Eat a Bowl of Tea

Louis Chu

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-22

Chapters 23-35

Chapters 36-43

Chapters 44-57

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Tea

The act of sharing tea appears across the novel as a symbol of the value of maintaining Chinese traditions in the US. Tea is most closely associated with the tradition of hospitality. Mei Oi and Ben Loy’s first supervised meeting occurs when their families go out for “a drink of tea” (49) in the bride’s village. The tea ceremony allows the future couple to get to know each other in a formal, supervised setting hosted by the groom’s family. Tea also plays an important role in the Chinatown celebration, as Mei Oi and her new family “carried ten cups filled with tea” (77) around the room, and “little red envelopes began dropping onto the tray beside the cups” (77) as the guests offer gifts. The tea ceremony in Chinatown reinforces Wah Gay’s reputation as a hospitable member of the community.

Tea is also associated with traditional Chinese medicinal practices. Ben Loy initially resists these traditions, visiting a Western doctor for help treating his impotence. When that medicine doesn’t work, he visits a traditional Chinese herbalist in New York and is prescribed an “invigorating tea” (95). The tea does not immediately resolve his issue, so he abandons it. Later, in San Francisco, another herbalist tells him to “eat a bowl of tea and we’ll get you on the way to recovery” (260). Although “the thick, black, bitter tea was not easy to swallow” (262), Ben Loy “kept going back to the herb doctor” (262) and ultimately cured his impotence. The novel’s ending suggests that Ben Loy needed to return to Chinese tradition to save his marriage.

“Dead Boy”

The term “dead boy” appears across the novel as a symbol of the dangers of life for Chinese immigrants in the mid-20th-century US. Anti-Chinese prejudices in the 19th and 20th centuries led to the passing of laws limiting immigration and restricting the rights of Chinese immigrants already in the US. Throughout the novel, the term “dead boy” acts as a reminder of the constant threats faced by the members of the Chinatown community and a reflection of the way their male-dominated community is emasculated by white prejudices. “Dead boy” is used not as a threat but as an observation about a person’s lack of power and doomed nature. The term is most frequently used to describe Ah Song. Even before news of the affair spreads, members of the community gossip about how “that dead boy Ah Song pinned some flowers” (116) on Mei Oi. Later, Lee Gong writes a letter confronting him about the affair with Mei Oi, addressing it to “Ah Song, you dead boy” (140). Significantly, the term is also used by Wah Gay to describe his son, Ben Loy. When Ben Loy refuses to address his wife’s affair, Wah Gay calls Ben Loy a “useless dead boy” (199) and says he should “die from mere stupidity” (199). The use of the term “dead boy” to describe not only the novel’s antagonist but also the protagonist points to the dark irony inherent to the bachelor culture of New York’s Chinatown.

New York City

Throughout Eat a Bowl of Tea, the novel’s backdrop of New York City acts as a symbol of moral and sexual corruption. When Ben Loy arrives in New York at the age of 17, his father arranges for him to live and work outside of the city in Stanton, Connecticut. Wah Gay believes that “a big city is too full of temptations” (22) and that “you can never tell what will become of a man like Ben Loy in New York” (22). The idea that New York is a city of “evil influences” (26) is repeated multiple times, as when Lee Gong says, “There are many temptations in a big city [and] worst of all is New York” (26). Despite his best efforts, Wah Gay is unable to prevent his son from giving in to temptation, and New York becomes a place where Ben Loy “no longer had to go out to look for women” (37) because they “would come to him” (37). Unaware that his son has an extensive history with sex workers, Wah Gay arranges for Ben Loy to marry a girl born in China because he believes they are naturally modest, unlike “these jook sings born in New York” (14). The novel suggests that New York has a negative moral influence on its residents.