Letteratura inlgese postcoloniale

SOUR SWEET

There’s something we might consider while reading this story: people coming from Hong Kong

have a ≠ background compared to people coming from the Caribbean. If we find that the

Caribbean community speaks some English because they were taught it in their motherland,

Chinese people have no clue on all of these things and mostly, they don’t know the language. This

novel is set in the 60’s where we can see a closeup on Chinese people who don’t speak English

within the English community. The main characters are:

- Mr Chen→ father of the protagonist who works in a Chinese restaurant. His job leads him

to speak the Chinese language everyday and doesn’t really feel the need to learn English.

- Lily→ mr Chen’s wife and housewife. She despises English culture.

Chinese people attitude is ≠ from the one in the other novel, in fact, they just wants to be left

alone and not integrated. In the novel, not all the characters wants this, for example:

- Man kee→ son of Chen and Lily. Being born in the UK, integration happens everyday and so

the novel focuses on his generation.

- Mui→ lili’s sister. A very interesting culture as she has a ≠ approach to British culture as

she’s not refusing it. She’s one of the marginal characters that in the end is going to became

on of the principal ones.

CHAPTER 1

The first chapter starts with an

introduction of the main

character backstory. They are

not going to come back due to

lily not having relatives and

Chan having lost his claim on

the clan in his village but still,

he has to send money to his

father to help him live. Life in

Britain is now different and so

the kind of immigrants that

arrive in the territory but still

there is a rivalry between

white people in the working

class and other people in it,

but still usually Chinese are

very keen to work and this

explains his numerous hours

spent at work. On the other

hand, his wife lily has to fulfill

(even if not necessary) wife’s

duty, preparing him snacks. Lily

was a worker in a stitching

factory and met Chan on a

night out. Marrying her was something that didn’t cost a thing, due to lily being parentless. On the

other hand Mui comes to England to help lily raise her son. She's the only one lily has and acts like

a servant (if we had to look up the family hierarchy). Mui will be able to reverse this position and

gain power in this situation thing that couldn’t have happened before due to culture-shock. Lily is

very much self-reliant on her education (very strict Chinese education), and when Mui arrives, she

has to convince her to behave like usually. Mui’s initial reaction was not positive, as he peered

through the windows

suspiciously and with no

intention to change. Lily had

to encourage her to arrive to

the window and look at the

≠ shops that were owned by

many ≠ culture (Jewish ecc.).

Later in the novel, they’ll decide to open an “enterprise”. Its not something big and articulated, but

just a small Chinese takeaway restaurant, something that doesn’t make too much interaction with

customers. Why does Chan decided to agree with it? Because in the meantime he had contact with

this criminal organization and if he kept working where he was he would have been found easily.

They then decided to open it in a foreign side of the city, where they could have been anonymous.

LEZIONE DEL 1/12/2022

London is the setting of the novel, but the attitude towards the city is not the same found in the

past we’ve read. For Chen is a land of opportunity (but as an exploitation of the place), but he

doesn’t have a specific love for it. It’s interesting because for them (Chen and Lily) it’s still a place

where you can have better living conditions. One of the questions that the novel opens is: what

place can I have in a society with which I don’t want to communicate? What’s enough to have a

social identity? For their son the dimension is different, you cannot grow thinking only about the

st

economic success you can have in a country, and this connote the change of attitude from the 1

nd

generation to the 2 generation.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Space is not only the setting, but also has meaning for the characters. We are more aware of

spaces and meaning when we are away from home since it gives more distance to think about

→

meaning in a more specific way (ex: how Lily is judging the other culture also through space a

comparison between her traditions and what she finds in this new house. She understands

through Mui that the big city is an anonymous place, where you can be forgotten and alone).

These are the consequences of being in a very large city, compared to life in rural villages in

China with smaller communities, and are places where everything is ruled by families (so at least

your family is going to take care of you in your old age).

