In the last five years, young Chinese directors and authors have multiplied "like mushrooms after a spring rain," attracting considerable attention in American cultural circles. This spring alone five new novel s by Chinese-American authors came out, heralding what many in the US publishing industry see as the "biggest wave of ethnic literature" since Jewish ethnic writers.
The attention they get is naturally related to the rapid growth of "power" of Asian-Americans. In the last ten years, the size of the population of Asian descent grew 108%, reaching 7.3 million, at the top of the list of immigrants. The proportion of this group with a college education is 21% higher than for the rest of the US, and average household income is US$8,000 higher than average.
Besides these facts, it is also as the Chinese-American woman director Sun Hsiao-ling has said: "The center of gravity of the next century in the US will be with the Asian countries on the Pacific rim. Works exploring the cultural exchange and conflict between the US and Asia naturally are getting more attention, just in time to give us a chance t o show our stuff."
These Chinese-American cultural workers place the focus of their works on the cultural interchange/conflict between generations of immigrant families, writing or filming their own growing-up processes.
In fact, there have long been problems between the generations of immigrant families--the parents "from the old country" and the children born and bred in the new represent two different cultural traditions, creating a "generation gulf" in terms of education, language, behavior, value systems, and ethnic consciousness.
This phenomenon is most manifest in those living in the Chinatowns, in isolated Chinese cultures.
Regrettably, senior editor Jackie Chen and photographer Pu Hua-chih did not have the chance to directly interview Chinatown families on their trip to New York. They went through a number of channels--teachers, friends, Chinese community leaders--and tried over ten different families, but were refused each time. One family reluctantly agreed, but in the end left the reporters waiting in vain for a whole afternoon.
It's not only Sinorama reporters who couldn't get past the door and find Chinese families willing to talk about this embarrassing issue--even Taiwan scholars, who cannot speak the Cantonese commonly used in Chinatowns--have been unable to touch this topic. So in the end we had to work with interviews with Tang Teh-kang (a professor at the City University of New York specializing in works by Chinese authors) and Wang Cheng-fang (director of Peking Story), as well as literature produced by Chinese-Americans.
In direct interviews with suburban Chinese families, senior editor Chen was able to observe their concerns: "Chinese parents usually feel a contradiction--if there are too many Chinese in their child's school they will be uneasy, but will also be uneasy if there are none. They want their children to enter the mainstream culture as much as possible, yet fear t hey will not know themselves if they do. Each step is filled with trepidation."
The difficulties that emerge between generations are probably not part of the initial ideals that drive people to leave their home and go to a distant land.
In this issue, besides the in-depth report "Chinese Parents and Their American Kids," we also look back on the flourishing of culture in Taiwan in the 1980's with a special feature, "A Decade in Culture." Besides reporting on several "little giants" of the cultural scene whose own careers spanned the decade--Commonwealth magazine, the Lan Ling Theater, the New Wave film movement, the New Aspect International Arts Festival, the National Institute of the Arts, and the Council for Cultural Planning and Development--we also do in-depth analysis of the political and economic environment conditioning this "Decade in Culture."
Senior editor Laura Li, whose main beat is the arts, given this chance to weigh and rewrite the "cultural history" of these ten years, said of herself that it was a "noble struggle" as she raced to do this comprehensive report, "including both the forest and the trees," in a brief month.
Also not to be missed: Owing to the fact that little is being done to record and preserve Taiwan's most "grassroots" popular custom--the yi-ko and chen-t'ou (and if you don't know the Chinese, you'll just have to read the articles to find out!)--Sinorama is formally beginning its "Taiwan's Yi-Chen Series." "There's a gifted student in the family" is the ideal situation for today's ambitious parents. But how much of a burden does this label place on the little prodigies in question? We try to look behind the cover in "Labeled for Success." Finally, "it's a jungle out there" for two Chinese overseas: "Tree King" Li Chien, a Chinese of Japanese nationality, and overseas investor Lin Tung-kuo have both carved out kingdoms for themselves--Lin raising eels in the jungles of Malaysia, Li engaging in plant parenthood in Okinawa. Both are fascinating!
[Picture Caption]
Sinorama senior editor Jackie Chen interviewing students of Chinese descent at Cornell University. (photo by Pu Hwa-chih)