Recently I began reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It’s pretty depressing, not that I expected anything happy… but it also introduces many interesting ideas and provokes thought from the reader. The events in chapter 15 especially stood out to me.
For people who haven’t read East of Eden before: The main character is Adam Trask who moved with his wife Cathy to Salinas Valley in California. In this chapter, Steinbeck introduces a new character – Adam’ servant, a Chinese man named Lee. When Lee is introduced at first, he is portrayed as a stereotypical Chinese: he speaks in broken English, wears a long braid, shuffles and hides his hands in his sleeves. However, later, Lee has a conversation with Sam Hamilton, one of Adam’s neighbors. Sam finds out that Lee was born in America and he tells Lee that he doesn’t believe that Lee is really what he seems (an uneducated servant), and the reader finds that Lee actually speaks perfect English and had graduated from the University of California. However, because of the way most white people viewed Chinese during the time, it was easier for Lee to live according to what people expected of a Chinese person, which was why he purposely spoke bad English. When he tried to act like a westerner, he found that white people mistrusted him and other Chinese people avoided him for acting too “white”, so he decided that it was easier to conform to the stereotype of a Chinese person. That way, he blended in and escaped most people’s notice.
First of all, I found this lonely situation of his was quite depressing.
But it also made me think and appreciate the cultural acceptance in modern days. Today, it’s not strange at all for people of all races to speak perfect English, be educated and fit right in with the rest of society in the US.
Despite this however, it’s not exactly the same being Chinese in America as it would being white in America. For one, I’m not always sure how to balance the western culture with Asian culture. For example, one of my greatest regrets forgetting how to speak Chinese fluently (I spoke Cantonese fluently when I was younger). I feel that because I’m Chinese, I should at least know how to speak the language properly; however, once I started going to school, I gradually forgot more and more of the language, so now I feel cut off from a large part of the Asian culture. If I were to go to China and try to live there, I would still be a foreigner. In a way, I have this in common with Lee; he tried going to China, but the people there regarded him with suspicion because he was a foreigner from the land of the “white demons”.
But in contrast, in modern times, the cultures of Asia and America are not as different anymore. World cultures are becoming increasingly uniform with the spread of technology. The Eastern cultures have become “westernized”, adopting and advancing the “western” ideas and technologies and ways of life.
So, the question is, how much does race really matter anymore today? In Lee’s time, it mattered a lot because of the harsh stereotyping and preconceptions that people held of certain races. As Lee explains to Sam in chapter fifteen, the white people expected Chinese to speak in broken English, walk with a shuffle and wear long braids. If a Chinese person acted otherwise, they were thought of as unnatural and untrustworthy.
However, today, since anyone, no matter what race, can act practically anyway they want without surprising people too much, then does our race really matter in the way we live? It doesn’t have as much impact on our culture, because now we can be multiple cultures at once and still be accepted in America. I can be Asian American, and I’m not obligate to choose one or the other or one over the other. So I think I’ll satisfy myself with that answer right now.
Insert Your Own Poetic Name 