Kingston also criticized the practice of aborting female fetuses in Communist China. In 1980, after Finishing China Men, Kingston finally visited China and saw for the First time the China that she has created in her imagination. As she told Rabinowitz, “I think I found that China over there because I wrote it. It was accessible to me before I saw it, because I wrote it. The power of imagination leads us to what’s real. We don’t imagine Fairylands.” The warm welcome she received from many Chinese gave Kingston a sense of homecoming, of going back to a place she had never seen but had imagined so well. Having used up her Chinese memory, she could concentrate on her American reality in her next book, Tripmaster Monkey.
In a 1980 essay titled “The Coming Book” Kingston envisioned writing a book that “will sound like the Twentieth Century” when read aloud. “The reader will not need a visual imaginadon, only ears.” Nine years later, Tripmaster Monkey:His Fake Book was published. In this heteroglossic novel, Kingston continues her project of claiming America and further explores the mentality of Chinese American males. The male protagonist, Witt-man Ah Sing, a fifth-generation Californian newly graduated from Berkeley, is a Joycean young artistand a self-appointed playwright of his tribe. Set in the 1960s, Tripmaster Monkey recounts Wittman’s odyssey through San Francisco) Oakland, Sacramento, and Reno and his efforts to create his own “deep- roots American theater” “A Pear Garden of the West” that will perform a continuous play for many nights. Like Kingston’s earlier books, Tripmaster Monkey is constructed around a web of Chinese intertexts, from the third person narrator, identified by Kingston as Kwan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy, to the Chinese classical romances that serve as sources for Wittman’s extended ex- travaganza. Nevertheless, Kingston skillfully translates these Chinese intertexts into Chinese Ameri- can idioms with many allusions to Western literature, movies, and bohemian culture. The title of the novel serves as a metaphor for the mixture of the culture of the bohemians and that of China. Wittman, experiencing drug-induced “trips” in the novel, imitates the mythical Monkey King from a Chinese classic, Journey to the West. The Monkey King is a rebellious and mischievous trick- ster figure who is capable of seventy-two transformations and who, according to legend, is responsible for the introduction of Buddhism into China from the West (India). As Wittman declares to his “would-be girifriend” Nanci, “I am really the present-day U.S.A. incarnation of the King of the Monkeys.” Like the Monkey King, Wittman wants to unsettle established institutions with his outrageous conduct. Significantly, in his one-man show Wittman raves against misleading reviews that describe his play as “East meets West” and “Exotic” by claiming that the play itself is “The Journey In the West.” Positioning himself in the West, the American monkey deploys his play to embody his American “trips.” In his rebuttal Wittman also speaks for Kingston, whose works have often been misread. The novel’s subtitle, His Fake Book, again alludes to Journey to the West, in which the Monkey King discovers that the Heart Sutra he has sought is blank and jumps to the conclusion that the scrolls are fake. The scrolls turn out to be authentic after all, but only people with wisdom and insight can decipher them. Its JOM Another achievement of linguistic innovation. Thenovel displays an amazing verbal diversity, and, as Kingston predicted, it appeals to the reader??s aural sensitivity. It is also a complete American book in that Kingston constantly plays with modern American language: ??I already finished writing those Chinese rhythms. So I was trying to write a book with American rhythms,?? Kingston told interviewer Marilyn Chin. In the ??Pig Woman?? episode, for instance,Wittman comes across a Chinese American girl, Judy Louis, on the bus to Oakland. Bored by Judy??s gibberish, Wittman suddenly visualizes her as a blue boar: ??He leaned back in his seat, tried forward, and she remained a blue boar. (You an make a joke about it, you know. ??Boar?? and ??bore??).?? The fantastic metamorphosis reminds the reader of the Circe story, in which men are changed into pigs through magic. It also alludes to the Monkey King??s marvelous power of transformation and to his companion, Piggy. In Tripmaster Monkey Kinston is a magician with words, transforming linguistic puns into imagined reality. This playfulness with language in also strongly reminiscent of James Joyce??s Ulysses (1922), another heteroglossic novel.
Wittman??s name is another deliberate linguistic name. Wittman Ah Sing is a ??man of wit?? aspiring to be an heir to the great American poet Walt Whitman?Awho ??sings?? about ??I?? so powerfully in his poetry. In an interview with Shelly Fisher Fishkin, Kinston admitted the srong influence of Whitman on Tripmaster Monkey, expressing admiration for the freedom and the wildness of Witman??s language, which to her sounds as though it could have come from modern 1960s slang. She even uses lines from Leaves of Grass ?Vsuch as ??Trippers and Askers???Xas chapter headings in the novel. Yet her protagonist is not exactly Whitman. While trying to name his son after his favorite poet, Wittman??s father, Zeppline Ah Sing, misspelled the name, demonstrating the limitation of imitation and making a transformation that is necessary if Wittman is to be a unique Chinese American poet.
