The Barbarians are Coming

by David Wong Louie

Sterling Lung grew up in the back of his parent's laundry dreaming about being a real American while speaking Chinese to his mother, English to his friends, and very little to the father he seemed always to disappoint.

Now twenty-six and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Sterling cooks French food for the WASP ladies of a private club in Connecticut and conducts an arm's-length affair with an old Swarthmore classmate, a Jewish-American Princess from New Canaan, thereby frustrating his father's dream of a doctor son and his mother's scheme for a Chinese bride. For Sterling's parents, the barbarians are not coming: they are already here.

In a tale that alternates between black comedy and out-and-out slapstick, between the pain of a son alienated from his father and a father an alien in his son's native land, The Barbarians Are Coming reveals the deep psychic wounds each man has suffered even as it ultimately leads to a reconciliation that is as moving as it is necessary.

Here is a tale of the immigrant experience -- indeed, of the American experience: of the deracination of the second generation and the wrenching losses of the first.

Genres: Fiction, Asian American, China, Contemporary, Food, Asian Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

David Wong Louie (雷祖威; pinyin: Léi Zǔwēi) is an American writer of novels and short stories. His works include "Pangs of Love" a collection of short stories, and the novel "The Barbarians are Coming." He co-edited "A Contemporary Asian American Anthology" with Marilyn Chin. He teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He received an M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in 1981 and a B.A. from Vassar College in 1977.

Reviews

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't care for this book very much. I put it down and stopped reading for a nearly a week and easily forgot about it, but decided to go ahead and finish. The main character does have a transformation in the end, but amid much sadness. Nearly all of the characters in this book are not likeable.

Sterling Lung, the main character, is Chinese but dislikes his culture, only dating white women and become a chef in the French way, refusing to cook Chinese food.

Things come to a head when his parents have brought over the Chinese girl he is to marry. Sterling has always told them he is not interested, but when he meets her, he becomes conflicted, something about her arouses him. Then his girlfriend, Bliss, who he has been putting off as they now live in different states has become pregnant and refuses to do anything but have the baby. Sterling must decide if he wants to be a father or not.

The book has some well crafted sentences and good writing. The book is about culture identity and connection, family connection. Sterling has always felt disconnected with his father. In later chapters we get the father’s point of view and see his life when he first came to the United States before bringing over his wife and first born daughter. I like his character better than most the others.

I’m happy I stuck with it and finished the book as there was character growth, but overall I found the book meh. This book has been sitting on my bookshelves for over twenty years, so there's that.

[EH-PI · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's happened to David Wong Louie?

This was a gem of a book, and all the better, like a discovery of a hidden stash of chocolate, because I came in with middling expectations. I'd heard of him when I was in college..along with Maxine Hong Kingston et al. But since then...nada. Book jacket says that he's the author of the short story collection Pangs of Love, a New York Times Notable Book of 1991 and a Voice Literary Supplement Favorite of the same year. Mr. Louie apparently lives in Venice, California and teaches at UCLA.

The plot. A classically-trained French chef, who is second generation Chinese (from Longuy-lun a.k.a.Long Island) -- Sterling Lung -- struggles with identity, fatherhood, ancestry, and that clash of ideology and values that only a second generation Chinese growing up in Nixon America would. Into this stew, David Wong Louie throws in a second-generation Jewish woman, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, but who grew up in Connecticut. She becomes pregnant with Sterling Lung's child, ahem, out of wedlock.

Meanwhile, his parents, despairing that their only son, out of a family of four, would ever produce an heir to "carry on the Chinese surname", brings over a picture bride for him from Hong Kong, and situates said Chinese bride in the basement of their laundry-business/home.

Sterling Lung also works at a country club-style establishment, cooking for a group of "WASP-y" women who liked to fondle his ponytail black brush and constantly asking him to cook Chinese, which Sterling can't do, because he wasn't trained for it. Instead, he can produce a superlative boudin blanc or gigot d'agneau. His only friendship seems to be with a Jewish butcher, from which David Wong Louie constructs amazing, downright hilarious interactions and revelatory moments.

Louie is deliberately playful with his naming. Get this: his parents (immigrants from China) take on American names -- Father, "Genius", Mother "Zsa Zsa". His Jewish girlfriend's name is Bliss Sass, and she's anything but blissful, more like a ten-ton truck that flattens anything standing in her way toward marriage and kids. The Chinese bride's name is Yip Yuk Hing, and Louie writes, "Yuk (which means Jade) rhymes with cook." The Jewish butcher is only addressed by his last name, Fuchs.

The writing is wonderful, the sentences snappy, the scenes insert fresh elements (like that scene with his father--in-law involving the five-thousand dollar fence he constructed to keep deer out of his property and Sterling gets zapped by electricity). David Wong Louie forges elemental connections in his sentences that had me chuckling and shaking my head at the same time. In a quick aside, he writes of the father who learned to drive after losing a kidney ("The man loses a vital organ and, naturally, he wants to learn to drive a car. In Genius' universe, there's a perverse logic in the substitution of an internal combustion engine for a kidney, which squeezes piss from blood: Both make you go.")

The best thing about this book is how Louie captures the identity crisis of a second-generation Chinese born in the U.S. of A. Not really Chinese, but not really American either, as "Americanism" is defined by the WASP-y ladies he worked for. Witness this: Libby Drake, the woman who is president of the club, introduces Sterling to her assembled guests. "Everyone, this is Sterling, our very own Chinese chef." She is beaming, flush from her trip to China, as well as from the wine racing through her system. I can read her perfectly: Not only are the slides and the memories they hold hers, so are the people and objects in those pictures. And here I am, as if I'd just stepped off the screen, proof of her assertion." The confusion that follows then as the matter is clarified: Sterling actually grew up in Long Island and had never been to China, and though he might be Chinese, he had no clue about how to cook classical Chinese, other than the pedestrian fare his mother made at home (egg-foo-yung is NOT classical chinese)-- Louie paints all this with a light and deft touch, letting the characters speak and impale themselves.

It's the throwaway detail that catches my eye time and again as a writer. The throwaway detail that tells so much in its economy. Zsa Zsa who could neither read nor write English despite having been in America to birth four children, for whom riding the bus is an ordeal, because her "ultimate nightmare is getting off too early or too late". Genius' reaction to a discarded Frigidaire out on the kerb, "I won it. It's all mine." Sterling's second-generation American eyes assessing his crazy father filching a discarded Frigidaire off the street as if he'd just won the lotto. "The man is a whole human being, bearing all the requisite parts, but at the same time everything about him feels wrong, patently untrustworthy."

Louie also unravels the interpolation of the American dream for a second-generation Chinese. Sterling wants his father-in-law's magnificent house, with "its entirely glass, ten-foot-tall windows looking out at acres of prime Connecticut real estate." The money, as evidenced by the lavish wedding he threw for his daughter and Sterling, the confidence with which he takes on the world (to wit: the urinal scene where father-in-law and son-in-law pee side by side -- who has the bigger dick, who has the bigger bladder). But really, where it cuts to the bone (pardon the cooking metaphor, although it ties in so well with the cooking theme of this book and Sterling's friendship with a butcher), is the ironic reflection Sterling makes of his communiques with his father-in-law. The man asks him immediately to call him "Dad" before the wedding is over. He puts his hands on his shoulders, he confides in Sterling. (and yet, Sterling is filled with horror at the way the man responds to deer as vermin, and in a rare poignant scene, Sterling becomes the deer in headlights, as his father in law looks through him at the deer and says, "Look at that son of a bitch standing on my property"). These intimacies shared between father-in-law and son-in-law are simultaneously all the intimacies lacking in Sterling's relationship with his own father, Genius. The gulf between father and son, first and second generation Chinese in America, is explored through the lens of The Other --the Jewish father in law (thus, flipping the archetype of "the other" as a double-entendre of the racial power dynamic.)

A lot of this kind of racial territory has been explored ad infinitum since, in myriad stereotypes of the Asian American experience, but when David Wong Louie first wrote all this in 2000, this was fresh ground, and the writing, the narrative, the plotting reveal that. The story is all in shade, the shade of that beautiful thing called 'nuance'. There's so much to learn here for the immigrant novelist.

Definitely, take a leaf out of this book.

[Paigu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those hidden gems. This book is difficult to read because it is so "ugly", brutal and honest. No character in this book is very likeable, with exception to the children. But I feel the author poured his heart into this book (maybe wrote from personal experience?). This is an exceptionally realistic look into Asian-American culture, particularly the ABCs (American born Chinese) or first generation kids with immigrant parents. The protagonist is male. He is a professional chef, a job which obviously confuses and infuriates his parents. Even moreso, though, he finds himself falling almost willingly into the stereotype of the effeminate Asian male in order to win over his clients. He falls for an all-American blondie with the successful TV producer dad, who manage to turn him into yet another Asian stereotype, the lisping, goofy, TV nerdy chef. Yet in his narration, the protagonist clearly knows he's being played, but for sake of marital harmony and career, he goes along with it all. Sadly, as he tries to reconnect his failing life with his Asian roots, his wife digs her heels in and steadfastly refuses to listen.

I don't think my description does justice to this book. But it really does do a good job illustrating how young Asian-Americans can feel like they're caught between the American and Chinese version of their personalities. This book is a good example of how being caught between "two worlds" can literally tear apart someone's life.

[Kevin Keyaert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would probably count as my introduction to the East Asian immigrant experience subgenre, and I was certainly pleased that this book in fact picked me in the Oxfam bookshop, or was serendipitously handed to me at least.

I felt the first part of the story had a solid build-up. It had all the right elements for what felt like an accurate portrayal of the emotional numbness that comes with the unending internal struggle of being stuck between appropriating cultures. This numbness that Sterling feels, as an American-born Chinese, was not void of feeling or empathy but a result of accepting that his life has always elicited disappointment in other people.

However, subsequent parts of the novel give us the bigger picture and a satisfying backstory but for some reason I was always hoping that the story would segue back to the atmosphere of Sterling's premarital life. Instead, things became grimmer with every page as the general theme of the book became more about advanced alienation and detachment than about merely not being able to meet all sorts of expectations preordained by your loved ones.

Reading this evokes clear images to the mind, aided by the author's/protagonist's enthusiasm for sublime culinary experiences. Contrasting Chinese and (Jewish-)American culture through food serves as a natural metaphor for describing belonging and identity, and this was done very tastefully.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

All of the main characters in the book were completely unlikeable, which made it hard to finish the book. The main character’s loathing of his Chinese background seemed especially forced (he constantly has to remind the reader of how much he hates himself) to the point where his redemption at the end comes across as contrived. 3 stars instead of 1 because the writing was beautiful and the author is obviously a talented writer.

[Anne Kremidas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written but almost painful to read. The story follows a first generation Chinese American man who is a trained classic chef trying to find his way in two worlds. Lovely writing about his relationship with his parents, his girlfriend/wife, the woman his parents wanted for him and his kids. Not to mention his employers and in-laws. Well worth the read.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not find Sterling that sympathetic through much of this novel, but the ending was touching and I feel that at least Sterling is a dynamic character, righting himself in the end to realize his place in the world.

[Darrin L · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the novel, “The Barbarians Are Coming,” author, David Wong Louie, tells the story of Sterling Lung, a young chinese immigrant, who discards his past Chinese culture, and traditional beliefs despite the protest from his parents that wholeheartedly believe to tradition. Like most families that immigrated to America. Lung’s family hoped to be able to obtain the American Dream which leads to wealth and happiness. The novel mainly takes place during the late 1900s in Richfield, Connecticut/Iowa. After Lung’s family arrived in Richfield he would learn that the American Dream would be a lot harder to obtain than realized. Especially obvious with his father, named Genius, runs a laundromat in Richfield working full time to be able to afford rent, and his mother Zsa Zsa stays home to play the role of housewife.
One of the most important themes of this book is discrimination. Discrimination is prominent throughout the novel as Lung’s father is constantly mocked in his workplace. The mocking of Genius and Lung’s parents disent to American traditions makes both Lung and Zsa Zsa dislike Americans a lot; hence Lung’s parents call Americans barbarians. Another major theme about this novel is Americanization. The process of which that many people who immigrated to America had to deal with in order to obtain the American Dream. Lung’s parents though don’t want there norm to be changed into that of the American norm. They don’t want to have americanized beliefs, and want to stick with their traditional beliefs. Things become tense though for the Lung family when Sterling decides to become a chef. After graduating from a university, disobeying his father, Sterling studies at a culinary school to become a chef. Genius doesn’t approve of this decision and constantly protests to Sterling’s decision. Genius wants Sterling to be the man of the house and become a doctor in order to obtain the American Dream. He doesn’t want Sterling to become a chef, because usually in Chinese culture cooking is a task meant for women. Genius explains to his son that being a chef isn’t a profession he should be seeking. Sterling disobeys his father’s wishes though and strives to obtain the dream he always wanted. However, this causes a distance in the relationship between father and son. It also starts to ruin the stability of their family. Ever since Sterling finally got a job as a chef he is always still resenting his father. Whenever he cooks food he will never make Chinese cuisine, and only makes other dishes. This shows that Sterling has became Americanized and obtained his idea of an American dream this would lead to a rift between him and his father.
I would recommend this book because it tells a story of a very relatable story to many. Even if it isn’t a chinese family many people can relate with what Genius wanted his son to become, and what Genius actually desired. Similar to The Kite Runner, after immigrating to America Baba wanted Amir to either become a lawyer or doctor, but Amir wanted to become a writer. The same situation can be said for Sterling. Another reason I would recommend this book is due to the authors use of many literary devices such as foreshadowing and imagery. These literary devices help to keep a constant flow of suspense throughout the book while also helping to keep the story from sounding too exaggerated. The characters also have a lot of emotion in their lines when you see Genius go from a father who supported his son to a father that will be ashamed of him for life. The foreshadowing also for when the rift in the family starts to appear is amazing. An example of this is Sterling slowly becoming Americanized replying to all of his parent’s native language with english.
While reading this novel I realized that the story told in “The Barbarian’s Are Coming” is in a way very similar to mine. Although I was born in America my parents immigrated from China in order to pursue a better life. I also lost a lot of my Chinese identity growing up very similarly to Sterling. I remember my parents always telling me I was able to speak Chinese when I was a baby, but when I started to go to school at age 5 the only words I spoke were in English. This novel has gave me a lot of insight into the lives of many that became Americanized to obtain the American Dream.

[Cal Chin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Our protagonist, Sterling, whose professional culinary pursuit is a means to evade or reject his heritage and past. His career choice has disappointed his traditional Chinese immigrant parents, whose marriage of obligation, also represents a lifestyle he fully rejects. As an American, Sterling chooses love and marries a Caucasian, a Jewish woman nonetheless. From then on, we take two long compicated journeys with Sterling as he tries to manage his parents’ pasts since their arrival to America as well as Sterling’s own messy marriage and career exploits. Along the way Sterling yearns for what all of us yearn for, a place to belong and to be comfortable in our own skin. Literally and figuratively.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

The quirky beginnings of this novel reminded me of the legendary Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy, but the quirks turned into heartbreak. This is a novel I won’t soon forget. The protagonist, Sterling, is hard to love, yet compelling. The author’s descriptions of Sterling and his father, Genius’s, observations are unique and vivid. The heartbreak results from a combination of selfishness, a sense of not belonging, the disappointments within families, the mistakes we make, and the things that happen that we can’t control. I was in tears at the end.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very iffy 3 star, as I just couldn't feel empathy for any of the characters. Interesting take on the culture clash of immigrant parents and American born son. I found it very hard to follow the father's relationship with Lucy, his "American wife" just too unrelatable for me. The Chinese culture was quite interesting and I enjoyed the male point of view.

[Allen]

David Louie is an impressive writer with funny and clever use of language. However, I don't know if I can finish the book because for my taste it meanders around the story line and takes a lot of discipline on my part to stay engaged.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

This starts out as a lighter story of a young man whose life is pretty much aimless, but gets much heavier and more intense in the second half of the book. In the end, I think the point is that he never really takes control of his life. Instead, he looks to everyone else for direction and meaning.

[Emilayday Adamcyk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Melancholy and depressing read, but at least the language was evocative. Not one but two deaths, no real plot. I guess it's about father son relationships? But Damn, why'd he have to kill off the kid?

[Paul Hyde · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting book. Goes off on many different directions which was entertaining but I lost interest in it half way through and just skimmed the last 1/3 of the book. Writting style is a little strange

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely a little slow at first but got better towards the middle. really liked the change of narrator from sterling to genius. i do wish that they had kept going with the lucy storyline. also appreciated how genius would refer to americans as barbarians (like the title duh)

[Marsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was very well written, and sad.

[Haoyan Do · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foist is a word that I cannot handle. No matter how many times I’ve encountered it and looked it up, I have to look it up again for the next encounter. Same for words like flout, flounder, flaunt. F for failure to remember. I don’t know about native speakers, but for non-native speakers like me such an inadequacy is negligible, compared with other annoying language incapacity I’ve discovered and felt powerless to deal with. I can always attribute my memory lapse to the fact that my mind is not wired for alphabets. Genetically I am a tonal language live machine even if scientists haven’t found the tonal genes, or probably will never find.

Then I watched an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and all those cool things Leon teaches Larry. By the way, I think Leon should open a language school for immigrants since he can make the language alive and kicking, unlike those English language courses I took in school for which vocabulary memorization and grammar rules strangled the last bit of spirit out of English. Leon tells Larry that he’s been foisted with a secretary that everybody wants to unload onto somebody else. Bingo! I suddenly learned the word foist without really learning it and memorized it without beating my brain with a mental stick.

And “foist” is the most suitable word to describe the central character Sterling Lung in “The Barbarians Are Coming”. His relationship with Bliss is practically foisted on him by Bliss’ one-sided enthusiasm, sort of like the motherly love. Bliss is pregnant with his child. Even this unborn child seems to be foisted on him. Then he cooks for a beautiful Xena like woman and the next thing he knows, she’s drunk and tries to foist herself on him. His parents try to foist all kinds of things on him–the idea of going to medical school which he rebels against, their contempt for his culinary aspiration etc. They even arrange to get a picture bride–I think the barbarian in the title actually refers to her but I can be wrong–from Hong Kong for him, forcing him to ditch other women and to marry this barbarian. This last piece of foisting is the most egregious of all.

I am still at the 4th chapter of the book and I don’t know if more foisting is going to happen. It seems that cooking is the only thing nobody foists on him and everything else in life is imposed and unwelcome.

He writes so well and it almost pains me to talk about the prevailing foisting in his book. Fortunately he passed away two years ago and would not get hurt by whatever I say about his book. Only 63 years old. Too young to die for a modern man.

[Maryam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Estefanía · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I, too, believed women were only good for sex and elevating my status as a self-hating pick me, I would love this book!

[Erin Zangari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written tale weaving the stories of multiple generations - the hopes and sorrows, and repetitions of family — and the ties the bond and break us.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good but, in my view, flawed work. What works well is the voice of the narrator, Sterling Lung, a Chinese-American chef who would rather cook French haute cuisine than the food everyone assumes he would be expert at preparing. His strained and strange relationship with his wife, Bliss, has some rich and dark humor, as does his depiction of his relationship with his Chinese parents, whose weird American sobriquets, Genius and Zsa Zsa, belie their decidedly old country origins and attitudes. What doesn't work so well is the extended retrospective section over the life and romantic entanglement of Genius and the jolting introduction of an unredeemable tragic event that consumes the last third of the narrative. I found the first third of the book engaging and amusing, the second third bewildering and somewhat boring, and the last third depressing.

[Ann G. Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book most of the way through, then felt it devolved into predictability and soap opera toward the end - although to Louie's credit, he did not eventually take the easy way out. Sterling Lung is American-born Chinese, a French chef who refuses his parents' desire that he be a good Chinese son and his patrons' desire that he be a Chinese chef. "Can't you make a Happy Family?" one diner asks. Well, that's what this book is about: the hard, sometimes twisted, spoken and unspoken, secret and revealed relationships between fathers and sons and grandsons and husbands and wives and all who come under their roofs and sit at their tables.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing kept me glued to the book, and being a first-generation Asian American probably helped... especially with the part about the parents non-communicativeness about their pasts... I don't know if making up what might have happened/could have happened is necessary. But I liked the descriptions of what were going on in Sterling's head. That, I could emphasize with to a certain point, but not the part about the Chinese food tv program...

Do writers think about political correctness while they write???

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Louie's work is a prime example of a style that Mark McGurl would call 'The Program Era', florid, intense, thoughtful writing that seems taught by an academic for an educated audience, something that swirls around university circles. The book is full of characters that may not be likeable, but are undeniably human in their weaknesses, like passive, pretty-much-useless Sterling and his domineering, bossy girlfriend. However, I do like section three, about his father's past - it gives the reader insight into a part of the typical Chinese-father character that isn't usually explored.

[J.J. Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I randomly found this book at a thrift store and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. This book was very well written. I immediately loved the style of writing which was smart and descriptive, using the most beautiful, creative or witty metaphors throughout. The author gave the main character, Sterling, such a sensitivity and insight into human emotion, including into his own depth of self. I learned quite a bit about Chinese culture. There were moments that were fast paced, funny, and others that were heart rendering. I recommend this book and author. Aloha!

[Parallax]

This book wasn't really my thing, since there was such a tight focus on food and family. I did like the focus on an Asian-American experience. The protagonist was a little too emo, and some of the humor triggered my embarrassment squick. But I don't regret reading this, because some of the stuff struck a nerve of recognition, and got things just right. I reacted in similar ways to reading Amy Tan.

[Bach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting Asian American read about a first generation Chinese male who gets conflicted between his desire to branch away from his ethnicity as a cook and take on a life as an American. It's an explicit and vulnerable read that pokes at many challenges faced by early generation Asian Americans, particularly those that are the first born in the US. One of the few books in its genre that I could not put down the second I opened it, very much close to home in more than one way.

[Sylvia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Giving up on ethnic books for a while. OK story, but best part was a couple of hastily tossed out list of ingredients for dishes I ate as a child, but whose recipes I never got from my Mother, so I was very happy to find them. Not a memorable sentence in 300+ pages, I'd like a little more for my effort.

[Alyson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sterling was an absolute wimp who thought only of himself until the very end, and even that required both his son and father to die. A very bleak and frustrating story of Chinese immigrants and ABCs in America. The one good point goes to the chapter dedicated to Genius's first 8 years in the US without his family.