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The chickencoop Chinaman
American Book Award winner. Short stories set among the Chinese-American community of Oakland, California. "[Chin] writes an oceanic prose teeming with wild images and long surreal passages."--Richard Burgin, New York Times Book Review
45 pages, Unknown Binding
First published October 1, 1988
54 people want to read
About the author
Frank Chin
21 books12 followersFrank Chin was born in Berkeley, California, but was raised to the age of six by a retired Vaudeville couple in Placerville, California. At six his mother brought him back to the San Francisco Bay Area to live in Oakland Chinatown. He attended college at the University of California, Berkeley. He received an American Book Award in 1989 for a collection of short stories, and another in 2000 for Lifetime Achievement. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Chin is considered to be one of the pioneers in Asian American theatre. He founded the Asian American Theatre Workshop, which became the Asian American Theater Company in 1973. He first gained notoriety as a playwright in the 1970s. His play The Chickencoop Chinaman was the first by an Asian American to be produced on a major New York stage. Stereotypes of Asian Americans, and traditional Chinese folklore are common themes in much of his work. Frank Chin has accused other Asian American writers, particularly Maxine Hong Kingston, of furthering such stereotypes and misrepresenting the traditional stories. Chin, during his professional career, has been highly critical of American writer, Amy Tan, for her telling of Chinese-American stories, indicating that her body of work has furthered and reinforced stereotypical views of this group.
In addition to his work as an author and playwright, Frank Chin has also worked extensively with Japanese American resisters of the draft in WWII. His novel, Born in the U.S.A., is dedicated to this subject.
Chin is also a musician. In the mid-1960s, he taught Robbie Krieger, a member of The Doors how to play the Flamenco guitar.
Chin is considered to be one of the pioneers in Asian American theatre. He founded the Asian American Theatre Workshop, which became the Asian American Theater Company in 1973. He first gained notoriety as a playwright in the 1970s. His play The Chickencoop Chinaman was the first by an Asian American to be produced on a major New York stage. Stereotypes of Asian Americans, and traditional Chinese folklore are common themes in much of his work. Frank Chin has accused other Asian American writers, particularly Maxine Hong Kingston, of furthering such stereotypes and misrepresenting the traditional stories. Chin, during his professional career, has been highly critical of American writer, Amy Tan, for her telling of Chinese-American stories, indicating that her body of work has furthered and reinforced stereotypical views of this group.
In addition to his work as an author and playwright, Frank Chin has also worked extensively with Japanese American resisters of the draft in WWII. His novel, Born in the U.S.A., is dedicated to this subject.
Chin is also a musician. In the mid-1960s, he taught Robbie Krieger, a member of The Doors how to play the Flamenco guitar.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 31, 2024
from The Chinatown Kid
‘Emotionless, expressionless muscles limp like metal fatigue, like giant machines and intricate parts left to cool and rust in oblivion after a war. The flesh bleaching, fossilizing around relic nerves, sprouted mold and gentle mushrooms. A white blindness. A man without an attitude, purely loving his daughter, like a lung romancing oxygen.' (31)
[...]
'The Chinese in America seemed to live that long, live beyond endurance, beyond the limits of interest and curiosity and die slowly like cities blacking out a light bulb at a time, and even then not dead; a few more years of being not quite dead, a living corpse painfully sensing what he wanted to say.' (35)
from Yes, Young Daddy
‘He opened up his ammunition box. Her perfumed letters had gassed everything. That smell would be there forever.’ (90)
from A Chinese Lady Dies
‘His being there to see in dead grey warming morning, to ignore the signs and fluttering beckoning flags, was to make everyone this place and these things were for, dead. His eyes were the eyes of the weather.’ (111)
from The Sons of Chan
‘At night I lump on the bed, holding onto a bare wire coming out of the back of the radio to make the radio receive. My body, skin, blood, and bone mysteriously brought the signal in. My body is the radio’s antenna.’ (131)
‘Emotionless, expressionless muscles limp like metal fatigue, like giant machines and intricate parts left to cool and rust in oblivion after a war. The flesh bleaching, fossilizing around relic nerves, sprouted mold and gentle mushrooms. A white blindness. A man without an attitude, purely loving his daughter, like a lung romancing oxygen.' (31)
[...]
'The Chinese in America seemed to live that long, live beyond endurance, beyond the limits of interest and curiosity and die slowly like cities blacking out a light bulb at a time, and even then not dead; a few more years of being not quite dead, a living corpse painfully sensing what he wanted to say.' (35)
from Yes, Young Daddy
‘He opened up his ammunition box. Her perfumed letters had gassed everything. That smell would be there forever.’ (90)
from A Chinese Lady Dies
‘His being there to see in dead grey warming morning, to ignore the signs and fluttering beckoning flags, was to make everyone this place and these things were for, dead. His eyes were the eyes of the weather.’ (111)
from The Sons of Chan
‘At night I lump on the bed, holding onto a bare wire coming out of the back of the radio to make the radio receive. My body, skin, blood, and bone mysteriously brought the signal in. My body is the radio’s antenna.’ (131)
November 30, 2010
This lyrical, twisty (and sometimes twisted) collection of short stories is strangely paced and has even stranger plot elements. All of the stories have the boy Dirigible, who grows up in the Bay Area and in the Chinatowns of both San Francisco and Oakland. He grows up constantly battered with the negative stereotypes surrounding Asian males - that they are effeminate, powerless, without any masculinity. Dirigible hates these stereotypes and longs to get rid of them. A quick read but the content will leave you scratching your head in bewilderment or going back to reread and find that deeper meaning. The book is nicely written with an interesting topic and an even more interesting way to go about it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews