He also reminds Jook-Liang of Cheetah, the monkey who is the companion to Tarzan in the popular film. However, Jook-Liang is immediately intrigued Wong Bak reminds her of the Monkey King in the stories that Grandmother sometimes tells her. When Wong arrives, he is hunched and has an unusual face that many people might find ugly or grotesque. The Great Depression only made the situation worse for the men known as "Old China bachelor men," who often ended up living in poverty in Vancouver's Chinatown neighborhood.īefore Wong Bak arrives, Father sternly tells his children that they must act respectfully and not be startled by Wong's appearance. This meant that many men like Wong Bak were unable to either bring family members to Canada, or return to China. In 1923, the Canadian government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which severely limited and restricted the entry of Chinese immigrants into Canada. In the 1880s, many men began to emigrate from China to Western Canada to work on building the railroad.
Now that he is growing too old to live alone, he has moved to Vancouver and been connected with Father's family, since he is from the same village. Wong Bak is an elderly man who knows Grandmother from their time in China he immigrated to Canada and has been living in the small town of Yale, British Columbia. On the night that the plot begins, a man named Wong Bak (sometimes known as "Old Wong", and later, as "Wong Suk") is coming to have dinner with the family. She worked as a servant for a wealthy and cruel family.
Grandmother is in her 70s, and has lived in Canada for 35 years, but often tells stories of her past in China. She is the one to decide that Stepmother will be called Stepmother, and what her role in the family will be. Grandmother ("Poh-Poh") is Father's elderly mother, and holds a lot of authority within the family. Kiam, the eldest son, is the son of Father's first wife, who has died, and Jung is adopted. Stepmother is (in spite of her name) Jook-Liang's biological mother. Their relationship deepened, and Stepmother became his de facto second wife. When she was 20, she was sent to Canada to begin living with Father. As a small child, her entire family was killed in a violent attack, and after spending time at a Christian missionary school, Stepmother was purchased by Father's family to be groomed as his future concubine. Stepmother is significantly younger than her husband (Father) and was born in China. Stepmother is also pregnant with another child. It begins in 1933 at this time, Jook-Liang is 5 years old, and has two older brothers, Kiam (aged 10) and Jung (aged 7). The first part of the novel is narrated by Jook-Liang ("Only Sister," sometimes called Liang-Liang).
0 kommentar(er)