Ah Sing is also an American name that allows Wittman to claim his Chinese American identity. In his sols show Wittman discusses the origin of his American surname: ??I??m one of the American Ah Sings. Probablly there are no Ah Sings in China. You may laugh behind my family??s back, that we keep the Ah and think it means something. I know it??s just a sound. A vocative that goes in front of everyone??s names?K.In that Ah, you can hear we had an ancestor who left a country where the language has sounds that doesn??t mean anything–la and ma and wa?Xlike music.?? The meaningless yet musical vocative in this ??new American name?? signifies the Ah Sings?? link to their Chinese ancestors as well as their new American identity.
In an interview with Phyllis Thompson, Kingstion calls Wittman ??a prankster, ?? and ??a ne??er do well.?? Wittman is unattractive. He is biased, egocentric, chauvinist, and has other unlikable characteristics. He snubs F.O.B.?Xfresh off the boat?XChinese immigrants while he himself is sensitive about being discriminated against. The feminist narrator is critical of Wittman??s relationship with his ??wife, ?? Tana, commenting constantly to the reader that Wittman is going to pay for his androcentric attitude. Yet while Kinston sometimes criticizes him, at other times her treatment of him seems to be almost affectionate, and she always seems to view him with interest.
Kingston??s distanced, yet interested, attitude toward this male protagonist indicates a significant breakthrough. After her two successful ??memoirs?? written mainly from a first-person perspective, Kingston shifted to the third-person point of view for her novel to get away from the shadow of egotism. By writing about a male character, or ??The Other, ?? from a distanced perspective, Kingston told Marilyn Chin, she finally found an artistic and psychological solution to her ??long struggle with pronouns.?? Realistically, Kingston pointed out to Fishkin, women did not have such exciting and dramatic lives in the 1960s as men did. By providing a female narrator, furthermore, Kingston dramatizes the tension between male and female perspectives: ??He??s very macho-spirit. The narrator is the great female, so he struggles with her and fights with her and refuses to accept reality. He has to learn to be one with the female principles of the world.?? At the end of Tripmaster Monkey the narrator allows Wittman to have the spotlight to himself and blesses him in a material tone: ??Dear American monkey, don??t be afraid. Here, let me tweak your ear, and kiss your other ear.?? This omniscient narrator is also reminiscent of the storyteller in Chinese folk literature and classic romances, who introduces necessary information and guides the reader. Drawing on the Chinese tradition of talk story, Kingston created her female storyteller-narrator to monitor her trickster monkey.
Wittman is a conscientious young artist-to-be struggling to find his own voice. Born backstage to members of a vaudeville troupe, Wittman ??really does have show business in his blood.?? His artistic ambition is to be ??the first bad-ass Chiba Man bluesman of America?? so that he can create a Chinese American culture that consists of something besides beauty contests and handlaundries. The most important lesson for Wittman, however, is to learn that military heroism, as represented by the heroes in the Chinese romances, is inadequate. To be a true artist Wittman needs to become a pacifist.
Kinston??s own pacifism is readily apparent in Tripmaster Monkey. She took part in antiwar marches during her years in Berkeley and worked with a group of resisters in Hawaii to provide sanctuary to deserters. In a 1990 essay titled ??Violence and Non-Violence in China, 1989, ?? she praised the Chinese students who attempted to achieve democracy through peaceful means, and she actively supports prodemocracy Chinese student groups. In Tripmaster Monkey Kingston??s message is unmistakably pacifist: ??Our monkey, master of change, staged a fake war, which might very well be displacing some real war, ?? the narrator says in describing the effect of Wittman??s three-day play.
Wittman??s carnivalesque play is a crystallization of the love of fun. He asserts that instead of digging for gold, his Chinese ancestors came to America to have a good time: ??The difference between us and other pioneers, we did not come here for the gold streets. We came here to play. And we??ll play again. Yes, John Chinaman means to enjoy himself all the while?K.We played for a hundred years plays that went on for five hours a night, continuing the next night, the same long play going on for a week without repeats, like ancient languages with no breaks between words, theater for a century, then dark.?? Wittman??s assertion undermines the stereotype of the money-thirsty Chinese and values fun over materialism. In writing Tripmaster Monkey Kinston was finally able to use her abundant sense of humor to the full. She commented to Arturo Islas that her readers often fail to understand the humor in her works, such as the ??sitcom?? in Moon Orchard??s story and the trick Bak Goong plays on the white missionary women: ??I guess when people come to ethnic writing, ?? Kinston remarked, ??they have such a reverence for it or are so scared that they don??t want to laugh.?? Wittman??s outrageous language and behavior, however, force the reader out of this false sense of reverence.
Moreover, Wittman??s play is at once universal and culturally specific. His theater is based on the principle of expansion and inclusion: ??I??m including everything that is being left out, and everybody who has no place.?? The content of the play, however, is distinctively Chinese American, mixing Chinese stories and American vaudeville. Bringing back the tradition of the extended theatrical performance, Wittman is able to define a community. As the narrator states, ??Community is not built once-for-all; people have to imagine, practice, and recreate it.?? From a lonely romantic contemplating suicide at the beginning of the novel, Wittman becomes an artist able to shoulder the responsibility of re0creating his community. His play, like Kingston??s writing, directly opposes American individualism and embodies the collective spirit of the Chinese American community.
Kingston is now teaching in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley, and writing a book that is tentatively titled ??The Fifth Book of Peace, ?? in which she writes about her father??s death and the loss of an earlier draft for the book in the 1991 Oakland fire. She links this fire thematically to the Vietnam War, writing about the war as it is represented by the protagonist of Tripmaster Monkey and about her warrior woman??s heroic homecoming.
Kingston??s works have enchanted and inspired many readers while enraging some others. No matter how her works are received, Kingston succeeds in her ??revenge?? by reporting the crimes of sexism and racism. Despite her diminutive physical stature, she deserves the title of a word warrior in every sense. Kingston??s literary innovations are also significant contributions to American literature. As Kingston herself says, ??I am creating part of American literature?K.?? Contemporary American literature has been enriched by the addition of the powerful words of Maxine Hong Kingston.
Interviews:
Timothy Pfaff, ??Talk With Mrs,. Kingston, ?? New York Times Book Review, 19 June
1980, pp. 1, 25-27;
Arturo Islas, ??Maxine Hong Kingston, ?? in Women Writers of the West Coast: Speaking
Their Lives and Careers, edited by Marilyn Yalom (Santa Barbara: Capra Press,
1983), pp. 11-19;
Phyllis Hodge Thompson, ??This Is the Story I Heard: A Conversation with Maxine Hong
Kingston, ?? Biography, 6 (Winter 1993): 1-2;
Paula Rabinowitz, ??Eccentric Memories: A Conversation with Maxine Hong
Kingston, ??Michigan Quarterly Review, 26 (Winter 1987): 177-187; Marilyn Chin,
??A MELUS Interview: Maxine Hong Kingston, ?? MELUS, 16 (Winter 1980-1990):
57-74;
Maxine Hong Kingston: Talking Story [audio tape] (NAATA, 1990);
Shelly Fisher Fishkin, ??Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston, ?? American Literary
History, 3 (Winter 1991): 782-791
Reference:
King-kok Cheung, Articulated Silences: Narrative Strategies of Three Asian American
Women Writers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990);
Cheung, ??Don??t Tell??: Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior, ??
PMLA, 103 (March 1988): 162-174;
Cheung, ??Talk Story: Counter-Memory in Maxine Hong Kingston??s China Men, ??
Tamkang Review, 24 (Autumn 1993): 21-37;
Cheung, ??The Woman Warrior versus The Chinaman Pacific: Must a Chinese American
Critic Choose between Feminism and Heroism?, ?? in Conflict in Feminism, edited
by Marianne Hirsch and Evelyn Fox Keller (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp.60-81;
Thomas J. Ferraro, ??Changing the Rituals: Courageous Daughtering and the Mystique of
The Woman Warrior, ?? in Ethnic Passages: Literary Immigrants in Twentieth-
Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp.154-190;
Linda Hunt, ??I Could Not Figure Out What Was My Village??: Gender vs. Ethnicity in
Maxine Hong Kingston??s The Woman Warrior, MELUS, 12 (Fall 1985): 5-12;
Suzanne Juhasz, ??Maxine Hong Kingston: Narrative Technique and Female Identity, ??
In Contemporary American Women Writers, edited by Catherine Rainwater and
William J. Scheik (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985), pp.173-189
Elaine Kim, Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social
Context (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982);
David Leiwei Li, ??China Men : Mazine Hong Kinston and the American Literary Canon, ??
American Literary History, 2 (Fall 1990): 482-502;
Li, ??The Naming of a Chinese American ??I??: Cross Cultual Sign/fications in The Woman
Warrior, ?? Criticism, 30 (Fall 1988): 497-515;
Li, ??The Production of Chinese American Literary Tradition: Displacing American
Orientalist Discourse, ?? in Redefining the Literatures of Asian-America, edited by
Shirley Lim and Amy Ling (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), pp.319-
331;
Shirley Lim,ed.,Approaches to Teaching Kingston??s The Women Worrior(New York:Modern Language Association of America,1991.);