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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A bit dark and depressing, but is an Alex Award winner (ie best adult books for teens). The main character is a girl who moves with her mother from China to Canada. It's a coming of age story that addresses cultural issues as well as exploring some of the deeper, more difficult aspects of love and relationships.
This book was interesting and I overall enjoyed it.
I really love reading books set in Canada and books about the immigrant experience so this book was right up my alley.
I have never read a book set in small town Ontario in this time from the perspective of a Chinese family so this alone was able to hold my interest. I thought the author did a great job of setting up the world and I could really feel the atmosphere of this town in the 1960s.
Su-Jen was an interesting perspective to read from although she wasn't always the most likeable person. I also really liked reading about her family's restaurant and the dynamic of the characters working there and visiting.
One of the issues I had about this book is the layout. This book covers a wide stretch of time but there is no indication of time jumping and Su-Jen ageing so it was a bit hard to get my bearings at some of these jumps. I also wish that we got some sort of map to show when the characters travelled around Ontario but I think that's a personal preference.
I also didn't love the focus on Su-Jen's mom and brother. I didn't mind this aspect of the story but I didn't like how it sometimes felt like it took away from Su-Jen's story.
Overall though I really enjoyed this book and would recommend.
I really love reading books set in Canada and books about the immigrant experience so this book was right up my alley.
I have never read a book set in small town Ontario in this time from the perspective of a Chinese family so this alone was able to hold my interest. I thought the author did a great job of setting up the world and I could really feel the atmosphere of this town in the 1960s.
Su-Jen was an interesting perspective to read from although she wasn't always the most likeable person. I also really liked reading about her family's restaurant and the dynamic of the characters working there and visiting.
One of the issues I had about this book is the layout. This book covers a wide stretch of time but there is no indication of time jumping and Su-Jen ageing so it was a bit hard to get my bearings at some of these jumps. I also wish that we got some sort of map to show when the characters travelled around Ontario but I think that's a personal preference.
I also didn't love the focus on Su-Jen's mom and brother. I didn't mind this aspect of the story but I didn't like how it sometimes felt like it took away from Su-Jen's story.
Overall though I really enjoyed this book and would recommend.
Talking about her debut novel, Midnight in the Dragon Cafe, Judy Bates Fong recalls a cross-Canada road trup she took while young.
"During that long ago car trip I was inspired by the immensity of this country, its beauty and varied landscape. Yet there was one constant that made an impression on me then and stays with me today. Almost without fail, every small town we drove through had a local Chinese restaurant, and I knew, much like my family, the people who ran these restaurants would be separated from the community by language and culture, that their lives would be lonely, especially the older generation, and that work and home were melded into one, unchanging and monotonous."
Having gone on more than a few such road trips myself, I can see in my mind's eye the ubiquitous small-town Chinese restaurants Bates refers to, with their unvarying menu of standard North American greasy spoon cuisine and Westernised Chinese dishes. In the late 1950s - when this novel is set - the odds were that the owners and their families would be the only non-white immigrants in the town, isolated despite coming in constant contact with most of the people in the communities where they lived and worked.
In Reading Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, by Judy Fong Bates, I was struck by the simplicity of a narrative that nonetheless manages to say so much, and in such a nuanced fashion, about a complex situation. The book is told through the eyes of six-year-old Chou Su-Jen, who with her mother Lai-Jing has come to Canada to be reunited with Hing-Win, Lai-Jing's second husband and Su-Jen's father. Chou Hing-Win, much older than his wife, has lived in Canada since before WWII, having returned to China only once, when he met and married Lai-Jing. With his best friend Doon-Yat Lim, he owns the Dragon Cafe in the small town of Irvine, Ontario; the son of his first marriage, Lee-Kung, lives in Owen Sound where he works in a Chinese restaurant.
As the novel unfolds, Su-Jen, now known as Annie because students must have "Canadian" names, is increasingly caught between the two worlds - her isolated and insular family, and the wider community of Irvine, which welcomes her on the one hand while reminding her of her difference on the other. Meanwhile, tensions with her family grow as her mother, isolated and unhappy, makes a choice that could shatter Su-Jen's world.
"The quintessential Canadian immigrant experience, Midnight at the Dragon Café delicately traces the life of particular Chinese girl and her family in 1960's small town Ontario, but it also paints the broader picture of the difficulties faced by all newcomers, from casual racism to struggles with language acquisition and the balance between accepting new culture and not forgetting one's own heritage."(http://www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol12/no15/midnightatthedragoncafe.html)
Bates' style is understated, but seductive. I read the book in one long session, unable to put it away until the story had run its course and the resolution known. Highly recommended.
Judy Fong Bates beautifully tells the story of young Chinese immigrant girl growing up in a small Ontario town in the 50's. She is divided by her parents culture and the Candian culture in which she is growing up. She tries to understand what family means by observing her classmates families and watching her own fractured family try to hold together.
I couldn't even finish this. At once too slow and not slow enough. The voice of the narrator could have been so much more interesting. Ugh.