It seems that just behind the inviting hubbub of tourist Chinatown is a world of criminality and menace. Aggressive Fukienese newcomers push hard against the territory of the Toishanese and Cantonese old-timers. New York's Chinatown is a place like no other, except perhaps for its cousins in San Francisco, Seattle, and other points along the Chinese diaspora.Detective Jack Yu, NYPD, works the Fifth Precinct, in Chinatown, a world peopled by the Ghost Legions, and the Hip Ching and On Yee tongs. The sense of place in Chang's novels - Chinatown Beat, Year of the Dog, and Red Jade - is extraordinary. On the other hand, the lessons led me indirectly to the books of Henry Chang and to an immersion in "otherness" that I have not often experienced. I could not resist when our local library offered free lessons in Mandarin Chinese but, sadly, I was not an apt student.
0 kommentar(er)
