Tea That Burns: A Family Memoir of Chinatown

by Bruce Hall

Overview

In Tea That Burns, Bruce Edward Hall uses the stories of these and others to tell the history of Chinatown, starting with the tumultuous journey from an ancient empire ruled by the nine dragons of the universe to a bewildering land of elevated trains, solitary labor, and violent discrimination.

A vivid and tactile story, rich with the sights, sounds, and sensations of Chinatown then and now, Tea That Burns reads like a novel, but is history at its best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780743236591
Publisher:	Free Press
Publication date:	01/15/2002
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	1460L (what's this?)

About the Author

Bruce Edward Hall, a fourth-generation Chinese American, is the author of Tea That Burns: A Family Memoir of Chinatown, as well as other books. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, New York magazine, and American Heritage, among others. Besides his writing career, Hall also served as the head puppeteer on the television show Romper Room, and a principal puppeteer in The Muppets Take Manhattan. Mr. Hall lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

Linda Ching Sledge author of Empire of Heaven and A Map of Paradise Bruce Edward Hall brings New York's Chinatown to life in all of its raw, turn-of-the-century power. He weaves tales of family heroes and eccentrics into the rich history of an American Chinatown in a truly memorable narrative.

From the Publisher

Hall is able to make Chinatown as vivdly real to the reader as if he'd live there since the time of his great-grandfather. . . [his] narrative soars with his descriptions of the annual succession of joyous parades and celebrations that are the life and breth of Chinatown. . . . At the beginning of his remarkable book, Hall writes, 'This is a tactile history. I want the reader to be able to know what it felt like to live in Chinatown through the years, what it looked like, what it smelled like.' This reader certainly did. -- New York Magazine

Emily D'Aulaire

Freelance writer Hall, a fourth-generation Chinese American, has two wonderful stories to tell here: the history of New York City's Chinatown and the intertwined lives of his own family going back to their days in the Chinese village of Hor Lup Chui. Incidents such as his grandfather's wedding come vividly to life with feasting, firecrackers and suckling pigs, but this book suffers from overcrowding. There are just too many friends of friends and cousins back in China for the reader to connect with any one story. The overall feeling is one of frustration at characters who are never quite realized and a unique culture just beyond reach, depriving the narrative of the dynamism it deserves. Nevertheless, the history of the early Chinese immigrants emerges from the crowded pages: the widespread discrimination against these people who were denied the right to obtain citizenship and persecuted by the indigenous population. Chinese communities like New York City's Chinatown became culturally and geographically isolated, lacking language skills and being almost without women. No wonder the men turned to 'the tea that burns,' or less poetically 'a teapot full of bootleg Scotch.' Hall shows that only in their own community could Chinese find some security, and that turning inward gave rise to gang wars and turf battles, further isolating Chinatown from the rest of Manhattan. Sadly, in the end, Hall's lack of narrative skill and his irritating use of the running present tense that ends up merging all eras deprives us of what should have been a wonderful and exotic tale.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Part history, part family chronicle, part personal reminiscence, this saga by fourth-generation Chinese American Hall (Diamond Street, Black Dome) follows the Hall family (whose surname was once transliterated 'Hor') from the 19th-century in Hor Lup Chui, a village outside Canton, to late-20th-century America. While the extensive bibliography lists only one set of documents pertaining to the Hor family, Hall consulted hundreds of publications and papers on Chinese Americans and Chinatown in New York City, a sizable research effort for a family memoir. The Hor family history is full of colorful characters, including grandfather 'Hock Shop,' the bookie and bon vivant, whose scotch ('tea that burns') was served by the pot. Highly entertaining and quite informative, this excellent mix of Chinese tradition and Asian American history reads somewhat like Maxine Hong Kingston with footnotes. --D.E. Perushek, Northwestern University Library

Library Journal

The history of New York's Chinatown as told through the author's personal history. Hall (Diamond Street) is the son of a second-generation Chinese American and a Yankee of Scottish descent. In his introduction, he writes, 'I guess I'm searching for continuity,' and thus begins a backwards journey to discover his 'roots." The book, however, is not strictly a family memoir, but a history of the genesis and rapid growth of Manhattan's Chinatown with the stories of the author's predecessors woven into it. Hall conscientiously brings up the racism that Chinese immigrants faced in the late 19th century, culminating in the Exclusion Act of 1882. He also writes vividly of the way the Chinese were perceived by Americans (and vice versa), as well as about a particular hardship faced by the first wave of Chinese immigrants—the lack of Chinese women (he discusses the comlicated unions between Chinese men and white women). The book is at its best when he delves into the early history of Chinatown. Hall crowds his story with colorful characters and anecdotes in a way that is reminiscent of Luc Sante's Lowlife: the notorious Quimbo Appo, the crusading newspaperman, Wong Chin Foo. He also brings to life the rise of the Tongs, or Cantonese gangs, and their ensuing wars. While trying to illustrate the differences between cultures, he too often resorts to turns of phrase ('`white ghosts,' 'foreign devils, `big noses, 'the seventh month of the Year of the Ox') that are forced and render a quaint touch to the book. And unfortunately, during the moments when his own story emerges, the narrative goes flat. But from the turn of the century to the present day, Hall's book acceleratesoverall to a dizzying pace.

Kirkus Reviews