The relation with London is one of the ways to explore cultural differences (ex: the number of

→

generations this is a new house, and cannot compare to her village, that was founded 20

generations before hers and it’s a way for her to perceive Chinese tradition as ancient and

powerful). In a way this is very superficial because she is judging only basing her thoughts on a

house and she also judges cultures finding comparisons and in those, the British culture is always

inferior to her own. At that time it was the British that thought like this about other cultures, like

in “things fall apart” but with a different prospective: a migrant that has come to London and

judges. Trying to find always something wrong in the other culture doesn’t provide a better effect,

so we understand that Lily is a limited person, and this attitude is not productive because we need

to be open to change and appreciate something of the other culture to improve your life

(multiculturalism)

Following the description of

the house you can expect that

this is a poor place, it’s just

their enthusiasm that can

make them appreciate it. Even with those characteristics, it is still better and bigger than what they

had before and even though they are not really setting up for something nice, but they are

adapting themselves in living in a simple way (ex: it’s Chan who makes the beds, not caring about

the aesthetic part of it, the

walls have no paint, ecc).

“Sacrifice” is the word that

describes their situation, but we also see the idea that work is a virtue (typical of both the

Confucian philosophy and western culture).

Here we see how these people make a lot of efforts but the restaurant is not making a fortune,

because is very simple and the food they sell is very cheap. Working in this self-sufficiency is

making them survive and go on with their activity. But always remaining in a sort of self-isolation.

One of the signs of improvement of their business brought to the idea that, at a certain point, they

may have a car. But things have a cultural value, and the one implied by having a car also

comports to have a license (personal and cultural at the same time). They manage to buy a used

van which would also be useful to get what’s needed to run the restaurant, but we can see how

there is a clash between their idea of social obligations and the British idea. When Chen proves

unable to drive the van, it is Lily that learns how to handle the vehicle but even if she is

successful and proud, this is not enough at least from their point of view the basic level is

enough, but not for the British. There is a concept of:

- informal society→ an informal society is where you don’t have many regulations, you can

simply starts doing things and that’s it.

- formal society → in a formal one you have to respect certain regulations

This kind of things (informal) cannot happen in London, in fact, Lily doesn’t understands how

things and society work.

CHAPTER 21

Lily doesn’t want to get the license and pay the insurance, she wants to have some money to bribe

the officers just in case, a thing accepted in China, but not in Britain. We notice a different

development of Lily and Mui: The first is rooted to traditions, on the contrary Mui has learnt a lot

of things even if some are learnt through tv and the characters start to diverge. Part of this is

because Lily is still very basic in speaking English but Mui wants to ask for a provisional license just

in case, but she doesn’t. we now have the concept of:

→ Cultural clash and a refusal to learn and accept: Like in the passage before, there are duties

and rights on both sides, like understanding rules of the place you live in and learning the

language. Neither the lonely Londoners and sour sweet hide the bad sides of migrants. A

multiethnic society is not easy for both migrants and the host society. We need it to ensure a

social stability, a way to establish a mutual respect. Conforming to rules is an effort, and she

doesn’t want to make it. The novel is clear on this, describing what’s needed in both prospective to

work together without justifying one side or the other.

Chen, in the second part of the novel (before his death), is living a simple life but not as energetic

as Lily. He wants to hide, and also he’s not at ease with a work that implies social actions. He

spends some time in the back garden of the restaurant, that you cannot see from the outside so it

is a good hiding place. This is also, in a metaphorical way, a place where you can think about your

soul (the restaurant is the public side, the garden the private one)and in this garden he spends

time with his son (hiding from the city he can find a small place that makes him feel a bit like at

home, find peace).

Another important topic is school which is very important when you speak of the second

generation of migrants. School is the place where the cultural mediation takes place: there, you

must talk to people. Everybody speaks the same language and you learn it.

CHAPTER 23

nowadays London’s south banks are not as they were before In the 70s, where the area was

decaying, it was poor and disrupted. Lily looks at the building and compares it to Count Dracula’s

castle the point of comparison in tv, not like in the lonely Londoners, but she still likes it. Children

should be encouraged to express themselves. Cultural ideas shapes the behavior (schools invite

parents to go to school and meet the teachers, but Lily doesn’t see the point). Mui instead wanted

to go because she understands that this is how thing are in Britain. When her son says he had

enjoyed himself, Lily doesn’t believe it because it isn’t how she though school was. Man Kee

speaks English and says what he had eaten hat school, this shocks Lily because Man Kee is living a

new experience (a new culture) and learns English names for English foods. Lily’s reaction isn’t

normal, but not general of the Chinese